At the side of Robespierre sat the terrorists Fouquier-Tinville and Marat, to whom murder was a delight, blood-shedding a joy, who with sarcastic pleasure listened unmoved to the cries, to the tearful prayers of mothers, wives, children, of those sentenced to death, and who fed on their tears and on their despair.

With such men at the head of affairs it was natural that the reign of terror should still be increasing in power, and that with it the number of the captives in the prisons should increase.

In the month of January, 1794, the list of the incarcerated within the prisons of Paris ran up to the number of 4,659; in the month of February the number rose up to 5,892; in the beginning of April to 7,541; and at the end of the same month it was reckoned that there were in Paris eight thousand prisoners. [Footnote:  Thiers, “Histoire de la Revolution Francaise,” vol. vi., p. 41]

The greater the number of prisoners, the more zealous was the tribunal of the revolution to get rid of them; and with satisfaction these judges of blood saw the new improvements made in the guillotine, and which not only caused the machine to work faster, but also prevented the axe from losing its edge too soon by the sundering of so many necks.

“It works well,” exclaimed Fouquier-Tinville, triumphantly; “to-day we have fifty sentenced.  The heads fall like poppy-heads!”

And these fifty heads falling like poppy-heads, were not enough for his bloodthirstiness.

“It must work better still,” cried he; “in the next decade, I must have at least four hundred and fifty poppy-heads!”

And then, as if inspired by a joyous and happy thought, his gloomy countenance became radiant with a grinning laughter, and, rubbing his hands with delight, he continued:  “Yes, I must have four hundred and fifty!  Then, if we work on so perseveringly, we will soon write over our prison-gates, ‘House to let!’” [Footnote:  “Histoire de l’Imperatrice Josephine.”]

They worked on perseveringly, and the vehicles which carried the condemned to execution rolled every morning with a fresh freight through the streets of Paris, where the guillotine, with its glaring axe, awaited them.

The month of April, as already said, had brought the number of prisoners in Paris to eight thousand; the month of April had therefore more executions to engrave with its bloody pen into the annals of history.  On the 20th of April fell on the Place de la Revolution the heads of fourteen members of the ex-Parliament of Paris; the next day followed the Duke de Villeroy, the Admiral d’Estaing, the former Minister of War Latour du Pin, the Count de Bethune, the President de Nicolai.  One day after, the well-laden wagon drove from the Conciergerie to the Place de la Revolution; in it were three members of the Constituent Assembly, and to have belonged to it was the only crime they were accused of.  Near these three sat the aged Malesherbes, with his sister; the Marquis de Chateaubriand, with his wife; the Duchess de Grammont, and Du Chatelet.  It will be seen that the turn for women had now come; for those women who were now led to the execution had committed no other crime than to be the wives or the relatives of emigrants or of accused persons, than to bear names which had shone for centuries in the history of France.