The Liverpool Standard and General Commercial Advertiser.
Liverpool, Merseyside, England, 1833-04-23 00:00:00

LITERATURE.

We subjoin an extract from " The History of Europe
during the French Revolution, embracing the period
from the assembly of the Notables, in 1789, to the es-
tablishment of the Directory in 1795. By Archibald Al-
lison, Esq., F. R. S. E."

" If there is any one opinion which, more than another,
is impressed on the mind by a minute examination of the
changes of the French Revolution, it is the irresitible na-
ture of the current into which men are drawn who commit
themselves to the stream of political innovation; and the utter
impossibility of the greatest intellect, and the most resolute
determination, in those enaged in the contest, avoiding the
commission of many crimes, in the stormy scenes to which it
rapidly brings them.
The Reign of Terror was a period fraught with greater
political instruction than any of equal duratina which has ex-
isted since the begining of the world. In no former period had
the efforts of the people so completely triumphed, or the higher
orders been so thoroughly crushed by the lower. The Throne
bad been overturned, the altar destroyed : the aristocracy
levelled with the dust, the nobles were in exile, the clergy in
captivity, the gentry in affliction. A merciless sword had waved
over the State, destroying alike the dignity of rank, the splen-
dour of talent, and the graces of beauty. All that excelled the
labouring, classes in situation, fortune, or acquirement, had
been removed; they had triumphed over their oppressors,
seized their possessions, and risen into their stations. And
what was the consequence ? The' establishment of a more
cruel and revolting tyranny than any which mankind had yet
witnessed; the destruction of all the charities and enjoyments
of life ; the dreadful spectacle of streams of blood flowing
through every part of France. The earliest friends, the warm-
est advocates, the firmest supporters of the people, were swept
off indiscriminately with their bitterest enemies : in the un-
equal struggle, virtue and philanthropy sunk under ambition
and voilence, and society returned to a state of chaos, when all
the element. 4 of private or public happiness were scattered to
the winds. Such are the results of unchaining the passions of
the multitude; such the peril of suddenly admitting the light
upon a benighted people. The extent to which blood was shed
in France during this melancholy period, will hardly be credited
by future ages. The Republican Proudhomme, whose pre-
possessions led him to any thing rather than an exaggeration
of the horrors of the popular party, has given the following
appalling accounts of the victims of the Revolution :
Nobles
Noble women
Wives of labourers and artisans .
Religieuses
Priests
-Lk Common persons, not noble . .

t
scauillotined by sentence of the
e, Revolutionary Tribunal . . . . . 18,603 18,603
's• Women died of premature child-birth . . 3,400
r‘ In child-birth from grief 348
e-Women killed in La Vendee
D
ChildrenA killed in La Vendee
vie en slain in La Vendee
500
( Childreritims under Carrier at Nantes .. . . 32,000
I Children ? shot
5 1
.) Women gildrowned
Women droNV A 2640
50
i.: 1 Priests shot :".:ne'
?:-.5 i Priests drowned
I Nobles drowned'
1400
Artisans diowneds
it. OOO
Victims at Lyons ;), .
31,000

1-4
Totary ,
1,022,351
In this enumeration are nci:
prehended the massacres at
Versailles, at the Abbey, the tt,,com
2, the victims of the Glaciere ti.,artues, or other prisons on Sept.
f Avignon, those shot at Toulon
and Marseilles, or the persons i)?
lain in the little town of Bedoin,
of which the whole population pen!
ner remarkable in this dismal cataished. It is in an especial man-
of the victims of the Revolution wer6ogue, how large a proportion
and lower ranks of life. The priesti ''.° and
in
drill middling
only 2,413 while the persons of plebit' and nobles tined are
n origin exceed 13,000 !
The nobles and priests put to' death at t.,"
while the infants drowned and shot are Nantes were only 2,160,
and the artisans 5,300! So rapidly in -?-2", the women 764,
sions does the career of cruelty reach tht^ revolutionary convul-
-,1
wide-spread is the carnage dealt out to lower orders, and so
that which they have sought to inflict on t 'them, compared with
facility with which a faction, composed oPheir superiors. The
audacious and reckless of the nation, triun.l6 a few of the most
mense majority of their fellow citizens, and i milled over ttie im-
victims to the sacrifice, is not the least extram --ed them forth like
able part of that eventful period. The bloody -dinary or memor-
never exceeded a few hundred men • their talc. faction at Paris
means of the highest order, nor their weight pets were by no
siderable ; vet they trampled under foot all -,..ii society con-
classes, ruled mighty armies with absolute sway, :`he influential
of their fellow-citizens in captivity, and daily led kept` 'MOW
hundred persons, of the best blood in France, to e.:tie.-.9veral
Such is the effect of the unity of action which atrocious wickej"
i ness produCes; such the ascendancy which in periods of at
archy is acquired by the most savage and lawless of e
people."