India 2001 books

Santerre seated himself with two of his officers in the largest of the
salons, and ordered that the old Marquis should be brought before him.
He was rather perplexed as to what he should next do; his orders were
to destroy everything--houses, property, and life; to spare neither age,
sex, nor imbecility; and Santerre, undertaking the commission, had
thought, in his republican zeal, that he would find no weakness in
himself to militate against the execution of such orders. He was
mistaken in himself, however. He had led the fierce mobs of Paris to
acts of bloodshed and violence, but in doing so he had only assisted
with an eager hand in the overthrow of those who he thought were
tyrannizing over the people. He had stood by at the execution of a King,
and ordered the drums to beat to drown the last words of the dying
monarch; but the King had been condemned by those whom Santerre looked
on as the wisest and best of the nation; and in acting as he had done,
he had been carried on as well by ideas of duty as excitement.


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