The Caledonian. [volume] (St. Johnsbury, Vt.) 1837-1867, 1848-07-15
Miscellaneous.
From Lamar,ine's History of the First
French Revolution.
Horrors Enacted at Lyons.

city. A patriotic proclamation, signed by
Fouche and Collot, TO the clubbsts of Lyons
and the departments of the Loire and the
Rhine, to stimulate their energy, thus SUM
med up their rights and their duties: GIVE
~ thing is permissible to those who act in
the spirit ofthe Revolution. The desire of
u legitimate vengeance is an imperative ne
cessily. Citizens, all those who have favor
ed rebellion, directly or indirectly, have haz-
arded their heads to the block. If you are
patriots you will he able to distinguish your
friends--you will sequestrate all others. Let
no consideration stop you-neither age, sex
nor relationship. Take by force all that a
citizen has that is superfluous--for any man
10 have more than he requires is an abuse.
There are persons who have heaps of linen,
shirts and shoes claim all this BY what right
should any man keep in his wardrobes valu-
able or super1uous garments? Let gold, sill
yer and all precious metals flow into the ma
stional treasury! EXtirpate all forms of wor-
ship: the republican has no God but his coun-
Try. All the communes of the republic will
hasten TO initiate that ofParis, which, on the
ruins of a Gothic form of worship, is about to
elevate the Temple of Reason. Aid lis in
striking these great blows, or we shall our
selves strike you"
These proclamations of vengeance, pillage,
atheism, were so many direct reproaches to
sCouthon, who had held such different lam
guage a few days previously.
Conformably to the spirit of this procla-
nation, Fouche and Colot created commits
saries of cOnfiscation and delation. They
actually awarded a sum Of thirty francs on
each denunciaton, the sum being doubled
for certain heads such as those of nobles
priests, monks and nuns. They only gave
the price OF blood to him who in person, d.
rected the searches ofthe revolutionary army
and who delivered the suspected person over
TO the tribunal. A multitude of wretches
lived upon this infamous traffic in the lives
ofcitizens. Cellars, loltss the woods
nocturnal emigrations into the neighboring
mountains, DISCUSSES of every kind, in vain
were resorted to by compromised men and
trembling women TO conceal themselves from
the incessant searches ofIhe greedy reiormer.
Hunger, cold, fatigue, sickness, domiciliary
visits, treason, delivered them, after some days,
over to the satellites of the temporary COM
mission.
The cells were choked with prisoners.
While proprietors and merchants were per-
jshing, the houses were destroyed beneath the
hammer. Shopkeepers, dodgers, families,
expelled from the prescribed houses, had
scarcely time to leave their houses, to carry
off the old, the infrm, and children, 10 other
residences. Every day the pickaxe was seen
attacking stair cases, or tilers unroofing hou-
Sos while the alarmed inhabitants were
throwing their furniture out fthe windows.
and mothers carried the cradles of their chill
dren over the ruined rafters, twenty thousand
pioreers of Auvergne and tie Lower Alps
were employed in razing the abodes to the
ground. The cellars and foundations were
blown up with gunpowder. the pay of the
demolishers amounted to 400, O0francs( $780,
O0Ol for each decade; and tR demotions
cost !, 100000 of francs, ($3,00,000) to de-
stroy a capital of more than 300,000,000
francs 100000, 000) worth of eotices.
Hundreds of workmen perishd buried be-
meath the walls that fell in, haviT been reck-
lesslv undermined The QUAR- Sain Clair,
the two facades of the Place de BelIecour,
the ouairs OF the Saone, the street. inhabited
by the commercial aristocracy, TIN arsenals,
hospitaIs, monasteries, churches for fications,
Measure houses on the sides of the hills on
each bank of the river presented buthe APP
pearance of city ridded by canEotballs af-
Ter n protracted siege. Lyons, amd unin-
Inhibited, was silent in the midst of 1T ruins
Workmen. without employ or bread,enroll-
ed and subsidized by the Representatives, at
the cost of the rich, seemed, axe in had, to
reyel over the carcass of the city WING had
nourished them. The noise of walls fling
the dust of destroyd houses which hun9ver
the CITY, the sound of cannon fired, an the
discharges of'the musketry, which need
down the inhabitants, the rolling of Cts
which from the five prisons of the city o.
viewed the accused to the tribunal, and (e
condemned to the guillotine, were the o.
signs of life among the populations; the Sc
fold was its sole spectacle-the acclainatio
of a people in rags, at every head which fl
at their feet, was inc only fese.
The Commission of Popular Justice, inst
tuted by Couthon, was transformed, on ii
arrival of Ronsin and his army, into REVOLT
y;onarv tribunal The day after the arriy
ofthis body of soldiers--these lictors of Il
repubIc-the executions began, and Taste
without interruption, for ninety days, Fig
or ten condemned died every day, on leavir
the tribunal, on the scaffold erected perm
nently in front of the steps leading TO the TOW
hall. Water and sand, spread every evenii
after the executions around this sewer OF h
man b'ood, did not suffice to cleanse the cart
A red and fetid mud, constantly trainbled
people thrsting to see their fellow creatur
die covered the square and reeked IN the a
Arc;iind these actual shamh!es of human file
there was q scent of death. The eXteri
walls of the Palais Saint Pierre and the faca
of the town hall were smeared with bloc
On the morning of the days of Novemb
December and January, the most fertile
homicides, the inhabitants ofthe vicinity s;
rising from the soil a moisture-it was
blood of their fellow countrymen, immolat
on the previous evening,the shade of the {
vas il evaporated in the sunshine, Derfel
lie. on the requisition ofthe quarter,was CO
nailed to remove the scaffold to distance
placed il over an open sewer. The bio
iricklng through the panks, flowed int
ditch ten feet deep, which carried 1t 10
Rhone, together With the filth of the neii
borhood. The washerwomen were comp
ed to change the spot oftheir washing plar
thnt thew MIGHT not wash their linen