In a period of fifteen months, it has been calculated, about 17,000 persons had been executed in France under form of law. The number of those who were shot, drowned or otherwise massacred without the pretence of a trial can never be accurately known, but must be reckoned far greater. The number of persons arrested and imprisoned reached hundreds of thousands, of whom many died in their crowded and filthy jails. The names on the list of _emigres_ at the close of the Terror were about 150,000. Of these a small proportion had borne arms against their country. The rest were either harmless fugitives from destruction or had never quitted France and had been placed on the list simply in order that they might incur the penalties of emigration. Every one of this multitude was liable to instant death if found in French territory. Their relatives were subjected to various pains and penalties. All the property of those condemned to death and of _emigres_ was confiscated. The carnage of the Terror spread far beyond the clergy and the nobility, beyond even the middle class, for peasants and artisans were among the victims. It spread far beyond those who could conspire or rebel, for bedridden old men and women and young boys and girls were often sacrificed. It made most havoc in the flower of the nation, since every kind of eminence marked men for death. By imbuing Frenchmen with such a mutual hatred as nothing but the arm of despotic power could control the Reign of Terror rendered political liberty impossible for many years. The rule of the Terrorists made inevitable the reign of Napoleon. Reaction after the Terror.