Whenever a fresh supply of funds was demanded for the national service, a new alarm of _invasion_ or of _counter-revolution_ was spread, and then followed new arrests of those suspected, or of those who held any species of wealth. In disposing of captives to make room for new supplies, some were poniarded in prison, some shot, and some guillotined. At last, it was found needful to adopt a more summary method, and the National Legislature decreed that the land must be cleared of traitors and aristocrats, not by trial and single execution, but by a slaughter of masses. A corps was formed of the most determined and bloodthirsty, and sent all over the land to execute this mandate. In carrying out this unparalleled system of cold-blooded murder, various modes were adopted. One was called the _Republican Baptism_, by which men, women, and children were placed in a vessel with a trap-door in the bottom, and carried out into the midst of the waves; then the trap-door was opened, and the crew, getting into a boat, left their victims to perish. Another method was called the _Republican Marriage_. By this, two of the opposite sex, generally an old person and a young one, were bereft of all clothing, then tied together, and, after being tortured a while, thrown into the waves. Another mode was called the _mitrillade_ or _fusillade_. Sixty, or more, captives were bound, and ranged in two files along a deep ditch dug for the purpose. At the two extremities of each file, were placed cannons loaded with grapeshot, and, at a given signal, these were discharged on this mass of human beings. But a few were entirely killed at the first discharge. Wounded and mutilated, they fell in heaps, or crawled forth, and, with piercing shrieks, entreated the soldiers to end their sufferings with death. Three successive discharges did not accomplish the work, which was finally ended by the swords of the soldiery. Next day, the same scene was renewed on a larger scale, more than two hundred prisoners being thus destroyed. This was repeated day after day; while, on one occasion, the commanding officer rose from a carouse, and with thirty Jacobins and twenty courtesans, went out to enjoy a view of the horrid scene. At Toulon the mitrillades were repeated, till at least eight hundred were thus slaughtered in a population of less than ten thousand. In Lyons, during only five months, six thousand persons suffered death, and among these were a great portion of the noblest and most virtuous citizens. At Toulon, one of the victims was an old man of eighty-four, and his only crime was the possession of eighty thousand pounds, of which he offered all but a mere trifle to escape so shocking a death, but in vain. Bonaparte, who saw these horrors, says, “When I beheld this poor old man executed, I felt as if the end of the world was at hand.”