Page:History of the Guillotine.djvu/79

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64
ESSAY ON THE GUILLOTINE.

Carrousel;[1] about the middle of October it appears to have been removed for one day to the Place de Greve for the execution of nine emigrants condemned by a military commission, but it was again removed on the 30th of October to the Place Louis XV., now called de la Révolution, for the execution of two of the robbers of the Garde-Meuble, which our readers know was situated on the north side of that square.

It is quite clear that the Massacres had done what the Tribunal had been intended to do, and had in truth superseded it—those whom it was meant to try had been more expeditiously murdered—and, therefore, in order that it might have something to occupy its time, the ordinary criminal business of the metropolis was, by a decree of the 11th of September, 1792, transferred to it; and it was in consequence of this decree that it tried and sent to the guillotine the robbers of the Garde-Meuble, and was busy with the trial of many minor offences, when suddenly, without notice or reason given, on the morning of the 1st of December (misdated, with the usual inaccuracy of the bulletins of these revolutionary courts, 31st of November), the tribunal found itself dissolved by a decree,of the preceding day. This sudden suppression of this formidable tribunal, the creation of which had occasioned such violent discussions, seems to have taken place

  1. So it would seem from the evidence of Peltier and others, but we rather believe that it was in general, if not always, during this earlier period, removed and put up again on each occasion. See Dulaure's Mém., Rev. Ret. iii. 3, 6, 12.