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No; we do not attribute to the French army what took place during this
mournful eclipse of honor.
There have been massacres in history, abominable ones assuredly, but
they have possessed some show of reason; Saint Bartholomew and the
Dragonnades are explained by religion, the Sicilian Vespers and the
butcheries of September are explained by patriotism; they crush the
enemy or annihilate the foreigner; these are crimes for a good cause;
but the carnage of the Boulevard Montmartre is a crime without an
ostensible reason.
The reason exists, however. It is hideous.
Let us give it.
Two things stand erect in a State, the Law and the People.
A man murders the Law. He feels the punishment approaching, there only
remains one thing for him to do, to murder the People. He murders the
People.
The Second of December was the Risk, the Fourth was the Certainty.
Against the indignation which arose they opposed the Terror.
The Fury, Justice, halted petrified before the Fury, Extermination.
Against Erinnyes they set up Medusa.
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