ueselin, and the French hands profaned the skeleton
before which English invasion had rolled back. Most of these tombs were
found to be strongly secured. Much time, and no small exertion of skill
and labor, were required to burst their barriers. They would have
resisted forever the decay of time or the violence of enemies; they
yielded to the fury of domestic dissension. This was followed
immediately by a general attack upon the monuments and remains of
antiquity throughout all France. The sepulchres of the great of past
ages, of the barons and generals of the feudal ages, of the
paladins, and of the crusaders, were involved in one undistinguished
ruin. It seemed as if the glories of antiquity were forgotten, or sought
to be buried in oblivion. The tomb of Du Gueselin shared the same fate
as that of Louis XIV. The skulls of monarchs and heroes were tossed
about like foot balls by the profane multitude; like the grave-diggers
in Hamlet, they made a jest of the lips before which the nations had
trembled."

Having begun by waging this profane warfare upon their own glorious
dead, another scene of the fatal drama immediately succeeded. The same
author continues: "Having massacred the great of the present and
insulted the illustrious of former ages, nothing remained to the
revolutionists but to direct their vengeance against heaven itself.
Pache, Hebert, and Chaumette, the leaders of the municipality publicly
expressed their determination 'to dethrone the God of heaven, as well as
the monarchs of earth.' To accomplish this design, they prevailed on
Gobet, the apostate constitutional bishop of Paris, to appear at the bar
of the Assembly, accompanied by some of the clergy of his diocese, and
there abjure the Christian faith. He declared 'that no other national
religion was now required but that of Liberty, equality, and morality.'
Many of the constitutional bishops and clergy in the Convention joined
in the proposition. Crowds of drunken artisans and shameless prostitutes
crowded to the bar, and trampled under their feet the sacred vases,
consecrated for ages to the holiest purposes of religion. The churches
were stripped of all their ornaments; their plate and valuable contents
brought in heaps to the municipality and the Convention, from whence
they were sent to the mint to be melted down. Trampling under foot the
images of our Savior and the Virgin, they elevated, amid shouts of
applause, the busts of Marat and Lepelletier,