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The excerpt represents the core issue or deciding factor on which you must meditate, and is drawn from The Scarlet Pimpernel by Baroness Emmuska Orczy: only in name, for to the eye and ear they seem naught but savage
creatures, animated by vile passions and by the lust of vengeance and
of hate. The hour, some little time before sunset, and the place, the
West Barricade, at the very spot where, a decade later, a proud tyrant
raised an undying monument to the nation's glory and his own vanity.
During the greater part of the day the guillotine had been
kept busy at its ghastly work: all that France had boasted of in the
past centuries, of ancient names, and blue blood, had paid toll to her
desire for liberty and for fraternity. The carnage had only ceased at
this late hour of the day because there were other more interesting
sights for the people to witness, a little while before the final
The Scarlet Pimpernel |
