Septembrists

Septembrists, the perpetrators of the atrocious September massacres in the prisons of Paris, which went on continuously for six days and five nights, September 2-7, 1792. Every violent movement in the history of Paris during the fever of Revolution was a counterpart to some menace or disaster on the frontier, and the immediate occasion of this crowning atrocity was the reaction of panic at the capture of Longwy and Verdun by the Prussians. It assured the political power of the Commune and controlled the elections to the Convention. Las Cases tells us that Napoleon found himself able to suggest apologies for the atrocity in the exigencies of the moment. M. Taine gives the number of victims as follows: 171 at the Abbaye, 169 at La Force, 223 at the Château, 328 at the Conciergerie, 73 at the Tour-Saint Bernard, 120 at the Carmelites, 79 at Saint-Firmin, 170 at Bicêtre, 35 at the Salpêtrière; among them 250 priests and the Princess de Lamballe. See DANTON, MARAT, and ROBESPIERRE.