of national sovereignty. The Constitution adopted in that year caused severe friction between the King and the masses; and Louis XVI was defeated in the struggle which ensued. He was suspended from office by the Legislative Assembly on the 10th of August, 1792, and the authority was vested in a provisional Executive Council. The horrible massacres of September were the forerunner of the establishment of the Republic. The National Convention soon assumed supreme authority, chiefly through its famous Committee on Public Safety. By the Reign of Terror which he inaugurated, Robespierre in 1793 became the master of France. In the mean time, in order to assert the complete severance between them and the long-established monarchy which had held sway in their country, the people caused the unfortunate King Louis XVI, who had been formally deposed in September, 1792, to be guillotined on the 21st of January, 1793. The province of Vendée rose up in arms; and the atrocities of a civil war were added to the horrors of the foreign war which at the time was being waged against France. In their mad frenzy the French mercilessly slaughtered one another. The inhabitants of Vendée hunted down the Republicans like wild beasts, women being often seen giving the finishing stroke to the victims. The Republicans, in their turn,, gave no quarter to their enemies. Carrier, at Nantes, ordered many innocent people to be drowned; at Lyon the prisoners were mowed down with grape-shot. Threatened from abroad by the coalition of Europe and at home by the insurgents, the new government regarded as its enemies all those who did not profess their admiration of it, the slightest act of opposition being considered treasonable. And, according to the law adopted in September, 1793 (Loi des Suspects), "all of those who had done nothing for the cause of liberty" were liable to be held as foes whom it was well to be rid of. This was a year of unequalled bloodshed; the prisons were overcrowded and the guillotine never ceased in its ghastly function. Men and women alike fell victims to it. Marie-Antoinette, the ill-fated Queen
