e entire inhabitants of the city. "The generation which saw the
monarchical _regime_ will always regret it," Robespierre was crying,
"therefore every individual who was more than fifteen years old in 1789
should have his throat cut." "Away with the nobles!" was shouting
another vicious leader, "and if there are any good ones so much the
worse for them. Let the guillotine work incessantly through the whole
Republic. France has nineteen millions too many inhabitants, she will
have enough with five." "Milk is the nourishment of infants," announced
another; "blood is that of the children of liberty."

The new doctrine was not merely being shouted; it was being carried into
practice as fast as the executioner could work, and sometimes in a
single afternoon the life-stream of two hundred hearts gushed out
through two hundred severed necks on the Place de la Revolution. The
King, and at last the Queen, were among the slaughtered. None knew but
that his or her turn, or that of his dearest ones might come next. A too
respectable dress, a thoughtless expression, the malice of an
extortionate workman, or the offending of a servant, meant death. Even
the wickedest were betrayed by their associates to the Goddess of Blood,
and citizens, as they hurried along the deserted and filthy streets,
looked at each other with suspicious eyes. On the throne of France's
ancient sovereigns sat a shadowy monarch from hell, and all recognised
his name and reign--The Reign of Terror.

In the midst of that thunder-fraught atmosphere sat this poor girl,
mechanically glancing down the street from time to time at the silent
houses, each with the legal paper affixed stating the names of the
inmates, for the information of the revolutionary committees.

Her bearing, though humble, announced her as one of the hated class, and
by scrutinising her thin features we see that she is "the Citizeness
Montmorency, heretofore Baroness."

She was absorbed in thought. Recollections, one by one, of the changes
which had made her an old woman in experience at the age when most
maidens become brides, were crossing her mind. She recalled the alarming
news brought to the Hotel de Noailles of the march of the viragoes on
Versailles, and with that news her suspense for the safety of Germain;
the entry of General Lafayette (who was married to a Noailles) into the
hotel towards morning, smilingly assuring the family that all was well;
her agony upon word of the attack on