to some friends of my own.—­They had been brought with many others from a distant town in open carts to Arras, and, worn out with fatigue, were going to be deposited in the prison to which they were destined.  At the moment of their arrival several persons were on the point of being executed.  Le Bon, presiding as usual at the spectacle, observed the cavalcade passing, and ordered it to stop, that the prisoners might likewise be witnesses.  He was, of course, obeyed; and my terrified friends and their companions were obliged not only to appear attentive to the scene before them, but to join in the cry of "Vive la Republique!" at the severing of each head.—­ One of them, a young lady, did not recover the shock she received for months.

The Convention, the Committees, all France, were well acquainted with the conduct of Le Bon.  He himself began to fear he might have exceeded the limits of his commission; and, upon communicating some scruples of this kind to his employers, received the following letters, which, though they do not exculpate him, certainly render the Committee of Public Welfare more criminal than himself.

     “Citizen,

“The Committee of Public Welfare approve the measures you have adopted, at the same time that they judge the warrant you solicit unnecessary—­such measures being not only allowable, but enjoined by the very nature of your mission.  No consideration ought to stand in the way of your revolutionary progress—­give free scope therefore to your energy; the powers you are invested with are unlimited, and whatever you may deem conducive to the public good, you are free, you are even called upon by duty, to carry into execution without delay.—­We here transmit you an order of the Committee, by which your powers are extended to the neighbouring departments.  Armed with such means, and with your energy, you will go on to confound the enemies of the republic, with the very schemes they have projected for its destruction.

     “Carnot. 
     “Barrere. 
     “R.  Lindet.”

     Extract from another letter, signed Billaud Varenne, Carnot,
     Barrere.

“There is no commutation for offences against a republic.  Death alone can expiate them!—­Pursue the traitors with fire and sword, and continue to march with courage in the revolutionary track you have described.”

—­Merciful Heaven! are there yet positive distinctions betwixt bad and worse that we thus regret a Dumont, and deem ourselves fortunate in being at the mercy of a tyrant who is only brutal and profligate?  But so it is; and Dumont himself, fearful that he has not exercised his mission with sufficient severity, has ordered every kind of indulgence to cease, the prisons to be more strictly guarded, and, if possible, more crowded; and he is now gone to Paris, trembling lest he should be accused of justice or moderation!