Branded enemies of the "progress of public spirit," [the Carmelite nuns of Compiegne] were killed as part of the [French] Revolution's systematic effort to efface all trace of the living God from France.
Priests and nuns were jailed and killed by the score, churches confiscated, seminaries and religious houses closed. Notre Dame Cathedral was desecrated and refashioned as a pagan "Temple of Reason." During the height of the Terror in Paris, wild mobs would gather each day to cheer the executioners on, the air thick with the stench of their victims decomposing in open mass graves.
But witnesses say something remarkable happened on July 17, 1794. As sixteen Carmelites filed up the scaffold singing hymns, the feverish crowd fell silent for no apparent reason. All that could be heard were the strains of the nuns singing the Salve Regina, a hymn to the Blessed Mother, and the Te Deum, the ancient Catholic hymn to the Trinity. That, and the sound of the blade lopping off their heads, one by one. Ten days later, the Reign of Terror abruptly ended as Robespierre and his revolutionary government collapsed.
The Catholic Passion, p. 47.
I'm about one-fourth of the way through this book, which was issued just a few weeks ago. I plan to write about it after I finish it, but so far, it's an excellent book and, flipping through the coming chapters, I think it will get even better.
