According to Robespierre, however, the axe of the guillotine did not
do sufficient execution. One of his satellites announced to him the
invention of an instrument which struck off nine heads at once: the
discovery pleased him, and he caused several trials of this new
machine to be made at _Bicetre_. It did not answer; but human nature
gained nothing by its failure. Instead of half a dozen victims a day,
Robespierre wished to have daily fifty or sixty, or more; and he was
but too well obeyed. Not only had he his own private lists of
proscription; but all his creatures, from the president of the
revolutionary tribunal down to the under-jailers, had similar lists;
and the _almanac royal_, or French court calendar, was converted into
one by himself.
The inhabitants of the streets through which the unfortunate
sufferers were carried, wearied at length by the daily sight of so
melancholy a spectacle, ventured to utter complaints. Robespierre, no
less suspicious than cruel, was alarmed, and, dreading an
insurrection, removed the scene of slaughter. The scaffold was
erected on the _Place de la Bastille_: but the inhabitants of this
quarter also murmured, and the guillotine was transferred to the
_Barriere St. Antoine_.
Had not this modern Nero been cut off in the midst of his cruelties,
it is impossible to say where he would have stopped.
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