Number of Victims of the Reign of Terror in France
The Reign of Terror in France terminated with the execution of Robespierre, July 29, 1794. It is hard to realize the number of victims who perished during this terrible time when France was in the hands of a law-less mob.
Sir Archibald Alison, in his "History of Europe," says,--
"Thus terminated the Reign of Terror,--a period fraught with greater political instruction than any of equal duration which has existed since the beginning of the world. In no former period had the efforts of the people so completely triumphed, or the higher orders been so thoroughly crushed by the lower. The throne had been overturned, the altar destroyed, the aristocracy levelled with the dust: the nobles were in exile, the clergy in captivity, the gentry in affliction. A merciless sword had waved over the state, destroying alike the dignity of rank, the splendor of talent, and the graces of beauty. All that excelled the laboring classes in situation, fortune, or acquirement, had been removed: they had triumphed over their oppressors, seized their possessions, and risen into their stations. And what was the consequence? The establishment of a more cruel and revolting tyranny than any which mankind had yet witnessed, the destruction of all the charities and enjoyments of life, the dreadful spectacle of streams of blood flowing through every part of France. The earliest friends, the warmest advocates, the firmest supporters, of the people, were swept off indiscriminately with their bitterest enemies. In the unequal struggle, virtue and philanthropy sunk under ambition and violence, and society returned into a state of chaos, where all the elements of private or public happiness were scattered to the winds. Such are the results of unchaining the passions of the multitude, such the peril of suddenly admitting the light upon a benighted people. . . . The extent to which blood was shed in France during this melancholy period will hardly be credited by future ages. The republican, Prudhomme, whose prepossessions led him to any thing rather than an exaggeration of the horrors of the popular party, has given the following appalling account of the victims of the Revolution:--
Noble women..... 750
Wives of laborers and artisans..... 1,467
Religieuses..... 350
Priests..... 1,135
Common persons, not noble..... 13,623
Guillotined by sentence of the revolutionary--
tribunals..... 18,603 18,603
Women who died from illness produced by excitement and grief..... 3,748
Women killed in La Vendee..... 15,000
Children killed in La Vendee..... 22,000
Men slain in La Vendee..... 900,000
Victims under Carrier at Nantes..... 32,000
Of whom were
Children shot..... 500
Children drowned..... 1,500
Women shot..... 264
Women drowned..... 500
Priests shot..... 300
Priests drowned..... 460
Nobles drowned..... 1,400
Artisans drowned..... 5,300
Victims at Lyons..... 31,000
Total..... 1,022,351
"In this enumeration are not comprehended the massacre at Versailles, at the Abbey, the Cannes, or other prisons, on the 2d of September, the victims of the Glaciere of Avignon, those shot at Toulon and Marseilles, or the persons slain in the little town of Bedouin, of which the whole population perished. It is in an especial manner remarkable, in this dismal catalogue, how large a proportion of the victims of the Revolution were persons in the middling and lower ranks of life. The priests and nobles guillotined are only 2,413, while the persons of plebeian origin exceed 13,000! The nobles and priests put to death at Nantes were only 2,160; while the infants drowned and shot are 2,000, the women 764, and the artisans 5,300! So rapidly, in revolutionary convulsions, does the career of cruelty reach the lower orders! and so wide-spread is the carnage dealt out to them, compared to that which they have sought to inflict on their superiors."