The Committee of Public Safety accused the inhabitants of Anglomania, and ordered the ferocious Joseph Le Bon[1] to _visit_ this guiltless town and re-organise the constituted authorities. During those cruel days the _visit_ of a constitutional deputy was really the visit of a public executioner, and in the dismal catalogue of men who were distinguished by unfeeling severity, Le Bon was foremost. He had just perpetrated the most horrible cruelties at Arras before proceeding to Calais. The following anecdote will delineate the fierceness and brutality of his character. Two young ladies of Arras, neither of whom had attained the age of twenty, practising on the pianoforte the same morning that the news of the surrender of Valenciennes reached their city, Le Bon happened to pass their window and paused to listen. They were playing the tune, “Ça Ira,” a most revolutionary air, which one would have imagined was a proof of their civism. Nevertheless, by Le Bon’s orders, these beautiful girls were arrested, tried, and condemned the next day, and, notwithstanding their youth and innocence, were executed for “playing on the piano on the day the news of a Republican defeat had arrived, a defeat at which they evidently rejoiced.” [Sidenote: THE CITIZENS OF CALAIS] This atrocious action struck even Jacobins with horror. In the defence of the accused it was stated to the Revolutionary Tribune that “Ça Ira” was a Republican march, written to animate armies on the day of battle. To this Le Bon replied that this popular air had been converted into a vehicle of mischief, and that the _time_ these young people had selected for playing “Ça Ira” proved their evil dispositions. “They played ‘Ça Ira,’” said he, “for the Austrian army, they had doubtless heard of the surrender of Valenciennes, and they meant by Ça Ira, that they desired the Austrian advance and the capture of other French fortresses. Why did they not, if they were true patriots, play ‘Le Réveil du Peuple?’” This argument induced the jurors to condemn the unfortunate young persons to death. Thin, indeed, was the thread upon which human existence was suspended in these days of wretchedness and terror. The effect upon the minds of the people was to make the very name of liberty odious, and the vast majority sighed for a return of that ancient despotism in which they lived secure. Tormented by those who had abused their confidence and exasperated at the accumulation of public wrongs, they were prepared by degrees for those astonishing events which I shall relate in my future letters.