Baroness Orczy

“ Women screamed, men blasphemed and children cried. Shouts of "Vive Rateau!" mingled with those of "Vive Robespierre!" a circle was formed, hands holding hands, and a wild saraband danced around the glowing brazier. And this mad orgy of enthusiasm lasted for full three minutes, until the foremost among those who, awestruck and horrified, had approached the brazier in order to see the final agony of the abominable traitor, burst out with a prolonged "Malediction!" ”

“ The darkness, the flickering lights, the glow of the braziers, which made the inky blackness around more pronounced, made everything indistinguishable to ordinary human sight. Certain it is that citizen Rateau—who had constituted himself the spokesman of the mob—was at one time seen towering behind the four unfortunates, with his huge arms stretched out, his head thrown back, his mouth wide open, screaming abuse and vituperation, demanding the people's right to take the law into its own sovereign hands. ”

“ But his companions were still there—four of them; the woman and the boy and the two girls, crouching like frightened beasts before the obvious fury, the certain vengeance of the people. The murmurs were ominous. "Death! Guillotine! Traitors!" were words easily distinguishable in the confused babbling of the sullen crowd.
Robespierre's cruel, appraising glance rested on those four pathetic forms, so helpless, so desperate, so terrified.
"Citizens," he said coldly, "did you not hear me ask where your eloquent companion is at this moment?" ”

“ They were ensconced against a heavy porte-cochère, a rickety table alone standing between them and the mob, who were ready to drag them to the nearest lanthorn and immolate them before the eyes of their outraged idol.
"Leave the traitors alone!" Robespierre commanded. "Justice will deal with them as they deserve." ”

“ With the blind instinct of trapped beasts, they retreated into the shadows step by step, as those threatening fists appeared to draw closer, clutching at the nearest table and dragging it with them, in an altogether futile attempt at a barricade. ”

“ Their thoughtless crowding around his person would easily have given some lurking enemy or hot-headed, would-be martyr the chance of wielding an assassin's knife with success, but for the presence amongst the crowd of his "tappe-durs"—hid-hards—a magnificent bodyguard composed of picked giants from the mining districts of Eastern France, who rallied around the great man, and with their weighted sticks kept the enthusiastic crowd at bay. ”

“ No female traitors, no aristos beneath! The people had been fooled, hideously fooled by a traitor all the more execrable, as he had seemed one of themselves.
"Malediction! Death to the traitor!"
Aye, death indeed! The giant, whoever he might be, would have to bear a charmed life if he were to escape the maddened fury of a foiled populace. ”

“ Many there were who would have liked to hold on to that theory—men and women whose souls, warped and starved by the excesses and the miseries of the past five years, clung to any superstition, any so-called supernatural revelations, that failed to replace the old religion that had been banished from their hearts. ”