These inspiring sentiments, sung in the thrilling notes of the Marseilles Hymn, were echoed from one end of the land to the other, awakening a whirlwind of enthusiasm. The wants of thousands thrown out of employ, joined with the excitement of patriotism, raised an army unparalleled in numbers. It is calculated that, at one time, one million two hundred thousand Frenchmen were thus enrolled, and at the command of the National Legislature, while the millions of property, not otherwise squandered, were employed to clothe, feed, and equip this incomprehensible multitude. All France was bristling like an armed field; while every mandate of government, backed as it was by such a military force, was utterly resistless. Thus it was that the _Reign of Terror_ was so silent, awful, and hopeless. Behold, then, through the terror-stricken and miserable land, the national troops employed in arresting every person suspected of favouring aristocracy, or conspicuous as the holder of wealth, or object of hate, envy, or suspicion to all in the possession of power. Behold the prisons of the capital, of the provincial cities, and of the country villages, crammed to overflowing with the rich, the noble, and the learned. No regard was paid to station, age, or sex. Gray hairs and blooming childhood, stern warriors and beautiful maidens, coarse labourers and noble matrons, were huddled together into the damps, and filth, and darkness of a common dungeon, while the _guillotine_ daily toiled in its bloody work of death.