nd was for a time affectedly called "nameless commune."

Lyons made a more honourable stand. That noble city had been subjected
for some time to the domination of Chalier, one of the most ferocious,
and at the same time one of the most extravagantly absurd, of the
Jacobins. He was at the head of a formidable club, which was worthy of
being affiliated with the mother society, and ambitious of treading in
its footsteps; and he was supported by a garrison of two revolutionary
regiments, besides a numerous artillery, and a large addition of
volunteers, amounting in all to about ten thousand men, forming what was
called a revolutionary army. This Chalier, was an apostate priest, an
atheist, and a thorough-paced pupil in the school of terror. He had been
procureur of the community, and had imposed on the wealthy citizens a
tax, which was raised from six to thirty millions of livres. But blood
as well as gold was his object. The massacre of a few priests and
aristocrats confined in the fortress of Pierre-Scixe, was a pitiful
sacrifice; and Chalier, ambitious of deeds more decisive, caused a
general arrest of an hundred principal citizens, whom he destined as a
hecatomb more worthy of the demon whom he served.

This sacrifice was prevented by the courage of the Lyonnois; a courage
which, if assumed by the Parisians, might have prevented most of the
horrors which disgraced the revolution. The meditated slaughter was
already announced by Chalier to the Jacobin club. "Three hundred heads,"
he said, "are marked for slaughter. Let us lose no time in seizing the
members of the departmental office-bearers, the presidents and
secretaries of the sections, all the local authorities who obstruct our
revolutionary measures. Let us make one fagot of the whole, and deliver
them at once to the guillotine."

But ere he could execute his threat, terror was awakened into the
courage of despair. The citizens rose in arms and besieged the Hotel de
Ville, in which Chalier, with his revolutionary troops, made a
desperate, and for some time a successful, yet ultimately a vain
defence. But the Lyonnois unhappily knew not how to avail themselves of
their triumph. They were not sufficiently aware of the nature of the
vengeance which they had provoked, or of the necessity of supporting the
bold step which they had taken, by measures which precluded a
compromise. Their resistance to the violence and atrocity of the
Jacobins had no political character, a