Pagina 824 de 896

In the black prison of the Conciergerie, the doomed of the day

awaited their fate. They were in number as the weeks of the year.

Fifty-two were to roll that afternoon on the life-tide of the

city to the boundless everlasting sea. Before their cells were

quit of them, new occupants were appointed; before their blood

ran into the blood spilled yesterday, the blood that was to

mingle with theirs to-morrow was already set apart.

Two score and twelve were told off. From the farmer-general of

seventy, whose riches could not buy his life, to the seamstress

of twenty, whose poverty and obscurity could not save her.

Physical diseases, engendered in the vices and neglects of men,

will seize on victims of all degrees; and the frightful moral

disorder, born of unspeakable suffering, intolerable oppression,

and heartless indifference, smote equally without distinction.