the constitution then proposed was still incomplete; and had
to be submitted to another assembly to be completed. They however
accomplish some things worthy of note. In 1789 they abolish feudalism,
root and branch; and the payment of tithes. The latter meant the
separation of church and state, in matters of support and government;
and this event seemed to the deists, like a time of Pentecost.

REPUBLIC OF FRANCE

On Sept. 22, 1792 the Republic of France is declared. On Jan. 1, 1793,
King Louis XVI, who had become a runaway king, and on October 16th
following, Marie Antoinette, the queen, are executed. These events are
followed by another reign of terror, the plundering of churches and a
war with Spain.

The Republic of France, when first established, proves to be one of a
mob, robbing and murdering those, who had property. The people become
despotic as soon as they have disposed of their useless king, and queen.
There were only nine prisoners in the Bastille, when it was destroyed,
but now in two days and under the name of liberty, eight thousand
innocent persons are massacred in prison. Walter Scott in his Life of
Napoleon adds: "Three hundred thousand other persons, one third of whom
are women, are ruthlessly committed to prison," the executioners
usurping the place of the judges and, without trial, "pronouncing
sentence against them." Their watchwords, while the Revolution
continues, are, "Unity, Brotherhood or Death." These principles are
enforced by edicts of exile, imprisonment, or death by the guillotine.

REIGN OF TERROR

This reign of terror continues until July 28, 1794, when the cruel
hearted Robespierre and his consorts are condemned to death on the
guillotine, a cunningly devised beheading machine, on which he had been
practicing with innocent and helpless victims, for twenty-two years.

In 1795 a new constitution is adopted, and after the suppression of a
number of bloody riots and insurrections that year, by the young
Napoleon with his batteries of artillery, public order is restored and
the Revolution is regarded as ended.

PEOPLE UNPREPARED FOR FREEDOM

These are but a few of the many riotous and disorderly events that
occurred in France just at the close of the American Revolution, in
which Lafayette co-operated with so much honor to himself and his
country. These suffice to show how unprepared the people were for any
great or concerted movement, and how destitute the nation was of men,