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The Great Controversy
citizens were divided into a medley of factions, that seemed intent on
nothing but mutual extermination.” And to add to the general misery,
the nation became involved in a prolonged and devastating war with
the great powers of Europe. “The country was nearly bankrupt, the
armies were clamoring for arrears of pay, the Parisians were starving,
the provinces were laid waste by brigands, and civilization was almost
extinguished in anarchy and license.”
All too well the people had learned the lessons of cruelty and
torture which Rome had so diligently taught. A day of retribution at
last had come. It was not now the disciples of Jesus that were thrust
into dungeons and dragged to the stake. Long ago these had perished
or been driven into exile. Unsparing Rome now felt the deadly power
of those whom she had trained to delight in deeds of blood. “The
example of persecution which the clergy of France had exhibited for
so many ages, was now retorted upon them with signal vigor. The
scaffolds ran red with the blood of the priests. The galleys and the
prisons, once crowded with Huguenots, were now filled with their
persecutors. Chained to the bench and toiling at the oar, the Roman
Catholic clergy experienced all those woes which their church had so
freely inflicted on the gentle heretics.” (See Appendix.)
[284]
“Then came those days when the most barbarous of all codes was
administered by the most barbarous of all tribunals; when no man
could greet his neighbors or say his prayers ... without danger of
committing a capital crime; when spies lurked in every corner; when
the guillotine was long and hard at work every morning; when the
jails were filled as close as the holds of a slave ship; when the gutters
ran foaming with blood into the Seine.... While the daily wagonloads
of victims were carried to their doom through the streets of Paris,
the proconsuls, whom the sovereign committee had sent forth to the
departments, reveled in an extravagance of cruelty unknown even in
the capital. The knife of the deadly machine rose and fell too slow
for their work of slaughter. Long rows of captives were mowed down
with grapeshot. Holes were made in the bottom of crowded barges.
Lyons was turned into a desert. At Arras even the cruel mercy of a
speedy death was denied to the prisoners. All down the Loire, from
Saumur to the sea, great flocks of crows and kites feasted on naked
corpses, twined together in hideous embraces. No mercy was shown
to sex or age. The number of young lads and of girls of seventeen who