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France was permeated with archaic thought which disorganized the
emerging society until it seemingly had no cohesion. To the French
emigrant on the Rhine that society appeared like a vile phantom which
had but to be exorcised to vanish. And the exorcism to which he had
recourse was threats of vengeance, threats which before had terrified,
because they had behind them a force which made them good. Torture had
been an integral part of the old law. The peasant expected it were he
insubordinate. Death alone was held to be too little to inspire respect
for caste. Some frightful spectacle was usually provided to magnify
authority. Thus Bouille broke on the wheel, while the men were yet
alive, every bone in the bodies of his soldiers when they disobeyed him;
and for scratching Louis XV, with a knife, Damiens, after indescribable
agonies, was torn asunder by horses in Paris, before an immense
multitude. The French emigrants believed that they had only to threaten
with a similar fate men like Kellermann and Hoche to make them flee
without a blow. What chiefly concerned the nobles, therefore, was not to
evolve a masterly campaign, but to propound the fundamental principles
of monarchy, and to denounce an awful retribution on insurgents.
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