l-General.
This record was produced when in 1795, after the fall of Robespierre had
opened the way for the great reaction which finally made Napoleon master
of France, the tribunals of the Department of the Marne took steps to
bring to justice such of the assassins of 1792 as they could lay hands
upon. On the 26 Thermidor, An III., two wretches, one a newspaper-vendor
and the other a slopshop-keeper, were condemned to death and executed
for the murder of the Abbe Paquot and of the cure of Rilly. Two others,
a glazier and a shoemaker, were condemned to six years in the
chain-gang.

The evidence on which these assassins were convicted in 1795 had then
been for two years in the hands of the municipal authorities at Reims.
But during these two years France had been the football of the employers
and accomplices of these assassins. The municipal authorities had been
powerless to prevent these murders, which were committed in the public
streets and under the protection of the Procureur-Syndic of the
department, the official representative at Reims of the 'Minister of
Justice,' Danton, at Paris. They were equally powerless to punish them.

The Mayor of Reims was fortunate to escape denunciation at Paris for
his attempt to save the lives of some of the victims. That was an
offence against the 'moral unity' which the First Republic tried to
establish.

There was a heroic Mayor in those days at Lille named Andre. When the
Duke of Saxe-Teschen with his wife, a sister of Marie Antoinette,
appeared before Lille at the head of an Austrian army and demanded the
surrender of the place, Mayor Andre, who was a Republican but not of the
'moral unity' type, replied that he had sworn to keep the place, and he
would keep his oath. With the help of the Ancient Artillery Corporations
of the old Flemish city (Corporations of which the 'Honourable Artillery
Corps' of London and of Boston are offshoots), Mayor Andre did keep his
oath and kept Lille. The Minister Roland, the respectable confederate of
the virtuous Petion, sent him promises of help, but no help. Why?
Because Mayor Andre had taken the lead in a masculine protest of the
honest people of Lille against that ruffianly invasion of the Tuileries
by the mob on June 20 which the virtuous Petion, Mayor of Paris, and his
respectable confederate Roland had for their own purposes promoted. So
Mayor Andre got words and no troops. But Lille took care of herself;
bore a tremendous bombardment fo