There were two "Reigns of Terror," if we would but remember it and consider it;

the one wrought murder in hot passion, the other in heartless cold blood;

the one lasted mere months, the other had lasted a thousand years;

the one inflicted death upon ten thousand persons, the other upon a hundred millions;

but our shudders are all for the "horrors" of the minor Terror, the momentary Terror, so to speak;

whereas, what is the horror of swift death by the axe, compared with lifelong death from hunger, cold, insult, cruelty, and heart-break?

What is swift death by lightning compared with death by slow fire at the stake?

A city cemetery could contain the coffins filled by that brief Terror which we have all been so diligently taught to shiver at and mourn over;

but all France could hardly contain the coffins filled by that older and real Terror--that unspeakably bitter and awful Terror which none of us has been taught to see in its vastness or pity as it deserves.

Mark Twain, 1889. A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur’s Court. Ch. XIII.