IN

the fourteenth century there was built at Paris a massive fortress or castle as a place of refuge in case of invasion. As the nation grew strong this use was forgotton and the French monarchs transformed it into a prison of state. Its stone walls were strengthened with vast bulwarks and moats. Four strong towers, five stories high, were placed on each side, and from tower to tower ran a gallery which bristled with cannon. In these towers and in dungeons beneath the floor many a wretched prisoner, guilty of no crime, but the victim of priestly bigotry or royal malice, had languished and died, till the people had come to look upon it with horror and hatred as an instrument of cruelty and a threat to their liberties.

At last the hour of their vengeance arrived. It is the 14th of July, 1789, a day that shall be remembered while France is a nation. A band of men wearing on their heads a red woolen cap, and most of them armed, gather around it, chanting insurrectionary songs. The noise attracts others. Soon there is a turbu lent crowd, and it is evident that mischief is brewing. Only last night their souls had been fired as orator Desmoulins, mounted

the ascendant, or gathered in the harvest of death over so boundless a field? Not without reason has the historian of that period called it, "the most active, splendid, and extensive war that ever divided the human race; the most bloody between disciplined armies, and the most general in Europe, since that which was closed by the peace of Westphalia."

And remembering that the weight of it fell on Protestant Prussia and other countries "without the city" (or not very closely connected with apostate Babylon), we find a marvelous fulfillment of the vision of the second sickle: "AND ANOTHER ANGEL CAME OUT FROM THE TEMPLE WHICH IS IN HEAVEN, HE ALSO HAVING A SHARP SICKLE. AND ANOTHER ANGEL CAME OUT FROM THE ALTAR, HE THAT HATH POWER OVER THE FIRE; AND HE CALLED WITH A GREAT VOICE TO HIM THAT HAD THE SHARP SICKLE, SAYING, SEND FORTH THE SHARP SICKLE, AND GATHER THE CLUSTERS OF THE VINE OF THE EARTH; FOR HER GRAPES ARE FULLY RIPE. AND THE ANGEL CAST HIS SICKLE INTO THE EARTH, AND GATHERED THE VINTAGE OF THE EARTH, AND CAST IT INTO THE WINEPRESS, THE GREAT WINEPRESS OF THE WRATH OF GOD. AND THE WINEPRESS WAS TRODDEN WITHOUT THE CITY,

AND THERE CAME OUT BLOOD FROM THE WINEPRESS, EVEN UNTO THE

BRIDLES OF THE HORSES, AS FAR AS A THOUSAND AND SIX HUNDRED FURLONGS."

IN

N the fourteenth century there was built at Paris a massive fortress or castle as a place of refuge in case of invasion. As the nation grew strong this use was forgotton and the French monarchs transformed it into a prison of state. Its stone walls were strengthened with vast bulwarks and moats. Four strong towers, five stories high, were placed on each side, and from tower to tower ran a gallery which bristled with cannon. In these towers and in dungeons beneath the floor many a wretched prisoner, guilty of no crime, but the victim of priestly bigotry or royal malice, had languished and died, till the people had come to look upon it with horror and hatred as an instrument of cruelty and a threat to their liberties.

At last the hour of their vengeance arrived. It is the 14th of July, 1789, a day that shall be remembered while France is a nation. A band of men wearing on their heads a red woolen cap, and most of them armed, gather around it, chanting insur rectionary songs. The noise attracts others. Soon there is a turbu lent crowd, and it is evident that mischief is brewing. Only last night their souls had been fired as orator Desmoulins, mounted