ABSTRACT
Paris has three dates of this kind: 1418, 1572, and 1792, not counting 1357-1358 and 1381-1382.
However, the murdering of numerous common criminals and accused indicates that this time, except for a number of aristocrats, Swiss officers, and the insermentés [the unsworn] – those to whom Danton made the cross at the edge – no specific vengeance was sought, but bloodshed per se, in order to give the Revolution its true temper. On the other hand, that moral indignation was not involved here is borne out by the fact that prisons were opened and rogues were released, so that for a week nobody was safe from robbery in the streets. Both things were done so as to have prison space available for new victims.
