The independent press. (Abbeville C.H., S.C.) 1853-1860, 1855-09-14


All their guilt consisted in praying to God
in one language rather than in another; in
believing in communion in one form instead
of another; in having faith in eternal mer.
cy with one more or less symbol; and they
were not only moderate, just, inoffensive, re-
signed, peaceful, but they were the most
liberal, learned, eloquent, pious, generous
and the greatest men of their age. The
following bear witness of it :-Galilleo, in
the prisons Of the Vatican Savonarola, on
the funeral pile of Florence, Paolo Sarp
stabbed at Venice; friar Fulgezio, hung al
Rome; Benedetto da Foiano starved to death
in Castel SAINT Angelo; Giordano Bruno
Cecco di Ascoli, John of Praga, Arnaldo
da Brescia, John Huss, Urbano Grandier
tortured, hung, scorched, reduced to ashes
and to dust, and their ashes thrown to the
waves, and the dust blown before the wind.
Now let us see, Mr.. McMaster, if those
victims of revolutionary terror we're as mild,
pious, just, peaceable men as those of the
Inquisition.
The priests and noblemen on whom the
French Convention enacted such rigorous
justice, were furious reactionists, who rose
at intervals against liberty, with torches and
swords, with poignards and crucfixes, and
conspired not only in the castles and clois-
ters, but called from their frontiers the Prus-
slams, Russians, Spaniards, and Austrians.
to ensanguine France. You NAV quote
Carrier de Nantes, Mr.. Abbot McMaster ;
but why not mention, also, the sexton Cath
elincau, and the. curate Brenier, and the
commander Stofiet, and the al,ns-giver,
Barbotin Who has forgotten the valorous
actions Of those pious and ferocious men
in LA Vendee? Well, we wish that Mich
elet should remind you of them for us. List
en-: "There existed an essential difference
between the revolutionary violence, and that
of fanatics, animated by clerical fury; the
revolutionary men, by killing people, only
wished to disperse the enemy, the cleri-
calls, faithful to the ferocous spirit of the
inquisition, not only wished to murder,
but they wished to torture, they wished to
obtain infinite sufferings from poor worn
out man, in order to give glory to God"
a receiver of custom-house duties, called
Sucho, filled and emptied the prisons of
Machecoul four consecutive times. The
crowd at first murdered joyfully. Sucho
disciplined the slaughter lie wished that
executions should be long and painful. AS
being murderer, he was particularly fond
OF children; because their inexperienced
hands caused the suffering to be longer.
Some sailors and soldiers could not view
such things without being Mortified, and
protested against it :; then the royalist COM
mittee transacted their business during the
night; shooting was no longer practised a;
they used to crush the dead and hastily
cover them with earth.
According to the authentic statements
transmitted to the republican Convention,
live hundred and forty-two persons were, in
the like manner, murdered in less than a
month. There being no longer any men to
kill, the attention was turn. 'owards the
women. A horrible mir was accom-
plished. There was in church the
tomb of fashionable female saint: the tomb
was questioned: priest celebrated mass on
the tomb, and placed his hands on it.
"Behold the slab moving-I feel it," cried
out the priest; II feel it moving And
why does it rise? In order to implore a
sacrifice pleasing to God, in order to ask for
the slaughter of women!" Fortunately the
National Guard of Nantes happened to reach
there. "Ah /" exclaimed the few survi-
vors, "you are come too late e: you are come
to save the soalls the city is ezterminated!i {"
They showed the places where some had
been buried alive, and stiffened hand was
perceived, which had, during the frightful
agony of suffocation, grasped some wither-
ed grass, and was still twisting it!
From this we perceive that Carrier and
Robespierre did not condemn peaceable and
lnoffensive men to death; that the victims
OF revolution were neither Galilleo nor a
Gierdani, neither Fulgenzio nor Savo-
narola, and that, for both revolution and
reaction, there was at least the terrible right
of reprisals.
But even though we were to allow that
the victims of the republican Convention
were severe conspirators, unmerciful excu-
tioners, ferocious reactionaries with their
hands spotted with citizens blood, is it not
at least true that the French revolution de-
served to be much pitied in its excesses, as
it had before its eyes ten centuries of injuries,
insults, illtreatment, humiliation, spolia-
tions, foggings, expressions, slaughterings,
ni4uitiSo' -auu }&ii mauueT Ol HlCkeQueSS,
which could not easily be forgotten in twenty
four hours -,
Did not the people, who all on sudden
raised their head in Europe, after ten CEN
turies of cruel sconrges, deserve at least
some Indulgence, if they remembered a
Riehelieu and a Mszzarin,, an Alberoni, and
2 Torqnn,ada, Louis XII. and q Charles
TX, . Philip II. and D Duke Of Alba, the
park Of stages and the Bsstile;, the tower
OF Nesle and the pitfalk of3 the Lohvrss a