All did not have the good fortune of St. Meard. The case of the Princesse de {154} Lamballe, at La Force, must serve to give the worst side of, and to close, this chapter of blood. Long the friend, confidante and agent of the Queen, she had followed her to the Temple, and had been removed from there but a few days previously. She was too well known and too near Marie Antoinette to have any chance of escape. In a fainting condition she was dragged before the tribunal, and was soon passed out to the executioners. It is not probable that she had much consciousness of what followed. The gang of murderers at this point were butchers of the Halles, and they apparently treated their victim as they might have a beast brought to the slaughter. She was carried under the arms to where a pile of bodies had accumulated, and, in a moment made ready, was butchered in the technical sense of the term. Her head was hoisted on a pike, as also other parts of her dismembered anatomy, and carried in triumph to be displayed under the windows of the prisoners at the Temple. Verdun fell on the 2d of September, at the very moment when Danton was announcing its continued resistance. On the 5th the Duke of Brunswick resumed his march on Paris, and {155} on the same day, the electors of that city met and chose twenty deputies to the convention; their choice was coloured by the fact that the massacres were still continuing. At the head of the poll stood Robespierre; Danton was next; among the others may be noted Camille Desmoulins, Marat, and, last of all, the duc d'Orleans, who a few days later metamorphosed his Bourbon name into Philippe _Egalite_. Throughout France the electoral process was everywhere giving much the same result. Less than one-tenth of the electors used their franchise; and the extreme party won great successes. By the middle of September the new deputies were reaching Paris. The _Legislative_ in its last moments was feeble and undignified. Marat threatened it with massacre, and declared that its members were as much the enemies of the country as were the imprisoned aristocrats. Under this menace the Legislative watched the massacres of September without raising a hand to protect its unfortunate victims. Danton did the same. As minister of Justice the prisoners and the tribunals were under his special charge. But although he may have facilitated the escape of some individuals, and although he took no direct {156} part, yet he believed that no government could be established strong enough to save the Revolution, at such a crisis as it had reached, save by paying this toll of blood to the suspicion, the vengeance, the cruelty, the justice of the people. He dared to pay the price, and later he, and he alone, dared to shoulder the responsibility. {157} CHAPTER XI ENDING THE MONARCHY