Note 409 — Chapter XXXVI
Reading edition
Reference, for the conduct of the terrorists and the executions at Paris, Nantes, and Lyons: Mathews, The French Revolution, Chapter XVII.
It should not be forgotten that very few of the people at Paris stood in any fear of the guillotine. The city during the Reign of Terror was not the gloomy place that we might imagine. Never did the inhabitants appear happier, never were the theaters and restaurants more crowded. The guillotine was making away with the enemies of liberty, so the women wore tiny guillotines as ornaments, and the children were given toy guillotines and amused themselves decapitating the figures of "aristocrats." See Stephens, French Revolution, Vol. II, pp. 343–361.