All this is not enough; the two cities that dared maintain a siege must disappear from the French soil. The Convention decrees that "the city of Lyons shall be destroyed: every house occupied by a rich man shall be demolished; only the dwellings of the poor shall remain, with edifices specially devoted to industry, and monuments consecrated to humanity and public education."[1199] The same at Toulon: "the houses within the town shall be demolished; only the buildings that are essential for army and navy purposes, for stores and munitions, shall be preserved."[11100] Consequently, a requisition is made in Var and the neighboring departments for twelve thousand masons to level Toulon to the ground.--At Lyons, fourteen thousand laborers pull down the Chateau Pierre-Encize; also the superb houses on Place Bellecour, those of the Quai St.-Clair, those of the Rues de Flandre and de Bourgneuf, and many others; the cost of all this amounts to four hundred thousand livres per decade; in six months the Republic expends fifteen millions in destroying property valued at three or four hundred millions, all belonging to the Republic.[11101] Since the Mongols of the fifth and thirteenth centuries, no such vast and irrational waste had been seen--such frenzy against the most profitable fruits of industry and human civilization.--Again, one can understand how the Mongols, who were nomads, desired to convert the soil into one vast steppe. But, to demolish a town whose arsenal and harbor is maintained by it, to destroy the leaders of manufacturing interests and their dwellings in a city where its workmen and factories are preserved, to keep up a fountain and stop the stream which flows from it, or the stream without the fountain, is so absurd that the idea could only enter the head of a Jacobin. His imagination has run so wild and his prevision become so limited that he is no longer aware of contradictions; the ferocious stupidity of the barbarian and the fixed idea of the inquisition meet on common ground; the earth is not big enough for any but himself and the orthodox of his species. Employing absurd, inflated and sinister terms he decrees the extermination of heretics: not only shall their monuments, dwellings and persons be destroyed, but every vestige of them shall be eradicated and their names lost to the memory of man.[11102] "The name of Toulon shall be abolished; that commune shall henceforth bear the name of Port-la-Montagne."--"The name of Lyons shall be stricken off the list of towns belonging to the Republic; the remaining collection of houses shall henceforth bear the name of Ville-Affranchie. A column shall be erected on the ruins of Lyons bearing this inscription: 'Lyons made war on Liberty! Lyons is no more!'" X. Destruction of the Girondin party Destruction of the Girondin party.--Proscription of the Deputies of the "Right".--Imprisonment of the 73.--Execution of the 21.--Execution, suicide, or flight of the rest.