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Front matter

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Chap. I

Facts taken from Uhistoire du Clerge Francois, or the History of the French Clergy, by the Abbe BarrueL

IT will be recollected by the greatest part of my readers, that, soon after the beginning of the French Revolution, the National Assembly conceived the plan of destroying the religion of their forefathers. In order to effect this they separated the Gallican church from that of Rome, and imposed an oath on the clergy, which they could not take, without becoming apostates in the fullest sense of the word. All the worthy and conscientious part of that body refused of course, and this refftsal was made a pretext to drive them from their livings, and fill the vacancies with such as had more pliant consciences, principles better adapted to the impious system which the leaders in the Assembly had prepared for their too credulous countrymen.

The ejectment of the priesthood was attended with numberless acts of most atrocious and wanton crueky : these have been recorded by the Abbe Barruel^ in a work entitled, The History of the French Clergy ; and, though what is here to be found will dwindle into nothing, when compared to what I have extracted from other works, yet it could not be wholly omitted, without shewing a degree of insensibility for the sufferings of these men, that I am persuaded the reader would not have excused. I shall therefore begin the relation with some extracts from that work.

It will be observed, that these extracts, as well as all those that compose this compilation, are an abridged translation from the French : but, as far as relates to those contained in this chapter, the American reader may easily verify the translation by examining the English edition of the Abbe BarrueVs work, which is to be found in most parts of the Union.

Soon after the first National Assembly had decreed, that the Comtat of Avignon belonged to the French nation, an army of assassins, of whom one Jourdan, sur-named the Cut-throat, was the commander, took possession of the unfortunate city of Avignon. The churches were immediately pillaged, the sacred vases profaned and carried off;

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the altafs levelled to the ground. The prisons were soon filled, and the unhappy victims were released only to suffer death. A deep pit was dug to receive their dead bodies, six hundred of which were thrown into it, mangled and distorted, before ten o'clock the next day. Among them was Mr. Nolhac, a priest, in the eightieth year of his age. He had been thirty years rector of St. Symphorien, a parish which he preferred to all others, and which he could not be prevailed on to quit for a more lucrative one, because he would not desert the poor. During his rectorship he had been the common father of his parishioners, the refuge of the indigent, the comforter of the afflicted, and the friend and counsellor of every honest man. When the hour of danger approached, his friends advised him to fly ; but no intreaties could prevail on him to abandon his flock : " No," said the good old man, "I have watched over them in the " halcyon days of peace, and shall I now leave " them midst storms and tempests, without a guide, " without any one to comfort them in their last " dreary moments ?" — Mr. Nolhac, who, till now;, had been respected even by the Cut-throats, was sent to the prison the evening before the execution. His appearance and his salutation, were those of a consoling angel : " ] come my children, '' to die with you : we shall soon appear in the " presence of that God whom we serve, and who " will not desert us in the hour of death." He fortified their drooping courage, administered the last consolatory pledges of his love, and the next day embraced and cheered each individual as he was called forth by the murderers.

Two of these stood at the door with a bar of iron in their hands, and as the prisoners advanced knocked them down : the bodies were then delivered over to the other ruffians, who hacked and disfigured them with their sabres, before they threw them into the pit, that they might not afterwards be known by their friends and relations. When the cut-throats were dispersed, every one was anxious to find the body of Mr. Nolhac. It was at last discovered by the cassock, and the crucifix which he wore on his breast. That breast had been pierced in fifty places, and the skull was entirely mashed.

Several priests were conducted to Lagrave, where they were told that they must take the oath,^ or sufier death. Among them was a Sulpician of 98 years of age, and a young Abbe of the name of Novi. The whole chose death, the venerable Sulpician leading the way. The trial of Mr. Novi was particularly severe : the ruffians brought his father to the spot, and told him if he

* This oath amounted to neither more nor less than direct perjury, since, by taking it, they must break the oath they had made when they entered the priesthood.

could persuade his son to swear, he should liv* The tender old man, wavering, hesitating between the feelings of nature and the duties of religion, at last yields to parental fondness, throws his arms round his child's neck, buries his face in his bosom, and with tears and sobs presses his compliance. " Oh ! my child, my child, spare the life of your *« Father!"— ''My dearest Father !— My dearest " Father," returned the Abbe, "I will do more, " I will die worthy of you and my God. You "educated me a Catholic: I am a priest, a servant " of the Lord. It will be a greater comfort to you " in your gray hairs, to have your son a mar- " tyr than an apostate." — The villains tear them asunder, and amidst the cries and lamentations of the father, extend the son before him a bleeding corpse.

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In the same town, and on the same day, the axe was suspended over the head of Mr. Teron, when the revolutionists bethought them that he had a son. This son was about ten years of age, and, in order to enjoy the father's torments and the child's tears both at a time, he was brought to the place of execution. His tears and cries gave a relish to the ferocious banquet. After tiring themselves with the spectacle, they put the father to death before the eyes of the child, whom they besmeared with his blood.

After having spoken of the conduct of the magistrates and mob at Bourdeaux, the historian mentions the death of Mr. Langoiran and the Abbe Dupuis, thus :

At the entrance of the court-house, the Abbe Dupuis received a first wound ; others soon levelled him to the ground. A young lad, of about fifteen or sixteen, cut a hole in the cheek with a knife, to hold up the head by, while others were employed in haggling it from the body, which was still in agonies. This operation not succeeding in such a crowd, they took hold of the legs, and dragged the carcass about the streets, and round the ramparts.

Mr. Langoiran had but just set his foot on the first step of the stairs, when he was knocked down. His head was hacked oif in an instant, and a ruffian held it up, crying aloud : "off with " your hats ! long live the nation." The bareheaded populace answered : " long live the nation." The head was then carried round the town as a signal of a triumph, gained by a tumultuous populace and ten thousand soldiers under arms, over a poor defenceless priest.

The 14th of July, so famous in the annals of the Revolution, was this year celebrated at Limoges, by the death of Mr. ChabroL He was a most useful member of society ; distinguished round his neighbourhood as a bone-setter ; he was at once the surgeon and the pastor of his parishioners ; and among his murderers were some of those who owed to him the use of their limbs. He was of a quick and impetuous temper, and indued with uncommon bodily strength. His death certainly was not that of a Christian martyr ; but it deserves particular notice, as a striking proof of the cowardly ferocity of the French populace.

He had taken shelter at a magistrate's, and begged leave to elude the mob by going out of the house the back way ; but the magistrate durst not comply. He was forced to face his blood-thirsty pursuers. The indignant priest met them at the door ; the attack instantly began. Without a single weapon of defence, he had to encounter hundreds of the mob, armed with clubs, guns, sabres, and knives ; but, notwithstanding the amazing inequality, he held them a long time at bay. Some he felled to the ground, others ran from him ; he tore a bayonet out of his flesh, and stabbing it into the breast of his adversary, sent him to die among the crowd. At last, weakened with

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the loss of blood, he falls, and the base and merciless scoundrels cry : to (he lamp-post. The idea of hanging reanimates the remaining drops in his veins. He rises upon his legs for the last time ; but numbers prevail ; again he falls, covered with wounds, and expires. His last groan is followed by the ferocious howl of victory : the dastardly assassins set no bounds to their insults ; they cut and hacked his body to pieces, and wrangled for the property of his ragged and bloody cassock.

As soon as the unfortunate Louis XVI. had been transferred from his throne to a loathsome prison, the National Assembly formed a plan for the total extirpation of the priests, and with them the Christian religion. The ministers of the altar w^ere seized and thrown into prison, or transported, from every part of the country. At Paris about three hundred of them were shut up, in order to be massacred, and were actually put to death during the first and second weeks of September, 1792.

About one hundred and eighty of these unhappy men were confined in the convent of the Carmelites. A troop of assassins commenced the massacre in the garden, where the priests were permitted to take the air; but while they were proceeding, a commissary arrived, and informed them that the work was not to go on that way. There Were now about a hundred left alive, who were all ordered into the sanctuary of the church ; but, to get thither, they had to pass through a crowd of their murderers. One received a ball, another a blow, and another a stab : so that, when arrived in the sanctuary, they presented a scene the most heart-piercing that eyes ever beheld. Some were dragged in wounded, others quite dead. Even here, though surrounded by a detachment of soldiers, the blood-thirsty mob rushed in upon them, and murdered several at the very altar's foot. The sanctuary of a Christian church was, for the first time since the blessed Redeemer appeared among men, filled with a promiscuous group of the living, the dying, and the dead. The marble pavement was covered with dirt and gore and mangled carcasses, and the sides of the altar splashed with blood and brains.

The soldiers had not been brought to save the lives of the priests : the commissary who headed them was to execute a plan of more deliberate murder. The surviving priests were called out two at a time, and murdered in the presence of the commissary, who took their names down in a book, as he was answerable for their assassination. Of all that were found here, only four or five escaped. — The like undistinguished carnage was exhibited at the other prisons.

Every one of these men might have saved his life by taking the proffered oath, yet not one of them condescended to do it. Let the infidel show us, if he can, any thing like this in the annals of his impious sect.

At the gate of the prison of La Force, the assassins were placed in two rows : the two ruffians, called judges, who gave the signal of death, were placed at the gate ; and as soon as the prisoner passed them, the assassins dispatched him with their knives or sabres, throwing the bodies in a heap at the end of the line. At the foot of this trophy of dead bodies, says the historian, we must now exhibit a scene of a different kind, in the murder of the princess of Lamballe.

She had retired in safety to London ; but her attachment to the royal family would not suffer her to remain in her asylum, while they were exposed. Her fidelity was a crime that the per^ fidy of her enemies could never forgive.

When this illustrious victim was brought forth, she was asked to swear an eternal hatred to the king, and the queen, and to royalty. '' The oath," said she, "is foreign to the sentiments of my *' lieart, and I will never take it." — She was instantly delivered over to the ministers of death. These ruffians pretend to caress her, stroke her cheeks with their hands yet reeking with human blood, and thus conduct her along the line. Amidst all these insults her courage never deserted her. When arrived at the heap of dead bodies, she was ordered to kneel, and ask pardon of the nation : '' I have never injured the nation," she replied, *' nor will I ask its pardon." — " Down," said they, *' and ask pardon, if you wish to live." " No," said she, " I scorn to ask pardon from as- *' sassins that call themselves the nation: I will *' never bend my knee, or accept of a favour at " such hands."

Her soul was superior to fear. '* Kneel and " ask pardon" was heard from a thousand voices, but in vain. Two of the assassins now seized her arms, and, pulling her from side to side, nearly dislocated her shoulders. " Go on, scoundrels," said the heroic princess, " I will ask no pardon." In a rage to see themselves thus overcome by the constancy of a woman, they dashed her down, and rushed in upon her with their knives and poignards. Her head soon appeared hoisted upon a liberty pike, and her heart, after being hit by one of the ruffians, was put into a bason. Both were carried in triumph through the streets of Paris. At last, after having feasted the eyes of the multitude, the bearers took them to the Temple, now become a prison, where one of the two commissaries that guarded the king, called him to the window, that he might see it ; but his companion, a little more humane, prevented the unfortunate monarch from approaching.* A faulting fit, from hearing of the event, fortunately saved the queen from the heart-rending sight.

The bod J stripped naked and the bowels hanging out, was exposed to view on the top of the murdered victims, where it remained till the massacre was over. It was at last cut up like butcher's meat.

A great fire was made in the Place Dauphine, at which many, both men and women were roasted. The Countess of Perpignan, with her three

* The historian has here followed Doctor Moore ; but, Playfair relates this matter rather differently. " The head," says he " was carried on a pole to the Temple, and exposed to the " view of the royal prisoners, who expected the same fate. The " king was compelled to approach the window and look at it : " the queen and madame Elizabeth had fainted away." — Here is a material difference. Perhaps one of the commissaries was a friend of Doctor Moore, as the chief of the massacrers, Brissot, was a friend of the Doctor's patron, Lord Lauderdale. The Doctor is, indeed, rarely to be depended upon : a man whose patron was the friend of the leading murderers was not well calculated to give an account of their actions.

Flayfair adds, on this subject : " The Duke of Orleans gave " a dinner to some English Democrats that day, and was gra- " tified with the sight of this bloody trophy (the Princess' " head) just before they sat down to dinner." — It is not impossible but Doctor Moore and the Democratic Earl of Lauderdale might be of the party.

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daughters were dragged thither. They were stripped, rubbed over with oil, and then put to the fire. The eldest of the daughters, who was fifteen, begged them to put an end to her torments, upon which a young fellow shot her through the head. The cannibals, who were shouting and dancing round the fire, enraged to see themselves thus deprived of the pleasure of hearing her cries, seized the too merciful murderer, and threw him into the flames.

When the Countess was dead, they brought six priests, and, cutting off some of the roasted flesh, presented them each a piece to eat. They shut their eyes, and made no answer. The oldest of the priests was then stripped, and tied opposite the fire. The mob told the others, that perhaps they might prefer the relish of a priest's flesh to that of a Countess ; but they suddenly rushed into the flames. The barbarians tore them out to prolong their torments ; not, however, before they were dead, and beyond the reach even of Parisian cruelty.

On Monday, September 3, at ten o'clock in the evening, a man, or rather a monster, named Philippe, living in the street of the Temple, came to the Jacobin Club, of which he was a member; and, with a box in his hand, mounted the tribune.

Here he made a long speech on patriotism, concluding bj a declaration, that he looked upon every one who preferred the ties of blood and of nature to that of patriotic duty, as an aristocrat worthy of death ; and, to convince them of the purity and sincerity of his own principles, he opened the box, and held up by the gray hair, the bloody and shrivelled heads of his father and mother, " which I have cut off," said the impious wretch, " because they obstinately persisted in not " hearing mass from a constitutional priest."* The speech of this parricide received the loudest applauses ; and the two heads were ordered to be buried beneath the busts of Anker storm and Brutus, behind the president's chair. "t

The last fact related, is of such a horrid nature that, though so well authenticated, it would almost stagger our belief, had we not proof of so many others, which equal, if not surpass it. I shall here extract one from La Conjuration de Maximilien

* That is, one of the apostates.

t According to Monsieur Peltier, in his picture of Paris, the number of persons murdered in the different prisons of that city, from Sunday the 2d to Friday the 7th of September 1792, amounted to 1,005. To these, he says, should be added the poor creatures who were put to death in the hospital of Bicetre, and in the yards of la Salpetriere; those who were drowned ai the hospital of la Force ; and all those who were dragged out of the dungeons of the Conciergerie and the Chatelet, to be butchered on the Pont-au-Change, which may be computed, without exaggeration, at 8,000 individuals.

Robespierre, a work published at Paris in tiie year 1795.

The author, after speaking of the unnatural ferociousness which the revolution had produced in the hearts of the people, says (page 162) 1 will here give a proof, and a shocking one it is.— Garnier of Orleans had a son, who had been intended for the priesthood, and had been initiated in the subdeaconship ; consequently he was attached to the Christian faith. His father one day seized him by the throat and led him to the revolutionary tribunal, where he was instantly condemned ; nor would the barbarous father quit his child till he saw his head severed from his body. After the execution was over, the tribunal, ever as capricious as bloody, feigned remorse, and were proceeding to condemn the father ; but the National Convention, informed of the affair, annulled the process, and publicly applauded the conduct of the unnatural father, as an imitator of the republican Brutus.

In the extracts from the history of the French clergy, the proposed limits of this work has obliged me to forego the pleasure of mentioning a great number of facts, which reflect mfinite honour on that calumniated and unfortunate body of men, as well as on the Christian religion. The following trait, howeVer, I cannot prevail on myself to omit.

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At Rheims lived a man, who, from the number of his years, might be called the dean of Christendom ; and, from the fame of his virtues, the priest, by excellence. He had long been known by no other name than that of the holy priest. This was Mr. Pacquot, rector of St. John's. When the revolutionary assassins broke into his oratory, they found him on his knees. A true and faithful disciple of Jesus Christ, heyielded himself into the hands of his executioners without so much as a murmur, and suffered himself to be led before the ferocious magistrate, as a lamb to the slaughter. He crossed the street singing the psalms of David, while the sanguinary ruffians that conducted him, endeavoured to drown his voice by their blasphemies. At the threshhold of the town-hall an attempt was made to murder him, but the mayor interfered, saying to the people, " What are you about ? this *' old fellow is beneath notice. He is a fool : *' fanaticism has turned his brain." — These words roused the venerable old man. " No, Sir," says he, "I am neither a fool nor a fanatic, nor shall «' my life take refuge under such an ignominious ' shelter. 1 wish you to know, that I was never ^ more in my sober senses. These men have ten- * dered me an oath, decreed by the National As- ' sembly. 1 am well acquainted with the nature ' of this oath : I know that it is impious, and sub- ' versive of religion. They leave me the choice " of the oath or death, and I choose the latter.

" I hope, Sir, I have convinced you, that I am in '' my senses, and know perfectly well what I am "about." — The nettled magistrate immediately abandoned him to the mob. " Which of you," said the old man, ''is to have the patriotic hon- " our of being my murderer ?" — " I am," says a man who moved in a sphere that ought to have distinguished him from a horde of ruffians. " Let " me embrace you then," says Mr. Pacquot ; which he actually did, and prayed to God to forgive him. This done, the hard-hearted villain gave him the first blow : his companions buried their bayonets in his emaciated breast.

The reader's heart, I hope, will teach him the love and veneration that every Christian ought to feel for the memory of this evangelical old man.

If the death of all the murdered priests was not marked with such unequivocal proofs of constancy and fidelity as that of Mr. Pacquot, it was, perhaps, because a like opportunity did not always present itself. One thing we know ; that, by taking an oath contrary to their faith, they might not only have escaped the knives of their assassins, but might have enjoyed an annual income. Their refusing to do this is an incontrov^ertible testimony, that they were no impostors or hypocrites, but sincere believers of the religion they taught, and that they valued that religion more than life itself. This is the best answer that can possibly be given to all the scandalous and atrocious calumnies that their enemies and the enemies of Christianity have vomited forth against them.

CHAP, 11.

Facts taken from La Relation des CruaiiteSy comraises dans Les Lyonnois,

THE next work that presents itself, fallowing the cronological order, is La Relation des Cruautes^ commises dans Les Lyonnois, or, The Relation of the Cruelties, committed in the Lyonnese,

The grand scene of destruction and massacre was opened, in the once flourishing and opulent city of Lyons, by a public profanation of all those things, that had been looked upon as sacred. The murderers in chief, chosen from among the members of the National Convention, were, a play-actor and a man who, under the old government, had been a bum-bailiff. Their first step was to brutify the minds of the populace ; to extinguish the remaining sparks of humanity and religion, by teaching them to set heaven and an hereafter at defiance ; in order to prepare them for the massacres, which they were commissioned to execute.

A mock procession w^as formed in imitation of those observed by the Catholic church. It was headed by a troop of men bearing in their hands the chalices and other vases which had been taken from the plundered churches. At the head of the procession there was an Ass, dressed in the vestments of the priests that the revolutionary army had murdered in the neighbourhood of the city, with a mitre on his head. This beast, a beast of the same kind on which our Redeemer rode, now bore a load of crucifixes, and other symbols of the christian religion ; having the old and new testament tied to his tail. When this procession came to the spot which had been fixed on for the purpose, the bible was burnt, and the Ass given to drink out of the sacramental cup, amidst the shouts and rejoicing of the blasphemous assistants.

Such a beginning plainly foretold what was to follow. An undistinguished butchery of all the rich immediately commenced. Hundreds of persons, women as well as men, were taken out of the city at a time, tied to trees, shot to death, stabbed, or else knocked on the head. In the city the guillotine never ceased a moment ; it was shifted three times ; holes were dug at each place to receive the blood, and yet it ran in the gutters.

It were impossible to describe this scene of carnage, or to give an account of each act of the, till now, unheard-of barbarity : two or three, however, demand a particular mention.

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Madame Lauras, hearing that her husband was condemned, went, accompanied with her ten children, and threw herself on her knees before the ferocious Collot D'Herbois, one of the members of the Convention ; but no mercy could be expected from a wretch whose business it was to kill. She followed her beloved husband to the place of execution, surrounded with her weeping offspring. On seeing him fall, her cries and the wildness of her looks but too plainly foretold her approaching end. She was seized with the pains of a premature child-birth, and was carried home to her house, where a commissary soon after arrived and drove her from her bed chamber and her house, from the door of which she fell dead into the street.

Two women, who had persisted in asking the life of their husbands, were tied, during six hours, to the posts of the guillotine. Their own husbands were executed before their eyes, and their blood sprinkled over them.

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Miss Servan, a young lady of about eighteen.

was put to death because she would not discover the retreat of her father.

Madame Cochet was condemned for having put the match to a cannon during the siege, and for having assisted in her husband's escape. She was declared, by two surgeons, to be with child; but this was a reason of little weight with men whom we shall by and by see murdering infants, and even ripping them from the womb. She was instantly executed.

To these facts I shall add the death of Maupetit. He v/as made prisoner during the siege, buried alive up to his neck, and in this situation had his head mashed to pieces with small cannon balls, which his enemies tossed at it with all the insulting grimaces of savages.

At Lyons the priests met with the same treatment as at other places, and honoured their deaths with the same unshaken fortitude. Twenty-seven were executed at one time, not one of whom had condescended to accept of the shameful conditions that were offered, nor even to solicit a pardon from the vile and blasphemous assassins.

During this murderous work the city of Lyons was struck with terror. The members of the Convention stuck up a proclamation, declaring all those, who should express the least symptoms of pity, suspected persons. When the blood had in some measure, ceased to flow, and the affrighted inhabitants ventured out of their houses, they were seen walking along the streets with their eyes fixed on the ground : men no longer stopped, shook hands, and gave each other good morrow. The fear of death was stamped on every face : children durst not ask after their parents, nor parents ask after their children.

The villages round about shared in the fate of the city. An apostate priest conducted a gang of ruffians, who carried fire and death before them among those good people, whose only crime was giving shelter to persons escaped from the massacre. The charitable host and his guest were butchered together beneath the hospitable roof, while the wives and daughters were reserved to satisfy the brutal appetites of the murderers.