It was not this feeling, but the spirit of contemptuous indignation awakened by Voltaire, which, towards the middle of the year 1792, became the dominant feeling in the Legislative Assembly and in France. In August the edict was passed which condemned all refractory priests to banishment to one of the colonies. Arrests of such priests took place every day. Then came the September slaughter. The imprisoned priests were the first to fall. Abbé Baruel writes: "These executioners did not all belong to the dregs of the people. A man shouted to the priests who were being murdered: 'Scoundrels, murderers, monsters, contemptible hypocrites! the day of vengeance has come at last. No longer shall you delude the people with your masses, your scrap of bread upon the altar!'" The fortitude displayed by most of the priests is worthy of all admiration. In the prison of the Carmelite Convent, 172 of them unhesitatingly elected to be shot rather than take the oath of allegiance to the constitution. It is touching to read the description of the composure of those who were locked into the church: "From time to time we sent some of our comrades up to the window in the tower, to look in what posture the unfortunate men who were being sacrificed in the courtyard were meeting their fate, so that we might know how to conduct ourselves when our turn came. They told us that those who stretched out their arms suffered longest, because the sword-blows slackened before they reached the head" (Jourgniac de Saint-Méard.) In all, 1480 human beings were butchered. The number is unquestionably an appalling one; but it is to be noted, as not without interest, that, according to Michelet's calculation, the number of men (and women) executed between the beginning and the end of the Revolution does not amount to a fortieth part of the number killed in the battle of the Moskwa alone.
The hatred which had found such ferocious expression in the Days of September had not cooled down when the Convention assembled. Let us see what the member of Convention writes, reads, and says on the subject of priests and religion. One of them, Lequinio by name, presents his colleagues with a book which he has written and dedicated to the Pope. Its title is _Les Préjugés Détruits_. In it we read: "Religion is a political chain invented for the purpose of fettering men; its only use has been to ensure the pleasures of a few individuals by holding all the others in check." The tirades against the priests in this book surpass in violence and indecency any yet published. Amongst its mildest affirmations concerning them is one perpetually made at this time, with all manner of variations: "When they are honest, they are stupid or mad; as a rule they are audacious impostors, veritable assassins of the human race." We must go to Kierkegaard's _Öieblikket_ (The Moment) to find outbursts corresponding to this. Such is the literature of the day. And Lequinio is not to be regarded as an exception, though he carried his war with prejudice to the extent of inviting the public executioner to dine with him and his family for the purpose of overcoming the prejudice against that official. In _Les Révolutions de Paris_, the newspaper which the member of Convention perused before he went forth to take his part in the debates of the day, he read one morning in December 1792, apropos of the celebration of the midnight mass in Paris: "There is no particular harm in holding exhibitions of dancing marionettes or conjurers' tricks in the public streets in the light of day; it is quite permissible that children and nurses should be amused. But to meet in dark assembly halls at night for the purpose of singing hymns, lighting tapers, and burning incense in honour of an illegitimate child and an unfaithful wife is a scandal, an offence against public morality, which demands the attention of the police and strict repressive measures."[1] Previously quoted utterances have been aglow with exasperation, hatred, and scorn; but as yet they have not been ribald. They were the revengeful cries of that human reason which had been so long fettered and tortured. This language is scurrilous. And there is another change. Those who have hitherto been oppressed are betraying a marked inclination in their turn to play the part of oppressors.