club, after taking copies of them for the archives of their own
society."

His motion was decreed.

Two days afterwards, he again ascended the tribune. "You approved," said
he, "of the measures I lately proposed against the aristocracy of
property; I will now tell you of another aristocracy which we must also
crush--I mean that of religion, and of the clergy. Their supports are
folly, cowardice, and ignorance. All priests are to be proscribed as
criminals, and despised as impostors or idiots; and all altars must be
reduced to dust as unnecessary. To prepare the public mind for such
events, we must enlighten it; which can only be done by disseminating
extracts from 'L' Amie du People', and other philosophical publications.
I have here some ballads of my own composition, which have been sung in
my quarter; where all superstitious persons have already trembled, and
all fanatics are raving. If you think proper, I will, for a mere trifle,
print twenty thousand copies of them, to be distributed and disseminated
gratis all over France."

After some discussion, the treasurer of the club was ordered to advance
Citizen Brune the sum required, and the secretary to transmit the ballads
to the fraternal societies in the provinces.

Brune put on his first regimentals as an aide-decamp to General Santerre
in December, 1792, after having given proofs of his military prowess the
preceding September, in the massacre of the prisoners in the Abbey. In
1793 he was appointed a colonel in the revolutionary army, which, during
the Reign of Terror, laid waste the departments of the Gironde, where he
was often seen commanding his corps, with a human head fixed on his
sword. On the day when he entered Bordeaux with his troops, a new-born
child occupied the same place, to the great horror of the inhabitants.
During this brilliant expedition he laid the first foundation of his
present fortune, having pillaged in a most unmerciful manner, and
arrested or shot every suspected person who could not, or would not,
exchange property for life. On his return to Paris, his patriotism was
recompensed with a commission of a general of brigade. On the death of
Robespierre, he was arrested as a terrorist, but, after some months'
imprisonment, again released.

In October, 1795, he assisted Napoleon Bonaparte in the massacre of the
Parisians, and obtained for it, from the director Barras, the rank of a
general of division. Though occupying, in time of war,