¶ The Queen, now in her dungeon, was treated with wretched dishonor. Even the petty expenses of bread and salt were begrudged: 15 francs a day for food; three francs and 18 sous for trimming a skirt, 18 sous for a ribbon and shoe-strings; three francs for a tooth wash;--all this was kept track of. Yet in years gone by France had allowed her four million francs of pin money, and the royal allowance was twenty-five millions of francs per annum. ¶ "Through a small window in her cell comes the light of day. * * * She is accused of being a leech, a scourge, a harpy and a free-lover; she is condemned to death." * * * * * ¶ The political assassins, known as the Mountain, and that known as the Girondists, now began destroying each other; every patriotic action of the Girondists was set forth as having been instigated by love of vulgar applause. After some days, the Jacobin Club petitioned for freer trials, less hindered by legal formalities. ¶ "Long live the Republic!" was the cry. "Perish all traitors!" Executions continued, day by day. ¶ The poor king was long since dead and gone, yet his memory was detested. On a certain day of horrors, the tombs of his ancestors were broken open by the mob, and the bones scattered. One corpse (or what remained of it) was stood up against a wall and the beard hacked off by a patriot of the new Regime. * * * * * ¶ All authority was now overthrown; and as one writer adds, "the most daring enterprise of the Revolution remains to be chronicled: the storming of Heaven!" (Henderson.) ¶ The leaders decided next to attack God on His throne; God was officially declared a superstitious myth. The altars of France were hurled over; the Christian era was abolished by political decree; the Sabbath day was officially proclaimed done away with; Christ was to be henceforth banished, officially; churches closed, pagan rites substituted. * * * * * ¶ Bismarck, the thinker, Bismarck, the builder, with his dream of political responsibility, of vested Authority, stood for no such facts in his protests against the rising tide of Radicalism, in the German states. He knew his history too well; he knew the satire of the French Revolution, the folly of meeting it in any way except by the sword. ¶ Yes, Bismarck believed strongly in what has since been called Militarism; but his idea was that power was needed for the liberation and the unification of his country; and he hated French Constitutionalism and fought by fair means and by foul all efforts to warp upon Germans the political ideals of the French Revolution. So you must here and now make up your mind whether or not Bismarck was a great statesman or a great fool. * * * * * ¶ The French Convention, weary of blood-letting, began maundering in the psychology of religion.