But that still wasn’t enough. The people wanted no king at all to rule over them. So about a year later they started a real republic like our own, and the king was sentenced to death. A Frenchman had invented a kind of machine with a big knife for chopping off heads. This was called the guillotine, and it was used instead of an ax, for it was quicker and surer. So the king was taken to the guillotine, and his head was cut off. But the people did not settle down quiet and contented when they had got rid of their king. They were afraid that those who were in favor of kings might start another kingdom. The people chose red, white, and blue as their colors and the “Marseillaise” as their national song; and everywhere they marched they carried the tricolor, as they called the three-colored flag, and as they marched they sang the “Marseillaise.” Then began what is called the Reign of Terror, and this is a tale of blood. A man named Robespierre and two of his friends were leaders in this Reign of Terror. Any one whom the people suspected of being in favor of kings they caught and beheaded. The queen was one of the first to have her head cut off. If any one even whispered, “there’s a man, or there’s a woman, or there’s a child who is in favor of kings,” that man, woman, or child would be rushed to the guillotine. If any one simply hated another and wished to get rid of him, all he had to do was to point him out as in favor of kings, and off he would be taken to the guillotine. No one was sure of his life for a day. He never knew what moment some personal enemy might accuse him. Hundreds, then thousands, of suspected people were beheaded, and a special sewer had to be built to carry off the blood. But the guillotine, fast as it was, was too slow for the Terrorists. It could cut off but one head at a time, and so prisoners were lined up and shot down with cannons. People seemed to have gone wild, crazy, mad! They insulted Christ and the Christian religion. They put a pretty woman called the Goddess of Reason on the altar of the beautiful Church of Notre Dame and worshiped her instead of the Lord. They pulled down statues and pictures of Christ and the Virgin Mary. In their places they put statues and pictures of their own leaders. The guillotine was put up in place of the cross. They did away with Sundays. They made a week ten days long, and every tenth day they made a holiday instead of Sunday. They stopped counting time from Christ’s birth, because they didn’t want anything that had to do with Christ, and they began to call the year when the republic was started in 1792 the year 1.