Arras this horrid instrument of death was what they called en
permanence, (stationary,) and so little regard was paid to the
morals of the people, (I say the morals, because every thing which
tends to destroy their humanity renders them vicious,) that it was
often left from one execution to another with the ensanguined traces
of the last victim but too evident.--Children were taught to amuse
themselves by making models of the Guillotine, with which they
destroyed flies, and even animals. On the Pontneuf, at Paris, a
sort of puppet-show was exhibited daily, whose boast it was to give
a very exact imitation of a guillotinage; and the burthen of a
popular song current for some months was _"Dansons la Guillotine."_
--On the 21st of January, 1794, the anniversary of the King's death,
the Convention were invited to celebrate it on the "Place de la
Revolution," where, during the ceremony, and in presence of the
whole legislative body, several people were executed. It is true,
Bourdon, one of the Deputies, complained of this indecency; but not
so much on account of the circumstance itself, as because it gave
some of the people an opportunity of telling him, in a sort of way
he might probably deem prophetic, that one of the victims was a
Representative of the People. The Convention pretended to order
that some enquiry should be made why at such a moment such a place
was chosen; but the enquiry came to nothing, and I have no doubt but
the executions were purposely intended as analogous to the
ceremony.--It was proved that Le Bon, on an occasion when he chose
to be a spectator of some executions he had been the cause of,
suspended the operation while he read the newspaper aloud, in order,
as he said, that the aristocrates might go out of the world with the
additional mortification of learning the success of the republican
arms in their last moments.

The People of Brest were suffered to behold, I had almost said to be
amused with (for if those who order such spectacles are detestable,
the people that permit them are not free from blame,) the sight of
twenty-five heads ranged in a line, and still convulsed with the
agonies of death.--The cant word for the Guillotine was "our holy
mother;" and verdicts of condemnation were called prizes in the
Sainte Lotteri