THE REAL FRENCH REVOLUTIONIST
 
 ISAAC FOOT" 
 
 LIBRARY
 
 ,THE EEAL 
 FRENCH REVOLUTIONIST 
 
 BY 
 
 HENRY JEPHSON 
 
 AUTHOR OF 'THE PLATFORM — ITS RISE AND PROGRESS ' 
 
 iLontron 
 
 MAC MILL AN AND CO., Limited 
 
 NEW YORK: THE MACMILLAN COMPANY 
 1899 
 
 All rights reserved
 
 PREFACE 
 
 In recent years there has been published in France a 
 very large number of books and magazine articles which 
 have given a great deal of new information about the 
 French Eevolution. 
 
 A set of able, conscientious, hard-working searchers 
 for historical truth have devoted the best years of their 
 lives to the examination of hitherto unattainable or 
 unused material : the local archives — the records of local 
 courts of justice — the registers of prisons — the minutes 
 of proceedings of the local administrations. 
 
 Messieurs Taine, Berriat Saint Prix, and Wallon have 
 done great service in this respect as regards France as 
 a whole ; but in the west of France, which was the 
 scene of the A r endean struggle, Messieurs Ch-L. Chassin, 
 Benjamin Fillon, A. Lallie, Charles Dugast-Matifeux, 
 Camille Bourcier, and many others have been working 
 on the same lines, and have brought to light a mass of 
 documents of the utmost value. Startling facts have 
 been discovered, details of events hitherto buried in 
 obscurity have been unearthed, and the workings of the 
 minds and the true characters of many revolutionists 
 revealed and laid bare to the world. 
 
 The results of the toil of these labourers in the field
 
 vi THE REAL FEEXCH REVOLUTIONIST 
 
 of history have from time to time been published, either 
 in reviews and magazines such as "La Revolution Fran- 
 raise," " La Revue tie Bretagne," " La Revue de la 
 Revolution," or as books such as M. Berriat Saint Prix's 
 La Justice Eevolutionnaire or M. Chassin's series of 
 works on La Vendee. 
 
 Also in the older and contemporary books upon the 
 subject, of which there is such a splendid collection in 
 the British Museum, there is a mass of material which 
 has been but very partially drawn upon by historians or 
 brought within the reach of the general reader. 
 
 As the facts stated in these works must profoundly 
 moilify the views generally held on the subject of that 
 Revolution, it is desirable that a wider public attention 
 should be directed to them than they have hitherto 
 received. 
 
 The information being derived almost exclusively 
 from revolutionary records, and the opinions being 
 mostly those of contemporary republicans — actors and 
 participators in the events described, whatever accounts 
 of revolutionary methods and proceedings are given can 
 scarcely be censured on account of anti-republican bias. 
 
 Notes on each page giving the exact chapter and verse 
 for verification of each statement are a constant inter- 
 ruption to a narrative. Instead thereof is given in an 
 Appendix to this work a list of the principal books 
 which have been utilised. The more recent ones are 
 easily obtainable. The earlier and rarer works are to be 
 found in the British Museum.
 
 CONTENTS 
 
 CHAPTER I 
 
 PAGE 
 
 The Vendue ..... I 
 
 CHAPTER II 
 
 The Causes of the Vendean War — Part I. . .9 
 
 CHAPTER III 
 The Causes of the Vendean War — Part II. . 2G 
 
 CHAPTER IV 
 
 The Vendean War— Part I. . . .40 
 
 CHAPTER V 
 
 The Vendean War— Part II. . . . .55 
 
 CHAPTER VI 
 
 Revolutionary Tribunals and .Military Commissions . 70
 
 viii THE REAL FRENCH REVOLUTIONIST 
 
 CHAPTER VII 
 
 PACK 
 
 The Vendean War — Part III. . . . 82 
 
 CHAPTER VIII 
 The Vendean War— Part IV. . . . .94 
 
 CHAPTER IX 
 The Vendean War— Part V. . . . .108 
 
 CHAPTER X 
 Pi evolutionary Organisation 123 
 
 CHAPTER XI 
 Religious Liberty . . . . .144 
 
 CHAPTER XII 
 Nantes . . .152 
 
 CHAPTER XIII 
 ' The Calvary of the Vendeans' . . ICG 
 
 CHAPTER XIV 
 
 Extermination .... .180 
 
 CHAPTER XV 
 The Terror at Angers . . . 210
 
 CONTENTS 
 
 CHAPTER XVI 
 
 PACK 
 
 Noirmoutier . . . . . .229 
 
 CHAPTER XVII 
 
 XOYADES AND FUSILLADES . . . .239 
 
 CHAPTER XVIII 
 
 Carrier and the Revolutionary Committee of Nantes 260 
 
 CHAPTER XIX 
 
 Terror . . .... 280 
 
 CHAPTER XX 
 
 Nature's Protest ..... 290 
 
 CHAPTER XXI 
 
 •The Infernal Columns' — Part I. . . 293 
 
 CHAPTER XXII 
 ' The Infernal Columns' — Part II. . .312 
 
 CHAPTER XXIII 
 
 The Recall of Carrier .... 324 
 
 CHAPTER XXIV 
 
 'The Infernal Columns'— Part III. . . . 3:53
 
 x THE HEAL FRENCH REVOLUTIONIST 
 
 CHAPTER XXV 
 
 I 'A OF 
 
 A Representative's Expenditure . . . 357 
 
 CHAPTER XXVI 
 The Towxs after Carrier's Recall . . . 360 
 
 CHAPTER XXVII 
 
 The Country after Turreac's Recall . . .373 
 
 CHAPTER XXVIII 
 
 Retribution and Amnesty .... 384 
 
 CHAPTER XXIX 
 Vendean Victory ..... 396 
 
 CHAPTER XXX 
 
 Conclusion . . . . . .410 
 
 Appendix . . ... 425 
 
 Index . . .... i29
 
 CHAPTER I 
 
 THE VENDKE 
 
 In the mid-west of France, just south of where the 
 Loire liows into the Atlantic, lies the Department which 
 gave its name to the great civil war in that country in 
 the latter part of the last century — La Vendee. 
 
 There, when French society was being shattered to 
 its foundations by the fearful upheaval of the French 
 Revolution, a prolonged and desperate conflict took place, 
 which for splendid heroism on one side, and brutal 
 ferocity on the other, finds scarcely a parallel in modern 
 history. 
 
 That conflict, remarkable in itself in many ways, is 
 now, however, mainly memorable for its connection with 
 the infinitely greater event — the French Revolution, and 
 for the illuminating light it throws upon aspects of that 
 Revolution which are of the highest importance. 
 
 And the light is welcome ; for that Revolution, with 
 its violences, and horrors, and confused din of strife of 
 voice and sword, remains one of the most momentous and 
 inscrutable events in the world's history. 
 
 More than a century has passed since it took place, 
 but interest in it has not flagged nor waned. Men are 
 
 B
 
 2 THE REAL FRENCH REVOLUTIONIST ch. 
 
 still examining and discussing its principles, its incidents, 
 and its effects, — in fact everything in connection with it, 
 — in the hope of even yet discovering therein some clues 
 to help in the unravelment of the tangled skein of human 
 tendencies and passions, or of gaining inspiration for the 
 solution of some of the great problems which so cease- 
 lessly confront human society. 
 
 Is it, men still ask, in that direction that lies the 
 amelioration, the regeneration of the social fabric ''. 
 
 Or, is that Revolution, like the flashings of the light- 
 house across the stormy waters of the deep, a warning 
 to humanity from steering to shipwreck and destruction ? 
 
 In the true answer to those questions lies, so far as 
 is permitted to us in this stage of the world's progress to 
 discern, much of the future peace, happiness, and pros- 
 perity of civilised mankind. 
 
 It has been hitherto by far ton generally the practice 
 to judge the French Revolution by the events which 
 occurred in Paris. Certainly there was a great tempta- 
 tion to do so; for their startling nature, their lurid 
 horror, the thrilling incidents of the overthrow of the 
 monarchy, the fierce struggle of Girondists and Jacobins, 
 the courageous efforts to repel the onslaught of foreign 
 foes, all these fascinate by their interest. 
 
 Important as those events were, however, they 
 formed but a part of the Revolution of which France, 
 and not only Paris, was the scene. And being but a 
 part, they give a very dubious, indeed a misleading, light 
 on th^ great issue of that terrible convulsion. 
 
 Pari- was under the eyes of Europe; the incidents 
 there in the great drama were reported daily in the 
 Parisian press, and were discussed by many of the ablest 
 writers and speakers of the time: actions had to some 
 extent to be modified, because they had to be justified
 
 i THE VENDEE 3 
 
 or accounted for ; certain semblances had to be kept up : 
 and reasons sometimes vouchsafed for particular lines of 
 policy. 
 
 The Revolutionary Government in Paris was therefore 
 somewhat hampered and restrained by opposition and by 
 publicity : revolutionary principles did not have really 
 free play : and the character of the revolutionist was not 
 seen in its completeness. 
 
 But in France, as apart from Paris, the circumstances 
 were different. The country and the country-towns 
 were out of European ken ; and restraining or impeding 
 influences there, of any and every sort, were non-existent, 
 in them the revolutionist had a completely clear held 
 for putting into action all his theories and principles, 
 and free hands to do exactly as his feelings or ideas 
 prompted him. 
 
 In them, therefore, his true character is unfolded to 
 our eyes, and the actual workings of the Republican 
 Government are presented undisturbed by any dis- 
 torting medium. 
 
 And even still better and more clearly are these most 
 instructive results displayed in the actions of the revolu- 
 tionists in the Vendee ; for there the Revolution was 
 seen, not in its dealings with a. tyrannical monarch or a 
 worthless aristocracy, hut in its dealings with the people 
 — with the humblest, poorest, most hard-working classes 
 of society — exactly those whom, theoretically, the Revolu- 
 tion was supposed to emancipate and benefit. 
 
 And the prolonged resistance made by the Vendeans 
 to the Revolutionary Government brought into operation 
 a whole phase of revolutionary activities and character- 
 istics which showed themselves to only a limited extent 
 in Paris. 
 
 Hence, the actions of the revolutionists in and around
 
 4 THE HEAL FRENCH REVOLUTIONIST « H . 
 
 the Vendee, and of the Revolutionary Government in 
 combating the Vendeans, are of entirely exceptional 
 
 value. 
 
 They throw, as it were, Rontgen rays on the nature 
 and methods and character of the French revolutionist 
 and republican, piercing through outward semblances and 
 asseverations, and revealing to us the actualities, the 
 innermost verities. The principles, policy, ideas, and the 
 very nature of the revolutionist are shown to us, no 
 longer as mere abstract theories, about which there might 
 be any amount of debate, but in unimpeded operation, 
 and being tested by actual experiment. The system and 
 machinery of republican government is displayed actually 
 at work in the country. 
 
 And the result is the most complete and realistic 
 picture of the French revolutionist in his genuine 
 character, and the most impressive illustration of French 
 revolutionary principles in untrammelled operation. 
 
 Which things, as they help mankind in its onward 
 march, are the only compensations, the only consolations, 
 for a shuddering humanity, as it peers into the seething 
 hell of human passions and brutalities presented to its 
 affrighted gaze. 
 
 The scene of the sad, yet most instructive, drama was 
 not an extensive one. Known generally as the Vendee, 
 it was made up of parts of the old provinces of Poitou, 
 Anjou, and Brittany. The majestic Loire swept along 
 its northern portion, whilst its western side was caressed 
 by the ebb and flow of the Atlantic tides, or fiercely 
 battered by the tremendous waves of the great ocean as 
 they rolled in on its shores. 
 
 South and east it had no precise boundaries; but 
 a line drawn parallel to the Loire from Saumur to its
 
 r THE VENDEE 5 
 
 estuary, and some sixty miles south, would approximately 
 enclose the whole area. 
 
 More than once, however, the strife between Yendean 
 and revolutionist flowed across the river on to the 
 north side of the Loire ; indeed Nantes, which might be 
 regarded as practically the capital of the Vendee, and 
 Angers also were throughout involved in and often the 
 centres of revolutionary and Venclean operations. 
 
 This comparatively small extent of country was very 
 varied in character. There was the Plain, an uninterest- 
 ing, somewhat monotonous tract of rich agricultural 
 land ; the Marais, or marsh districts near the estuary 
 of the Loire, — a half- reclaimed, half- submerged fen 
 country, intersected in every direction by great ditches 
 and canals. And there was the Bocage, a beautiful 
 bewildering labyrinth of hills and valleys and woods. 
 
 The physical conformation of this Bocage had a great 
 influence on the fortunes of the war waged on its soil. 
 Successive ranges of low hills spread out in all direc- 
 tions over its surface; with successive series of valleys 
 or ravines lying between them, each with its meandering 
 stream or river flowing towards the Loire. 
 
 Clothing many of the hillsides were forests and 
 woods and trees, with that dee]) richness of vegetation 
 which is produced by the rain-laden breezes of the 
 Atlantic. Down to the very last detail it was a 
 Bocage, a leafy bower. Where the trees were not massed 
 together, they grew in rows in tin; fences: and where 
 the land was not under cultivation, or covered witb 
 trees, it was decked with great stretches of gorse and 
 broom. 
 
 The greater part of this Bocage was impenetrable to 
 all but those win.) lived in it, and who were familial' 
 with its paths; and the Government had done but little
 
 G THE REAL FRENCH REVOLUTIONIST ch. 
 
 to make it accessible or to bring it into communication 
 with the outer world. 
 
 Few main roads intercepted it, and those were rough 
 in summer and often impassable in winter, fenced in 
 usually by high hedges or by the natural undergrowth 
 of the woods. The cross-roads could scarcely be called 
 roads: most of them being little better than the bed of 
 a stream many feet below the level of the land at their 
 sides, and beneath overarching trees through which the 
 light of the sun scarcely penetrated. 
 
 From off these roads branched narrow and tortuous 
 footpaths, known only to the inhabitants themselves, 
 and a source of confusion and perplexity to the travel- 
 ler. It was in fact, as described by General Kleber, " a 
 dark and deep labyrinth, in which one can only march 
 by feeling or groping one's way." 
 
 Of towns actually in the Vendee there were none of 
 any size. On the very edge of it, separated from it only 
 by the Loire, was the great port and city of Nantes, 
 with some 80,000 inhabitants. And farther east, some 
 sixty miles or so. also on the north side of the river, 
 and some two or three miles away from it. was Angers. 
 another ancient town with a considerable population — 
 some 30,000, it was said. The towns on the south 
 side of the Loire were all small. Saumur. perched on a 
 height overlooking the river; and westward of Saumur. 
 Thouars, with its then almost impregnable castle on a 
 hill. Farther west again — and somewhat south — were 
 Lressuire and Fontenay : ami. westernmost of all. the 
 small seaport of Sables-d'Olonne. 
 
 And there was ;l number of much smaller towns 
 called " buiirgs." little more than big villages, such as 
 Cholet, Clisson, and Chatillon ; most of them, and of 
 the not very numerous villages, being almost concealed
 
 i THE VENDEE 7 
 
 in the depths of the woods and in the rich masses of 
 foliage. 
 
 Only a small portion of the Vendean people lived 
 in the towns, or even in the villages ; for there were 
 no factories of importance or other industries to give 
 them employment there. The greater number lived 
 in detached farmhouses scattered over the country, 
 ensconced in all sorts of out-of-the-way places. And 
 there they carried on their farming operations, con- 
 tinuing in monotonous routine the old habits and 
 practices and systems handed down to them by many 
 venerations : growing grain where grain would grow, 
 the vine where it would thrive, and raising cattle and 
 sheep; almost entirely self- supplying, self-supporting, 
 and bartering their surplus produce in the towns and 
 villages for such articles of clothing and other house- 
 hold goods as they could not themselves produce. 
 
 Taken as a whole, it was a most productive country. 
 The extensive vineyards produced large quantities of 
 wine and brandy; whilst its plains and fields produced 
 immense quantities of grain of every kind. Over a 
 million of cattle, it was estimated, and some two million 
 of sheep were supported on the land, together with a 
 large number of horses and mules, and the population 
 was variously estimated at from 600,000 to 800,000 
 persons. 
 
 Of the Yendeans themselves — the people whose sad 
 mission in history appears to have been to expose to 
 mankind the true character of the revolutionist — there 
 is a unanimity of description by those who knew 
 them. 
 
 Hospitable, kind, simple in their tastes and manners, 
 thrifty, sober, hard-working, robust in constitution, 
 inured to fatigue ; some fairly well off, but strangers
 
 8 THE REAL FRENCH REVOLUTIONIST ch. i 
 
 to all sorts of luxury ; others in hard circumstances, 
 and but poorly fed. 
 
 Living in the midst of the hilly and wooded soli- 
 tudes, far from the centres of life, without communica- 
 tion with towns, rarely having even the society of a 
 village, they had little means of acquiring instruction — 
 little to drag them out of the rut of monotony — or to 
 incite them to progress. Indeed the lapse of a couple 
 of centuries had scarcely altered their condition. Their 
 ignorance was great. The State had clone nothing for 
 them : had left them for their education to their priests, 
 who had brought them up in absolute submission to 
 the Church, in absolute faith in the Roman Catholic 
 religion, and who had won their dee}) devotion and 
 unlimited confidence. 
 
 Living so much in contact with nature, and so 
 solitarily, they were more or less superstitious, and 
 extremely credulous ; but they were none the less 
 passionately sincere in their religion. 
 
 By the republicans and revolutionists in subsequent 
 years they were scorned and condemned as fanatics ; 
 but coming from that quarter the term carries no 
 discredit with it. 
 
 And there was one other prominent trait in the 
 Yendean's character, linked in a way with his intense 
 religious belief — a magnificent, unquenchable courage, — 
 a courage of which he was to give proof on hundreds 
 of battlefields ; and under the even greater trial — that 
 of death by the most horrible and cruel forms which 
 republican ingenuity could devise., — death in prison by 
 the lingering torture of disease: or death on the scaffold, 
 or l>y noyade, fusillade, or sabrade ; death with the deep 
 sense of bitter wrong and infamous injustice, which adds 
 the last drops to the cup of human agony.
 
 CHAPTEE II 
 
 THE CAUSES OF THE VENDEAN WAR 
 
 Part I 
 
 It was this interesting and unfortunate country which 
 was destined to become the prey of the French revolu- 
 tionists, and these were the unfortunate people who 
 first were driven and goaded into revolt, and then 
 subjected to a tyranny infinitely greater and more cruel 
 than anything from which the Revolution was delivering 
 them. 
 
 It was a strange destiny ; for the Yendeans were not 
 antagonistic to the Revolution. They constituted a 
 part of the French people who were making it, and in 
 its earlier stages they took an active and sympathetic 
 part. They had their deep wrongs and grievances, as 
 the rest of France had ; they suffered under the 
 exorbitant privileges of the noblesse and upper ranks of 
 the clergy, and under the countless tyrannies of the 
 crown and the aristocracy; and they were weighed 
 down by the merciless exactions and extortions of the 
 tax-collector. 
 
 They belonged to the " third estate "-- the people of 
 France — which paid all the taxes, which bore all the
 
 10 THE REAL FRENCH REVOLUTIONIST ch. 
 
 expenses of the State, which by its labour fed and 
 nourished the nation. 
 
 And now this third estate, unable longer to carry on 
 life under the existing conditions, desired to end the 
 tyrannies and injustices and inequalities it had long 
 groaned under; to efface the badges of its servitude: 
 and to make the other "estates" take their proper share 
 of the national burdens. 
 
 In all these desires the Vendeans participated 
 thoroughly, and the spirit of reform which possessed the 
 people of France possessed them too. When the elec- 
 tions of deputies to the States-General took place in the 
 early spring of 1789. and when the local assemblies 
 were drawing up their cahicrs, or petitions of 
 grievances, the Vendeans joined in with no uncertain 
 voice. They asked for the sovereignty of the law: for 
 respect of property and personal liberty; for the sup- 
 pression of the pecuniary privileges of the nobles and of 
 the clergy: for the equalisation of taxation: for the 
 abolition of the salt-tax : for the better administration 
 of justice: for a popular system of local government: 
 for the reform of the episcopacy, and payment of the 
 clergy: and for grants of money for the construction of 
 roads and the improvement of the means of communica- 
 tion. In fart, they asked for every tiling which the rest 
 of their countrymen were asking for, and sent their 
 representatives to the meeting of the States-General to 
 help in the general efforts to obtain it. 
 
 The States - General assembled at Versailles on the 
 5th May 1789. Tut while it was talking instead of 
 acting, a section of I he people of Paris struck the Hist 
 great blow against the existing order of thing.-. On the 
 1 1-th July the}' stormed the Bastille and captured it. 
 The effects of this startling event were far - reaching.
 
 ii THE CAUSES OF THE VENDEAN WAS 11 
 
 Within almost a few days the greater part of the country, 
 taking authority into its own hands, shook itself free of 
 all the existing local powers and governments, and 
 substituted therefor popular local committees, backed by 
 the armed strength of the people. 
 
 Under so sharp a stimulus, the States-General (trans- 
 formed into the Constituent or Xational Assembly) 
 hurried on to actual work ; and on the night of the 
 4th August, at one sitting, in an access of enthusiasm 
 on the part of some of its members, and of desperation 
 on the part of others, it effected such a wide-embracing 
 mass of reforms that, so far as legislation went, the 
 country passed through a revolution in that one night. 
 
 The Assembly abolished the privileges of rank, and 
 exemptions from taxation ; it wiped out tithes, seignorial 
 dues, game laws, the salt-tax, and other burdens whose 
 removal had been asked for. It swept away serfdom, 
 and decreed the admission of all citizens, without dis- 
 tinction of birth, to public employment. 
 
 In this same month of August too, on the 26th, the 
 Assembly, after much discussion, attained to a. Declara- 
 tion of the Eights of Man ; it being deemed desirable to 
 have in black and white a statement of the new order 
 of things, and a record of the new position of man. 
 
 This celebrated measure, " made in the presence and 
 under the auspices of the Supreme Being," declared as 
 natural and imprescriptible rights of man — the right of 
 liberty ; security of property ; the safety of his person ; 
 the right to resist oppression. 
 
 It flourished liberty of thought on high ; according 
 to each citizen freedom to speak, write, print, and 
 publish his thoughts. It acclaimed freedom of religion 
 and religious worship. It declared that everyone should 
 be presumed innocent until lie was declared guilty. It
 
 L2 THE REAL FRENCH REVOLUTIONIST ch. 
 
 laid down a code of principles, many of which were 
 admirable in themselves, but every one of which was to 
 be most flagrantly set at naught by the revolutionists 
 in the course of the next few years. 
 
 And then the Assembly, impelled forwards by its 
 extremer sections, and by the incitements and terrorism 
 of the mob which packed its galleries, proceeded rapidly 
 in the career of reform. It established equality — at 
 least by law. Privileges of rank had been abolished ; 
 now rank itself must go ; and the noblesse, the peerage, 
 titles, hereditary distinctions, and orders, and all dis- 
 tinctions of birth, were abolished. 
 
 Still, however, events did not move rapidly enough 
 to please the wilder spirits of revolution; and earl)' in 
 October the Paris mob once more took the bit in its 
 teeth, marched out to Versailles, captured the King and 
 Queen, and brought them back to Paris, practically as 
 prisoners. Thither also promptly followed the National 
 Assembly. 
 
 Seeing these events, and numerous other signs and 
 tokens of imminent ruin and peril to themselves, a great 
 body of the nobility lied from France: all to avoid a 
 pressing danger, some in the hope of obtaining foreign help 
 to enable them to re-establish the old order of things. 
 
 A large number of the Vendean noblesse followed the 
 example, whilst the few who remained sought retirement 
 in their country places. Fortunately for them, their 
 relations with the peasantry were friendly, and they 
 were not massacred or driven out of the country as the 
 noblesse iii other parts of France were. 
 
 The National Assembly, now working at high speed 
 under constant pressure from within and without, 
 followed up its popular measures by a series of laws 
 which abolished the old and historic provinces and
 
 a THE CAUSES OF THE YEXDEAX WAR 13 
 
 provincial governments of France, and welded the 
 country into one great whole — France. 
 
 And then it began constructing a new system of 
 government. 
 
 For the purposes of local government, a wholly new 
 division of the country was made — eighty-three Depart- 
 ments were formed, each with a government upon the 
 basis of popular election. 
 
 All the ancient municipalities were abolished : and 
 the new municipal authorities were also to be popularly 
 elected. 
 
 And in addition to these great changes, the whole of 
 the existing machinery for the administration of justice 
 was abolished: royal jurisdictions, feudal jurisdictions, 
 ecclesiastical jurisdictions — all were swept away, and a 
 wholly new system substituted : each Department being 
 given its own criminal and civil tribunal, and each 
 district and commune its own court of justice. 
 
 The Assembly had further been giving its attention 
 to the relationship of the Church to the State ; and 
 money being badly wanted by the new Government, and 
 the Church having plenty, it decreed that all ecclesiastical 
 property was to be at the disposition of the State, the 
 State undertaking that adequate provision would be made 
 for the clergy. 1 
 
 In all these measures there was practically nothing 
 which had not been petitioned for in the cahiers, and 
 throughout the Vendee the reforms were received with 
 approbation. When the elections for the new local 
 government bodies took place in the earlier half of 1790, 
 the Vendeans took a keen part in the proceedings, and 
 when the ecclesiastical property was put up at public 
 auction, they bought largely and freely. 
 1 2nd November 1789.
 
 14 THE REAL FRENCH REVOLUTIONIST ch. 
 
 But thf National Assembly,, in entering upon a 
 campaign against the Church, had taken the first step 
 on a path of legislation which was to alienate the great 
 mass of the Venclean people from the Revolutionary 
 Government, and ultimately to drive them to appeal to 
 arms in defence of that which they prized so highly, 
 their religious faith. 
 
 The step which led to the great disaster of civil war 
 was the decree of the Assembly made on the 12th 
 duly 1700, which enacted the civil constitution of the 
 clergy. 
 
 This measure fundamentally altered the whole posi- 
 tion and status of the Roman Catholic Church in Trance. 
 and at one stroke transferred the authority in almost 
 everything relating to the Church, except doctrine, from 
 the Roman Catholic Hierarchy to the State. 
 
 By it almost all the ancient ecclesiastical institutions 
 were swept away, and a plan of ecclesiastical government 
 was formed on the same lines as that which had just 
 been adopted for departmental government. 
 
 Ecclesiastical divisions were made to coincide with 
 the new civil divisions of Departments: and each of the 
 new eighty-three Departments was to have a bishop and 
 a number of priests according to its size. The appoint- 
 ment of bishop- and priests by the King was to cease, 
 and in future all bishops and priests were to be elected 
 to their offices. 
 
 But the most galling part of the enactment was that 
 which imposed on both bishops and priests the necessity 
 of taking an oath of allegiance to the new State. On 
 a Sunday, in presence of the local authorities, and of the 
 people, they were to take an oath "to be faithful to the 
 nation, to the law, and to the King, and to maintain 
 with all their strength the Constitution decreed bv the
 
 ii THE CAUSES OF THE VENDEAN WAE 15 
 
 National Assembly and accepted by the King," — a Con- 
 stitution which was as yet in the air. 
 
 The clergy were in effect to be cut loose from their 
 connection with Rome and the Pontiff, the spiritual 
 and temporal head of the Church ; their appointment 
 was to be made by the people of each parish ; and they 
 were to become the servants of, and to be paid by, the 
 State. 
 
 This new civil constitution of the clergy struck root 
 and branch at the whole system of the Roman Catholic 
 Church, both in temporal and spiritual spheres. 
 
 And it arrayed the great mass of the Catholic clergy 
 — some G 4,0 00 in number — in opposition to the 
 ( lovernment. 
 
 " By the constitution of Jesus Christ," said the priests, 
 " the supreme power of the Church rests with the bishops 
 and the Pontiff; and it was to them that the govern- 
 ment of the Church of God had been given. By your 
 decrees, it is you who govern the Church and its 
 ministers. 
 
 "What! Is it not enough to have made the sacrifice 
 of all our property, of all our privileges, and of all the 
 gold of the temple, but that one must abandon even the 
 religion of which we are the ministers ? . . . 
 
 "We warn you, that, since it is not a question of 
 our fortunes, but of faith, and of the eternal salvation 
 of the people, the time of complaisance is past. Our 
 conscience forces us to tell you it is better to obey 
 God than man. 
 
 '■' It is impossible, without apostasy, to accept this 
 proposed constitution. 
 
 "Even the pretension to give to the Church this new 
 constitution is an outrage, and a veritable blasphemy 
 against the Author of our religion."
 
 1G THE REAL FRENCH REVOLUTIONIST ch. 
 
 In terms such as these was the Government inveighed 
 against, and a very small proportion of the clergy took 
 the prescribed oath. The Government, however, was 
 not to be trifled with, and after a few months' delay 
 measures were adopted to enforce obedience to the new 
 law. 
 
 On the 27th November 1790 the Assembly made a 
 decree that all bishops and priests were to take the oath 
 within eight days. A delay, however, occurred in its 
 enforcement, owing to the King for some time with- 
 holding his sanction to it : but his sanction being at last 
 obtained, the Assembly determined on itself beginning 
 the enforcement of the law, and it fixed the -4th January 
 1701 as the day on which the oath was to be taken 
 by the clergy who were members of the Assembly, some 
 300 in number. 
 
 The day came: two bishops and thirty or forty 
 priests took the oath ; but the great majority of them 
 would not. 
 
 One by one they refused. 
 
 " 1 was born a Roman and Apostolic Catholic," said 
 one; "I wish to die in that faith. I should not do so 
 were I to take the oath you ask me to." 
 
 " Sirs," said another, the Bishop of Poitiers, — '■ Sirs, 
 1 am seventy years of age ; for thirty-three of which 
 I have been a bishop. I will not stain my white hairs 
 by the oath of your decrees." 
 
 Furious with these replies, and tins firm opposition, 
 the Assembly shortened the scene. The President 
 ordered all who had not yet taken the oath to come and 
 take it collectively. No one came. 
 
 It was a question now of conscience, and there would 
 he no flinching;, even though the Assembly was at white 
 heat, and outside a huue and excited mob. the sound of
 
 ii THE CAUSES OF THE VENDEAN WAE 17 
 
 whose voices readied the Chamber ; and whose cries 
 were the now familiar "A la lanterne ! " "Ala lantcrnc 
 with the bishops and priests who will not take the 
 oath ! " 
 
 Foiled for the moment in its object, the Assembly 
 ordered proceedings to be taken for the enforcement of 
 the penalties prescribed by the law ; and decreed that 
 the King should order the election of other priests in 
 the place of those who refused to take the oath. 
 
 Flere, in this anti-church legislation, lay the origin of 
 the Vendean war. 
 
 Republican writers, in their efforts to belaud the 
 devolution, and to clear the revolutionary cause of the 
 infamy attached to it by the iniquities perpetrated 
 during the Yendean war, have done their utmost to lay 
 the blame on the royalists, on the Roman Catholic 
 clergy, on the fanaticism and ignorance of the peasantry, 
 on everybody except those upon whom it rightly 
 falls. 
 
 But their efforts are labour in vain, for the case is 
 so absolutely clear, the cause so very patent. The 
 whole and entire blame of the A r endean war rests un- 
 mistakably upon those who began and carried to the 
 bitter end a system of the most grievous religious 
 proscription and persecution. 
 
 There is no doubt that all sorts of vague and hopeless 
 schemes passed through the minds of the small number 
 of royalist noblesse left in the A'endee ; and it is 
 perfectly true that efforts were made by some few of 
 the royalists in, and many out of, France, to organise in 
 the west of France a counter-revolutionary movement 
 which should lend to the restoration of the old regime : 
 but, from the very condition of things at the time, they 
 were feebly contrived, and had no practical effect. 
 
 c
 
 18 THE REAL FRENCH REVOLUTIONIST oh. 
 
 Savaiy, who could speak with authority on the 
 subject, wrote : " At this epoch all who pertained to the 
 noblesse were closely watched by the local administrative 
 bodies. It would have been difficult to see each other, 
 to consult together, to concert plans or put them in 
 execution. Living in isolation, all their thoughts were 
 their own personal safety. Thus, as was later avowed 
 by d'Elbee, the noblesse did not organise the civil war. 
 They were constrained to take part in it by circum- 
 stances and by the wishes of the peasantry." 
 
 And the Catholic clergy used all their power to 
 oppose a persecution which fell upon them with iron 
 hand. But not even they could have evoked a general 
 movement if the Yendean people had not en masse been 
 actually suffering and writhing under an unendurable 
 state of affairs: and the efforts of the noblesse and the 
 clergy were no more the original cause of the Yendean 
 insurrection than Niagara is the cause of the Gulf 
 Stream. The first and main cause was the anti-church 
 legislation, which, whilst striking at the Roman Catholic 
 Church, fell with its full force on the Yendean people in 
 the exercise of their religious creed. 
 
 With an intensely religious people religion goes 
 infinitely deeper than loyalty to a particular Government, 
 and in the belief of these Yendean people not merely their 
 temporal but their eternal welfare was felt to be at stake 
 in their religion, and though manv of them may have 
 been attached to their King, they cared for their religion 
 infinitely more. It has been said, indeed, and probably 
 with truth, that they would have rebelled against him 
 had he been responsible for the laws and the enforce- 
 ment of those laws which finally broke down their 
 patience and goaded them into insurrection. 
 
 The majority of republican writers on this period
 
 ii THE CAUSES OF THE YENDEAN WAS 19 
 
 have underrated the immense influence of religion upon 
 the individual or upon a religious people. They have 
 not realised that intense religious fervour helbre which 
 every other consideration vanishes from view. Certainly 
 they have underrated it in the case of the Yendean people. 
 No royalist plots, no clerical intrigues, no " gold of Pitt," 
 that nightmare of the French revolutionist, were required 
 to account for resistance to a treatment which a religious 
 people would naturally combat a I'outrance. 
 
 Indeed, neither the royalists, nor even the clergy, 
 would have succeeded in so alienating the Yendean 
 people from the Revolutionary Government as to have 
 driven them en masse to appeal to arms. 
 
 It was the Revolutionary Government itself which 
 first alienated them by enacting legislation which, though 
 directed against the Church as an institution, yet was not 
 in its effects limited to that Church or its priesthood, but 
 fell with terrible effect upon the Yendean people. And 
 it was the Revolutionary Government itself which drove 
 them to arms by persevering in and savagely enforcing 
 a policy so repugnant to them. 
 
 The stupidity of the legislation was that it was not 
 possible to strike down the Roman Catholic Church in 
 the manner attempted without at the same time hitting 
 even harder the believers in the Roman Catholic faith. 
 But the Assembly did not at first recognise this fact. 
 As time went on it evinced its indifference to it, becom- 
 ing more and more vindictive as it found itself met by a 
 dogged and pertinacious opposition. 
 
 Thus, in their measures to compel obedience, the 
 Assembly, setting at naught its solemn declarations of 
 religious liberty, embarked on a career of violent and 
 extreme religious persecution, and recklessly passed on 
 from one measure of intolerance and violence to another.
 
 20 THE REAL FREXCH REVOLUTIONIST en. 
 
 Where the priest of a parish would not take the 
 oath, he was deprived of his office, and another priest — 
 one who was willing to take the oath — was foisted on 
 the parish, after going through the form of election, to 
 the indignation of the people, who designated him as an 
 " intruder." — an intrus, — and who would have nothing 
 to say to him. 
 
 The views and feelings of the Yendeans are easily to 
 be understood by any one who has any knowledge of the 
 Roman Catholic faith. 
 
 The Pope, by Bull of 13th April 1791, had 
 denounced the civil constitution of the clergy as 
 founded on heretical principles. A priest, therefore, 
 who had taken the oath was regarded by them as a 
 schismatic and a heretic. His offices, therefore, they 
 felt, were of no avail, for he ceased to hold the divine 
 authority of the Church, and his services therefore 
 ceased to have any religious sanction or efficacy. The 
 people accordingly would not attend his celebrations of 
 the Mass, or listen to his instruction, or receive from him 
 any sacrament. They would not confess to him, nor 
 did they believe in the efficacy of his absolution. 
 
 These consequences in themselves were sufficient to 
 have awakened the most bitter resentment. But they 
 were by no means all : for the effects of the change of 
 the law were not confined to the ministerial or religious 
 offices of the priesthood, The intrus, or priest who, 
 having taken the prescribed oath, was " intruded :: into 
 the parish as a successor to their own priest, became, by 
 virtue of his office, the officer of State in the parish for 
 matters concerning the civil state of the population. 
 The position of the sworn priest carried with it the 
 exclusive right of legally marrying people : with it also 
 the leiral registration of births and deaths, and the
 
 ii THE CAUSES OF THE VENDEAN WAE 21 
 
 burial of the dead. And so the people could not be 
 legally married except by a heretic ; the birth of their 
 children could not be legally registered except by a 
 heretic ; the last offices to their dead could not be 
 performed except by a heretic. 
 
 The broad truth is, that the Vendean peasantry, a 
 devoutly religious people, were, so far as the Revolu- 
 tionary Government could make them so, practically 
 excommunicated. 
 
 Their churches, they believed, were defiled by 
 heretical priests officiating in them : and the rites of 
 religion, rites in the exercise of which they believed 
 their eternal welfare depended, were denied them. For 
 their children to be born without baptism imperilled 
 the salvation of their children ; to die without confession 
 and absolution meant, to them, eternal damnation. 
 The sacrament of marriage, indeed its legitimacy, and 
 therefore the legitimacy of the children, was denied 
 them. In vain the Vendean peasant sought the Holy 
 Sacrament to comfort and nourish his soul. The 
 Revolutionary Government, with "religious liberty" as 
 its motto, denied it to him. In vain the dying longed 
 for the last consolations of religion, for confession, 
 absolution, extreme unction, for the last rites of his 
 faith which should secure him an entrance into the new 
 world of happiness — the Revolutionary Government 
 denied them to him. 
 
 The Revolutionary Government, with the assertion 
 on its lips that it was " in the principles of the new 
 constitution to respect liberty of conscience," denied 
 the liberty it paraded, and excommunicated him from 
 the Catholic Church almost as effectually as the Pope 
 could do. 
 
 Nor were these mere grievances of the moment.
 
 22 THE REAL FRENCH REVOLUTIONIST ch. 
 
 Day and night, and every hour of each, they pressed 
 upon him. They were an ever-present, ever-constant, 
 galling grief. 
 
 What more natural, then, that the Vendean people, 
 thus injured in all the most sacred and cherished affairs 
 of life, and the most deep-seated feelings of their nature, 
 and thus practically excommunicated, should have be- 
 come vehemently hostile to the Government which 
 inflicted this cruel persecution upon them. 
 
 No other cause for the Vendean rebellion need be 
 sought. It was all-sufficient in itself. 
 
 And the iron ate deep into their souls. The records 
 of the time teem with poignant expressions of despair 
 and unhappiness. 
 
 " Misery tortures us on every side. We have no 
 consolation but in religion, and they wish to take that 
 consolation from us. We are in absolute despair." 
 But at the same time another spirit finds expression 
 also. " We are determined to avenge ourselves. We 
 must destroy those who are destroying religion. We 
 must defend our religion with our lives. I write this 
 with pen and ink ; but my blood will prove my words 
 when the time is appropriate." 
 
 Patience and forbearance were not traits of the 
 Revolutionary Government, and with but little delay, 
 and regardless of warnings, the Government persevered 
 in its punitive legislation against the priests who would 
 not take the prescribed oath. 
 
 Measure after measure, each of increasing severity, 
 was taken against them; tbe consequences of which 
 were felt not alone by them, but also by tbe Vendeans, 
 until at last, as time went on, the people were deprived 
 of all t he religious services rendered them by their 
 priests, except such as they could obtain secretly and
 
 a THE CAUSES OF THE VENDEAN WAR 23 
 
 surreptitiously from those of their clergy who had fled 
 from the tyranny of the Government, and who were in 
 hiding in the woods or other remote places. 
 
 With the growing severity of legislation, actual 
 opposition to the local authorities arose in many parishes, 
 and there was rioting. In some cases even the National 
 Guards had to be supported by the military. 
 
 And, as the feelings of the people became more 
 deeply moved by this persecution, evidence of ever- 
 growing religious excitement was revealed. Strange 
 rumours were bruited abroad and whispered from one to 
 the other — reports of apparitions of the Virgin, and 
 miracles being performed by her. 
 
 An oak near St. Laurent, reputed to be sacred, was 
 visited by thousands. At Bellefontaine, in a small 
 chapel, an image of the Virgin, which had a great 
 reputation as a worker of miracles, was worshipped by 
 crowds. Nocturnal religious processions took place ; 
 nocturnal religious meetings were held. Late one night, 
 from the crest of the highest hill in Anjou, where there 
 was a celebrated sanctuary of a Madonna, a " patriot " 
 patrol saw numerous lines of nickering lights ; then, 1))' 
 the illuminated outlines made by blazing torches and 
 lanterns and candles carried by processionists, they 
 could trace the paths of processions coining from all 
 sides ; and then they could hear the subdued murmurs 
 of voices, and borne upon the midnight air the solemn 
 melodies of sacred ritual, the Salve Eegina, and the 
 litanies of the Virgin. 
 
 In places, too, the rising emotions and passions of the 
 people showed themselves in hostility to the priests 
 who had taken the oath— the intrus. At one village 
 so serious were the disturbances that in the restoration 
 of order five peasants were shot by the National Guards.
 
 24 THE REAL FRENCH REVOLUTIONIST oh. 
 
 Hut the feelings and passions of the people were too 
 deeply involved to be checked even by such severity. 
 The removal of their favourite priests was more than 
 they could quietly submit to. " Our priests are given 
 us by God," said one: "let them stay with us till their 
 death. After that we will see. If you don't, there 
 will be bloodshed. We will defend them till death." 
 
 But these incidents, instead of having any effect in 
 warning the National Assembly of the danger of the 
 path it was treading, and of inducing some moderation 
 or modification of policy, only made it harden its heart. 
 
 Indeed, a revolutionary Assembly was not likely to 
 be diverted from a revolutionary policy by any con- 
 siderations of prudence, and the flight of the King 
 from Paris in June did not improve the revolutionary 
 temper generally, or incline the Assembly to a more 
 lenient course. 
 
 Nor did the state of the Vendee improve. Rumours 
 of royalist meetings and clerical plots, and equally 
 reliable ones of mysterious ships hovering about the 
 coast, added to the ferment. 
 
 But at last the National Assembly, somewhat 
 puzzled and perplexed with the state of the Vendee, 
 and feeling in need of enlightenment, sent down com- 
 missioners to make a thorough investigation and to 
 report the result of their inquiries. 
 
 And then, for one moment, the dark masses of storm- 
 cloud which had been covering the political sky broke ; 
 and a gleam of light— like a gleam of hope— came 
 throng] i. 
 
 The King accepted the new Constitution which had 
 at length been produced by the Constituent Assembly, 
 and swore fealty to it; and on the 15th September 
 1791 the Assembly, in a transport of delight, declared
 
 ii THE CAUSES OF THE YEXDEAN WAR 25 
 
 that the object of the French Revolution was accom- 
 plished, and that here the Revolution was ended. 
 
 And as a sign and token of the new order of things, 
 it proclaimed a general amnesty. 
 
 But, after a brief moment, the delusive gleam of 
 light died out ; the clouds closed in again darker and 
 denser than ever. Some fearful destiny seemed to be 
 impelling the country towards a catastrophe; and the 
 stupendous folly of the Revolutionary Government drove 
 l he Vendeans to fearful and unescapable disaster.
 
 CHAPTER III 
 
 THE CAUSES OF THE VENDEAN WAR 
 
 Part II 
 
 In October (1791) the commissioners Gensoime and 
 Gallois who had been sent into the Vendee reported to 
 the new National Legislative Assembly — which had 
 succeeded the National Constituent Assembly — the 
 results of their investigations and inquiries. 
 
 The salient, decisive fact established by them in 
 " their faithful picture of the political and religious 
 situation of the Vendee at this time " was, that " the 
 imposition on the clergy of the oath was the beginning 
 of the troubles.'"' 
 
 " Until then the people had enjoyed the most perfect 
 tranquillity . . . they were disposed by their natural 
 character to a love of peace, to the sentiment of order, 
 and a respect of the law: they reaped the benefits of 
 the Revolution without experiencing its storms . . . and 
 they asked no favour beyond having priests in whom 
 they would have confidence and trust." 
 
 And the commissioners also clearly showed that any 
 excitement or disturbances there, any hostility to the 
 Government, any clerical machinations, all had their
 
 c.i. in THE CAUSES OF THE VENDEAN WAE 27 
 
 foundation in that cause, their starting-point from the 
 enforcement of that ill-omened decree. 
 
 The Assembly listened to the report of the com- 
 missioners, and the President, speaking in an oracular 
 way, declared that the Assembly would leave no stone 
 unturned to heal the evils described. To re-establish 
 the public spirit was the first of its desires, as it was 
 the first of its duties. 
 
 But the Assembly set about this first of its desires, 
 this first of its duties, in a way directly the opposite of 
 that which would lead to quiet. 
 
 With the ink scarcely dry on the new Constitution 
 of France, and on as solemn a declaration of religious 
 liberty as any constituted body could possibly make, the 
 Assembly counted it no wrong to violate what had just 
 been laid down as the fundamental law of the country, 
 as the very basis of the Constitution, and to act in dia- 
 metrically the opposite manner. 
 
 The truth was, the revolutionists had no intention 
 — Constitution or no Constitution — of being balked in 
 their attack on the Church and on religion. And so 
 the Assembly not alone persevered in the course of 
 religious persecution commenced by its predecessor, the 
 Constituent Assembly, but became more violent in it. 
 
 On the 29th November 1791 it decreed that those 
 of the priests who had not taken the oath by the 7th 
 January next should be put under surveillance as sus- 
 pects of revolt against the law ; and further, that if any 
 religious disturbances took place in the commune where 
 any refractory priests resided, they were to be held re- 
 sponsible, and were to be remove* 1 to and confined in 
 the chief town of the Department. 
 
 The King vetoed this decree ; but matters had gone 
 so far that his veto was contemptuously disregarded, and
 
 28 THE REAL FRENCH REVOLUTIONIST ch. 
 
 the enthusiastic local patriots in the towns in or border- 
 ing on the Vendee enforced the decree as if it had been 
 sanctioned by the King and had become law. 
 
 There was no one to call them to account for such 
 violations of law, or for actions neither prescribed nor 
 authorised by the Constitution. 
 
 And they were energetic in their persecution. 
 
 Thus, the Directory of the Department of Maine and 
 Loire, intent on effectually preventing religious services 
 being held, had a- short time previously sent com- 
 missioners throughout the Department who despoiled 
 several of the churches, carried away the sacred vessels 
 and ornaments, overturned the altars, and pulled down 
 the bells — proceedings which naturally caused the most 
 intense indignation. 
 
 ]'»y some even these usurped powers were not held to 
 be enough, for the mayor and people of Sables besought 
 the National Assembly for still severer measures against 
 the non-oath-taking priests. 
 
 "The Patrie," they said, "can no longer retain in 
 her bosom these sanguinary monsters. . . . She can no 
 longer nourish children rebels to the law, and sworn 
 against her. These perverse ministers must subscribe 
 to the social pact, or be expelled. We call for the 
 deportation and exile of these madmen. We demand 
 that they be transported to the pestiferous marshes of 
 Italy, there to be purged of the venom with which they 
 poison us, — that they be sent thither to join the chief 
 of their infernal cohort, Pope Pius VI." 
 
 All this, too, in spite of the Articles of the new Con- 
 stitution, in spite of Article 10 of the great Declaration 
 of the Rights of Alan, the Charter of the Revolution, 
 that " no one was to be interfered with (inq aietd) " on 
 account of his religious opinions — a declaration like so
 
 in THE CAUSES OF THE VENDEAN WAE 29 
 
 many other laws and declarations of the French revolu- 
 tionists and republicans, loud-sounding clap-trap, the 
 absolute antithesis to the actual intentions and actions 
 of its adherents. 
 
 The Vendeans, though excited and bitterly aggrieved 
 by the persecution of their priests, and though provoked 
 almost beyond endurance by the effects of that per- 
 secution, comported themselves during the early part of 
 1792 with great patience and self-possession. There 
 were mutterings and grumblings of deep, indeed threaten- 
 ing discontent, but there was little overt action. No 
 small part of the calm was due to the admirable tact 
 and effective military arrangements of General Du- 
 mouriez, who tor some little time had been holding an 
 important military appointment in the Vendee, and 
 whose general line of conduct may be gathered from a 
 speech he made in the summer of 1791 at Sables. 
 " Let us remember," he said, " that the rebels, if we 
 come across any, are Frenchmen, dazed by fanaticism 
 and prejudice. Let us be severe, as is the law which 
 orders us to act, but let us not be cruel or unjust ; let 
 us not stain ourselves with the blood of unarmed in- 
 dividuals : let us not dishonour ourselves by pillaging ; 
 let us not deliver to the flames houses which may one 
 day become the cradle of enlightened citizens. We are 
 Frenchmen — that is to say, humane, generous. Liberty 
 should add new virtues to those which Europe acknow- 
 ledged we already possessed before our glorious Involu- 
 tion." 
 
 The very things he said they ought not to do, were 
 the very things the true revolutionist wished to do, 
 and was about to do ; and principles such as these laid 
 down by him were a long way below that revolutionary 
 height which was the hall-mark of the true sans-culotte.
 
 30 THE REAL FRENCH REVOLUTIONIST ch. 
 
 Early in 179 2 Dumouriez left the Vendue, and his 
 skilful hand removed, the situation there became more 
 strained. 
 
 The Assembly went on raining down blow upon blow 
 upon the priesthood. On the 27th May it decreed that, 
 at the request of twenty citizens of a canton, any non- 
 juring priests might be sent to the chief town to be 
 imprisoned, and in case of any further intriguing they 
 might be sent over the frontier. 
 
 The decree was vetoed by the King, but as before, 
 the local authorities, in their impatience to persecute, 
 disregarded the veto, and acted on the decree. 
 
 And so, without any form of justice, and often for 
 purely supposititious offences, the priests were arrested 
 in hundreds, and hurried oft' to the chief town of the 
 Department, there to be imprisoned, or thence sent over 
 the frontier. For them there was not a glimmer of 
 justice or consideration anywhere. 
 
 Apart from the anti-religious measures of the Revolu- 
 tionary Government, other events necessitated measures 
 which in their effects still further increased the irritation 
 of the Vendeaiis. 
 
 Foreign affairs had assumed a very threatening aspect 
 for France, and on the 12th July 1792 the National 
 Assembly declared the country in danger, and called for 
 85,000 volunteers to defend the frontiers. Every man, 
 too, was ordered to wear the tricoloured cockade as a mark 
 of his loyalty to the new order of things, and the white 
 cockade was declared to be a sign of rebellion punishable 
 by death. 
 
 Very soon after, Prussia declared war against France, 
 and the Duke of Brunswick issued his notorious 
 manifesto, which evoked tremendous feeling against the 
 King and the emigre noblesse, and rallied to the side
 
 in THE CAUSES OF THE VENDEAN WAR 31 
 
 of the Government many who disapproved of its 
 actions. 
 
 The consequences were disastrous to the King'. 
 
 On the 10th of August the Parisian mob, this time 
 under orders from higher authorities, attacked and 
 captured the Tuileries. The King took refuge with the 
 Assembly, which there and then made a decree that he 
 should be suspended from his functions, and that the 
 French people should be invited to elect a National 
 Convention to draw up a new constitution. 
 
 It was practically the end of the monarchy. 
 
 While Paris and France were thus in a state of the 
 wildest excitement, the state of the Vendee grew more 
 critical. The feeling among the Yendeans had become 
 so exacerbated that the enrolment of volunteers for the 
 army led to partial revolts. From the beginning of the 
 year they had shown their disinclination to military 
 service. Already in March there had been some slight 
 disturbances on this account, and as time went on this 
 aversion became stronger. 
 
 And now in August a gathering of the peasants took 
 place in the neighbourhood of Chatillon, which they 
 captured, and then they proceeded to make an attack on 
 Bressuire, where after three days' righting they were 
 repulsed. Some thirty-five to fifty " patriots " were 
 killed or wounded, while some three hundred to five 
 hundred of the peasants were killed. 
 
 Here, in the first real engagement between the 
 Yendeans and the republicans, the latter began their 
 atrocities. Some hundreds of prisoners were massacred 
 in cold blood ; and it is a well-attested fact that after 
 the fiu,'htin<!; was over, some of the National Guards — 
 like the Pied Indians of America who carried the scalps 
 of their enemies at their girdle — were seen carrying as
 
 3 2 THE REAL FEEXCH REVOLUTIONIST en 
 
 trophies on the points of their bayonets, noses, ears, 
 and strips of flesh of the Yendean peasants they had 
 defeated. 
 
 The defeat was a severe one. and cheeked for a time 
 any tendency to appeal to arms. 
 
 Even in the midst of the terrible days of August the 
 National Assembly found time, before its own dissolution. 
 to continue its system of religious persecution. The law 
 as to taking the oath was extended to women who had 
 entered the cloisters. And the decree was made that so 
 small a number as six citizens (instead of twenty as 
 heretofore) might demand the expulsion of an unsworn 
 priest from any district within eight days, and from 
 France itself within fifteen days. If by that time the 
 priests had not cleared out, they were to be seized and 
 deported to Trench Guiana. Priests of over sixty years 
 of age, or infirm, were excepted from this law. though, 
 indeed, as events turned out, the terrible sufferings 
 entailed by deportation would have been less poignant 
 than those which they had to undergo by remaining in 
 France. 
 
 Taris once more taking the lead, in the early days 
 of September, showed the real revolutionary way of 
 treating priests. A large number of them were confined 
 in the Convent of the Carmelites. The building was 
 attacked by a horde of Parisian sans-culottes, and they 
 were all butchered. Dreadful massacres took place also 
 of prisoners in the Paris prisons. And immediately 
 after these horrible events there was sent to the local 
 authorities throughout the country an address from the 
 Commune of Paris, containing a direct incitement to 
 similar brutalities. 
 
 "The Commune of Paris hastens to inform its 
 brothers in the Departments that a party of ferocious
 
 in THE CAUSES OF THE VENDEAN WAE 33 
 
 conspirators detained in the prisons have been put to 
 death by the people ; an act of justice to deter, by 
 terror, those traitors concealed within its walls at the 
 moment that the people were marching to meet the 
 enemy. And, without doubt, the entire nation, after 
 the long series of treasons which have brought it to the 
 edge of the abyss, will hasten to adopt this necessary 
 means for the public safety, and all Frenchmen will cry, 
 as did the Parisians, ' Let us march against the enemy, 
 but let us not leave behind us these brigands to murder 
 our children and our wives.' " 
 
 The legislative measures against the priests were 
 rigorously enforced. 
 
 The priests who owing to age or infirmity remained 
 in the Vendee were either interned in the chief towns 
 of the Departments or put in prison. In Angers there 
 were over 300 of them in custody, and the Chateau at 
 Nantes was crammed with them. Others were leading 
 a hunted life, concealing themselves in the A^endee as 
 best they could, in secret hiding-places, or in the woods, 
 where they were fed and cared for by the Yendeans. 
 
 In spite of this persecution, however, whenever the 
 opportunity presented itself, open-air services were held. 
 Neither distance, fatigue, nor danger deterred the 
 peasants from attending, and they came armed with 
 guns and scythes and pitchforks to defend their priests 
 should any attempt be made to carry them off. But it 
 was becoming ever more difficult for them to obtain the 
 services of a priest, and the religious persecution was 
 pressing more and more heavily upon them. 
 
 In only one matter did the National Assembly 
 modify the previous laws, and that was as regarded the 
 grievance connected with the registration of births and 
 deaths, and the ceremony of marriage. On almost the 
 
 D
 
 34 THE REAL FRENCH REVOLUTIONIST oh. 
 
 very last day of its existence it decreed — not out of 
 consideration for the Vendeans, but for other, with it 
 mure potent, reasons — that certain of the municipal 
 officers should be charged with these duties, instead of 
 the constitutional clergy. But the greater part of the 
 Vendee had by this time reached such a state that this 
 new law was inoperative, and it was powerless to affect 
 the main point at issue between the Revolutionary 
 Government and the Vendean people. 
 
 Even at this late hour, however, and far as things 
 had already gone, the storm in the Vendee would have 
 blown over had the Government given the A^encleans 
 back the priests to whom they were so passionately 
 attached, and had enabled them once more to enjoy the 
 practice and consolations of their religion. 
 That was the centre of the whole matter. 
 The hope of such a thing was, however, utterly vain ; 
 and now more vain than ever ; for with the accession to 
 power of the National Convention, sterner hands were 
 assuming the government of France, and the helm was 
 being seized by men who hated not alone the Catholic 
 religion, but all religion, and who would stop at no 
 measure, however violent or extreme, to crush both, and 
 to attain their own ideals. 
 
 On the 21st September (1792) the National Con- 
 vention met, and, without discussion, decreed instantane- 
 ously and unanimously the abolition of royalty in 
 France, and the establishment of the French Republic, 
 one and indivisible. 
 
 The slender protection of the King's veto being gone, 
 nothing stood between the objects of the Convention 
 and their realisation. So far as religious matters were 
 concerned, the aim of the revolutionary leaders became 
 clearer. The abasement of Catholicism, even its total
 
 in THE CAUSES OF THE VEXDEAX WAE 35 
 
 abolition, was the goal which they wished to attain. 
 And in the Vendean country, the revolutionary local 
 authorities, supported by the Convention, now in full 
 accord with their sentiments, devoted the whole of the 
 winter of l792-9o to hunting down the non-juring 
 priests and throwing difficulties in the way of any 
 religious worship. 
 
 Early in the new year — on the 21st January 170-'! 
 — the King was executed in Paris. 
 
 Had the Vendeans been as much under the influence 
 of the royalists in the Vendee as republican writers 
 endeavour to make out, they would have at once sprung 
 to arms to avenge him ; but no popular fury was 
 caused by the event — the news only caused " great 
 consternation." 
 
 Their own troubles and trials came far more home 
 to them. For now, in addition to those in connection 
 with their religion and their priests, other irritating 
 measures were enforced by means of the district 
 authorities. Perpetual domiciliary visits were made 
 in search of arms, or non-juring priests, or emigres, 
 and their arms were seized and taken away, though in 
 many cases they depended on them for their daily food. 
 And their material interests were also suffering. The 
 forced currency of paper money bore heavily on them ; 
 and over and above this was the " murderous scourge " of 
 national taxation, the ruthless levy of which plunged the 
 farmers into distress, and heavy local taxes imposed by 
 the arbitrary decrees of local authorities, and fiercely 
 executed. 
 
 As an instance, quite early in March, a fine of nearly 
 £500 was imposed on a certain district to defray the 
 costs of the forces employed to disperse an assembly 
 of the Vendeans. There were protests ; " but," wrote
 
 36 THE REAL FRENCH REVOLUTIONIST ch. 
 
 Gallet, the republican official in command. " putting 
 aside my natural sensitiveness. 1 pitilessly executed 
 militarily on the spot all those who would not pay up. 
 This method of getting money is. I can vouch for it, 
 a good one." 
 
 All through February, too, the Vendeans were worried 
 and harassed by the visits of commissioners to organise 
 the National Guard as a weapon in the hands of the 
 Revolutionary ( rovernment — and at several places there 
 were assemblies and riots, and magistrates were insulted, 
 and •'•' patriots," as the revolutionists called themselves. 
 were disarmed. The people were excited, too. by the 
 rumours of the creation of new battalions of troops. 
 Everything was in fact tending to a crisis. 
 
 " The fire was smouldering under the ashes,'"'' wrote 
 Mercier. " 1 seemed to hear the noise of a volcano under 
 my feet." 
 
 A measure of the Republican Government in Paris 
 fanned the smouldering fire into instant flame. Foreign 
 politics had become more than ever acute. War was 
 declared against England on the 1st February. 
 
 On the 25th the Convention declared that a coalition 
 of foreign despots menaced the Republic, and that liberty 
 was threatened. And it was decreed that all French 
 citizens from the ages of 18 to 40, unmarried, or 
 widowers without children, were in a state of permanent 
 requisition foi military service until such period as the 
 army was increased by the effective strength of o 00.0 00 
 men. 
 
 Quite in the early part <J March the news of the 
 intended conscription reached the Vendee. Compulsory 
 military or naval service had been a constant dread of 
 the Vendeans. Even before the Revolution began, a 
 petition had been addressed to the King setting forth
 
 in THE CAUSES OF THE VENDEAN WAB 37 
 
 that this cruel practice rendered families desolate, injured 
 agriculture, and turned the fields into waste lands. 
 
 And now the feeling against it was infinitely stronger. 
 At all times the Vendean had regarded his fields, his 
 valleys, his streams, his home, his hearth, as his earthly 
 Paradise : and was lie to be forced to leave them ( 
 They were to him his life's blood — not to be parted 
 from whilst life remained. He did not believe that the 
 country was in danger. He simply saw that a Govern- 
 ment which was pursuing him with a vindictive persecu- 
 tion, and which had become utterly detestable in his 
 eyes, wished for its own advantage to seize on the man- 
 hood of the country and to send it to the frontiers to 
 be killed. The patience and forbearance of the Vendeans 
 were at last strained to breaking-point. For more than 
 two years they had borne with the atrocious treatment, 
 meted out to them by the .Revolutionary Government. 
 They did not rise in revolt when their priests were torn 
 from their parishes, as they still contrived to get some 
 aid from them ; they did not rebel as link after link 
 was added to the chain of religious persecution ; they 
 were, thoroughly alienated from the Government, but 
 they abstained from opposing it by general armed 
 resistance. Now, however, the cup was tilled to over- 
 flowing; and they were asked to support this detested 
 Government with their lives and the lives of their 
 sons. That they would not do. Be the consequences 
 what they might, the limit of submission had been 
 reached. 
 
 A thrill of intense excitement ensued — -then mutter- 
 ings and growlings. 
 
 And then the tocsin is set ringing from tower and 
 steeple. The sound of the bells clangs far and wide, and 
 is taken up by church after church across the Vendee.
 
 38 THE REAL FRENCH REVOLUTIONIST ch. 
 
 Rome on the breeze, or breaking in on the stillness of 
 the night, it reaches the ears of all. And to the Vendean 
 peasant it speaks in language of thrilling impressiveness. 
 The voice of the hells, now summoning him to the 
 trysting-plaee of the people, has bidden him through 
 life to the temple of his faith, and to the worship in 
 which his eternal hopes are founded; it has called him 
 daily, in the midst of his labours, to offer to his Maker a 
 tribute of prayer and praise; at their summons he has 
 participated in the holy service and sacraments of his 
 church, which have brought him nearer to his God ; his 
 best and purest and holiest associations are wrapped in 
 those hells; and they are sacred to him. 
 
 But ringing thus at unusual time, with impetuous 
 clamour, and the bells of neighbouring towers and steeples 
 joining in distant chorus, the crisis must be of tre- 
 mendous importance, requiring the presence and aid of the 
 manhood of the country: and so, abandoning his work 
 and Ins home, he seized whatever arms he possessed and 
 hastened to meet his fellows. 
 
 It was, indeed, for all of them, the great crisis of 
 their lives. The Government which, by long persecu- 
 tion, had made itself hateful to them, had put forward 
 demands from which there was no escape except by 
 successful resistance. Compulsory conscription ; compul- 
 sory deportation from their homes and families, which 
 would be left unprotected, a prey to revolutionary 
 brutalities ; compulsory military service for a Government 
 which had treated them as the bitterest of enemies 
 instead of as fellow-countrymen. Should they resist or 
 not? that was the question. And to that question the 
 answer was "Yes!" ; ' Yes ! " though they might only 
 have a. few pitchforks, and scythes, and fowling-pieces to 
 defend themselves with. For life lately had scarcely
 
 in THE CAUSES OF THE A 7 ENDEAN WAR 39 
 
 been bearable. They could not bear the idea of being 
 torn from their homes, or of their sons or brothers or 
 friends being torn from them. They could not live 
 without the consolations of their religion, or without 
 those ministerial offices on which they believed their 
 eternal salvation to depend. 
 
 And so the turning of the way was taken ; taken 
 heroically, for the way led to danger and trial, to perse- 
 cution and death, at the hands of their own countrymen 
 and of a Government whose motto, audaciously flaunted 
 before the world, was " Liberty, Equality, and Fraternity," 
 but whose practice was " Tyranny, Inequality, and Fratri- 
 cide."
 
 CHAPTER TV 
 
 THE VENDEAN WAR 
 
 Part I 
 
 The decision to resist conscription having been taken, 
 but little time elapsed before the occasions arose for 
 giving effect to it. 
 
 There were assemblies and resistance to the local 
 authorities, and violence, first here, then there, and in a 
 few days insurrection generally throughout the Vendee. 
 
 The rapid spread of the insurrection has been claimed 
 by republican writers as convincing proof of long pre- 
 paration, of skilfully contrived organisation, and of the 
 whole movement therefore being a royalist and clerical 
 conspiracy. 
 
 Some of these writers have gone so far in the way of 
 absurdity as to declare it to be the work of Pitt and the 
 English. But any theory served their purpose if it 
 helped them to conceal the real fact, that tin 1 responsi- 
 bility for the insurrection lay altogether on the shoulders 
 of the Revolutionary Government. Gould the} - but shift 
 the responsibility elsewhere, the actions of the revolu- 
 tionists would require less need of justification. 
 
 That the disturbances were almost simultaneous was
 
 oh. iv THE VENDEAN WAR 41 
 
 due, not to any royalist order or signal, as they allege, 
 but solely to the circumstance that the fixtures made by 
 the various local authorities for the conscription fell 
 within a very limited number of days, namely, from the 
 1.0th to the 18th of March. On these days the 
 Yendeans were called upon to come up for enrolment. 
 They came, and in large numbers ; but they would not 
 enlist. If death were to be the penalty of their refusal, 
 they would rather, they said, die at home than else- 
 where — " they would rather be cut in pieces than march." 
 
 From words they passed to more vigorous forms of 
 protest. Quickly the first blows were struck, the first 
 blood shed, and the people, scarce knowing the gravity 
 of their actions, were irrevocably committed to arms. 
 The insurrection, in fact, really began on the impulse of 
 the moment, without plan, without concert, and almost 
 without hope. 
 
 If any further proof were required of its not being 
 the result of long preparation and deep-laid contrivance, 
 it is to be found in the utter unpreparedness of the 
 Vendeans for any serious strife. Practically they had no 
 arms : only a few old fowling-pieces, very little gun- 
 powder, and absolute])- no artillery; the most formidable 
 weapons of the majority were pikes and scythes fixed on 
 the ends of poles, and in most cases their only weapons 
 were sticks. How courageous in such circumstances was 
 their determination to resist the armed forces of the 
 Republican Government — how deeply must the sense of 
 the lung-continued ill-treatment have entered their souls 
 for them to face such desperate odds. 
 
 Of organisation there was not a vestige ; of the plan 
 of a campaign they were equally guileless ; ulterior 
 object, such as the restoration of the old regime, they 
 had none- — only the desire of the moment to escape con-
 
 42 THE REAL FRENCH REVOLUTIONIST ch. 
 
 seription, to have their priests restored to them, and to 
 be ahle to enjoy once more in peace and quiet the observ- 
 ances of their religious faith. 
 
 Moreover, they had at the outset no leaders. No 
 royal prince rushed to take the command, and to lead 
 them to victory ; no emi<jrc ?whlesse flew to their aid with 
 counsel and military experience. Even the Yendean 
 noblesse who had remained in their own country did not 
 at first help them. In their first gatherings they were 
 an unled crowd, eager to follow any one who had the 
 most rudimentary knowledge of military matters, or who 
 was of at all superior position to themselves. 
 
 There was, in fact, not the vestige of a prepared 
 organisation for a revolt. After a while, and under a 
 sort of compulsion, the Yendean noblesse consented to 
 lead them. But at no time were the whole of the Ven- 
 deans under one recognised and responsible leader, nor 
 were they ever welded together into one army. 
 
 Later, when it was seen how considerable the move- 
 ment was, the royalists endeavoured to turn it to their 
 own account; but, with the incapacity which distin- 
 guished all their efforts, they failed to do so : whilst that 
 contemptible creature the Count d'Artois, unwilling to 
 sacrifice his own ease and pleasure, and afraid to risk his 
 person in an effort to restore his own fortunes and those 
 id' his family, fought shy of the leadership which he of 
 all others might with good prospects of success have 
 assumed. 
 
 The details of the first collisions of the Yendeans 
 with the republican authorities are not of any special 
 interest, with the exception of that at Machecoul, a 
 small town in the west of the Vendee. Here, on the 
 morning of the f lib March, a crowd of some 5000 to G000 
 peasants arrived- — men. women, and children ; armed,
 
 iv THE VENDEAN WAK 43 
 
 some few with guns, most with only scythes or sticks. 
 The republican commanding officer of the town endea- 
 voured to resist ; shots were fired ; the Vendeans replied ; 
 some republicans were killed ; the National Guards fled, 
 and the town was taken possession of by the Vendeans. 
 A committee of government was promptly formed, and a 
 man named Soucliu was placed, or placed himself, at its 
 head. lie declared for royalty, and raised the white 
 standard of the Bourbons, thus formally declaring war 
 against the Kepublic, and thus committing the A r endeans 
 generally to the adoption of that standard as their battle 
 flag, and to their being regarded henceforth as royalists. 
 
 But what stamps the war as in reality a religious and 
 not a royalist war is the fact that the Vendeans perpetu- 
 ally reiterated the assertion that the first, if not the 
 only, reason of their taking arms was to sustain the 
 religion of their fathers. The restoration of royal 
 authority was always a secondary consideration. 
 
 The name of Machecoul has been brought into pro- 
 minence by the republicans on account of the severities 
 committed there by the Vendeans. Many of the 
 " patriots " or republicans residing in the place were 
 seized, tried before an improvised court, sentenced to 
 death, and shot. Exaggerated estimates say that 500 
 persons met their death thus in the course of a month ; 
 more reliable ones say that about 100 suffered. 
 
 In explanation of the Vendean conduct, however, 
 much is to be said. Long ill-treatment and strong pro- 
 vocation had embittered them. The massacre in cold 
 blood of prisoners at Bressuire in the preceding August 
 by National Guards, when many of the Vendeans " had 
 been cut in strips," still rankled. Furthermore, the 
 overtures they made to the republicans at Xantes for an 
 exchange of prisoners were not only scorned, but met by
 
 44 THE REAL FRENCH REVOLUTIONIST ch. 
 
 the instant execution of one of those prisoners ; and 
 fresh cause of exasperation was given them by the 
 massacre, on the night of the 23rd March, of some 
 hundreds of their companions at Pornic, a small coast 
 town a little distance off, which had been in possession 
 of the Vendeans, but from which they were driven by 
 the republicans, with a loss of over 200 men, and 300 
 prisoners, whom the republicans ' ; in their fury put to 
 death.'" 
 
 The republican authorities turned up their eyes with 
 horror at the depravity and ferocity of the Vendeans at 
 Machecoul, and with rage at any one except themselves 
 adopting such a method of getting rid of opponents : 
 and republican writers, ignoring Pornic, have ever since 
 made the most of the severities in Machecoul, appealing 
 to them as a justification of all the subsequent republican 
 severities against the A^endeans. 
 
 Undoubtedly there were numerous cases of cruelty 
 and pillage on the first outburst of the A r endeans ; nor 
 is it at all to be wondered at, having regard to the fear- 
 ful state of anarchy in which France had been for some 
 years, and to the prolonged carnival of violence and 
 bloodshed in which such numbers of the people indulged. 
 But, certainly, it does not lie in the mouth of the 
 revolutionists to complain of harsh or unjust treatment : 
 for their own history was already stained by every 
 imaginable iniquity. And it was ludicrous for those 
 to complain who had set precedents of wholesale slaughter 
 in the massacres in Paris, in the countless revolutionary 
 atrocities throughout France, and whose great solicitude 
 appeared to be to reserve for themselves the monopoly of 
 massacre. 
 
 Rather is it a matter of surprise that the outrages by 
 the Vendeans were so few. And once they got leaders,
 
 iv THE YENDEAN WAK 45 
 
 men of superior education, such violences ceased. Thence- 
 forward the prisoners taken were treated with great 
 humanity, and an example of mercy set, which, had it 
 been followed by the republicans, would have been well 
 for their reputation. 
 
 A few days after the capture of Machecoul, a much 
 greater success was gained ; the town of Cholet, the 
 key of the Vendee, being taken by another Vendean 
 gathering. 
 
 And here an incident showed the peculiarly religious 
 character of the Yendeans. In pursuing the republicans 
 they came to a calvary. Even the excitement of the 
 tight did not make them pass it without acknowledg- 
 ment : at it they paused, and falling on their knees, with 
 bared head and folded hands, said a brief prayer. Then 
 they resumed the struggle and their pursuit of the flying 
 republicans. 
 
 The victory was an important one. The Yendeans 
 captured several pieces of artillery, some powder, and a 
 considerable number of muskets ; but the capture of so 
 important a place, and the victory over so large a force 
 as some 700 republican troops, made a tremendous 
 impression, not merely on the inhabitants of the 
 Vendee, but upon the Eepublican Government in Paris. 
 
 The revolt was soon in full swing, both in the Upper 
 and in the Lower Vendee ; and the AYndeans did not let 
 the grass grow under their feet, but pushed on from one 
 success to another, driving out of the country all the 
 National Guards or republican troops or authorities 
 they came across, and arming themselves with the 
 weapons taken from their adversaries. And as their 
 numbers grew, and various assemblies met together, 
 they gradually became a large army. They had suc- 
 ceeded, too, in providing themselves with leaders. At
 
 40 THE REAL FRENCH REVOLUTIONIST ch. 
 
 St. Florent, Cathelineau had assumed the leadership. 
 Stoftiet — a gamekeeper — had gathered a force together, 
 and assumed the command of it. In the west, Charette, 
 a man of good family, had undertaken to lead them. 
 They also induced or "constrained" — as d'Elhee later 
 expressed it — the resident Vendean noblesse to join 
 them : de Bonchamps, d'Elhee, de Lescure, Henry de la 
 Rochejaquelein, men whose names are inscribed in the 
 Vendean temple of fame for their valour and for their 
 devotion to the Vendean cause. 
 
 And now, with leaders and with increasing numbers 
 of fighting men, more important movements were 
 attempted. 
 
 There was something strangely weird and awe- 
 inspiring in the Vendean mode of warfare. Behind 
 the impervious screen of wood which, in every direction, 
 met the republicans in their efforts to thread the 
 Vendean labyrinths, all was mystery. No sight, no 
 sound, betrayed the existence, the presence, of an enemy. 
 No scouts, no outposts, no barricades, no obstructions even 
 on the rough and narrow road along which toiled the 
 republican troops, encumbered with artillery, and caissons 
 of ammunition, and waggons of food. 
 
 But the night before, the tocsin had been ringing, 
 gathering the peasants together '"'for the service of God 
 and King," and they bad come, and got their instruc- 
 tions, and melted away again. And the bells again 
 hung silent in the belfries. And then, just as the re- 
 publican troops are in the roughest bit of the road, or 
 in the narrowest part of a defile, just as they are' least 
 anticipating attack, an army springs apparently out of 
 the ground, a murderous volley is poured into them, 
 and another, and another, from behind the thick quickset 
 hedges, or from out the woods: and fearful cries are
 
 iv THE VEKDEAN WAE 47 
 
 heard — cries that appal the stoutest heart ; and wild- 
 looking men are seen running along behind the hedges 
 to get fresh opportunities for a shot ; and the cries grow 
 louder and louder, now on one flank, then on the other, 
 down the whole line, even to the very rear ; until the 
 republican troops feel trapped and ensnared, and 
 surrounded by their enemy. And bearing down here 
 and there on their extended line dash masses of men, 
 ill-armed, it is true, but strong in the invincible reck- 
 lessness of religious passion, and with loud shouts close 
 in on their opponents. The republicans, surprised and 
 staggered by the suddenness of the attack, confused by 
 the terrible noise, feeling helpless from their inability to 
 get at their foes, make a brief stand, then panic seizes 
 them, those that have not fallen throw down their arms 
 and fly, any whither so that they get away from their 
 foes, fortunate if they escape with their lives. And the 
 Vendeans, having collected the spoils of victory, having 
 distributed amongst the unarmed the muskets and am- 
 munition which they have captured, having on their 
 knees thanked God, who had given them the victory, 
 vanish into the mysterious depths of the woods, to 
 reassemble and repeat their victory on the first suitable 
 opportunity. 
 
 Upon the republicans the effect of this species of 
 warfare was terrifying. How terrifying may be gathered 
 from the description of a contemporary writer. " The 
 ' patriot ' marches with fear and trembling through the 
 defiles of the Vendee- — -he shivers with dread — it seems 
 to him as if he were on a soil which might at any 
 moment suddenly explode, or as if the mountains might 
 suddenly fall upon him." 
 
 It was not, however, only their method of warfare 
 which made the Vendeans to be feared by the republi-
 
 48 THE REAL FRENCH REVOLUTIONIST en. 
 
 cans, it was the spirit which animated them. Republi- 
 cans and revolutionists called it " fanaticism." and 
 were always gibing at it, as if it were something so 
 utterly abominable as to remove the Vendeans from the 
 category of human beings, and to justify any treatment 
 of them. 
 
 There is no word in the dictionary of French revolu- 
 tionary cant oftener used in the way of contemptuous con- 
 demnation than this one. But this so-called " fanaticism " 
 was but the expression of the religious faith of these 
 Venclean peasants, and it was the secret of their power 
 and of their success. Death had no terrors for them, 
 for were they not lighting for their God. — what 
 mattered it, then, if they perished in the strife '. 
 
 Strong in this faith, " they threw themselves on the 
 cannon and caissons of the republicans with the ferocity 
 of a tiger which pursues and carries off its prey." 
 
 And so, time after time, prodigies of valour were 
 performed by them. Where others would have been 
 discouraged, they persevered : where others would have 
 succumbed in despair, they presented a bold front even 
 against the most tremendous odds ; where others would 
 have been cowed, they rose to the emergency and 
 triumphed. 
 
 Just at the precise moment that the Yendean civil 
 war was beginning, the National Convention in Paris 
 had adopted two measures which were destined very 
 materially to affect the vicissitudes of the Venclean strife. 
 
 The first was the establishment of the Revolutionary 
 Tribunal in Paris, which was created to punish all 
 attacks against the Republic, and which afforded a pre- 
 cedent and pattern for numerous similar tribunals in the 
 country. 
 
 The second was the adoption, or more accurately the
 
 iv THE VENDEAN WAR 49 
 
 extension, of a system of government which stamps the 
 revolutionary government of France as absolutely 
 despotic in form. 
 
 The Convention, finding itself unable to carry out a 
 vigorous and detailed execution of the system of revolu- 
 tionary government throughout the country, and irri- 
 tated by the resistance it met with, did not scruple to 
 call to its aid the resources of despotism. 
 
 The Constitution of 1791 had reduced the power of 
 the central executive almost to nothing ; for the " ad- 
 ministrations " in the Departments were popularly elected 
 bodies, and independent of the central power. The 
 defects of this organisation revealed themselves to the 
 Convention once that body had seized the executive 
 power of the State ; and to govern the country with 
 effect, it felt the necessity of reassuming the lost power, 
 and of concentrating administration in its own hands. 
 
 Accordingly it divided France into forty-one sections 
 — two Departments in each — and eighty-two commis- 
 sioners or " Representatives of the people," chosen from 
 the Convention itself, were sent in twos into each of the 
 sections to take the most vigorous and thorough measures 
 for suppressing all opposition, and to work the people in 
 them up to the proper pitch of revolutionary enthusiasm. 
 It gave these Representatives unlimited powers, and left 
 them free from all control except that of the Conven- 
 tion itself. In some few matters they could only act 
 provisionally, reporting to the Convention for its final 
 approval ; but in almost everything their wish was to be 
 law, their word was to be law. 
 
 Xo authority, local, military, or judicial, could over- 
 rule them or set their actions aside. They could enforce 
 the most abject obedience. They could order the 
 military forces about as they wished. They could impose 
 
 E
 
 50 THE HEAL FRENCH REVOLUTIONIST on. 
 
 on districts what penalties they thought fit. They could 
 suspend or dissolve any local bodies that opposed them. 
 They could suspend or cancel any process of law. They 
 were absolute despots, worse even than previous royal 
 despots, being more in number, more ubiquitous, more 
 pettily omniscient, and without any of the restraints which 
 surround a real sovereign, however despotic. Once; they 
 arrived in their districts every vestige of protection for 
 life or property was gone, and every form of justice set 
 a.side, except what they considered justice. 
 
 It is really hard to realise that a Revolution which 
 was to destroy tyranny should have set up a new and 
 worse form of tyranny. But one of the most striking 
 and interesting facts in connection with the Revolution 
 is this — that the revolutionists were always repeating in 
 a more aggravated form the evils which they proclaimed 
 they intended to destroy, and were always belying the 
 principles which they blazoned forth as the exclusive 
 property of the revolutionary creed. 
 
 Nor were these tremendous powers given to the 
 Representatives by the Convention with the intention 
 that they were not to be used; for that the Convention 
 might know that they were using them, they were to 
 report every week direct to it, and every day to the 
 Committee of Public Safety. 
 
 Here, then, the true nature of French revolutionary 
 government discloses itself. As events develop them- 
 selves, one will see it in ever clearer colours: and not 
 only that, hut the true character of French revolutionary 
 "justice," and the true nature of the French revolution- 
 ist — the " good sans-culotte," the " brave republican," so 
 much belauded by his fellows and himself. 
 
 The fact is, that as a sort of government gradually 
 developed out of the chaos and anarchy and violence
 
 iv THE YEN DEAN WAE 51 
 
 which for some years had prevailed in France, everything 
 that was worst and most violent in that anarchy, instead 
 of being eliminated, crystallised into the new system. 
 
 The tide of Vendean success swept on. By the end 
 of March almost the whole of the Vendee was in the 
 power of the A'endeans. 
 
 The insurrection had taken the Government by sur- 
 prise. In that part of the country there were scarcely 
 any regular troops, nearly every available man of them 
 having been sent to the frontiers to defend France 
 against foreign enemies. A cry of alarm went up from 
 the towns in the neighbourhood of the insurrection, 
 Nantes, Angers, and Sauinur all feeling menaced and un- 
 comfortable. The peril was great, they thought, and 
 prompt measures were required on the part of the Revolu- 
 tionary Government to meet the danger. 
 
 The Convention was not slow in acting. On the 
 17th March it received tidings of the disturbances, and 
 on the 19th if passed the fearful, inexorable law which 
 was the doom of tens of thousands of A'endeans, the 
 charter, so to speak, of the revolutionists, the warrant, 
 or excuse, for all their inhumanities. 
 
 " It does not suffice," said Lanjuinais, in discussing 
 the measure in the Convention, " to threaten with the 
 Revolutionary Tribunal men who are evidently paid by 
 the English Government, and roused into revolt by the 
 nobles and priests, especially when this tribunal is eighty 
 leagues away from the scene of the insurrection. I 
 demand that chiefs and soldiers — all those who are 
 captured witli arms in their hands, who oppose them- 
 selves to the recruiting, or who wear the white cockade, 
 shall be treated according to the laws against the dmigres 
 (that is to say, to the penalty of deatli within twenty-
 
 THE REAL FRENCH REVOLUTIONIST en. 
 
 four hours after trial by court-martial). T demand 
 further that the property of all those who arc killed in 
 the insurrection shall be confiscated." 
 
 Against the enormity of this proposal several mem- 
 bers even of the Mountain protested. Even Marat 
 declared it to ho "the maddest, and most unworthy of a 
 thinking being' 1 (Jo 'plus insensee, la plus indigne d'v.n 
 ('Ire pen sard), "for it is not against the misled men that 
 severe measures should be taken, but against the chiefs." 
 
 The decree nevertheless was made. Furthermore, the 
 Convention ordered the executive to take instantaneously 
 the most vigorous measures for the suppression of the 
 insurrection. 
 
 Great efforts were accordingly put forth to make a 
 stand against the Vendeans. France had already nine 
 armies on the frontiers. The Government decided on 
 organising two new ones for service in the west. 
 
 A proclamation was made to the rebels calling on 
 them to dissolve their gatherings, and lay down their 
 arms ; and announcing that those who did so within 
 twenty-four hours should not be punished (inquietes), 
 nor those who surrendered the chiefs or instigators of 
 the revolt. 
 
 " This decree of proscription and death;' wrote 
 Savary, " tended more to strengthen than to terminate 
 the revolt. Chiefs, priests, and all felt that there re- 
 mained no hope for them, and the necessity was im- 
 pressed on them of firmer union, and of attaching to 
 themselves the masses of the population." 
 
 The local republican authorities at Angers and Saumur 
 did their utmost to get a force together to withstand the 
 Vendeans, and crowds of men arrived, peasants without 
 arms, or badly armed, conducted by officers of their own 
 choosing, without experience, and without discipline, a
 
 iv THE VENDEAN WAT! 53 
 
 motley lot "who knew neither how to command nor to 
 obey." 
 
 These, and the National Guards, and some few 
 regular troops, were all the Government had at first to 
 oppose the Vendeans, and the generals who were sent 
 to command them drew dismal pictures of them. 
 
 The local authorities appear to have had a very 
 shrewd idea of their proclivities, for they issued a pro- 
 clamation to them. 
 
 " Citizens, — You are commanded by the law. You 
 march in the name of the law. You should behave 
 according to the law. You are going to fight men 
 whose greatest crime is to have listened to the perfidious 
 counsels of those who deceived them. They are guilty, 
 without doubt. They have forced you to take arms 
 against them. If they are victors, they would perhaps 
 not spare you ; but you who are animated by the love 
 of your country — you whose noble ambition should be 
 to conquer and to know how to pardon — would you, in 
 imitating your enemies, assassinate those whom the fortune 
 of war places in your power I Consider that the man 
 who is conquered and unarmed is under the protection 
 of the law. In abusing your victory, in wasting the 
 plains, in devastating property, you would be violating 
 the law, which every citizen should respect, and you 
 would render yourself culpable in his eyes."' 
 
 This proclamation — interesting as an illustration of 
 what the ideal revolutionist, as distinguished from the 
 real one, should be — is noteworthy as being almost the 
 last glimmer of fair dealing with or moderation towards 
 the Vendeans. Henceforward, almost- in vain does one 
 seek for one sign of, not mercy, because that was never 
 shown, but of fairness or justice. The mere mention of 
 the word mercy was displeasing to " popular hearts."
 
 54 THE REAL FRENCH REVOLUTIONIST oh. iv 
 
 Death, destruction, extermination, even these scarcely 
 satisfied the overbearing spirit of the revolutionist, 
 scarcely gratified his lust for bloodshed, and for the 
 annihilation of all opposed to him. Conciliation and 
 compromise were not thought of, or if mentioned were 
 stigmatised as counter-revolutionary and worthy of death. 
 Force was the only remedy, and nothing but force would 
 meet; the necessities of the case. No severity could be 
 too great, no punishment too heavy, in dealing with the 
 cursed Ven deans. No subterfuge but was justifiable to 
 get hold of them. Treachery, lies, deceit were all 
 pressed into service with tins object, and all held to be 
 commendable when so employed.
 
 CHAP TEE V 
 
 THE VENDEAN WAR 
 
 Tart II 
 
 The so-called troops of the Republican Government in 
 the Vendee were not much to boast of. For the first 
 period of the war Representatives, commissioners, and 
 generals were unanimous in condemnation of them. 
 
 There were, first, some few regular troops of the line ; 
 then there were the National Guards, or " Blues " as 
 they were called, from their wearing a blue coat, a name 
 which in Vendean parlance had already come to include 
 all the Government forces ; and then there were the newly 
 enrolled volunteers, who constituted the bulk of the forces. 
 
 These new levies were in some ways the least useful. 
 Xo sooner had they arrived at their quarters for military 
 service, than they wanted to go away again, and they 
 deserted by companies, sometimes by battalions, flying 
 by every road as fast as their legs would take them (a 
 qui mieux mieux). The "fathers of families" appear to 
 have been usually the ringleaders, being anxious to get 
 back to their families and their farms. 
 
 When a sufficient number of these levies could be 
 kept together they were of little or no use, and were 
 utterly unfitted for war in the Vendee.
 
 5G THE HEAL FRENCH REVOLUTIONIST ch. 
 
 " In these hastily funned assemblies, without discipline, 
 experienced chiefs, or knowledge of arms, they were but 
 feeble beings, frightened at the least sight of danger, 
 and always ready to cry out that they were betrayed." 
 
 Enthusiasm did not make good these deficiencies — 
 not even the enthusiasm of patriotism, for it was neither 
 their own will nor the desire of defending their religion 
 or their chief that had enlisted the soldiers of the 
 Republic. "Requisitions and measures of terror had 
 filled the ranks." 
 
 The National Guards, though having a little more 
 discipline and training than these men, were not much 
 better. " They have, given proofs of the most signal 
 cowardice," wrote Choudieu, a fiery Representative. 
 
 AVhilst, as for the regulars, whatever little superiority 
 they possessed in some ways was more than counter- 
 balanced by their failings in other directions : for if they 
 did not take the lead in running away, they took it in 
 the perpetration of every enormity and atrocity that 
 troops could be capable of. 
 
 The armies, or what were called by that name, were 
 in fact composed for the greater part of ignorant and 
 badly armed peasants — " poltroons to a degree of which 
 one can form no idea," men who were saturated with " la 
 cUsastrev.se habitude de fuir." Often on the discharge of 
 the first musket, even of one of their own muskets, they 
 took to their heels and Med for miles, sometimes even 
 for leagues. On the least excuse panic seized them, 
 they broke their ranks, and, flinging down their arms, 
 rushed back on their comrades, throwing all into disorder 
 and causing a general sauve qui 'prut. 
 
 The generals complained bitterly of the material they 
 were supposed to work with, and declared it impossible 
 to carry on regular operations with such men.
 
 v THE VENDEAN WAR 57 
 
 " It is very hard upon an old military man," wrote 
 General Berruyer, " to have to command cowards" (de 
 commander a des ladies). 
 
 [nsubordination was rampant among them ; every 
 one wanted to do exactly as he liked ; even the self- 
 styled officers would not obey orders. 
 
 At times the insubordination reached absolute mutiny, 
 and on one occasion they pillaged their own cash-box. 
 
 From the very outset the republican troops gave 
 themselves over to all sorts of excesses, which were 
 more in their line than fighting. 
 
 Representatives belonging to the party in the Con- 
 vention known as the Mountain can scarcely be regarded 
 as hostile witnesses, yet two of them have drawn a 
 damning picture of these, their own troops. In a 
 proclamation addressed to the troops at Angers on 
 12th April, they wrote: — 
 
 " Houses have been pillaged, properties devastated, 
 everywhere brigandage presents itself to our eyes. 
 Women, children, old people, patriots even, are massacred 
 without pity; and it is at the moment they waited for 
 you as their deliverers, that they received death at the 
 hand even of their brothers. . . . 
 
 " The troops are more dangerous to patriots than to 
 the counter-revolutionists." 
 
 With troops of such character, and in such a state of 
 indiscipline, the generals in command could not do much. 
 
 Nor, indeed, had the generals much chance otherwise, 
 for they had not an atom of independence. 
 
 At their very elbows, and always among them, was a 
 whole bevy of commissioners of every sort and kind, 
 with which the country bad been overrun. Com- 
 missioners of the Convention, or, as they are better 
 known, " Representatives " ; commissioners of the
 
 58 THE REAL FRENCH REVOLUTIONIST ch. 
 
 executive power: commissioners of the .Departments, 
 and of the district authorities ; commissioners of the 
 Commune of Paris, and of the sections : of the Minister 
 of War: of the Committee of Public Safety; and com- 
 missioners of the popular societies. 
 
 Many of these commissioners had a colleague and 
 sub-agents: and they all came and went among the 
 troops just as they pleased, each of them giving orders, 
 often contradictory, overriding the military authority: 
 interfering in all the operations; and creating strife 
 and confusion which paralysed the efforts of the 
 army. 
 
 The ignorance, depravity, and incapacity of some, 
 the fanaticism and malice of others, the conceited rivalry 
 of all, disorganised the services and threw the adminis- 
 tration of the army into the most frightful anarchy. 
 Knowledge of strategy they naturally had none, but 
 this did not prevent them criticising with the greatest 
 freedom and assurance the plans of campaign adopted 
 by the generals, and overruling them when and as they 
 wished. 
 
 AYoe to the general who did not listen to their 
 advice, or who refused to obey their orders. He was 
 immediately denounced, and he was lucky if his de- 
 nunciation were not. as it often was. the first step to 
 the scaffold. 
 
 Things were carried to such a pass in this respect 
 that it was almost impossible for a general to keep his 
 command for even a few weeks without being incrimi- 
 nated. Rightly or wrongly, justly or unjustly, mattered 
 not. 
 
 Thus, General .Mare/-, vvhu was uiiu ul' the first 
 generals to come into actual contact with the Vendeans. 
 was obliged on the very field of battle and at the most
 
 v THE YEN DEAN WAR 59 
 
 critical moment to act on the orders of Niou, one of 
 the commissioners from the Convention, and having, 
 in consequence, been defeated, Niou denounced him, and 
 he was sent to prison, and ultimately to the scaffold, 
 instead of Niou, who was really the culprit. But that 
 was only the usual style of revolutionary procedure. 
 
 And most of the earlier appointed generals, who 
 were military men, and had some military experience, 
 were not long left in command ; for they were not of 
 the cruel, bloodthirsty, unprincipled, scoundrel type 
 which found most favour with the Revolutionary 
 Government. 
 
 At the back of all these Representatives and com- 
 missioners and their colleagues and agents was the 
 Minister of War, and again above him the Committee 
 of 'Public Safety and the National Convention. 
 
 In the end of April the important post of War 
 Minister was held by Bouchotte. On his taking office, 
 lie fell in with Danton's politic suggestion to join 
 clemency to force; and on the 11th May the Con- 
 vention was persuaded to moderate its decree of 19th 
 March, and to declare that only the chiefs and in- 
 stigators of the rebels should be subjected to the death 
 penalty, whilst the ordinary rebels, if they laid down 
 their arms and surrendered, should be pardoned. But 
 this decree was never anything more than a dead letter. 
 It was neither obeyed nor followed, and it was soon 
 after superseded by others as ferocious as the one it 
 modified. 
 
 The momentary phase of moderation over, Bouchotte 
 inaugurated the reign of the " Mountain," or extreme 
 revolutionary party, in the war department. 
 
 He determined to republicanise the arm}'. The 
 Vendean war was " counter-revolutionary/' Necessarily.
 
 GO THE REAL FRENCH REVOLUTIONIST oh. 
 
 therefore, it was to be opposed by revolutionary principles, 
 
 by revolutionary troops, and revolutionary generals. 
 What revolutionary troops were, and what revolutionary- 
 generals were, became more and more evident as time 
 went on. 
 
 While the Revolutionary Government was making 
 what military preparations it could to meet the Vendean 
 revolt, the courage, dash, energy, and "fanaticism" of the 
 Vendeans, and their numerous victories over the " Blues," 
 were rapidly providing them with arms and ammunition 
 at the expense of their enemies. 
 
 Emboldened by success they pressed on, and the 
 republicans gave way. 
 
 On the 13th April the Vendeans drove Quetineau 
 and some 5000 republicans out of Aubiers, and captured 
 two guns and some ammunition; and at Beaupreau, on 
 the 22nd, they captured five guns. 
 
 Appearing at all sorts of unexpected places, at un- 
 expected times, and in unexpected numbers, they carried 
 terror into the hearts of the republicans. 
 
 Indeed, except in the opener country of the maritime 
 Vendee, none of their attacks could be foreseen, for the 
 region where the rebellion was remained hermetically 
 sealed. 
 
 Early in May (oth), the important town of Thouars, 
 situated in an almost impregnable position, fell before 
 their brilliant attack, led by Lescure and Henri de la 
 Roehejaquelein. 2000 prisoners were captured, including 
 General Quetineau ; 1 2 cannon, several thousand muskets, 
 pistols, sabres; 100 barrels of gunpowder, and other 
 stores. Xo excesses were committed by the Vendeans 
 beyond cutting down the "tree of liberty" which 
 scarcely can lie considered an excess- and burning the 
 papers of the revolutionary administration.
 
 v THE YEN DE AX WAR 01 
 
 Not wishing to treat the prisoners they had taken 
 a la Rrpuhlique — that is to say, to put them all to 
 death— the Vendeans released even the general, on his 
 taking an oath not to appear in arms again against the 
 Catholic army or the King of France. The men were 
 treated with similar leniency, except that they had half 
 their heads shaved, so that they might he identified 
 again. 
 
 An oatli had little sanctity in the eyes of a revolu- 
 tionist, and, soon after, these men were forced by the re- 
 publican authorities to retract the oath they had taken, 
 and the Representatives declared that if they refused 
 to serve their country they woidd be treated as " sus- 
 pects." 
 
 " For could there exist," said these Representatives, 
 '• a binding; agreement between revolted brigands and 
 free men, between the contemptible instruments of 
 fanaticism and royalty ami the defenders of the first 
 Republic of the world '-. " 
 
 As for General Quetineau, a little later he again fell 
 into the hands of the Vendeans, they having captured 
 a town to which he had retired, but as lie was not 
 fighting he was again released. He was then arrested 
 by the republicans and sent to Paris on a charge of 
 treason, and of having sold his army. Some months 
 later he was tried, sentenced to death, and executed ; 
 and, with that extraordinary French revolutionary 
 brutality to women which is so appalling a feature in 
 this awful period, his wife was executed also for having 
 been heard to say "Vive le Roi." 
 
 In the farthest western extremity of the Vendee the 
 Vendeans had been foiled in an attack on the small 
 seaport of Sables, which they were anxious to acquire so 
 as to enable them to get help and supplies from England
 
 G2 THE HEAL FEENCH REVOLUTIONIST en. 
 
 or Spain, or from the dmigrds. But on the 25th of 
 May they captured Fontenay — the chief town of the 
 Department — and with it 40 cannon, 7000 muskets, 
 4000 prisoners, and a large quantity of military 
 stores. 
 
 The cttbrls of the republicans lied to Niort, where 
 Biron, ci-devant Duke and Count de Lauzun, who had 
 been induced to take the appointment of commander-in- 
 chief, had just arrived. 
 
 There, according to Biron's description, the confusion 
 of chaos reigned. 
 
 At first sight lie found it was not an army winch he 
 had under him, hut a collection of men. He was in 
 want of everything. There was no equipment for victual- 
 ling or for hospitals, and there was no artillery. lie 
 had not a single officer of artillery or engineers, and 
 other officers of all ranks were wanting. There were 
 some 18,000 to 20,000 men in the town, but only some 
 2000 answered to the call of "assembly." It was the 
 same here as on the eastern boundaries of the Vendee. 
 Entire battalions of National Guards deserted at night, 
 not leaving even a. single man behind. 
 
 The commanding officers of the different detachments 
 called their own detachment their " army," and called 
 themselves generals. Their vanity and egotism were 
 boundless. Each kept himself independent of all the 
 others for fear of losing status, held no communication 
 with them, gave no account of his proceedings to any 
 one. " They did not, in fact, appear to belong to the 
 same power." 
 
 Had the Yendeans pressed on from Fontenay, Niort 
 must have fallen. lint if not energetic here, farther east 
 they were carrying everything before them. From 
 Thenars they had advanced to Done, which on the 8th
 
 v THE VENUE AN WAR 63 
 
 June they captured, and whence they threatened Saumur, 
 a small but important town of great, strategic value, 
 having a bridge across the Loire. 
 
 Saumur had been made the eastern headquarters of the 
 republicans, and here, about the middle of May, a central 
 commission of sixteen commissioners and Representa- 
 tives sat. There was also an army of 10,000 men here, 
 but it remained in absolute inaction. 
 
 " One would have difficulty in believing it," wrote 
 two of the Representatives. " One day when the generals 
 were assembled with the Representatives, we have seen 
 the chief of a corps come and declare that he and his 
 comrades would not march against 4000 brigands unless 
 they themselves were 6000." The chief referred to was 
 Rossignol, who had been sent by his " brave comrades " 
 to make this statement. 
 
 A contemporary republican has left a vivid descrip- 
 tion of towns in occupation of republican headquarters. 
 Of Saumur he says : " The streets were crowded with 
 aides-de-camp, who trailed long sabres after them and 
 wore long moustachios : and with swindling or blackleg 
 generals (escrocs) and others of that sort ; with commis- 
 sioners of the executive power, who preached anarchy, 
 murder, and assassination. It appeared as if all the 
 rou4s of Paris had made a meeting-place in these unhappy 
 countries to stir up civil war and to despoil the inhabit- 
 ants. This spectacle afflicted me, but I had only seen as 
 yet a corner of this hideous picture. . . . 
 
 " I had perceived more than once at Paris, and Tours, 
 and elsewhere, that extreme divisions existed between the 
 Representatives. I had been a witness of a quarrel 
 between two of them, about the appointment of an 
 apothecary to the army, in which they abused each othei 
 in strong language (such as 'line vielle machine de-
 
 G4 THE HEAL FRENCH REVOLUTIONIST oh. 
 
 traquee '). I know that the Representatives described 
 each oilier under the name of ' scelerat,' and that without 
 much ceremony." 
 
 Of Tours lie writes: " Here tin' number of debauchees 
 (Jioinmcs vorrompus), of these snppfits de mauvais lieux, 
 was much greater ; and it increased every day as the 
 battalions from Paris arrived. I saw actors, jugglers, and 
 mountebanks transformed into generals, with the most 
 disgusting harlots in their train, occupying positions of 
 rank in the army, or places of employment in the com- 
 missariat and forage departments, or in the military 
 train, and these insectes corrvpteurs had the insolence 
 to call themselves republicans. 
 
 " I saw light cavalry, composed of cowardly Prussian 
 and Austrian deserters, ' the Germanic legion ' which had 
 been formed with the object of giving to the friends of 
 Equality and Liberty in France the opportunity of 
 developing their military talents for the service of 
 France and in favour of the entire humanity. It was 
 with brigands of this type that one wished to extinguish 
 the civil war. 
 
 '•'It is thus,' I said sadly to myself, ' that one sur- 
 rounds the statue of Liberty. One wishes to defend the 
 Republic with men of the sort Catiline picked up for 
 I be destruction of bis country." 5 
 
 The battalions which arrived from Paris were com- 
 posed of, as Parere called them, "courageous patriots." 
 
 The Commune of Paris had cried out for severe mea- 
 sures against the Vendeans: "No pardon, no quarter to 
 the rebels," — and passed a decree (1st May) for the 
 enlistment of 1 2,000 men to go and suppress them. 
 
 Put though a "patriotic" appeal was made to the 
 Parisians to enlist, their patriotism did not rise to that 
 height, and a money inducement had to be added ; as
 
 v THE VEKDEAN WAR 65 
 
 much as 500 livres to each man enrolled, and the pro- 
 mise of a pension on his return. 
 
 These pseudo-volunteers were everything which was 
 vilest in Paris — convicts, lunatics, criminals of the deepest 
 dye, men steeped in debauch and crime, and they quickly 
 made themselves famous in the Vendee under the sar- 
 castic epithet, "the 500-livres heroes." 
 
 Some of the republicans later, somewhat ashamed of 
 the actions of these heroes, repudiated their protdgSs, and 
 asserted that they were the leavings of the royalists. 
 
 They were, however, enlisted with the sanction and 
 approval of the Eepublican Government by the Commune 
 of Paris, were paid by it, and constituted part of the 
 armed forces of the Republic. 
 
 This revolutionary crew had not even the redeeming 
 trait of courage. 
 
 On the 9th of June the Vendeans attacked Saumur, 
 and swept them out of it : the republican troops once 
 more distinguishing themselves by their cowardice ; the 
 newly-arrived Parisians taking the lead in a rapid move- 
 ment to the rear ; the cry, " Sauve qui peut," " We are 
 betrayed," having been started, they said, by disguised 
 royalists, as republican troops would not, of course, do 
 such a thing. 
 
 The victory was a brilliant one, and placed at the 
 disposal of the Vendeans large quantities of artillery 
 (1G guns were taken), 15,000 muskets, ammunition, 
 and other military stores and supplies ; in fact, the war 
 material of a small arsenal. Some 2500 republicans, 
 it is said, were killed or wounded, and some 8000 
 prisoners were taken. 
 
 Here once again the prisoners, amounting now to 
 about 11,000 in all, instead of being slaughtered, were 
 let go, on taking the oath not to bear arms again against 
 
 F
 
 GG THE HEAL FRENCH REVOLUTIONIST on. 
 
 religion or the King, and on some of their hair being 
 shaved off as a mark of identification. 
 
 Prisoners were a constant difficulty with the Vendeans. 
 They had no regular prisons, and no satisfactory means 
 () f keeping or feeding such large numbers as they cap- 
 lured. 
 
 The republicans would never exchange prisoners; 
 that they would not condescend to— no matter what 
 Pecame of their own friends who had been captured. 
 
 The Vendeans had practically little choice— either to 
 release them on the useless terms they did, or to put 
 them to death, as the republicans put the Vendean 
 prisoners to death under the law of the 19th March. 
 
 Though it must quickly have become apparent to 
 them that in releasing prisoners they were but adding 
 to the forces arrayed against them, as even an oath was 
 not regarded as binding by their implacable foes, yet 
 were they too magnanimous to follow the republican 
 precedent: thev, at any rate, had not sunk, could 
 not sink, to the level of republican fraternity and 
 
 humanity. 
 
 The contrast of conduct is magnificent testimony to 
 the superiority of the Vendeans over their merciless foes 
 and it was all the more splendid that, even under the 
 most desperate aggravation, they persevered in a course 
 which tended much towards their own undoing and 
 
 defeat. 
 
 The Convention dealt with this matter of the re- 
 publicans taking such an oath in a characteristically 
 
 republican way. 
 
 On the 22nd .June it decreed that any republican 
 soldier taking such an oath, or receiving a passport from 
 the Vendeans, should be deprived of the rights of citizen- 
 ship for ten years : and lie was further threatened with the
 
 v TTIE VENDEAN WAE 67 
 
 penalty of being sent before the extraordinary tribunal 
 (in a charge of communicating with the rebels — an offence 
 punishable with death. 
 
 With Saumur in their hands, and the republicans 
 panic-struck, the way to all appearance was open to 
 Paris; but the Vendean army, valiant and almost irre- 
 sistible in its own country, was not equal to undertaking 
 so formidable a task, so great a military adventure. They 
 moved on to and occupied Angers, which in a panic had 
 been abandoned by the republicans — though there was 
 a force of several thousand troops there, and over twenty 
 pieces of artillery. 
 
 But the high -water mark of Vendean success was 
 here reached. For the first time, differences of opinion 
 divided the Vendean Council. Some, whom success had 
 made ambitious, wanted to go on, even to Paris; others 
 to adhere to the line of action which so far had made 
 them successful. Ultimately they agreed on the middle 
 course of an attack on Nantes. 
 
 Thither, therefore, the army directed its way. 
 
 Xantes, witli its 80,000 inhabitants, was plunged into 
 great alarm when it became known that the Vendean 
 army was advancing to attack it. 
 
 On the 19th dune the Representatives declared the 
 town to lie in a state of siege, the civil authorities were 
 superseded by military authorities, and military law was 
 enforced. 
 
 Canclaux was the general commanding, and he had 
 about 0000 to 10,000 men, of whom several thousand 
 were troops of the line. 
 
 In the early hours of the morning of the 29th the 
 attack was begun, and the battle raged for the whole day. 
 If was a well-fought contest, and the Vendeans had 
 almost triumphed ; but the fate of the day appears to
 
 G8 THE REAL KEENCH REVOLUTIONIST oh. 
 
 have been decided by the loss by the Vendeans of their 
 beloved leader, Cathelinefiu, who had succeeded in forcing 
 his way into the city, but who, in the moment of triumph, 
 had there been mortally wounded. 
 
 Completely discouraged by this heavy blow, the Ven- 
 deans fell back, and their attack was repelled. Obliged 
 to renounce the idea of carrying on war on the north 
 side of the Loire, they retreated to their own side of the 
 liver, and there the army dissolved. 
 
 This heavy reverse was decisive of the ultimate fate 
 of the Vendean war, so far as the probability of over- 
 throwing the Republican Government was concerned; 
 for it proved that Nantes could be held against the 
 Vendeans, and that the power of the Vendeans was 
 I inn ted. 
 
 There was one great inherent weakness in the Ven- 
 dean cause. The Vendeans could never be kept together 
 for more than a lew days at a time. They would assemble 
 and fight, but, whether victorious or defeated, they re- 
 turned to their homes after a few days, vanishing into 
 the woods by the countless paths unknown to all but 
 themselves. Even had they been successful in their 
 attack on Nantes, it is doubtful whether they would or 
 could have kept possession of it long. Saumur they had 
 evacuated : Angers also ; Fontenay too. It seemed im- 
 possible for them to hold a town for any length of time, 
 and this limitation of aggressiveness practically fore- 
 doomed the Vendean struggle. Any extended sustained 
 success, such as the more ambitious royalists coveted, 
 was. under these circumstances, impossible. On their 
 own ground, and in their own woods, they were abb; to 
 hold their own against, all the forces the Republic could 
 bring against them; that practically was all they really 
 wanted. Some of their leaders aspired to effecting a
 
 v THE VENDEAN WAR GO 
 
 counter-revolution, and re-establishing the monarchy, 
 though getting little encouragement from the quarter 
 from which aid should have come; but the ambition of 
 the Vendean peasants never soared so high. The restora- 
 tion of their religion was for them the one object of 
 their desires.
 
 CHAT TEE A T I 
 
 REVOLUTIONARY TRIBUNALS AND .MILITARY COMMISSIONS 
 
 If the revolutionary authorities were unable to make 
 headway against the Vendeans in the field, with the 
 solitary exception of defeating the attacks on Xantes 
 and Salilt-s, they gave the fullest vent to their wrath in 
 places where they had the upper hand. 
 
 Beaten on the held of battle, they were determined 
 to take their revenge in every other way they could on 
 the people and on the prisoners who were in their 
 power; and here in the civil as distinguished from 
 military government, horror rapidly accumulates on 
 horror, until the whole ghastly paraphernalia of revolu- 
 tionary tyranny is complete and is displayed to human 
 sight. 
 
 From the time of the Vendean outbreak the Conven- 
 tion had fulminated one terrible law after another against 
 tin- Vendeans, against rebels, priests, d/uigrcs, against 
 all who by any stretch of revolutionary imagination 
 could he construed into being counter-revolutionists; 
 crushing out liberty in any and every form, except 
 liberty for themselves; devising new offences : narrow- 
 ing the meshes of the revolutionary net so that no one 
 opposed to them should escape.
 
 ch. vi REVOLUTIONARY TRIBUNALS 71 
 
 And the Representatives, endowed with despotic 
 powers by the Convention, were carrying out on the 
 scene 1 ,, or in the immediate neighbourhood of the strife, its 
 policy and its decrees in the most thorough fashion, 
 improving even on its directions where any opportunity 
 of improving on them presented itself. 
 
 The various local revolutionary authorities, acting 
 under the influence of the local revolutionary clubs or 
 popular societies, not alone kept in line with the Con- 
 vention, but often went, illegally, in advance of it, 
 making laws for themselves as requirements arose ; and 
 the Representatives, and the horde of restless and self- 
 important commissioners sent by other public bodies, 
 instead of condemning this excessive zeal, spurred them 
 on to more vigorous efforts, and incited them to loftier 
 heights of revolutionary fury. The suppressive laws 
 were to be put into the fullest operation, and the extrem- 
 est penalties were to be enforced. The refractory priests 
 were to be hunted down : the rebels were to be annihi- 
 lated ; the cmiijri'* were to be given short shrift when 
 they could be caught ; their relatives even were declared 
 suspects ; and everybody counter-revolutionary, or who 
 did not actively support the authorities, was to be made 
 feel the heavy weight of the revolutionary hand. 
 
 Very rapidly a system of revolutionary justice was 
 built up by the Convention and filled in by the Repre- 
 sentatives — a system which infinitely exceeded in 
 injustice and tyranny that which the Revolution had 
 overthrown — with execrations. 
 
 When the new Constitution was given to France by 
 the National Assembly, a criminal tribunal was estab- 
 lished in each Department to deal with the criminal 
 business of the Department. At the outset, it was this 
 tribunal which dealt with counter-revolutionary cases.
 
 72 THE REAL FRENCH REVOLUTIONIST oh. 
 
 But its procedure was too sedate and slow, and fair 
 to the prisoners, to satisfy the revolutionists ; and as 
 revolutionary momentum increased, and the number of 
 persons to be dealt with grew larger, special tribunals on 
 the model of the Revolutionary Tribunal in Paris were 
 formed to administer justice revolutionary. 
 
 To adjudicate in these new courts men of extremer 
 views and reputation were appointed, and punishment was 
 meted out more expeditiously and with less regard to 
 innocence. 
 
 But once war began, and there were rebels to deal 
 with, even these courts could not deal punishment out 
 summarily and rapidly enough. Their forms of proce- 
 dure were too slow, and too much in favour of the 
 prisoner, to satisfy the impatient spirit of the "patriot"; 
 and so the Convention, at the same time that it passed 
 the terrible law of the 19th March, gave a great and 
 general extension to those monstrous inventions of 
 despotism, the Military Commissions. 
 
 It is said in defence of the policy which instituted 
 these commissions that they were on the model of the 
 Prevotal Courts of the Ancien Ecgime ; but if so, this 
 only shows that the revolutionists, whose whole rationale 
 was the abolition of tyranny and injustice and the 
 remedy of abuses, were treading in the very steps of the 
 system they abolished, and adopting its very instruments, 
 and the argument is a most damaging admission on the 
 part of the applauders of the Revolution. 
 
 The institution of Military Commissions was in exist- 
 ence since the previous autumn. 
 
 In October a severe law had been passed against the 
 cmitjres, according to which all emi/jres captured with 
 arms in their hands were to be handed over to "the 
 executioner of high justice" within twenty-four hours,
 
 vi REVOLUTIONARY TRIBUNALS 73 
 
 and put to death, after it had been declared by a Mili- 
 tary Commission, composed of five persons nominated by 
 the Headquarters Staff {Mat-major cle V amide), that they 
 were emigre's, or that they had served against France. 
 
 This precedent was followed in the law of the 19th 
 March, which began by declaring generally as hors la 
 loi 1 all those suspected of taking part in the revolt, and 
 those who wore the white cockade or other sign of rebel- 
 lion. Such persons, therefore, could not avail themselves 
 of the provisions of the laws concerning criminal pro- 
 cedure and of the institution of juries. 
 
 It enacted that those taken witli arms in their hands 
 should within twenty -four hours be delivered to the 
 executioner of criminal judgments, and put to death after 
 the fact had been certified (reconnu et declare^ constant) by 
 a Military Commission of five members, formed by the 
 officers of each division employed against the rebels. 
 
 Those who had carried arms, or who unarmed had 
 taken part in the revolt or attroupements, should be sent 
 to the prison of the criminal tribunal of the Department, 
 to be tried by the judges of that tribunal. 
 
 Priests, former nobles, SmigrSs, and servants of all 
 these persons were to be sentenced to death. 
 
 There was no appeal, no respite, no reprieve. Within 
 twenty-four hours all was to be over — trial, sentence, 
 execution. 
 
 How keen the republicans were to have recourse to 
 extreme measures without any legal authority is well 
 illustrated by the fact that the local republican authorities 
 at Nantes adopted the machinery of Military Commis- 
 sions before the law of the 19th March had even been 
 proposed. 
 
 On the loth March the "three administrative 
 
 1 Outside the law. or outlaws.
 
 74 THE REAL FRENCH REVOLUTIONIST ch. 
 
 bodies" of Nantes, when organising the first military 
 expedition to attack the Vendeans, directed that "a 
 court-martial should accompany each detachment of the 
 armed forces, and should judge on the spot and forth- 
 with the rebels taken with arms in their hands, accord- 
 ing to the rules and forms prescribed by the law relating 
 t< > i : m /;//■' s. 
 
 In principle the Military Commissions only dealt 
 with revoltes and emigre's taken with arms in their 
 hands. 
 
 Soon, however, these courts gave wide extension to 
 their own powers, and took cognisance of almost any 
 counter-revolutionary offences. 
 
 Though there are instances of the generals appointing 
 such commissions, the Representatives, with their un- 
 limited powers, appear to have taken the appointment of 
 them into their own hands, and appointed them wherever 
 and whenever they thought they would be useful. 
 
 Each Commission or court consisted of five members, 
 but it was not necessary for the live members to act 
 together, and iiom the very outset these courts were 
 simply instruments in the bands of the Representative 
 in his task of " purging the country," of " purifying the 
 air of liberty/' and of raising the country to the full 
 heights ni' revolutionary grandeur. 
 
 And so the Representatives, with these and other 
 objects before them, soon began dotting the Departments 
 over with Revolutionary Tribunals and Military Com- 
 missions. 
 
 The latter were the most convenient and simple 
 means of sending to death those whom the Representa- 
 tive wished to doom to death, and as they Were there for 
 that purpose, instructions from him as to the treatment 
 of prisoners were in reality unnecessary.
 
 vi REVOLUTIONARY TRIBUNALS 75 
 
 These Military Commissions were the veriest mockery 
 of a judicial tribunal. As was truly said of them, "they 
 clad murder with the mantle of the law." Men were 
 appointed to preside in them whose principal quali- 
 fications were, not knowledge, not integrity, not fair- 
 mindedness, but vehement revolutionary views and true 
 sans-culotte fervour, with the necessary callousness to 
 give effect thereto. In most cases the members of them 
 were the very scum of blackguardism, cruel, bloodthirsty 
 men, often not even military men, ignorant of the com- 
 monest principles of law, swayed solely by their passions, 
 prejudices, and desires. 
 
 And a procedure was adopted in these courts which 
 deprived the prisoner of any opportunity, any possibility 
 of defence. At first one iiroc&s-verhcd, supported by the 
 deposition of one witness, or the oral and uniform deposition 
 • if two witnesses, 1 were required for the establishment of 
 the guilt of a prisoner, and as sufficient for his being 
 sentenced to death. But, as time wore on, even this 
 formality fell into abeyance, and procedure was reduced 
 to a mere request for the prisoner's name, and then the 
 sentence of death. 
 
 " One trembles," wrote a republican commissioner 
 who witnessed their handiwork, " when one thinks of the 
 horrors perpetrated by these tribunals of blood." 
 
 As for the nature <^ the justice administered by the 
 various Revolutionary Tribunals, it was in flagrant viola- 
 tion of all the most elementary principles of justice in 
 civilised countries. It is doubtful whether the extremest 
 despotism has ever shown such a complete negation of 
 justice, such a callous disregard of even the forms of 
 fairness. 
 
 1 " Lo fait denieurera constant soit par un proces-verbal revetu d'uue 
 seule signature coiifirme par la deposition d'uii temoin, soit par la deposi 
 tion orale et uniforme do deux temoins."
 
 7 b" THE LiEAL FRENCH REVOLUTIONIST ch. 
 
 It is this complete disregard of justice which is the 
 most striking feature in the system of the Revolutionary 
 Government, in every phase and aspect of its actions, in 
 every grade of its organisation. 
 
 Running through all its acts, woven into its very 
 tissue, was an absolute hostility to, a defiance of, 
 justice. 
 
 Splendid speeches might he delivered in the Con- 
 vention upon the beauties of justice, particularly of 
 French just ice: courts might laud the impartiality of 
 the justice they administered, and the fairness of their 
 proceedings; hut the grim horrors of these years con- 
 trast tacts with theories, contrast deeds with profes- 
 sions, tell, in fact, how justice was assassinated even by 
 the highest officials of the State, and by every court 
 in it, from the Revolutionary Tribunal in Paris to 
 the worst of the roving Military Commissions in the 
 country. 
 
 These desperate engines of tyranny, and the dreadful 
 [(revisions of the law of 19th March, — "the Law of 
 Death," as it was called, — were not long allowed to lie 
 unused. 
 
 From .Angers, General Berruyer wrote on the 5th 
 April : " I have given orders to disarm and arrest all 
 suspects." (This, be it remarked, was more than four 
 months before the celebrated Loi des Suspects was 
 passed.) "The Military Commissions are in vigour, 
 and have already executed a large number of persons 
 who have been taken with arms in their hands.''' 
 
 At Sables, the seaport of the Vendee, on the 1st 
 April, the militar) officers elected a Military Commission 
 which promptly proceeded to try prisoners charged with 
 having joined the rebels, and having worn a white 
 cockade.
 
 vi REVOLUTIONARY TRIBUNALS 77 
 
 A guillotine was erected on the highest of the sand- 
 hills in the neighbourhood, so that all men might see it 
 and its work, and in the course of the mouth some sixty- 
 live to seventy executions took place there, all of persons 
 in the humblest callings of life- — -took place in batches, 
 those whose turn came last being forced to stand by 
 and see their companions in misery being executed — 
 until their own turn came. Many of these unfortunates 
 had avowed themselves guilty, in complete ignorance of 
 the fate awaiting them, but no mercy was shown 
 them. 
 
 In the earlier days of the Military Commissions, 
 when the members had not yet become quite inured 
 to the work, and sonic hazy sense of responsibility 
 existed, some discrimination was exercised as to the 
 guilt of the prisoners, and there were acquittals. 
 
 Here at Sables many acquittals took place. In many 
 cases the accused had been arrested without any legal 
 formality, and sent for trial without a prods-verlol 
 or written charge, without even a single declaration. 
 Indeed, the form of the acquittals — "There exists against 
 them no proof of rebellion. They have been arrested 
 without arms, without a white cockade, and on their 
 own hearths" — shows how unjustifiable the majority of 
 arrests had been. 
 
 This Commission at Sables was so far conscientious 
 as to acknowledge that it felt itself" cruelly embarrassed" 
 by the terms of the law. As the military forces drew 
 up no legal process against the persons arrested, how 
 could the court declare what the crime of the prisoner 
 was — or what proof was there even of the identity of 
 the prisoner ? 
 
 Subtleties such as these, however, were not of long 
 duration. Convictions by the Military Commissions
 
 ?s THE REAL FREXCH REVOLUTIONIST ch. 
 
 multiplied rapidly, and acquittals became rarer, until 
 finally there were none. 
 
 Here and there in all this ghastly tragedy one 
 comes across an idea so grim as almost to he humorous. 
 
 Thus the " patriot " authorities at Xiort — the 
 Directory there — did not think the new form of 
 execution quite impressive enough, and having devoted 
 some consideration to the subject, wrote to the Con- 
 vent inn begging it, in order to show how much 
 Frenchmen abhorred royalty, to decree that every man 
 condemned to death as a counter -revolutionist should 
 be led to the place of his execution with a crown on 
 his head. 
 
 The execution once of the one King was evidently 
 not sufficient. His execution over and over again — in 
 living effigy — could not fail to impress the evil-disposed, 
 whilst it would be a constant gratification to the multi- 
 tude to witness the repetition of its triumph. 
 
 If the chances of escape were slender once a person 
 came before the revolutionary courts, revolutionary 
 justice displayed itself in as cruel and infamous a way 
 in the stage preliminary to trial, namely the imprison- 
 ment — an imprisonment often if not usually equivalent 
 to death. 
 
 It mattered little under what law action was taken, 
 the people, on one charge or another, were torn from 
 their homes in hundreds and thousands and sent to prison 
 — man}", if not most of them, innocent of amy crime. 
 
 By the beginning of May the prison- in the towns 
 which were not in the hands of the Vendcans were 
 crammed with prisoners in a manner involving the 
 gravest risk to life; but that was a trilling matter in 
 the eyes of the revolutionist, if anything it was an 
 advantage.
 
 vi REVOLUTIONARY TRIBUNALS 79 
 
 In the prisons of Fontenay and Sables alone more 
 than 1250 prisoners wore massed or heaped together, 
 all of humble rank, there being no aristocrats, none of 
 the noblesse — not even a single Vendean chief among 
 them. 
 
 And in Nantes, from March onwards, National 
 Guards had been arriving daily with numerous prisoners, 
 women as well as men, all of whom were thrown pell-mell 
 into one or other of the prisons in the city. 
 
 Here in the prisons the most appalling state of things 
 existed. 
 
 One of the prisons was the grim old castle Le 
 Bouffay, whose origin dated back to the tenth century, 
 and whose walls under the regime of republican 
 "liberty" were witnessing more suffering and misery 
 in one day than in the darkest period of its existence it 
 witnessed in a decade. 
 
 The report of some commissioners who visited it has 
 come down to us. 
 
 There were three cachots, or cells, in it, dark, damp, 
 and unhealthy, which only received light through a hole 
 of three inches. Several other cells had no light when 
 tlic door was shut. Everywhere there was want of air. 
 Itch, scurvy, dysentery, and fever were habitual among 
 the prisoners. There was no surgeon, and a doctor did 
 not come once in three months to see the prisoners. 
 
 And in the prison of St. Claire tilings were not any 
 1 letter. 
 
 Ten or twelve were in each room. The air was 
 pestiferous, and charged with mephitic miasmas. 
 
 The great majority were sick, and without even 
 straw to lie on ; they were devoured by vermin ; and 
 their state was so bad as to cause fears of a plague or 
 epidemic, not only in the prison, but in the town.
 
 SO THE REAL FUEXCH REVOLUTIONIST oh. 
 
 The most horrible sufferings were undergone in these 
 fearful pest-houses — these hells upon earth — and thou- 
 sands of prisoners never came out alive; but at this 
 date the state of the prisons was still far from being at 
 its worst, and the climax of horrors was not reached 
 until the government of "liberty and fraternity" was 
 well settled in the seat of authority. 
 
 To complete the provisions for the extermination of 
 the Yendeans and other counter-revolutionists, ample 
 preparations were made by the revolutionary authorities 
 for the final disposal of offenders. The newly-invented 
 guillotine was adopted as the instrument of death. In 
 L 792 a model guillotine, with minute instructions as to 
 its use, had been sent to all the Departments, which 
 forthwith provided themselves with the full-sized imple- 
 ment of revolutionary justice — the Department of Deux 
 Sevres, which was next to La Vendee, with an eye to 
 the future, ordering a batch of five. 
 
 A little later — to facilitate and expedite matters — 
 some of the Military Commissions carried their own 
 guillotine about with them, as a part of their personal 
 luggage. On one occasion some inconvenience was 
 caused by the blade having been left behind in a 
 cupboard at the last place; where the Commission had 
 been sitting. 
 
 The Revolutionary Government, in its dealings with 
 the Yendeans, at this period of its existence, was like 
 some mighty and horrible snake coiling itself round its 
 victim, getting it ever more and more completely in 
 its power before crushing the life out of it. "With 
 diabolical ingenuity, and without a shadow of relenting, 
 or vestige of hesitation or remorse, the Revolutionary 
 Government, and its agents and instruments, "brave 
 republicans" all, took measure after measure to close
 
 vi REVOLUTIONARY TRIBUNALS 81 
 
 up any possible loophole of evasion or escape ; and then, 
 having got its victim powerless and harmless in its grasp, 
 deadening its ears to any appeals for mercy, dealt out to 
 it death in the most cruel and terrible forms — to guilty 
 and innocent alike, to man, woman, and child.
 
 CHAP TEE VI I 
 
 THE VENDEAN WAK 
 
 Part III 
 
 Whilst the central and local revolutionary governing 
 bodies were thus getting everything into thorough 
 working order for the reign of Liberty according to 
 revolutionary ideas, a phase of moderation, real or 
 assumed, suddenly passed over the Convention, but as 
 suddenly vanished. 
 
 The Convention, on the 23rd May, stepped down off 
 its high pedestal, and, in a " Proclamation to the citizens 
 of tin: disturbed districts," condescended to argue with 
 them. 
 
 " You desire to keep your religion. But who has 
 endeavoured to take it from you, or to trouble your 
 consciences? Has any one proposed to change anything 
 in your belief, or in the ceremonies of your worship? 
 No. Vou have been deprived of those whom you regard 
 as the sole legitimate ministers. But have they not 
 justified by their conduct these too necessary measures? 
 These men who to-day preach murder and pillage;, are 
 the)' the true ministers of a God of peace, or the vile 
 satellites of despots leagued against your country? . . .
 
 on. vii THE VENDEAN WAE 83 
 
 These priests who call themselves the only Catholics are 
 paid by the gold of Protestant England." 
 
 The people were called on to abjure their errors. 
 
 " Show yourselves worthy of retaking the name of 
 Frenchmen. You will find then none but brothers in 
 the Republic, which arms itself with regret to punish 
 you — which, ready to crush you with all its power, 
 would weep over successes purchased at the price of 
 your blood. 
 
 " If any scruples continue to agitate your con- 
 sciences, remember that liberty of worship is one of 
 the necessary conditions of a republican constitution." 
 
 Specious self-contradictory verbiage such as this was 
 not likely to detach the Vendeans from their cause ; 
 and they knew already too much of republican fraternity 
 to trust the hazy promises hinted at rather than 
 expressed. 
 
 But at the very same time this public proclamation 
 was being made, with its painful alternative of submis- 
 sion, or of revolutionary tears and the employment of 
 force, the Minister of War was answering certain 
 questions which Biron, the newly appointed commander- 
 in-chief in the Vendee, had asked him, and which were 
 very much more to the point. 
 
 Biron wanted to know whether he could employ 
 other means than those of arms to subdue the rebellious 
 country. The evasive answer was given : " The Republic 
 could but applaud the zeal which would suggest the 
 best means of reclaiming the misguided Vendeans by 
 circulating among them the instructions most likely to 
 lead to this result." 
 
 To his other question, " Is it allowed to enter into 
 negotiations with those of the chiefs who could be 
 induced to abandon the counter-revolutionary army, and
 
 84 THE REAL FRENCH REVOLUTIONIST 
 
 ii. 
 
 who could bring with them considerable numbers 1 " 
 the reply was a very clear and distinct negative. " I 
 
 tin not think that in any ease it would be proper 
 to enter into negotiations with the chiefs of the 
 rebels." 
 
 So that was settled. The issue must be fought out. 
 And then, as it was plain to the Revolutionary Govern- 
 ment that something was amiss with the army in the 
 west, its condition was seriously taken in hand. 
 
 The Minister of War sent one of his ■''colleagues/'' 
 Ron-in. a Jacobin of Jacobins, to the Vendee with 
 extensive powers to "revolutionise''' the arm}'. 
 
 Ronsin began by appointing a lot of colleagues 
 (cirl joints): and as numerous other commissioners of all 
 sorts and kinds were already roving about, ; " a war 
 of reports arose, all more or less exaggerated, and 
 there were rivalries and denunciations — in a word, 
 complete anarchy." 
 
 Representatives, commissioners, and generals all 
 vied with each other in reports to the Minister of War 
 or to the Committee of Public Safety, filled with censure 
 of the proceedings of every one else, or insinuations 
 against their patriotism or their sense. 
 
 Some abused some, others abused others, a mutual 
 secret abuse society instead of a public admiration society. 
 though occasionally the proceedings of a crai snus-cidotti. 
 were praised so as to be a foil to others who had the 
 taint of noblesse about them, or who were possessed of 
 any ability. 
 
 Even the Minister of War did not escape secret 
 adverse reports addressed to the Committee of Public 
 Safety. 
 
 Biron, by Ins conspicuous position, and Ids widely 
 known antecedents, attracted special hostility, and though
 
 vi f THE YEXDEAN WAR 35 
 
 he struggled valiantly on, all his plans, military and 
 political, were thwarted by an organised sans-culotte 
 opposition. 
 
 To get what material of war and supplies he could, 
 he went to Saumur, early in June, and thence on to 
 Tours, where there was almost a rebellion among the 
 troops, which he appeased. 
 
 Here he held a council of war, hut lie could get no 
 detailed information from any one as to the number of 
 troops. 
 
 Arms were wanted, but the Committee of Public 
 Safety wrote: "We cannot possibly send yon any. "We 
 have none available." These would he reasons for his 
 inability to act against the Vendeans, but they were no 
 excuse in the eyes of the vrais sans-cv.lottes, 
 
 Already Bouchotte, "an excellent citizen but a very 
 bail minister," was writing to him complaining of delay. 
 
 " The public desires to see an end put to the troubles 
 in the Vendee. It bears them impatiently, and attributes 
 them to em lyres. The general who wishes to preserve 
 his reputation as a patriot cannot put too much activity 
 into his movements." 
 
 And Biron wrote to the Minister of War exonerating 
 himself, and complaining of" a multitude of disorganisers 
 who preach indiscipline to the soldiers, pillage, defiance 
 of the generals, contempt and hatred of the Convention, 
 and of the Representatives delegated to this army. . . . 
 The agents of your agents preach everywhere insub- 
 ordination and the division of property. They wish to 
 meddle with everything. Some of them can scarcely 
 read/' 
 
 A specimen of this sort of " disorganiser " was one 
 Felix, afterwards the notorious president of the Military 
 Commission at Angers, — one of the must bloodthirsty
 
 86 THE REAL FREXCH REVOLUTIONIST oh. 
 
 and infamous wretches among the numerous herd of them 
 at this period. 
 
 At Xiort he publicly denounced the generals, and 
 evm the Representatives. He was a firebrand among 
 revolutionists, if such a thing is imaginable: half-a- 
 dozen times lie was arrested for one reason or another, 
 but he had a passport which described him as "the 
 colleague of the colleague of the Minister of War, Ronsin," 
 and he had to be released. 
 
 The system of denunciation and calumny which was 
 carried on as regarded the army extended under the rule 
 of the Representatives to all branches of administration : 
 it paralysed and disorganised all; frightened the good 
 citizens; cooled the sincere ones; and created enemies 
 to the Republic among those even most favourably dis- 
 posed to serve it. 
 
 But as tire system met with the approval of the 
 Revolutionary Government in Paris, and the actions of 
 the Representatives were the result of the directions of 
 the Government, there was no one to whom appeal could 
 be made by those who were aggrieved. 
 
 The downfall of the Girondists left the extreme 
 revolutionists freer than ever to govern on revolutionary 
 principles, and to demonstrate for all time to the world 
 at large the beauties and advantages of the republican 
 form of government, and its superiority to all others. 
 
 The immediate effect of the Girondist defeat was a 
 fresh impulse to the already despotic energies of the 
 revolutionary authorities in the area of the Vendean 
 strife. The way was made easier for the free working 
 of revolutionary principles, and for the unchecked rule 
 of the revolutionists; and marvellous ingenuity was dis- 
 played in the elaboration of fresh instruments of tyranny. 
 
 The army was beiim seen to: civil organisation must
 
 vii TILE VENDEAN WAR 87 
 
 also be rendered more effective ; and so the grip of the 
 revolutionist steadily tightened upon the towns. 
 
 Nantes, if not technically the capital of the Vendee, 
 
 was at any rate one of the great centres of interest in 
 the Vendean war. 
 
 From the outset, it had been strongly revolutionary, 
 and had more or less kept pace with the Revolution in 
 its progress. 
 
 Here, on the first outbreak of the Vendeans, the 
 administrative bodies had established an extraordinary 
 criminal tribunal to judge, without appeal, the brigands 
 confined in the Chateau, though their authority to take 
 any such measure appears questionable. To expedite 
 its work, this tribunal was divided into two sections, and 
 a number of capital sentences were pronounced. 
 
 And then, that means of punishment should lie easily 
 available, they directed that the guillotine should be 
 immediately erected on the Place du Bouffay. 
 
 On the 20th March, still solicitous about that horrible 
 instrument, they decreed that it should be painted red ; 
 and that under it sand a foot deep should be put, so that 
 no traces of blood be left on the pavement. The execu- 
 tioner, too, was enjoined "to act promptly, and to keep 
 the fatal instrument in good order." 
 
 Also the lighting it at night engaged attention; for 
 there was a serious row one night owing to the execution 
 of a man in the dark — no torches having been lighted — 
 the populace being unable to see the sight, or, as they 
 said, identify the victim, and fearing "a substitution or 
 dangerous suppression." 
 
 In April a Revolutionary Tribunal, on the Paris 
 model, was added to the different tribunals already in 
 operation, and Phelippes de Tronjolly was made president 
 of it.
 
 S8 THE REAL FEEXCH REVOLUTIONIST en. 
 
 Though for a considerable period Xantes was practi- 
 cally of one mind as regarded the Revolution, there had 
 developed itself, as time went on, a difference of opinion 
 as to the length to which the Revolution should lie 
 carried: the wealthier and more respectable classes 
 supporting the opinions of the Girondists — Revolution 
 without terror: while the more extreme men supported 
 the desire of the Mountain for a radical Revolution, and 
 adopted its view that terror was the only way of resist- 
 ing foreign attacks and the internal efforts against the 
 Republic. 
 
 The Club de la Halle 1 was the principal club of those 
 holding Girondist opinions; the Club St. Vincent that 
 iif those holding the extremer views. 
 
 When strife ran high in Paris between the Girondists 
 and the Mountain, the local authorities at Xantes had 
 pronounced in favour of the Girondists and against the 
 Mountain, and on the 19th May, hair of the Representa- 
 tives came there, not as friends hut as enemies, and 
 Merlin (de Douai) accused them of inertia, egotism, and 
 other transgressions. Baco, the Mayor, replied that the 
 city had been declared " to have deserved well of the 
 country.'" — which in effect he said it had saved, during 
 the terrible days of the 10th to 20th March, — and that 
 since then, though daily menaced by the royalists, it 
 had maintained a force of 5000 men and had held its 
 own. 
 
 It again "deserved well of the country" by repelling 
 the Vendean attack, but it did not give its adhesion to 
 the Mountain, and by a decree of the Commune on the 
 oth -Inly, recording its determination not to recognise 
 the authority of the Convention, and to sustain the 
 Girondists, it really placed itself in insurrection. 
 
 It was, however, but a Hash in the pan. The more
 
 vii THE VENUE AN WAE 89 
 
 extreme and energetic portion of the Club St. Vincent 
 vehemently opposed the step taken by the constituted 
 authorities ; and many of the members of these bodies, 
 becoming afraid of what they had done, revoked their 
 action. The decision of the 5th July was reversed, and 
 the authorities made their submission to the Convention. 
 The Representatives came then in triumph to Nantes ; 
 the nmre active leaders in the recent movement were 
 removed from their prists ; sounder and more genuine 
 revolutionists were appointed in their stead, and affairs 
 thus put in fair train at Nantes. 
 
 Angers was the other principal town within the scope 
 of the Vendean trouble, and its state may be gathered 
 from a document drawn up by the electors of Angers, 
 who met on the 30th of May and adopted an address to 
 the Convention. 
 
 It was a vehement complaint against the Representa- 
 tives, "whose selection appeared to have been calculated 
 to degrade in the eyes of citizens the national represent- 
 ation, and to make them hate Liberty. 
 
 " To calumniate patriots of the highest integrity, and 
 the most devoted to the cause of Liberty: to vilify and 
 menace the constituted authorities who are firmest at 
 their post and the most attached to their duties; to 
 chain the liberty of the Press; to throw the brand of 
 discord among the citizens: to commit arbitrary deeds 
 which even royal despotism would scarcely have dared 
 to allow itself: to endeavour to stifle the public voice 
 by the trenchant and dictatorial fiat of their individual 
 opinion, — it is thus they accomplish their mission. 
 
 " Hasten to recall these dangerous proconsuls." 
 
 It is evident the people of Angers were realising the 
 first -fruits of •''liberty, equality, and fraternity," as 
 understood by the true republican. But their request
 
 90 THE REAL FRENCH REVOLUTIONIST oh. 
 
 betrayed their misapprehension of the true state of 
 affairs. 
 
 The more moderate and respectable republicans in 
 both Aimers and Nantes were soon to find out that they 
 themselves were at the beginning of their troubles; 
 and that the despotic Representatives thus inveighed 
 against were only, so to speak, getting settled in the 
 saddle for their labours in the revolutionary cause. 
 
 And at Angers, in duly, alter the retirement of the 
 Vendeans, and its reoccupation by the republicans, a 
 fresh engine of terror and tyranny was created there — a 
 Revolutionary Committee and also a Military Commis- 
 sion. That, for the time being, settled Angers. 
 
 At Saumur. which had " made so many sacrifices in 
 the cause of the Revolution," but which like Angers had 
 suffered the disgrace of being in the hands of the enemy 
 for some time, a Revolutionary Committee was also 
 appointed (on 1st July 1793)''' to throw light on the 
 conduct of the bad citizens, to discover any communica- 
 tion with the rebels, or acts of incivism, and to arrest 
 those suspected of same." 
 
 A Military Commission of its own was not requisite, 
 for that of Angers officiated here when required; but 
 the first labours of that commission were cut short by 
 tlie fact of the Vendean prisoners having typhus, and 
 so the summary method was had recourse to of drag- 
 ging these unfortunate beings out to a plain and there 
 shooting them. 
 
 Thus all around the Vendee, north, south, east,and west, 
 wherever the Revolutionary Government had authority, 
 measures of ever-increasing severity were being taken 
 to consolidate its power, and vengeance was being exer- 
 cised on all who in any way opposed or were suspected 
 of opiiosiim it.
 
 vri THE VENDEAN WAE 91 
 
 The revolutionists were already showing what, as 
 their reign went on, was ever more and more clearly 
 demonstrated, that the new regime of "liberty, frater- 
 nity, and equality," which was not only to do such 
 wonders for France, hut to usher in a new era fur 
 humanity, was the greatest sham and imposture ever 
 presented to the human intelligence ; that they them- 
 selves were impostors of the worst and rankest kind, 
 tyrants aping liberty, despots aping equality, fratricides 
 aping fraternity. 
 
 Here is a contemporary description of the actual 
 state of affairs under the new regime, in Touraine, 
 which was contiguous to the scene of the Yendean 
 struggle. 
 
 " Every one here is in terror and despair. . . 
 There is no other law than the will and caprice of the 
 Bepresentatives. The populations which believed them- 
 selves enfranchised by the devolution of 1789 are 
 reduced to a veritable slavery. Nevertheless the word 
 'Liberty' meets one everywhere. One sees it written 
 in gigantic characters on all the monuments : it displays 
 itself at the head of all the public documents. The 
 men of government, from the executioner to the minister, 
 have it always in their mouths; everything is done and 
 ordered in the name of Liberty. But it is nothing but 
 an abominable piece of jugglery; nothing but an 
 infamous mockery. 
 
 " Never, in effect, at any epoch of humanity has per- 
 sonal liberty, liberty of worship, liberty of thought, 
 liberty of conscience, the liberty of the Press, liberty of 
 commerce been more ignored. Never has the contempt 
 of the rights of man been pushed further, nor those 
 rights been scouted at more insolently. Never, in fact, 
 has power shown itself more despotic, more intolerant,
 
 92 TTTE HEAL FEEXCH REVOLUTIONIST ch. 
 
 more cowardly malignant, more vile in its means of 
 action, and more eager to shed innocent blood than the 
 existing Government. Better a hundred times that we 
 were back in the feudal times. . . . 
 
 " Misery is everywhere. . . . There is no more com- 
 merce ; the law of maximum has killed it. We are 
 crushed with imposts, with forced loans, and revolutionary 
 taxes, the amount of which is arbitrarily fixed by our 
 tyrants. They take away from agriculture the arms 
 which are essential for its work. Our horses are requi- 
 sitioned, and we are paid with dirty bits of paper of no 
 value. The feudal corvees which had been abolished in 
 the memorable night of the 4th August have been re- 
 established. . . . And if any one dares to make an 
 observation or to complain, lie is shown the scaffold, in 
 permanence on the public place, and often . . . the 
 person is conducted to it." 
 
 Every word of this crushing indictment of the Re- 
 volutionary Government applied equally to life in those 
 parts of the Vendee where that Government reigned. 
 But the Vendeans had in addition to bear the sufferings 
 inflicted by the operations of a cruel and degraded 
 soldiery and all the horrors of actual war. 
 
 It lias been argued by republican writers that the 
 unparalleled severity of the Revolutionary Government 
 was accounted for, and indeed justified, by the fact that 
 the Vendeans had put themselves in the same category 
 as the cmijji't'S, namely that of traitors to France, by 
 appealing to England for hid}). 
 
 The details of the Yendean communications with 
 England fall into a later period than this. Suffice it 
 here to remark, that war' with England was only de- 
 clared in February 170-5 : that, until then. England, 
 though holding out the hand of charity and an asylum
 
 vii THE VEN.DEAN WAE 93 
 
 to French emigres, lay and cleric alike, had maintained 
 a strict neutrality ; that the Vendean outbreak only took 
 place on the 10th or 11th March; that the fearful 
 law of 19th March — the warrant for the extermination 
 of the Vendeans — had been adopted by the Govern- 
 ment, and the whole machinery of revolutionary 
 tyranny, Representatives, Military Commissions, etc, 
 started, and got into working' order, long before any 
 communication could have been made by the Yendean 
 leaders. It is difficult, therefore, to see what value such 
 an argument has. 
 
 The real fact is, the career of merciless severity 
 towards the Vendeans had been decided on, and the first 
 momentum had been given to the various republican 
 authorities, to carry out the exterminating policy of the 
 Government, long before the element of an appeal by 
 them to England for help entered into the matter; and 
 it was the dogged resistance of the Vendeans, and the 
 crushing defeats and humiliations inflicted on the re- 
 publican cause by them, that drove the revolutionists 
 to fury and to the excesses begotten of fury, and not 
 indignation at an appeal for foreign help which had not 
 yet been made.
 
 CHAPTER VIII 
 
 THE VENDEAN WAR 
 
 Pakt IV 
 
 Arm: their defeat at Xantes, which was a severe blow 
 to them, the Vendeans re-entered the Vendee. 
 
 Here, during their absence on the north side of the 
 Loire, the republican general "Westermann, a thief and 
 swindler, " an escroc of the Palais - Royal, a leader in 
 the attack of the Tuileries, but of incredible courage," 
 had appeared conspicuously on the scene, and had given 
 the first demonstration of the revolutionary system of 
 carrying on the war. He announced to all that he 
 would burn and deliver over to pillage all the communes 
 which should furnish recruits to the rebels, or give them 
 any other assistance. "That will make the peasant 
 tremble," he wrote ; "this terrible example is necessary 
 to stop the torrent which will destroy the Republic." 
 
 And lie promptly proceeded to put his threats into 
 execution. 
 
 On the 1st duly he attacked the village of 
 Ainailhou, and as a reprisal for some Vendean pillage 
 at L'arthenay lie delivered it up to pillage. Put that 
 was not all : he set fire to it and burned it to the
 
 ch. viii THE VENDEAN WAE 95 
 
 ground ; also the castle of Clisson, belonging to M. de 
 Lescure. 
 
 " Here," wrote Savary, the most reliable historian of 
 the war — a republican — " began the atrocities which 
 were called reprisals." 
 
 Soon after this, he inflicted a severe defeat on the 
 Vendeans at Chatillon, having signalised his march 
 thither by " robbery, assassination, incendiary fire, 
 pillage, and devastation." 
 
 His actions drew from the Yendean chiefs a strong- 
 protest in an address to the republican troops. 
 
 ■'" . . . You bathe inhumanly in the blood of our 
 soldiers whom the fate of battle delivers into your hands. 
 You penetrate into the retreats where our Yendean 
 wounded still dispute with death over the languishing 
 remains of a mutilated body. You plunge into their 
 bosom the murderous steel. . . . You set fire to the 
 dwellings and the crops of those whom you have not 
 been able to conquer. 
 
 " Frenchmen, is this then the boasted humanity ? 
 Are these the bitter fruits of the chimera of Liberty of 
 which the phantom deceives and seduces you \ " 
 
 Protests or appeals such as these had little weight, 
 and the Vendeans, stung by his treatment, attacked him 
 on the 5th near Chatillon, and almost annihilated his 
 army. One republican battalion alone was reduced 
 from 469 men to 1 7. 
 
 Westermann was forthwith denounced by his fellow- 
 republicans as a traitor, and summoned to appear before 
 the Convention. Under ordinary circumstances he would 
 have been guillotined, but, being a creature of Iionsin's, 
 things were made easy for him, and he was sent back to 
 his command. 
 
 Any charge against a general was always listened to
 
 9 6 THE REAL FRENCH REVOLUTIONIST ™. 
 
 it' he had any leaven of the old regime about him 
 whilst complaints made about the more advanced 
 revolutionary generals were quietly ignored. The true 
 sans-culotte could, in the eyes of the Revolutionary 
 Government, do no wrong. 
 
 The explanation was that the " true republican " 
 held that "liberty and equality could never be maintained 
 by those against whom the Revolution had been made"'': 
 and that " the true means of saving the army and the 
 country was summarily to get rid of all generals or 
 officers who had any taint of la noblesse about them," 
 and to compose it of generals " really sans-culottes in 
 manners and principles." 
 
 " It is a great truth, and one on which our future 
 success depends — republican commanders and we shall 
 beat our enemies." 
 
 Biron, not being a sans-culotte, but one of the old 
 regime, was denounced secretly by Rossignol about the 
 middle of duly, on an absolutely false charge, and was 
 summoned to Paris — the first step to the scaffold : and 
 Rossignol, one of " the conquerors of the Bastille," — who 
 had presided at the massacres of La Force, — who was 
 an avowed assassin,- — who had been currying favour 
 with the troops by meeting them as they returned from 
 forays and giving them glasses of brandy, and who now 
 was at the bottom of most of the lies and intrigues 
 against the generals, was made commander-in-chief. 
 Ronsin became his chief of the staff and practically 
 directed everything. 
 
 The rapidity with which revolutionary favourites 
 were pushed on was remarkable. Even under the 
 monarchy no parallel could be found for it. Military 
 experience or knowledge was not required — only revolu- 
 tionary principles and fervour — and men were given
 
 via THE VENDEAN WAR 97 
 
 high military appointments who had no military 
 knowledge, and who had not even mounted guard. 
 Thus (Jrammont, a comic actor in Paris, was made 
 " adjutant -general." Thus Ronsin became on the 1st 
 July a captain of cavalry; on 2nd duly he was given 
 the command of a squadron ; on the 3rd he was made 
 chief of a brigade ; and on the 4th, a general of brigade ; 
 and at the end of the month, chief of the staff — under 
 Rossignol. 
 
 Rossignol's promotion was nearly as rapid. From a 
 colonelcy on 3rd duly he was promoted to be commander- 
 in-chief before the end of the month. 
 
 The example of ferocity and destruction set by 
 Westermann was quickly followed by other republicans, 
 and soon became the common republican practice. It 
 had been decided to strengthen the military forces at 
 Nantes; a force of some 14.000 men started from 
 Tours. Their own generals, Berthier and Dutruy, thus 
 described the march: "During this march, in a country 
 where the greater part of the inhabitants are devoted to 
 the Republic, a great part of the troops gave themselves 
 up to the most frightful pillage and violence — patriots 
 were no more spared than suspected rebels ; all were 
 pillaged : and the small amount of discipline which had 
 been previously established was in a moment lost. The 
 battalions of Paris made daily requisitions of silver and 
 other effects, contrary to the regulations, and they 
 threatened not to march if their demands were not 
 complied with. Many of them sold their boots and their 
 arms, and when arrested replied that these tilings be- 
 longed to them, inasmuch their sections in Paris had given 
 them to them. Santerre even had his life threatened." 
 
 Reports from other places also confirm this complete 
 demoralisation of the republican troops. 
 
 H
 
 98 THE REAL FRENCH REVOLUTIONIST en. 
 
 In the force assembled at Saumur, after its abandon- 
 ment by the Vendeans, it was impossible to establish 
 discipline, or prevent pillage and drunkenness. 
 
 Hazard, one of the National Commissioners, wrote 
 duly 1st:— 
 
 " The decree which excludes women from the 
 battalions is entirely evaded. One sees in the follow- 
 ing of our armies a prodigious multitude of women 
 dressed as men. The camps are infested with them. 
 Vou know the unfortunate results of such an abuse. I 
 will not disguise from you that these women have such 
 an influence on the esprit of the battalions that they 
 direct at their caprice the discontent, the insubordina- 
 tion, and the indiscipline of the soldiers and the officers. 
 . . . Many generals even participate in it." 
 
 And a commissioner of the Commune of Paris who 
 was with the army wrote to a member of that Commune 
 (July 28 th):— 
 
 ,: I cannot report to you all the violations, thefts, and 
 assassinations which the men of 500 livres commit in 
 the army. I will cite some which will make you 
 tremble (fremir). They violated in the arms of her 
 mother the daughter of the Mayor of Saumur, aged nine- 
 teen years. Two servants of the same house suffered the 
 same fate. These women died of despair in the camp at 
 ( Iliinon." 
 
 All which is a most interesting picture of the 
 revolutionary soldier in his own country, and particularly 
 of such revolutionary creme as the Parisian volunteer. 
 
 Valiant pillagers, they were not much of lighters : 
 for attacked by the Vendeans at Vihiers on the 18th 
 duly, they promptly ran away, leaving guns and stores 
 in the hands of the victors; some Hying so far that they 
 did not stop till they u'ot to Paris. "Our laurels are
 
 vin THE VEXPEAX WAR 99 
 
 turned into cypress, owing to the imbecility of Santerre," 
 wrote Alercier. 
 
 And again on the 26th duly they ran away at Ponts- 
 de-Ce, nearly 400, it was said, perishing in the river. 
 
 These arc not the inventions of counter-revolutionists. 
 The Representatives themselves affirm the dreadful state 
 of the army. 
 
 ■'"Every one knows that the cowardice of our troops 
 has caused all our misfortunes," wrote Choudieu, a reel- 
 hot Montagnard. And Momoro, another Representative, 
 wrote, " Our troops won't fight"; and he consoles himself 
 with the reflection, " It is easy for the rebels to conquer 
 men who don't want to resist them.'' 
 
 The Vendean victory of Vihiers had important con- 
 sequences, as it drove the Convention into the adoption 
 of more severe measures. 
 
 At the end of July the general position of the 
 Republican Government was very critical. Lyons. Mar- 
 seilles, Toulon, had withdrawn themselves from the 
 authority of the Convention ; Mayence and Valenciennes 
 had capitulated to the Allies ; the frontiers were invaded. 
 A fever of fear and rage took possession of the men in 
 power: and ideas of moderation of any sort were thrown 
 tii the wind. 
 
 Xow literally breathing fire and fury against the 
 Vendeans, the Convention, on the 1st August, decreed 
 that fire should be added to the sword. 
 
 Barere in addressing the Convention said : " In ex- 
 tirpating evil one is doing good. Louvois was blamed 
 by history for having burned the Palatinate, and 
 Louvois ought to he blamed for it, for he worked for 
 tyrants. 
 
 " The Palatinate of the Republic is the Vendee. 
 Destroy it, and you save the Patrie. . . . The Committee
 
 100 THE REAL KREXCH REVOLUTIONIST ch. 
 
 of 1'ulilic Safety has prepared measures which tend to 
 exterminate this rehel race of Vendeans, to destroy their 
 haunts, to hum their forests, to cut down their crops." 
 
 The Minister of \\ ar was ordered to .-end down " com- 
 bustibles " of every kind to burn the woods and copses in 
 the Vendee. 
 
 The forests were to be hewn down: the haunts of 
 the rebels were to be destroyed: the crops were to be 
 cut and carried to the rear of the armies; and the 
 eat tie were to be seized. 
 
 The women, children, and sick were to be removed 
 from it. and conducted into the interior of Trance, where 
 provision would be made for their subsistence and safety. 
 " witli all due regard to humanity." All the property of 
 the rebels was declared to belong to the Republic, and 
 was to be used to indemnity those who had remained 
 faithful. 
 
 A fern' ''a ma sue of all male citizens between sixteen 
 and sixty years of age in the surrounding localities was 
 to be ma.de for the purpose of crushing the rebels. And 
 all the resources of revolutionary, indeed of scientific, 
 ingenuity were ransacked for devices whereby to crush 
 the Vendeans. Indeed "at this time there was no 
 scheme, however wild, which the revolutionists were not 
 disposed to try." ; " Mines, some powerful mines,'"' suggested 
 Santerre. ; " some soporific vapours, and then, fall upon 
 l hem." 
 
 In due course five waggon-loads of sulphur were sent 
 down from Talis — scarcely enough to do much burning 
 with, but enough to prove that the decisions of the Con- 
 vention were no idle threats. 
 
 Il was a ferocious decree, passed too " with enthusiasm 
 after one of the most lightning-laden reports of Rare re." 
 It was the deliberate avowal of the intention of the
 
 vin THE VENDEAN WAR 101 
 
 Government to make a desert of the Vendee. Even the 
 presence of a large number of " patriots" or republicans 
 in the district to be destroyed — to whom the carrying' 
 out of the decree would be complete ruin, and expatria- 
 tion — did not induce the Convention to hesitate. Inno- 
 cent and guilty were alike involved in a common fate. 
 Revolutionary justice could not stay to discriminate. 
 
 But that the French revolutionist was dead to every 
 idea of policy except extermination and annihilation, the 
 thought might have occurred to him which was so 
 pathetically expressed by Biron in one of his reports : — 
 
 " Here, Frenchmen fall under the blows of French- 
 men. The villages which we ravage belong to us. The 
 harvests, the crops which we destroy are our property ; 
 and all the blood which is shed is ours." 
 
 Sentiments such as these, however, were not " revolu- 
 tionary." And the Convention bent all its energies to- 
 wards the absolute wiping out of the A'endeans. 
 
 There was one phase of republican brutality which 
 was early noticeable in the Vendean strife, and which 
 as time went on became ever more and more conspicuous, 
 until it reached a height which stamped the French 
 revolutionist as a being of the most cowardly, debased, 
 and degraded type of humanity. 
 
 This was their treatment of women. 
 
 Cruel and fearful as was the treatment meted out to 
 men by the revolutionists, their treatment of women was 
 infinitely worse. 
 
 The defencelessness of women, their weakness, their 
 position of dependence on others, awoke no sense of pit}' 
 or consideration in the heart of the " brave republican " : 
 their helplessness appealed in no way to the vrai sans- 
 culotte except as an encouragement to violence and 
 brutality.
 
 102 TIIK REAL FRENCH REVOLUTIONIST 
 
 The Committee of Public Safety and the Convention 
 on some occasions meted out a less rigorous treatment to 
 women than to men: but in most of their decrees, and 
 I hose their most severe ones, no such discrimination was 
 used. 
 
 And the local authorities and the Revolutionary 
 Committees vigorously enforced those laws: and girls 
 and women of all ages were swept into prison on any 
 charge, and from there to the Revolutionary Tribunals 
 or to the Military Commissions and thence to deatli : 
 while by the military forces they wen' given but short 
 shrift. 
 
 And the Representatives inspired and aided, abetted 
 and encouraged this cowardly work. Two of them, 
 (lander (de Saintes) and Mazade, wrote to the Con- 
 vention in June: "It is the women and children and 
 old people who do us the greatest harm, partly because 
 the}' come among us and find out our plans and our 
 strength. ... It is necessary as our forces advance to 
 cany otf the women and children and place them in the 
 interior of the Republic." 
 
 And they were effectually "carried off," by bullet or 
 bayonet, and, in a very literal sense, "placed in the in- 
 terior of the Republic." 
 
 A more formidable foe to the Vendeans than the live 
 waggon-loads of sulphur was the large body of seasoned 
 and experienced soldiers and capable generals which was 
 sent with all possible speed to the Vendee about the 
 end of August. 
 
 After the capture of Mayence and of Valenciennes 
 by the. Allies, the garrisons of those towns were allowed 
 to return to France, on signing an engagement not to 
 carry arms again within a year against, the Allies, and 
 the Committee of L'ublie Safety ordered the troops so
 
 viii THE VENDEAN WAR 103 
 
 set free to proceed with all possible speed to the 
 Vendee. 
 
 The 15,000 to 1G,000 troops so sent were a formid- 
 able addition to the power of the Revolutionary Govern- 
 ment in the Vendee. The men — "men of iron," as 
 they were called — were well trained in the sharp school 
 of experience; they knew what discipline was, and how 
 to fight ; their officers had acquired valuable knowledge 
 of actual warfare, while several of them were brilliant 
 generals. 
 
 Their arrival in the Vendee gave rise to fresh 
 jealousies and divisions among the self-seeking worth- 
 less crew of sans-culotte Representatives and generals 
 there, each of whom became anxious to get them placed 
 under his command so as to reap the glory of their 
 successes. 
 
 " The report alone of their arrival," wrote the Minis- 
 ter of War, "should make the rebels tremble." 
 
 But trembling was not a Vendean characteristic ; 
 and the Vendeans only braced themselves up still 
 further to encounter the fresh and more formidable on- 
 slaught of the republicans. 
 
 The crisis of the struggle was now rapidly approach- 
 ing. Trance was sore beset by foreign enemies, and 
 revolutionary measures multiplied as danger increased. 
 
 By decree of the 23rd August the Convention put all 
 Frenchmen in permanent requisition for military service. 
 
 On the 5th September it decreed the creation of a 
 revolutionary army in Paris, and put the final seal and 
 stamp to the policy of the Government by the celebrated 
 resolution: " Placons la terreur a l'ordre du jour" 
 (" Let terror be the order of the day "). As a matter of 
 fact government by terror had already long been the 
 order of the day.
 
 104 THE REAL FRENCH REVOLUTIONIST ch. 
 
 The Vendeans were nevertheless quite undaunted. 
 On the 5th September they lust a battle at Lucon, hut 
 the same day they won a great victory at Chantonay 
 over Lecomte, against whom a plot had been made by 
 the sans-culotte generals to secure the destruction of a 
 man of too great promise. And on the 18th they won 
 another at Coron over some 28,000 republicans, with 
 Ronsin and Santerre at their head, and captured 1 2 
 guns and some 4000 prisoners. 
 
 On the 19th at Pont-Barre they won another battle,. 
 and the same day another at Torfou, 1 beating even the 
 Mayenoais troops under Kleber. 
 
 Two days later they beat the republicans at Montaigu, 
 and the following day they were again victorious at St. 
 Fulgent. 
 
 Thus five great battles were won in eight days. 
 
 Even the war- seasoned troops from Mayence had 
 failed to check the victorious career of the Vendeans — 
 animated as they still were by the deep religious en- 
 thusiasm which had carried them to victory in the 
 earlier contests. " We fight ibr Jesus Christ," they 
 said. 
 
 On one occasion a Vendean chief remonstrated 
 against the men stopping to pray at a cross. " Let 
 them pray,'' said Leseure, "they will light the better 
 for it." 
 
 On another occasion, where they were certain to be 
 overwhelmed by numbers, they cried aloud, ''Let us 
 march to heaven," and they dashed at the battalions of 
 the enemy, happy tu rush on martyrdom. 
 
 1 Strong ground- •■:.;-! for tin.- suspicion that the milit iry plan- which 
 lc<l up to the luittlc of Torfou were designed hy Ros>ignol and Ronsin as 
 a pitfall for the Mayi n ■■ ::- troops, whom they hated, and who were 
 to end the war quicker than suited the. desires of these and other san>- 
 culotte general- and oiiicials (see ChaShiu, iii. ^ : ;. SI .
 
 vin THE VENDEAN WAE 105 
 
 And they were fighting now with the added passion 
 of despair: for they knew by this time that their foes 
 were merciless, and that they were doomed to destruction 
 unless they could defend themselves. 
 
 They did not march upon the enemy, they hurled 
 themselves upon him, closed with him, and fought him 
 breast to breast, with obstinacy and fury. 
 
 And sometimes, when the battle was raging, and the 
 musketry and artillery were heard, " the women and 
 children, and all the inhabitants not engaged, repaired 
 to the churches, or prostrated themselves in the fields, 
 to pray for the success of the Vendean arms. And thus 
 through a whole country, and at one moment, there was 
 but one thought, one prayer ! The fate of all hung 
 upon the same battle." 
 
 The losses on both sides were at times tremendous. 
 Thousands upon thousands fell in many a battle. The 
 accounts read as exaggerations — doubtless they were 
 often so, — indeed many of the revolutionary triumphs 
 were pure fictions of the sans-culotte generals. That 
 the losses were fearful, however, is acknowledged by 
 Barere, who ought to have known ; and who gave ex- 
 pression to his exasperation against the generals for their 
 bad measures, which, he said, had already cost more than 
 200,000 republican lives. 
 
 Ami now to the religious fervour which had fired the 
 Vendeans with a heroic courage, and to the determina- 
 tion of despair, was added the fury of revenge. 
 
 With the exception of the Mayeneais officers and 
 troops, the great bulk of revolutionary forces had carried 
 on the war in the most merciless fashion. From the 
 general down to the lowest rank, they had given free 
 rein to every vice. Villages and farms had been pillaged 
 and burned; every form of movable property had been
 
 100 THE REAL FRENCH REVOLUTIONIST en. 
 
 carried off; prisoners had been massacred in cold blood, 
 and non-combatants had been seized and slaughtered. 
 
 "We execute your decree (of 1st August) to the 
 letter." wrote the Representatives to the Convention, 
 early in September, — that terrible decree ordering the 
 burning and destruction of the Vendee. 
 
 "Tins great act of national severity strikes salutary 
 terror into the hearts of the rebels. Great heaps of 
 ashes, and famine, and death present themselves on every 
 side to their eyes." 
 
 Of the barbarities committed during these autumn 
 months a captain of the republican army," an eye-witness 
 and actor in the cruel war," has given an account in a 
 letter to Robespierre. 
 
 " As soon as our army had entered the Vendee each 
 soldier from that moment put to death whom he pleased, 
 and pillaged whom he pleased, on the pretext that he 
 whom he killed or pillaged was a rebel or a favourer of 
 rebels, or thought as a royalist. Xo punishment has 
 been inflicted, no precaution taken to repress or moderate 
 the ardour for blood and pillage. Judge, then, to what 
 excess the fury of the scoundrel has been carried, freed 
 from the restraint of the law. Judge how many innocents 
 have fallen victims to brigandage. 
 
 ' : 1 see among us men who do not cease to incite to 
 carnage ; who breathe only blood {qui ne respircnt que, 
 h- sang), who take a pleasure in butchering an unfortunate 
 and defenceless wretch who has fallen into their hands, — 
 and who lly at the first shot." 
 
 The exasperation caused by the cruel butchery of 
 relatives found expression at times, and not unnaturally, 
 in reprisals; and prisoners sometimes received but short 
 shrift from some of the Vendeans ; but considering the 
 desperate provocation they had received, the instances
 
 vni THE VENDEAN WAR 1 07 
 
 bore but an infinitesimal proportion to the wholesale 
 infamies of the revolutionists. 
 
 The levee en masse called together " by the tocsin of 
 Liberty"' did not help the revolutionists. It brought 
 together masses of men — 50,000 it was said, — Bar ere 
 said 400,000, — " a fabulous army," in the double sense. 
 Unarmed and undisciplined and ill-disposed to fight, they 
 were an embarrassment to the republicans instead of a 
 help. 
 
 Against the Vendeans they were worse than useless. 
 Some lied at the first contact with the Vendeans ; others 
 disappeared without even having seen the enemy; some 
 were sent home because they had learned to pillage and 
 violate. The levee en masse melted away.
 
 CHAP TEE IX 
 
 THE VEXDEAN WAR 
 
 Part V 
 
 The successive victories of the Vendeans once more made 
 the Revolutionary Government in Paris wild with fury, 
 and it bent itself with greater energy to the task of 
 crushing the Vendeans. 
 
 On the 1st October, Barere made a long report to 
 the Convention: — 
 
 " The inexplicable Vendee exists still . . . and 
 the efforts of the republicans up to this have been 
 powerless against the brigandage, and the plots of the 
 royalists concealed there. The Vendee threatens to 
 become a dangerous volcano. . . . To the levee e a masse 
 of the Vendeans we opposed the levee en masse of the 
 entire country, . . . but a panic of terror struck all. 
 frightened all, dissipated all like a vapour." 
 
 And then, apparently with the object of exciting 
 feeling against even women and children, and of justifying 
 both the past and the future treatment of them which is 
 so appalling a feature of the revolutionary despotism, 
 he said: 
 
 •"The brigands from the age of ten to sixty are in
 
 oh. ix THE YENDEAN WAR 109 
 
 requisition by the proclamation of the Vendean chiefs. 
 The women act as scouts or vedettes. The entire 
 population of the revolted country is in rebellion, and 
 in arms." 
 
 And, as the crowning incitement to exasperation 
 against the Yendeans, lie declared that the Representa- 
 tives at Nantes had proofs of the communication of the 
 Yendeans with the English. 
 
 Some of the defeats he attributed to the cowardice- — 
 not of French republicans, for that would have been 
 too much for him to admit- — but of some battalions 
 composed of foreigners, Neapolitans, Germans, and 
 Genoese, picked up in the streets of Paris by the 
 aristocrats, who had made this present to them — also 
 to some t'//u'///'c'.s who had enrolled themselves among 
 the republican troops. 
 
 But he admitted that the Yendeans had made pro- 
 gress owing to the insatiable avarice of the administrators 
 of the army, who made a trade of war ; who speculated 
 on battles being lost: who made their profits on the 
 disasters of their country : who increased their wealth 
 by the duration of the war: who opposed the military 
 plans of campaign so as to prolong the period of their 
 profits; and who enriched themselves by the piles of 
 dead. 
 
 But instead of his turning the wrath of the Con- 
 vention on these sans-culottes, he impassionedly rang out 
 the changes on the phrase " Destroy the Vendee ! " 
 " Destroy the Vendee ! " 
 
 This was the revolutionary remedy for everything 
 that ran counter to the Revolution — destruction and 
 annihilation. Revolutionary intelligence appeared unable 
 to rise above this very primitive and barbaric policy. 
 
 If the term '•'administrator" included generals, his
 
 110 THE REAL FRENCH REVOLUTIONIST oh. 
 
 description was not alone not exaggerated, but fell tar 
 short of the truth ; for it was the sans-culotte generals 
 and officers, as well as the administrators, who were 
 to a great extent the cause of the military break- 
 down. 
 
 The more sans-culotte the generals were, the worse 
 they were. Curious revelations from time to time were 
 made as to the scandalous luxury of the generals of the 
 Republic and of the Representatives of the people there. 
 The volunteers who returned to Paris recounted how 
 General Santerre lived in Asiatic luxury ; that he had 
 the most splendid carriages, the best cooks, the prettiest 
 women. Berruyer's practices were also exposed : " Never 
 has a general paraded such insolent luxury: one only 
 appears before him with bended knee."' 
 
 Philippeaux, a Representative, described the division 
 at Saumur as commanded by " chiefs without morals, 
 without talent, without mind {nmc), moustached braggarts 
 (fanfarons a moustaches) who are going to sabre every one 
 and finish the war, but who, when the moment comes for 
 fulfilling their promises, skulk in the rearguard or decamp 
 at full gallop without firing a shot." 
 
 Cavaignac, another Representative, wrote of them as 
 being '"fools, drunkards, or knaves . . . men without 
 talent and without experience: invisible in the morning. 
 and after dinner inapproachable {int raitahli )." 
 
 And this drinking braggart lot were as dissolute as 
 they were stupid and incapable. Philippeaux describes 
 as having seen with Ins own eyes "one of the superior 
 officers (who had sprung from the mountebank's stage to 
 his grade of rank; affording the shameless spectacle of 
 four courtesans ("republican Dubarrys '") seated in a 
 gorgeous vehicle and escorted by fifty men," going to see 
 something of camp life, five days after the defeat at
 
 ix THE VKXDEAN WAR 111 
 
 Viliiers, " when all republicans ought to have been in a 
 state of consternation." 
 
 Beubell, another Eepresentative, wrote to " My dear 
 Barere," telling him that while the generals were report- 
 ing victory upon victory they were losing their cannons 
 and their stores. 
 
 " They only occupy themselves in inventing lies to 
 conceal their defeats, and they console themselves for all 
 their griefs by the pleasures of the table, and in the 
 arms of les sales Venus, with whom they concert the 
 plans of calumny against those who do not resemble them." 
 
 Philippeaux further remarked : " The Asiatic luxury 
 of the generals, their orgies, their examples of licentious- 
 ness presented to the soldiers, tended to make of our 
 armies a mob of men without restraint and without 
 courage, no less formidable to the peaceable inhabitants 
 than to the rebels themselves." 
 
 Bossignol, the commander-in-chief and a " true sans- 
 culotte," had a little while back set an example of shame- 
 less pillage. Mercier du Bocher — a republican — has 
 given the details. Bossignol. accompanied by Bourbotte, 
 a Eepresentative, arrived at Fontenay on the night of 
 the 21st August, 
 
 The municipality lodged him and the Eepresentative 
 and their suite in the house of one Beaumont. The 
 master of this house had joined the brigands, and the 
 official seals of the Eepublic were placed on the contents 
 of it. These were broken by Eossignol and his party, 
 and the jewels and dresses of women were confiscated, to 
 the profit of the general and his cortege. " There was 
 nothing," writes Mercier, " down even to the china ware, 
 which did not become the prey of these pillagers, who 
 called themselves republicans ami who took about with 
 them showy harlots. The prettiest of them were for
 
 Ill' THE REAL FRENCH REVOLUTIONIST en. 
 
 the highest in dignity, Bourbotte the Representative, 
 and Rossignol; the others were left to the inferiors. 
 It is thus they gave the example of republican 
 virtues."' 
 
 When leaving Fontenay, Rossignol and his party 
 carried away many of the things in the house, though, 
 being scaled, they were national property. 
 
 If Commanders-in-Chief and Representatives could do 
 such tilings, what was to be expected of their subordi- 
 nates ', 
 
 Two other Representatives, Bourdon de l'Oise and Gou- 
 pilleau de Fontenay, with stricter ideas of what was right 
 and wrong, suspended Rossignol for his misconduct, 
 and sent him to Paris. Here he appeared before the 
 Convention. " My heart, my soul," he said, " all is my 
 country's {tout est a ma patrie. . ' And the Convention, 
 which canted itself, and gravely accepted the cant of its 
 officers, invited him to the honours of the sitting, and 
 scut him back to his position of commander-in-chief, 
 and recalled to its bosom the two Representatives who 
 had suspended him. 
 
 These then were the men who were the product of the 
 new regime, the upholders of the banner of the sublime 
 principles of '' liberty, equality, and fraternity/" under 
 which they were supposed to be fighting. 
 
 The anomaly of the thing struck Rhilippeaux, one of the 
 Representatives. " It is a strange thing,'"' he wrote, " that 
 the royalist soldiers fight for despotism as veritable sans- 
 culottes, without gratuities, without pay, with a piece of 
 bad bread for food: while we, for the sublime cause of 
 Liberty, make a war of slaves and sybarites." 
 
 Alter hearing Raivre's report, the Convention declared 
 that it '"'counted on the courage of the army of the west, 
 and of the generals who commanded it. to terminate
 
 ix THE VENDEAN WAE 113 
 
 between that date and the 20 th October the execrable 
 war of the Vendee." 
 
 But it did more. It placed on record as its deliberate 
 opinion and will the cruel and merciless decision that 
 extermination was to be the fate of all the brigands in 
 the Vendee. 
 
 It was a record appealed to in later time by Repre- 
 sentative and officers alike as their justification for the 
 iniquities which later they were charged with having' 
 perpetrated. 
 
 A proclamation by the Convention was issued on 1st 
 October. 
 
 "Soldiers of Liberty — It is imperative that the 
 brigands of the A r endee be exterminated before the end 
 of October: the safety of the country exacts it: the im- 
 patience of the French people commands it; its courage 
 ought to accomplish it." 
 
 And now great activity prevailed among the re- 
 publicans. 
 
 All the generals who had any taint of la noblesse 
 about them were got rid of; even some sans-culottes 
 were removed, Grammont and Santerre among the 
 number ; Ronsin was given another appointment, and 
 Rossignol was transferred to Brest : and as commander- 
 in-chief there was appointed L'Echelle, "a man of the 
 people, an old soldier," described by Kleber " as being the 
 most ignorant of chiefs one has ever seen, knowing 
 nothing of the map, and scarcely able even to write his 
 name." 
 
 Imperative communications passed from the executive 
 in Paris to the Representatives and generals in the 
 Vendee. More skilful and combined plans were devised 
 against the Vendeans. Every effort was to be made to 
 crush, to exterminate them. The Government in Paris 
 
 i
 
 114 THE REAL FRENCH REVOLUTIONIST ch. 
 
 was in deadly earnest, and the sans-culotte generals were 
 made to understand that no scheming or skulking would 
 be tolerated, that they had no alternative but to fight or 
 die on the scaffold. 
 
 The outcome of all the changes was that the actual 
 — as apart from the nominal — command passed into the 
 hands of a real soldier like Kleber, and a complete change 
 came over the fortunes of the Republic. 
 
 The Vendeans themselves felt that everything was 
 working up towards the crisis. 
 
 ' : In spite of such repeated successes," wrote one of 
 their leaders, " in spite of so many brilliant victories, the 
 clouds which had been dispersed soon began to gather 
 again, and formed a fresh storm. - ' 
 
 Gradually they were being hemmed in by superior 
 forces. 
 
 They were embarrassed, too, by the vast number of 
 non-combatants — the whole population, women, children, 
 old people, sick and wounded, all flying before the 
 advance of the republicans, to avoid massacre, and 
 seeking safety behind the ranks of their own 
 people. 
 
 '■' The army of the Republic," wrote the Representa- 
 tives, " is preceded everywhere by terror. Steel and 
 lire are now the only weapons we make use of." 
 
 On the 6th October the Vendeans were beaten at St. 
 Symphorien. 
 
 On the 9th at Moulin aux Chevres. " Six leagues in 
 circumference are covered with dead," wrote L'Echelle, 
 with considerable exaggeration. 
 
 On the 11 th an almost lost battle was turned into a 
 republican victory, and from the Government in Paris 
 came fresh incitements. 
 
 On the Oth October the Committee of Public Safety
 
 ,x THE VENDEAN WAB 1.15 
 
 issued a savage proclamation to the troops, hounding 
 them on to the extermination of the rebels. The tri- 
 umphant example was held up to them of the republican 
 army at Lyons, which at that moment was "cutting all 
 the traitors there to pieces," and where it was declared 
 that not a single one of " the vile and cruel satellites of 
 despotism should escape." 
 
 " And you also, brave soldiers : you will obtain a 
 victory. Tor long enough now has the Vendee wearied 
 the Eepublic. March, strike, and make an end of it. 
 All our enemies ought to fall at one and the same time. 
 Each army will conquer. Will you be the last to gather 
 the palms, to merit the glory of having exterminated 
 the rebels and saved the country ? Hurl yourselves on 
 the mad and ferocious hordes ; crush them so that each 
 one may say to himself, ' To-day the Vendee is being 
 annihilated, and the Vendee will be conquered.' " 
 
 Events other than those in the Vendee were resulting 
 in the very concentration of despotism in the hands of 
 the Committee of Public Safety in Paris. 
 
 On the 10 th October the Convention decreed that the 
 government should be " revolutionary " until peace 
 came ; and declared that " no other law would be followed 
 but that of public safety." The Constitution was sus- 
 pended, and the Committee of Public Safety was practi- 
 cally made dictator. 
 
 For the moment these changes did not affect the 
 Vendee. There everything depended on the military 
 campaign, the fortunes of which were hanging in the 
 balance. The Vendeans were being gradually forced 
 hack on Cholet, fighting day after day, now winning a 
 victory, now suffering defeat, ever coming nearer the 
 supreme hour, the decisive struggle. 
 
 The enormities committed by the Blues, or republi-
 
 11G THE REAL FRENCH REVOLUTIONIST ch. 
 
 cans, in their advance, pillage and burning and cruelties 
 of all sorts, had excited universal horror and indignation, 
 and the Vendean chiefs were resolved to die or conquer 
 in the approaching battle. 
 
 On the 1 7th the decisive battle was fought near 
 ('Jiolet. The republicans numbered about 22,000 men, 
 including the hulk of the Mayen^ais troops, who bore 
 the brunt of the day. 
 
 The Vendeans had about -40,000 under d'Elbee and 
 Bonchamps. 
 
 The fall of these most trusted and capable leaders — 
 both of whom were fearfully wounded — in great measure 
 decided the fate of the day. 
 
 After a desperate light, and heavy losses on both sides, 
 the Vendeans were defeated; and the capture of Beaupreau, 
 the same night, completed their discomfiture. 
 
 '• Never," wrote Kleber, ' ; have they fought so 
 stubbornly; never in such disciplined order: but never 
 has a day been so disastrous for them. The rebels fought 
 like tigers — our soldiers like lions.'" 
 
 This disastrous defeat of the Vendeans was in great 
 measure, if not entirely, due to the division between the 
 various Vendean leaders. In the absence of a royal 
 prince, or of any one of commanding position, to take 
 supreme command, personal rivalries were great, and 
 serious differences had most unfortunately arisen between 
 the Vendean chiefs, differences as regards objects and as 
 regards the means of attaining those objects. 
 
 These differences had already come to such a head 
 that Charette with his army — a no inconsiderable force 
 — had retired to Lv<j:i\ thus weakening the Vendean 
 fighting power, and endangering the Vendean cause in 
 the supreme hour of its trial. 
 
 But this was not all. Among those that remained
 
 ix THE VEX DEAN AVAR 117 
 
 there was confusion of counsel. Before the battle 
 actually took place, certain of the chiefs decided that in 
 case of defeat the Vendeans should cross the Loire, and 
 preparations for that contingency had in part been 
 made ; hut so deep was the intrigue that d'Elbee, the 
 commander-in-chief, was not informed of the inten- 
 tion. 
 
 He and Bonehamps, being disabled from further 
 action, and the dreaded defeat having taken place, the 
 decision was given effect to. The Yendean army was 
 to leave the Vendee, and to seek in Brittany supplies and 
 food and allies or recruits among the peasantry, and to 
 secure a port where they could obtain the help which 
 the leaders expected or hoped to obtain from England. 
 
 There were must serious objections to this course, 
 which, in reality, was adopted with a regard to royalist 
 aims and ambitions, rather than to the interests of the 
 Vendeans themselves, but it obtained plausibility from 
 the fact that there seemed to be no other outlet of 
 escape. Masses of fugitives from revolutionary fraternity, 
 women and children and did persons, had lied in the 
 direction of the river. What remained of the army had 
 no choice but to go after them. 
 
 And here occurred an incident which throws much 
 light on the character of tin,' vrai rtpuhlicain. 
 
 The Yendean army, in full retreat, reached St. Florent 
 on the bank of the Loire. Here some 4000 to 5 000 repub- 
 lican prisoners were confined in Yendean custody. The 
 suggestion was made that they should be put to death. 
 Infuriated by defeat, and still more by the barbarous 
 cruelties so systematically inflicted by the Blues, the sug- 
 gestion fell on willing ears. Cries were raised for their 
 death. But, suddenly, the older that they were to be 
 spared passed through the Yendean ranks.
 
 118 TTTE REAL FRENCH REVOLUTIONIST ch. 
 
 Tradition gives the honour, and truly and unmistak- 
 ably so, to P>onehamps, the Vendean leader, who, wounded 
 to the death, was lying in a cottage near by, and heard 
 the cries. His dying request to the men he had so often 
 led to victory was that the prisoners might be spared. 
 And his men respected his wish, and the prisoners were 
 not alone spared but released. 
 
 It was a splendid display of Vendean generosity. 
 The prisoners themselves all proclaimed that Bonchamps 
 was their liberator. Kleber also bore witness to the fact. 
 But it was not so regarded by the Representative Merlin 
 (de Thionville), a shining light of the Revolution, who 
 wrote to the Committee of Public Safety: — 
 
 ■' These cowardly enemies of the nation (the Vendeans) 
 have spared more than 4000 of our men who were their 
 prisoners. Some of those of our men allowed them- 
 selves to be touched by this trait of incredible hypocrisy. 
 I harangued them, and they soon understood that they 
 were under no debt of gratitude to the brigands. 
 
 "' But as the nation has not yet reached the height of 
 our patriotic sentiments, you would act wisely in not 
 breathing a word about such an indignity. Free men 
 accepting life from the hand of slaves! It is not 
 revolutionary. This unfortunate action must be buried 
 in oblivion. Do not speak of it even in the Convention. 
 Tin- brigands have no time to write or to start news- 
 papers, and so it will lie forgotten like many other 
 things." 
 
 Rut the incident has not been forgotten — has not 
 fallen into oblivion — nor will the light which this letter 
 of Merlin throws upon the grotesque abortions of the 
 revolutionary mind be forgotten either. The incident 
 is too instruct ive to be so. 
 
 Three other Representatives, llentx. Francastel, and
 
 ix THE VENDEAN WAR 119 
 
 Prieur (de la Marne), evidently thought that a lie would 
 be the best way of dealing with it, for they wrote : — 
 
 " We have had the satisfaction to deliver at St. 
 Florent 5500 of our republicans." 
 
 One Representative, Choudieu, had the decency to 
 avow the truth. 
 
 " It is a pleasure to me here," he wrote, " to render 
 to Bonchamps full and signal justice (une iclatante 
 justice). Brave men do not assassinate their enemy when 
 he is disarmed." 
 
 The republicans did not follow up their great victory 
 quite as quickly as they might have done, and their 
 prey had time to escape them — across the Loire. 
 
 The passage of that river by the Yendean fugitives 
 was a most pathetic scene. Madame de Lescure, who 
 was tlying with the others and tending her dying 
 husband, who had been wounded a few days before, has 
 described it. 
 
 " We arrived early at St. Florent, and then I saw 
 the greatest and the saddest sight which can be imagined. 
 The heights of St. Florent form a kind of semicircular 
 boundary to a vast level strand reaching to the Loire, 
 which is very wide at this place. Eighty thousand 
 people were crowded together in this valley — soldiers, 
 women, children, the aged, and the wounded, flying from 
 immediate destruction. . . . Nothing was heard but 
 loud sobs, groans, and cries. . . . Many of us compared 
 this disorder, this despair, this terrible uncertainty of 
 the future, this immense spectacle, this bewildered crowd, 
 this valley, this river which must be crossed, to the 
 ideas of the last judgment." 
 
 With much difficulty the Yendean army and fugitives 
 got over by boats and rafts.
 
 120 THE REAL FRENCH REVOLUTIONIST ch. 
 
 Ami for a few days, on the north side of the rapid 
 flowing river, uninterfered with by the republican troops, 
 they obtained breathing time before beginning another 
 act of the sad drama. 
 
 This battle iif Cholet was the second great crisis in 
 the Yendean war. 
 
 By their courage and perseverance the Vendeans had 
 retrieved the disaster of their defeat at Nantes. Now, 
 however, in addition to the defeat just experienced at 
 Cholet, a decision was taken by the leaders which led 
 the Vendeans to irretrievable disaster. "Worse could 
 imt have befallen them. The fate of almost every 
 individual in that vast crowd was sealed. 
 
 Descriptions of military movements, of the advances 
 and retreats of great opposing forces — of their battles, 
 their victories, and defeats — interesting as they are, 
 leave, however, the great underneath untouched. And 
 one must pierce through the appearance of things, and 
 go down into the individualities, so to speak, to at all com- 
 prehend or realise the real purport and meaning of it all. 
 
 Men's sympathies are moved, mid their hearts thrilled. 
 by the suffering of a single individual, when they see 
 and realise it : their indignation is stirred by the sight 
 of a single crime : their wrath Hashes up at a single act 
 of injustice. 
 
 But suffering, crime, and injustice on a large scale, 
 en masse as it were, and the effect is too stunning to 
 bo at once appreciated. One does not take in what it 
 really is. 
 
 Here, on the visible surface, was the flight or migration 
 of a great struggling mass of some 80,000 to 100,000 
 people; but underneath, in each individual case, what 
 unutterable agony and heartbreak. 
 
 Kvervthinu' that each individual of that vast crowd
 
 ix THE VENDEAN WAR 121 
 
 loved most dearly, and prized most highly, had just been 
 torn from their possession. 
 
 At night, the red flames which lighted up the dark 
 sky with a lurid glow : in day, the volumes of thick 
 smoke on the horizon ascending into the heavens, told 
 each of the destruction of their home, and with it the 
 destruction of all the joys of existence. To them it was 
 the tearing up of the roots of their life. 
 
 Underneath, too, was the agony of loss of nearest 
 relatives and friends never again to he seen — the anguish 
 of apprehension as to their own immediate fate, and that 
 of those who still remained to them — the despair that 
 peace, happiness, home, property, comfort, everything had 
 gone, gone irretrievably for ever. 
 
 Underneath, too, was the constant torturing sense of 
 undeserved wrong, and of the cruellest injustice. 
 
 And all these woes caused by the hands of their own 
 countrymen masquerading as the champions of liberty 
 and fraternity. 
 
 The republicans were wild with elation at the triumph 
 of their arms. 
 
 The commander-in-chief L'Echelle wrote to the Minis- 
 ter of War :— 
 
 " The Vendee, purged in eight days of the principal 
 gatherings of brigands emboldened by ephemeral suc- 
 cesses, steaming with blood, strewn with corpses, and in 
 great part delivered to the flames, is a striking example 
 of national justice, which should intimidate countries in 
 which villainy wishes to create insurrection/' 
 
 The Representatives wrote to the Committee of Public 
 Safety: "The National Convention wished the war to be 
 finished before the end of October. We can to-day tell 
 it that there is no longer a Vendee. A profound solitude 
 actually reigns in the country which the rebels occupied.
 
 122 TTTE REAL FRENCH REVOLUTIONIST ch. ix 
 
 One can travel far in it without meeting a man, or a 
 cottage; tor, with scarce an exception, we have left 
 behind us only cinders and heaps of corpses." 
 
 The Committee of Public Safety issued a proclama- 
 tion, signed by Robespierre and others, to the army: — 
 
 " The defenders of the Republic have destroyed the 
 haunts of the rebels ; they have exterminated their 
 sacrilegious cohorts: that guilty land has herself de- 
 voured the monsters she produced: the rest of them will 
 fall under the axe of the people. . . . Republican soldiers ; 
 march, strike . . . so that tyrants and slaves may dis- 
 appear from the earth." 
 
 And, on the 23rd October, Barere declared before the 
 Convention that the Vendee existed no longer. And the 
 Convention decreed that " there is no longer a Vendee," 
 — which, of course, was conclusive.
 
 CHATTER X 
 
 REVOLUTIONARY ORGANISATION 
 
 While the republican military forces had, during the 
 months of duly to October, been making spasmodic efforts 
 to cope with the Vendeans, at times defeating them, at 
 times being defeated by them, the other revolutionary 
 powers and authorities in or near the Vendee had un- 
 ceasingly been pursuing their efforts for crushing, by other 
 means than military measures, all who were nut active 
 supporters of the Revolution. 
 
 The flat of extermination and destruction had gone 
 forth. It had been reiterated, almost day after day, by 
 the Revolutionary Government in Paris. 
 
 Extermination was the fixed idea of the revolutionary 
 mind. All the advice tendered by revolutionists around 
 or in the Vendee was " extermination." All their recom- 
 mendations breathed nothing but bloodshed and destruc- 
 tion ; all their prayers to the Convention were for more 
 destruction, more bloodshed. Kill, destroy, exterminate, 
 tins was the burden of every letter, of every counsel : it 
 was the refrain of the Convention itself. 
 
 Nothing but extermination or annihilation would 
 satisfy the revolutionary craving for the punishment of 
 those who had dared to lay sacrilegious hands on the
 
 124 THE REAL FRENCH REVOLUTIONIST ch. 
 
 ark of the new Republic. No composition should he 
 made with the "brigands"; no measures of conciliation 
 should be thought of; not even submission on the part 
 of the rebels would be accepted. On no terms would 
 the Republic receive the Vendeans again into its fold. 
 The only right it would accord them was the right to 
 die. 
 
 The policy found ardent instruments in the arm}' of 
 the west, from the highest general down to the lowest 
 private, so many of them profiting by it. 
 
 It had ardent instruments, too, from the Representa- 
 tives down to the pettiest collection of village ruffians 
 who erected themselves into a popular society, all of 
 whom derived advantages therefrom. 
 
 And no single voice opposed it. The idea expressed 
 in Biron's sad reminder that the villages which were 
 being pillaged, and the crops which were being destroyed, 
 and the blood which was being shed, were all French, 
 found no echo in the revolutionary mind. 
 
 The defence made by the admirers of. or apologists 
 for, this merciless and inhuman policy was that the 
 safety of the Republic demanded it : and the sacred 
 name of patriotism has been invoked as its justification. 
 France, beset by foreign foes, had, it was argued, for very 
 existence sake, to crush the enemies within her own 
 border. 
 
 But crimes can be committed in the name of patriotism 
 as well as in the name of liberty, and this policy of 
 extermination must ever rank as one of the greatest of 
 such crimes. 
 
 That it was a wholly unnecessary policy is manifest 
 beyond question. For time alter time, indeed during 
 the whole war. the ureal bulk of the Vendeans would 
 have gladly accepted peace, and have been glad to be
 
 x REVOLUTIONARY ORGANISATION 125 
 
 allowed to go back to their homes and resume the 
 ordinary course of their lives. It had only been in 
 sheer desperation that they had appealed to arms ; it 
 was only in absolute despair that they continued to 
 tight. Death being the inevitable goal, if they might 
 not triumph they would at least sell their lives as 
 dearly as they could. 
 
 The Federalist insurrection, which occurred in parts 
 of France in July — one more stand by the more honest 
 and intelligent class of the people against the advancing 
 torrents of revolutionary bloodshed and violence — had 
 still further infuriated the Revolutionary Government 
 in Paris, which became wilder than ever, and more 
 terrible and ruthless in its measures of repression. 
 
 In this progressive increase of revolutionary energy 
 the office of Representative became of ever greater 
 importance, and his authority more all-embracing and 
 despotic. 
 
 Afore and more the Convention handed over to the 
 Representatives its own powers, and centred in them all 
 the might of the executive : and more and more it 
 insisted on their using those powers with a very 
 whirlwind of energy. 
 
 '•' Terror shall be the order of the day," it declared 
 on the oth September, and it entrusted the sword of 
 sharpness into their hands, and ordered them to use it. 
 It reserved to itself still the legislative powers, but such 
 a tremendous coercive code was already in existence 
 that the Representatives stood in no need of any such 
 powers. 
 
 It reserved to itself, too, the power of recalling the 
 Representatives and appointing others in their places, a 
 power which it seldom failed to act on when it thought 
 there was any slackness or remissness in the energy of
 
 12G THE KEAL FRENCH REVOLUTIONIST en. 
 
 the Representatives. It backed them up by declaring 
 that those of their instruments who had perpetrated 
 even the most appalling injustices and cruelties " de- 
 served well of their country," and resolutely it turned a 
 blind eye to any actions, however tyrannical or despotic 
 on their part, their most extreme excesses, even finding 
 in the Convention the protection of silence. 
 
 The Representatives themselves were not backward 
 in taking their cue from the Convention. 
 
 Armed with this tremendous authority, and drunk, 
 as it were, with the sense of their own importance and 
 power, they flung themselves into their duties with 
 infuriated energy. 
 
 And "liberty" vanished, — the "liberty" for which 
 the Revolution had been made. And instead of 
 "liberty," despotism and tyranny came, a tyranny 
 compared with which previous tyranny had been that 
 of a child's hand. 
 
 And, in the process, the revolutionists showed them- 
 selves to all the world, for all time, in their true 
 character as the greatest impostors who have ever 
 stepped this earth. Nearly every privilege won by 
 the people, though confirmed to them by the Declara- 
 tion of the Eights of Man and by other legislation, 
 was promptly taken away from them. By force the 
 revolutionists imposed on the people their tyrannical 
 rule. With barefaced impudence they adopted all the 
 vices of the ancien regime, and drew upon it for 
 ideas and precedents for their own measures of persecu- 
 tion and repression. And to cover their iniquities, they 
 were ceaselessly invoking the names of liberty and 
 equality and fraternity, and posing as the saviours of the 
 1'atrie, and as the regenerators of humanity. 
 
 At the time there was none could gainsay them, the
 
 x REVOLUTIONARY ORGANISATION 127 
 
 penalty was too great ; but history, at any rate, can tear 
 the mask from their laces, and expose their contradic- 
 tions, their inconsistencies, their false pretences, and 
 their lying' excuses for acts which were the absolute 
 negation of their professions. 
 
 There were frequent changes among the Representa- 
 tives in the west. They were appointed, recalled, 
 reappointed, and shifted about from Department to 
 Department, as suited the convenience of the Conven- 
 tion ; a sort of sifting process went on in which, 
 ultimately, the most violent and reckless came to the 
 top. And all the changes tended to an increase of 
 tyranny. 
 
 Their fierce restless energy knew no limits, had no 
 restraints. Some of them stooped to any infamy, any 
 cruelty, so long as they could compass their ends or 
 gratify their passion. They evoked and encouraged all 
 that was worst in the nature of the French people, and 
 stifled and trampled on whatever was good and generous. 
 They lied when a lie suited their purpose ; they deceived 
 when deception redounded to their advantage. They 
 were merciless in their injustice. They deluged their 
 country with their countrymen's blood ; and then, with 
 loathsome hypocrisy and effrontery, claimed credit to 
 themselves for the professed purity of their motives, and 
 for the patriotism of their conduct. 
 
 The first care of the Representatives was to secure 
 the mastery over, or complete co-operation of, the local 
 governing bodies. This they did by packing them with 
 their own nominees, or superseding them entirely, and 
 putting Revolutionary Committees or popular societies 
 in their place, thus taking away from the people their 
 newlv-won right of electhm their own local governing 
 bodies.
 
 128 THE REAL FRENCH REVOLUTIONIST 
 
 While they were engaged in the congenial task of 
 establishing the reign of liberty, the Convention (on the 
 12th August), at the same moment that it decreed the 
 levde en masse to repel the invasion of France by 
 foreign powers, decreed in principle the arrest of all 
 suspects. 
 
 The liability of all persons to be regarded as suspects 
 facilitated very much the action of the Representatives : 
 and the purged and renovated local authorities in and 
 near the Vendee, without waiting for a law on the 
 subject, began arresting all persons who could be con- 
 sidered as suspects ; indeed, in many places, several 
 months before the law on the subject was made, the 
 practice of arresting suspected persons had been in full 
 swing. 
 
 The celebrated Loi des Suspects, as enacted on the 
 17th September, decreed that all suspected persons who 
 were in the territory of the Republic, and who were 
 still at liberty, should be arrested, and that they should 
 lie detained until peace was made. 
 
 Those persons were "' suspects " who either by their 
 discourse or their writings had shown themselves 
 partisans of tyranny or federalism, and enemies of 
 liberty: former nobles, together with the husbands, 
 wives, fathers, mothers, sons, and daughters, brothers 
 and sisters, and agents of emigres, who have not con- 
 stantly manifested their attachment to the Revolution. 
 
 It has been urged in excuse of this severe law, that 
 the definition of suspects was taken from royal edicts 
 against persons of the "so-called reformed religion"; 
 but if it was so, the argument is a clear admission that 
 the Republican Government was treading in the very 
 steps of the iniquitous Royalist Government which it 
 had supplanted.
 
 x REVOLUTIONARY ORGANISATION 129 
 
 About the same time that personal liberty was 
 thus being invaded, commercial liberty was also sup- 
 pressed. The people must be supplied with food. The 
 scarcity, it was asserted, was the result of the grasping 
 avarice of merchants, and speculators, and hoarders, who 
 must be made disgorge ; and so laws were passed (on 
 11 th and 29th September) prescribing the fixing of the 
 prices above which food and other articles might not 
 be sold. Buyers and sellers had to conform to the 
 tables of maximum, under penalty of being treated as 
 " suspects " ; and lest this should check business, mer- 
 chants or manufacturers who suspended their commerce 
 or manufactures were threatened with similar conse- 
 quences. 
 
 Before the great republican victory at Cholet, the 
 authority of the Representatives did not extend far into 
 the Vendee itself, — -the Vendeans were still masters 
 there ; so the Representatives were obliged to confine 
 their activities to the towns and country around it. 
 
 Their procedure ran all on one line. The estab- 
 lishment of Revolutionary Tribunals and of Military 
 Commissions to try counter-revolutionists and Vendean 
 prisoners ; and in the larger towns, such as Angers, Nantes, 
 Saumur, and Fontenay, the creation of Revolutionary 
 Committees to aid and advise them in their operations, 
 and to carry out their policy and their behests. 
 
 Early in September (1793) two Representatives were 
 sent to La Rochelle and Rochefort to secure those ports 
 from foreign attack. 
 
 These two towns were south of the actual scene of the 
 strife, but to a certain extent felt the effects of the war. 
 A large number of prisoners taken in the Vendee had 
 been sent to La Rochelle, and the prisons were crammed 
 with some 800 of them. 
 
 K
 
 130 THE REAL FRENCH REVOLUTIONIST ch. 
 
 Here an interesting incident happened which throws 
 light on the character of these Representatives. 
 
 They created a Revolutionary Tribunal for the trial of 
 some of the prisoners, and appointed the judges and all 
 the officials except one. namely, "he who ought to close 
 the procedure " — the executioner. The nomination of 
 this functionary the Representatives left to the popular 
 society which existed there, as they wished "to destroy 
 one of the most foolish and rooted, of prejudices," con- 
 tempt of the executioner. 
 
 At the meeting of the popular society held for the 
 purpose of the election several volunteered for the post, 
 which was by no means a sinecure, and finally a man 
 named Ance was selected. " [," exclaimed Alice, with 
 noble enthusiasm, " it is I who ambition the honour of 
 making the heads of the assassins of my patrie 
 fall." 
 
 '■ We have proclaimed Ance guillotineur," wrote the 
 Representative Lequinio ; "we invited him to come and 
 dine with us, and take his powers from us in writing, 
 and to libate them in honour of the Republic." And the 
 executioner was given the name of "Avenger of the 
 people"; and to the guillotine an inscription in large 
 letters was attached describing it as " The people's 
 justice " {Jnati-e da y iqile). 
 
 Here a -Military Commission was also formed (on the 
 28th September^ by Lequinio, and a letter of his shows 
 in what a state of dependence upon the Representative 
 these courts were, how completely they were under his 
 control, and what a small chance a prisoner had of fair 
 treatment. 
 
 "1 ordered," wrote Lequinio, " the commissioners to 
 sentence in accordance with the law (that is to say, to 
 death all the former priests, bourgeois, nobles, tax-
 
 x REVOLUTIONARY ORGANISATION 131 
 
 gatherers, and deserters ; and to sentence only to the 
 galleys the workmen and labourers whose profound 
 ignorance had enabled them to be misled." 
 
 In the larger towns the measures taken by the Repre- 
 sentatives were on a larger and naturally bolder scale. 
 
 At Angers the revolutionists who had run away had 
 returned, embittered by the disgrace of their flight, and 
 keen for any atrocities which might rehabilitate their 
 revolutionary reputation. 
 
 Here the most active of the Representatives was 
 Choudieu, a man whose views and character can be 
 gauged from the fact of his being president of the 
 Society of Jacobins in Paris at the time of the September 
 massacres there. He was extremely violent in temper, 
 pitiless and cruel, a bitter persecutor, enforcing the 
 tyranny of the terror with unswerving severity, sacri- 
 ficing old friends in his Montagnard fervour, leaving 
 even his mother in the clutches of revolutionary law and 
 in peril of life for a period which he might easily have 
 curtailed. <: In revolution one is inexorable," he wrote ; 
 and inexorable he certainly was in all his proceedings in 
 the west. 
 
 One Military Commission had been appointed in June. 
 A fresh one was appointed by the Representatives on the 
 10th July, with Felix as president. But a far more 
 important and powerful body was the Revolutionary 
 Committee which had been appointed there, in July 
 also, by the Representatives. It consisted of some ten 
 or twelve members — all men of the extremest republi- 
 can ideas and desperate character, true sans-culottes — ■ 
 witli a renegade priest as president. The closeness of 
 the connection between a Revolutionary Committee and 
 the Representative is proved by the fact that Choudieu 
 himself is known to have presided at it.
 
 132 THE REAL FRENCH REVOLUTIONIST ch. 
 
 This Committee was to employ every means it thought 
 proper for obtaining information about individuals sus- 
 pected of rebellion, treason, incivism, or of a counter- 
 revolutionary disposition. It was given power to arrest, 
 examine, and imprison all who were denounced to it, as 
 well as any persons who furthered the projects of the 
 rebels, and it could call in the National Guard for the 
 execution of its decrees. Practically it possessed the 
 power of life and death over every citizen of Angers. 
 Everything was under its rule, and nothing was done 
 except with its good pleasure and approval. Police, 
 military, administration, worship, justice, — in one word, 
 everything was subject to its absolute autocratic 
 power. 
 
 Its first act was a decree stating : " The Committee, 
 considering that the institution of a Revolutionary Com- 
 mittee ought to inspire with confidence all good citizens, 
 and with terror all bad ones," ordered that henceforth 
 no one should go out of the town except he had a 
 passport. 
 
 And the next thing it did was to take possession of 
 the post-office, as two of its members went there and 
 opened all letters to suspects, or which appeared sus- 
 picious. Having thus shut the gate- of the town and 
 barred escape, the revolutionists proceeded in their 
 usually cowardly fashion to wreak their wrath on their 
 helpless victims. 
 
 On 2nd September the Committee, anticipating the 
 law of suspects, ordered domiciliary visits in the town 
 and suburbs to arrest "emigres, dtyorte's, brigands, spies. 
 agents of the enemies of the Republic, suspected persons, 
 ami generally all the counter-revolutionists of the two 
 sexes who might be found in private houses." 
 
 And this same Committee, in its career of despotic
 
 x REVOLUTIONARY ORGANISATION 133 
 
 government, afforded another illustration of the frequent 
 adoption of measures of the ancien regime by the revolu- 
 tionists. 
 
 It might, for very manifest reasons, be thought that 
 the people who had made a Revolution to put an end to 
 tyranny and the host of abuses of a. Royalist Government 
 would have fought very shy of adopting any of the hated 
 practices of its predecessors ; that that would have been 
 the very last thing they would have done. 
 
 But, so far as the French revolutionist is concerned, 
 any such idea is completely erroneous. Whenever it 
 served their purpose to follow royalist forms of tyranny, 
 they did not hesitate to do so. 
 
 "Denunciation" had been one of the practices in- 
 veighed against in the most vehement language, and yet 
 in one of its decrees the Committee wrote : " Denuncia- 
 tions, odious in the ancien regime, because they were of 
 service to tyranny, are become legitimate because they 
 tend to-day to the good of all. The Committee invites 
 all good citizens to come and declare to them all that 
 they know against the interests of the Republic." 
 
 The departmental authorities of La Mayenne went 
 even a little further, and declared that " the first and 
 noblest of the duties of a Republic is civic denuncia- 
 tion." 
 
 This theory of denunciation erected into a republican 
 virtue was everywhere applied and set in work, and it 
 became one of the great moyens or instruments of the 
 revolutionary administrators. 
 
 This Revolutionary Committee at Angers " soon 
 dominated all the constituted authorities in the town, 
 carried disquietude and fright- among all classes in all 
 families, and furnished to the Military Commission an 
 ample pasturage of human victims."
 
 134 THE REAL FREXCH REVOLUTIONIST en. 
 
 Until August 1793 the municipality of Angers had 
 been more or less moderate and pacific. Its hand was 
 then forced by the extremer parties, as in other places, 
 and it was compelled to submit to the Revolutionary 
 Committee. 
 
 In the course of October two other Representatives 
 were sent to Angers, Hentz and Francastel, Choudieu 
 taking other work in the neighbourhood. It was a 
 change for the worse for all who were not sans-culottes 
 of the ''/''//-est type, for they were men who hesitated at 
 no injustice, no amount of cruelty or bloodshed which 
 served their purposes. 
 
 Thus by the end of October, so far as Angers was 
 concerned, all preparations had been completed, and all 
 the machinery got into working order for the new regime 
 of '"liberty, equality, and fraternity.'' 
 
 In Saumur, which though a small town was strategic- 
 ally of great importance, revolutionary organisation pro- 
 ceeded on identically the same lines as at Angers. 
 
 The Revolutionary Committee which had been 
 appointed here had been working diligently, crushing 
 out the last vestiges of religious liberty; but when 
 Hentz and Francastel came, it was not deemed to be up 
 to the mark, and they "purified" it. appointing some 
 new and more revolutionary members. 
 
 The most influential person on the reorganised com- 
 mittee was Lepetit, " a sinister gamin of eighteen " whom 
 Bourbotte had employed for some time as his secretary, 
 and who had come to Tours with the battalions of Paris : 
 and he was aided by Yilnau, "a pale copy of Robes- 
 pierre," and some others of the same type. 
 
 To firing revolutionary inquisitorialness down to the 
 minutest sections of the people, the town, small though 
 it was. was divided into four sections: and in each
 
 x REVOLUTIONARY ORGANISATION 135 
 
 section there was appointed a committee of surveillance 
 — diminutive Revolutionary Committees in fact. 
 
 And as if all this were not enough, there was a 
 " Society of the Friends of Liberty and Equality," com- 
 posed of the worst elements of the Saumur population, to 
 aid the Revolutionary Committee in its work. 
 
 The Military Commission of Angers was within easy 
 reach, and came over whenever its services were re- 
 quired. 
 
 The revolutionary organisation at Saumur was there- 
 fore complete ; and at its head were Hentz and Fran- 
 castel, who, according to Turreau's later dictum, were 
 "worth more than an army to the Republic." 
 
 Tn Nantes the preparations were on the same lines 
 as those in Angers and Saumur. 
 
 Carrier had been for some time one of the Repre- 
 sentatives in the west, and at the end of September 
 Heraut Seychelles wrote to him from Paris in the 
 name of the Committee of Public Safety: "We implore 
 you to go at once to Nantes. We send you a decree 
 to purge that town. . . . We can be humane (Jiumains) 
 when we are assured of victory." 
 
 The populace at Nantes, irritated by Vendean 
 triumphs, by A'endean reprisals for revolutionary atro- 
 cities committed in the Vendee, and by the loss of many 
 relatives and friends, were calling for vengeance. 
 
 Moreover, there was great anxiety on account of the 
 great scarcity of food; and there were crushings and 
 crowds and lighting mobs at bakers' shops for the daily 
 doles of food, and the scarcity was attributed to the 
 wealthier merchants, to monopolists, to royalists. 
 
 The scarcity was aggravated by the working of the 
 laws of maximum, by the increase in the number of the 
 people in the city, and by the large number of troops
 
 1:36 THE REAL FRENCH REVOLUTIONIST ch. 
 
 constantly passing through, or who hud to be fed from, 
 Nantes. 
 
 Just previous to Carrier's arrival the council of 
 Nantes had been "purified" by the Representatives, by 
 
 the dismissal or arrest of most of its members and 
 ollicers ; numerous arrests, too, were made under the law 
 of suspects : the extremer revolutionary party was rapidly 
 possessing itself of all authority. The popular society 
 of Vincent la Montague, composed altogether of sans- 
 culottes, was giving a great impetus to revolutionary 
 ideas and acts, and the "terror" had already begun to 
 exist before his arrival. 
 
 Before his arrival, also, a Revolutionary Committee 
 had been appointed by the Representatives Gillet, Philip- 
 peaux, and Ruelle, as a substitute for the weaker-kneed 
 one hitherto operating there ; and to constitute it. a 
 dozen or more of some of the choicest .scoundrels in 
 France were selected, men whom Philippeaux described as 
 ■' sans-culottes, vigorous revolutionists, but at the same 
 time sage and prudent." 
 
 Bachelier, " a man of the law," was appointed its 
 president, but its presiding spirit of evil was Jean 
 Jactpues Goullin, a dissolute roue, a "politician of the 
 cafes,"' a man of ;: insatiable avarice " ; and among its 
 other members were Grandmaison, an assassin: Chaux, 
 a swindler and bankrupt : Jolly, l'errochaux, Pinard, 
 and other " intrepid Montagnards " ; all of the very 
 shadiest antecedents, but of the loftiest and purest 
 revolutionary principles, and all greedy for the salary of 
 some eight francs or so a day, with the opportunities 
 and prospects of unlimited plunder and extortion. 
 
 Their arts during the next few months showed what 
 a hellish crew Revolution had placed in authority in the 
 L>reat citv of Nantes.
 
 x REVOLUTIONARY ORGANISATION 137 
 
 What a disillusionment most of the inhabitants of 
 Xantes were to undergo is clear from Phelippes de 
 Tronjolly's assertion that " when the creation of a Revolu- 
 tionary Committee became known, the people, always 
 good, but often the dupe of its goodness, believed at last 
 what the men greedy of place had ceaselessly vociferated, 
 that the reign of virtue and justice was about to begin 
 in Nantes." 
 
 Carrier reached Nantes on the 8th October, but went 
 on into the A^endee for a few days, and was at the battle 
 of Cholet, where he ran away, but in a couple of days he 
 took up his permanent residence at Nantes. By the 
 time of his arrival there " everything and all had received 
 the revolutionary impulsion, and the sans-culottcs were 
 fully victorious." 
 
 The spirit which animated Carrier may be judged 
 from the speech which, soon after his arrival, he made 
 to the people : — 
 
 " People, people ! take your clubs, crush all these fat 
 merchants, all these men who have enriched themselves 
 by the fruit of your sweat. Go, run, burst in the ware- 
 houses which overflow with riches, exterminate all these 
 scoundrels who abuse your patience. People, you can 
 count on me to aid you to take vengeance on all the 
 vampires of the public. The guillotine will do justice 
 to all, and I will make their heads roll on the national 
 scaffold." 
 
 It was not only the Vendeans who were to be 
 crushed in Nantes. The so - called Federalists — the 
 moderates, all who had wealth or any possessions, all who 
 had character and respectability, all who could by any 
 stretch of imagination be considered as counter-revolu- 
 tionists — were alike to lie included in the revolutionary 
 anathema.
 
 138 THE REAL FRENCH REVOLUTIONIST ch. 
 
 The [lowers of the Revolutionary Committee, as author- 
 ised by law, were most arbitrary and despotic. Its 
 members had the power of search, arrest, imprisonment : 
 and the law of suspects, "the most terrible arm which 
 tyranny ever had at its disposition," gave them absolute 
 power over all their fellow-citizens. Whatever other 
 powers the Committee wanted were easily obtainable 
 from the Representative. 
 
 The Committee lost little time in setting to work. 
 On the 11th October it held its first sitting. 
 
 To impose silence on its adversaries was its first task. 
 On the 12th October it closed the Club de la Halle, and 
 on the following day the various reading-rooms, assembly 
 rooms, gardens, and clubs were also all closed. 
 
 Thus, on the loth October, opposition was silenced in 
 Nantes, and the committee had no contradiction to fear. 
 
 Some of the well-to-do citizens tried to leave the 
 city, but this was soon stopped. On the 24th October 
 the council of Nantes decreed that no inhabitant should 
 leave it except with a passport. All avenues of escape 
 were thus closed. 
 
 The Revolutionary Committee was now supreme, and 
 was able to dare anything: but to do everything it 
 required instruments, and a sort of police force was 
 created by decree of (.'airier and Francastel, the Repre- 
 sentatives, a "revolutionary corps" called the Marat 
 Company, in obedience to the wishes of its members, 
 who deemed that title a more splendid one. It was 
 composed of three corps — the Marat Corps, the Scouts of 
 the Mountain, and the American Hussars, these latter 
 being negroes or mulattoes (presumably from Domenique). 
 
 HachelitT. himself a member of the Revolutionary 
 Committee, has left on record the statement that the 
 Compagnie Marat was composed of fathers of families
 
 x REVOLUTIONARY ORGANISATION 139 
 
 known for their probity and their civism ; but, in 
 reality, language is beggared to describe this crew. 
 They were seleeted from the refuse and dregs and off- 
 scourings of the populace, and were men of the most 
 infamous, degraded, brutal, and ferocious character. 
 
 Goullin, when he was getting this force together, 
 held strongly that the greatest scoundrels should be 
 chosen, and at each recommendation he inquired, " Is 
 there no lugger scoundrel ? for we want men of that 
 kind to bring aristocrats to their senses." 
 
 When enlisted, they took the following oath : " I 
 swear death to royalists, to fanatics, to coxcombs 
 (rtiiiseadins), to feuillants, to moderates, in whatever 
 colour, in whatever cloak (or mask), or in whatever form 
 they clothe themselves. I swear to recognise those only 
 as relations, brothers, and friends who are true patriots 
 and ardent defenders of the Republic." 
 
 To this low and degraded crew practically unlimited 
 powers were given by the Representatives. They were 
 given the right of surveillance over suspected persons, 
 over enemies of the Republic — terms elastic enough to 
 include everybody; they were given the authority to 
 make domiciliary visits as, when, and where they 
 wished; and they were also given the power of arrest — 
 a power equivalent almost to that of life and death- — 
 for, for any one in prison, it was but a short step to the 
 scaffold. Their pay was to he ten francs a day; and, as 
 a whet to their zeal, Carrier decided that the spoils of 
 the brigands should belong to the individual making the 
 arrest. 
 
 In that loving republican spirit which is so beauti- 
 ful a feature of the revolutionary character, Carrier 
 addressed these wretches as "my children"'; but it is 
 to be remembered that he, and they, and the Revolu-
 
 140 THE EEAL FRENCH REVOLUTIONIST ch. 
 
 tionary Committee were all pretty much of the same 
 sort. 
 
 The company called " the Scouts of tlie Mountain " 
 was for the neighbourhood of Xantes what the others 
 were for the city. One Lebatteux, an innkeeper, an 
 ex-cook, and a man of desperate character, was appointed 
 chief of it, and was given a manclat, with •'unlimited 
 powers," by Carrier, who described him as " le patviote le 
 plus i>ii.r" " le rejjahlicain le 2^" s pvononci" to make war 
 on suspects of all classes. 
 
 Having an extended held of action, the Scouts were 
 mounted, and their occupation was daily or nocturnal 
 raids for murder, pillage, robbery, and every other 
 atrocity. 
 
 There was not a horror they did not commit. 
 Their misdeeds do not till so large a place in history 
 as those of their comrades in Xantes — probably there 
 was no one to report them fully — but glimpses of their 
 proceedings are got from time to time. Of a man 
 working in the fields being ridden down by them and 
 killed: of a child tending cattle ami sheep being 
 pitilessly murdered ; of chapels and houses being set 
 fire to and burned alter having been pillaged : of levying 
 unjust taxes : of stealing considerable sums of money ; 
 of a church where some people were secretly holding a 
 service being attacked, some eight young men being 
 seized, their graves dug, and then their being shot — in 
 all which crimes "patriots" as well as "brigands" were 
 the sufferers. 
 
 For the trial of prisoners in Xantes greatly increased 
 provision was made. 
 
 A Revolutionary Tribunal was installed on the 1st 
 Xovemher in the I'alais de Justice, with power to judge 
 revolutionarily, and without appeal, all those accused of
 
 x REVOLUTIONARY ORGANISATION 141 
 
 treason or conspiracy against the Republic, all individuals 
 who furthered the counter-revolution, or who had com- 
 mitted any of a whole lot of other offences. 
 
 And a Military Commission was established by 
 Carrier and Francastel, by decree on the 31st October, 
 which was to judge militarily all individuals suspected 
 of having borne arms against the Republic, 
 
 This commission was completely under the influence 
 of the Revolutionary Committee, and extreme as its 
 powers were, it habitually exceeded them. 
 
 " Are proofs necessary," exclaimed Goullin indignantly 
 one day, "to send a person to the rasoir national / " 
 
 The vigorous enforcement of the laws against 
 counter- revolutionists resulted in the prisons in all 
 the principal towns becoming ever more and more 
 crammed. 
 
 It is remarkable that a large proportion of those 
 arrested were women. The revolutionist seemed to 
 have a special spite against them. Thus at Lucon, out 
 of 33 persons arrested as suspects, 28 were women — 
 sisters, cousins, aunts of emigre*, or deported priests. 
 
 In many of the prisons disease became epidemic, and 
 in the prison of Rochelle some 250 persons died during 
 the autumn. At Fontenay also a large number died. 
 In Angers and Nantes they died by hundreds. 
 
 Extra prison accommodation had to be provided, and 
 the Revolutionary Committee at Nantes, with a view to 
 future contingencies, secured possession of a large build- 
 ing known as the "' Entrepot des cafes." 
 
 Thus then, by the time that the victory of the 
 republican arms at the battle of Cholet, and the flight 
 of the A'eudeans across the Loire, had given more 
 assured hopes of the ultimate triumph of the republican 
 cause, all necessary preparations had been made for
 
 142 THE REAL FRENCH REVOLUTIONIST m. 
 
 meting' out, without stint or delay, revolutionary 
 "justice" to all the unfortunate people who had already 
 been thrown into prison, or who, by any stretch of 
 malice or suspicion, could be construed into being 
 counter-revolutionists. 
 
 The organisation for the reign of revolutionary 
 government — the government of "liberty, equality, 
 and fraternity," and of "justice" — was at last sufficiently, 
 indeed ideally, complete: the whole paraphernalia of 
 slaughter ready. The Representatives, armed with un- 
 limited powers, roaming about seeking whom they might 
 devour. The Revolutionary Committees, composed of 
 the extremest revolutionists, the very scum of France, 
 to aid and advise them, also with practically unlimited 
 powers: and special or public forces to carry out their 
 minutest directions. These for the enforcement of 
 rev« dutionary authority. 
 
 For the administration of such laws as existed, or as 
 were made by the revolutionists, exceptional tribunals, 
 not for the liberty of the people, but for the liberty of 
 assassination under judicial sanction, merciless instru- 
 ments of revolutionary bloodthirstiness. 
 
 And for enforcement, a code of repressive laws enacted 
 by the Xational Assemblies and by the National Con- 
 vention, so thorough and comprehensive as to provide 
 for every imaginable offence, or even the suspicion of 
 offence. 
 
 Omnipotent and all-powerful, the revolutionists 
 could now work their will; could give effect to those 
 principles of "' liberty, equality, and fraternity " of which 
 they boasted they were the true and the only exponents: 
 and could demonstrate to the world the splendid 
 superiority of a Republic over every other form of 
 human Lfovernmenl .
 
 x REVOLUTIONARY ORG AXIS ATI OX 143 
 
 They had no opposition to tear, no opponents capable 
 of thwarting them, for the Vendean army was moving 
 ever farther away. External public opinion there was 
 none, for the Vendee was out of the ken of Europe. 
 Individual resistance was impossible and hopeless. 
 
 And, finally, the guillotine was in permanence at 
 Nantes, at Angers, at Sables, and elsewhere ; and where 
 not in permanence it was being carried about by ambula- 
 tory tribunals, and as even then it could not do the 
 work quickly enough, Carrier was devising speedier means 
 of execution, and was "arranging to have the greatest 
 culprits shot.'' 
 
 As he grimly summed up the state of affairs at the 
 moment, "Tout ira, mais il faut des terribles exemples " 
 ('•' Everything will go all right, but there must be some 
 terrible examples "). 
 
 Every chance of escape from revolutionary justice, or, 
 in other words, merciless tyranny, had been closed. 
 Such protection as the law had previously given to 
 innocence had been entirely abrogated and was utterly 
 gone. 
 
 The victims were powerless : their throats were 
 bared for the republican knife: their breasts for the 
 republican bullets and bayonets, — there remained only 
 the killing to be done. And the revolutionist began to 
 be happy, for this was "liberty."
 
 CHAPTER XI 
 
 RELIGIOUS LIBERTY 
 
 The measures and organisation which the Representatives 
 were thus getting into working order for the suppression 
 of the Yendeans, and for the destruction of personal 
 and political liberty, were equally efficacious for the 
 destruction of religious liberty, — which object the Con- 
 vention, the Committee of Public Safety, the Repre- 
 sentatives, and the revolutionists had as deeply at heart 
 as they had the annihilation of the Yendeans. 
 
 Practically, it was a case of killing two birds with 
 one stone. The paraphernalia for the conviction and 
 punishment of Yendeans and other counter-revolution- 
 ists would answer equally for the conviction and punish- 
 ment of " lunatics," under which term the revolutionist 
 included all persons who believed in the Christian faith. 
 
 Tn spite of the many pressing claims on their atten- 
 tion, the revolutionists never slackened in their assault 
 on religion, nor in their attack on every one and every- 
 thing connected with religious worship. 
 
 Though with unceasing professions of tolerance and 
 liberty on their lips, and witli the avowal of it blazoned 
 across the republican firmament in their Declaration 
 of the Rights of Man, and in their Constitutions, they
 
 on. xi RELIGIOUS LIBERTY 145 
 
 were unceasingly, in true revolutionary style, giving the 
 lie to their professions and protestations. 
 
 That is a most remarkable fact in their conduct, and 
 shows conclusively how through and through insincere 
 the revolutionists were, and what a miserable sham their 
 professions of liberty were. 
 
 it is one more proof of the truth which is becoming 
 clearer to all calm and impartial investigators of the 
 French Revolution under the more recent light thrown 
 upon it by the publication of official records, and by 
 different memoirs, that the revolutionist was an impostor 
 of the very highest rank, of the supremest order — an 
 arch impostor — and that all his high-sounding declara- 
 tions and affirmations of liberty, equality, and fraternity 
 were bid cloaks for the gratification of his own ambition, 
 the advancement of his own interests, the indulgence 
 of his own passions, and for ever)- infamy which the 
 mind of man could conceive, or the hand of man could 
 perpetrate. 
 
 The Convention, taking up the policy initiated by the 
 Constituent and continued by the Legislative Assembly, 
 went on enacting law after law, each with some fresh 
 restriction on religious liberty, or some increased penalty 
 against religious worship; and it was thoroughly supported 
 by the authorities in the country, for there was no 
 humiliation which the local " patriots " could devise, no 
 matter how mean or petty, which they did not inflict 
 on the ministers of religion. 
 
 Everything they could do, too, to offend the feelings 
 of religious people they did. Religion was "fanati- 
 cism/" — it was therefore to be swept away with other 
 dark things of the earth ; religious people were " fana- 
 tics," — they were therefore to be exterminated by an 
 enlightened Government and State. 
 
 L
 
 146 THE REAL FRENCH REVOLUTIONIST on. 
 
 "Tolerance," wrote a Representative, " is one of the 
 most Leant i fill attributes of the republican constitution, 
 but it ought not to exist for real charlatans." 
 
 The proscription of the clergy, which had begun 
 with those who would not take the oath, was unceasingly 
 persevered in. Many already slept their last sleep — 
 sent to it by the hand of the assassin or of the State 
 executioner. Thousands had already been deported under 
 circumstances of every possible hardship. Thousands 
 were in prison, and those who still were at large were 
 pursued as wild beasts. 
 
 But before long the persecution passed on to the con- 
 stitutional priests also, and even those who had taken 
 the oath were hieing made to feel the weight of the 
 revolutionary hand; for they were priests, and their 
 form of worship was the Catholic religion. A premium 
 was offered to all who abdicated their priesthood; but 
 other more decisive measures were adopted to secure 
 this end. 
 
 The only conclusion at all satisfactory to those who 
 were warring against the priests was when the priests 
 "came to depose on the altar of philosophy and of 
 reason the ridiculous tokens (signcs) with which they 
 deceive the people," when they abjured their priesthood, 
 and "changed their doctoral hat for the bonnet of the 
 sans-culottes." 
 
 Even then, however, they were more or less regarded 
 as conspirators and persons to be watched by true repub- 
 licans, and real contentment only came when a priest 
 took the step from which there was no retreat — getting 
 married. 
 
 Hounded on by the Representatives, who were as 
 raging against religion and religious practices as they 
 were against counter-revolutionists, the most virulent
 
 xi RELIGIOUS LIBERTY 147 
 
 religious persecution was carried on, and a veritable war 
 against religion was waged. 
 
 The churches were forcibly closed, and converted into 
 places for the meetings of popular societies, or other 
 secular purposes, and into temples for the celebration of 
 the worship of reason. 
 
 The church ornaments, those " scandalous ornaments 
 of gold and silver which have too long insulted the 
 misery of the people and dishonoured the simplicity of 
 the true religion," were carried off to be deposited on the 
 altar of the country, — heavy toll being usually taken 
 out of them on the way by the immaculate sans- 
 culotte. The bells were taken away or destroyed. 
 
 A petition from the Society of Vincent la Montague 
 in Nantes, in November 1793, affords an illustration of 
 the ideas of the time. The petition asked for measures 
 to be taken " to destroy the remains of superstition, to 
 overthrow entirely the edifice of errors and lies, and to 
 warn the people against imposture and hypocrisy." 
 
 And in reply the council of Nantes decreed that 
 all wooden or stone figures tending to encourage fana- 
 ticism should be removed ; that priests should he for- 
 bidden to wear their clerical dress outside their houses : 
 and that they should join the National Guard. 
 
 But what brought this persecution more effectually 
 home to those people who believed in religion were the 
 tremendous penalties incurred by all who had any deal- 
 ings or communications with the ministers of religion. 
 Attendance at a service held by an unsworn priest was 
 a capital offence ; whilst even the possession of any 
 religious emblem was a crime also promptly punished 
 with death. 
 
 The Convention did not leave any room for doubt 
 as to its views, for the proceedings at its sitting on the
 
 148 THE REAL FRENCH REVOLUTIONIST oh. 
 
 Ttli November were a demonstration of its opinion that 
 the Catholic religion should be abolished — an opinion 
 which was being acted on with full vigour in the Depart- 
 ments which were: the scene of the Vendean struggle. 
 
 But in another measure it went beyond the expres- 
 sion of hostility to a special form of religion, and 
 evinced its animus against all religion. On the 5th 
 October it decreed that the Republic should have a 
 new calendar, starting from the date of the birth 
 of the Republic, namely, the 22nd September 170-!; 
 and on the 24th November this new calendar was 
 inaugurated. 
 
 Like many other revolutionary crudities and ab- 
 surdities, it did not long survive its creation, and it is 
 now mainly of interest as showing the revolutionary 
 animus against religion. It suppressed all Saints' days, 
 but what was far more notable, it abolished the Sab- 
 bath, and substituted therefor a day of national fetes — 
 a revolutionary Sabbath — every tenth day, which was 
 called a cUcacli. 
 
 " Instead of a foolish Sabbath {an sot dimanche)" said 
 Mallarme, " we have the cUcacli." But the change was 
 manifestly for the worse so far as the working man 
 was concerned, who thus only got three days of rest in 
 the month instead of four. 
 
 The observance of these decadis was made obligatory, 
 and in that spirit of " religious liberty " which was the 
 boast of the Republic, any recognition of the Sundays 
 was prohibited. Any one who shut their shops or 
 abstained from work on the Sabbath was liable to 
 heavy penalties. 
 
 '"Denounce to me," said Carrier, "the fanatics who 
 shut their shops on a Sunday, and 1 will have them 
 guillotined."
 
 xi RELIGIOUS LIBERTY 149 
 
 The new calendar was in effect a declaration against 
 the State acknowledgment of the existence of any religion. 
 
 In fact, under the Revolutionary Government, which 
 was to have been a Government of Liberty, not alone 
 was there no vestige of religious liberty, but there was 
 religious persecution of the most active, extreme, and 
 bloody character. Every possible insult was heaped on 
 religion, and every effort made to destroy all outward 
 signs and evidence of religious worship, and to annihilate 
 those who still dared to avow their religious belief — and 
 extirpate it. To such a state of anti-religiousness did 
 things come, that " Atheism became the best certificate of 
 eivism." 
 
 If anything could add to the iniquity of the persecu- 
 tion, it was the audacious pretence that religious liberty 
 existed. 
 
 The Republican Government of France of this time, 
 speaking of it as a whole, with its deputy sovereigns, 
 the Representatives, and its other officers, has excelled 
 beyond all Governments that ever have been in the 
 contradictions of its professions and its acts. 
 
 Never has any Government or form of Government 
 acted in such direct, instantaneous, and flagrant opposition 
 to its own professions as this Government did. One 
 would wonder that it took the trouble to make pro- 
 fessions it so promptly violated, were it not that the 
 professions were a part of the sham which had to be 
 kept up. 
 
 On the 1G Friinaire (6th December 1793) the Oon- 
 vention had passed a decree pour maintcnir la paix et la 
 liberU de c idles (to maintain the peace and liberty of 
 forms of worship). 
 
 The action of Lequinio, one of its Representatives in 
 the west, interprets the meaning of this decree.
 
 150 THE HEAL FREXCH REYOLVTTOXIST ch. 
 
 On the 21st December he issued a proclamation to 
 the citizens of the Vendee : — 
 
 " All forms of worship are free (tons les cidtes sont 
 lihrrs. The first of the Rights of Man is to think freely, 
 to render homage freely to the god which his imagination 
 depicts. But he is not free whose mind is tormented by 
 the discourse and instigations of another. He is a tyrant 
 who wishes to force the opinions of others into submission 
 to his own. and to make him believe what he himself 
 believes, and to imitate his practices. . . . 
 
 '' That each of us should render Ins homage as he 
 pleases, that he should exercise his worship in private, 
 as lie thinks good, here is liberty of worship. But let 
 him beware of endeavouring to inspire others with his 
 views — henceforward that will be a crime, and our duty 
 will be to make the sword of the law fall on the guilt}'." 
 
 And it was decreed by this Representative — " "With 
 the object that liberty of worship exist in its pleni- 
 tude, it is prohibited to all — be he who he may — to 
 preach or write to bring into favour any worship or 
 religious opinion, be it what it may. Whoever is guilty 
 of this offence shall be at once arrested, treated as an 
 enemy of the Republican Constitution, as a conspirator 
 against French liberty, and handed over to the Revolu- 
 tionary Tribunal established at Rochefort." 
 
 Xo longer was the Roman Catholic religion alone in 
 being persecuted. All religious creeds were equally 
 assailed. 
 
 Former or present ministers of any form of creed were 
 expressly forbidden to preach, write or teach morals (In 
 ,/in,'"/'\ under the penalty of being treated as '-'suspect." 
 
 And they were all prohibited from holding any public 
 otlice except with the approval of the Representatives. 
 
 Laignelot, another Representative, wrote to the Com-
 
 xi RELIGIOUS LIBEETY 151 
 
 mittee of Public Safety his disapproval of this proclama- 
 tion. " Write, I pray you, to Lequinio to be more 
 reserved in his speeches and writings. The greater 
 part of the deputies possess in sovereign degree the art 
 of making themselves feared, and few that of attracting 
 hearts. Recommend above all to those you send, as well 
 as to Lequinio, never to forget for one single moment in 
 their august missions that they are representatives of the 
 people." 
 
 The Committee of Public Safety on the 7th January 
 (18 Nivose) wrote to Lequinio that his decree was not at 
 all in the spirit of the deeree of the 6th December, and 
 that he should take another attitude. 
 
 " You ought to have known that religious opinions 
 cede to force less than any others. 
 
 " Your experience ought to have reminded you that in 
 the matter of worship persecution only tends to give to 
 fanaticism a more terrible energy. . . . 
 
 " Let the law, let the triumphant Republic crush its 
 internal enemies by the force of reason." 
 
 This, however, was not a principle acted on by the 
 Committee nor by the Revolutionary Government. 
 
 The censure, such as it was, was, however, purely 
 personal, for elsewhere there was no mitigation of persecu- 
 tion — no condemnation expressed of the persecutors — 
 even individual religious worship in private was dangerous, 
 as the possession of some religious emblems was used as 
 proof of their possessor being a counter-revolutionist, and 
 led direct to the scaffold. 
 
 It was not, however, in the nature of the Revolutionary 
 Government to act on its avowed principles of religious 
 liberty, or on its avowed knowledge of the evil results of 
 religio u s persecu tion ,
 
 I'll A TIE i; XI 
 
 XANTE? 
 
 The proclamation of revolutionary government made 
 little immediate change as regarded pivceedings in the 
 W-ndre and Xante?. despotism there had already 
 
 ' '■ such a height that no addition eould well he' 
 made to it — a somewhat remarkahle commentary on the 
 lb-volution whose sole justification was the abolition 
 el tyranny aid despotism, and the inauguration of a 
 ' ^ : " • i f liberty. equality, and fraternity. 
 
 X mtes became, unfortunately for itself, the centre 
 of the storm of revolutionary violence in the west. 
 Here not only were there Yendeans to be dealt with, 
 but al<o priests, and "fanatics."' and men of means, the 
 1'oiu'ueoisie of Xhintes. the wealthier and more respectable 
 
 ibitants of the city, and merchants, and moderates, 
 and Girondists, and the whole catalogue vt persons held 
 in abhorrence by the revolutionist. 
 
 These were the classes against winch Carrier's "great 
 
 coups" were- to be struck, and from which his "terrible 
 
 examples" were to be taken; but the great bulk of his 
 
 victims were poor working men or working women. — 
 
 iti<ans ot all sorts, labourers. - the people" tor whom 
 
 the le-Volutioil Was supposed to have beell made.
 
 X ANTES 
 
 1 
 
 Some of the revolutionists of Nantes required work- 
 ing up to the true height of ' : patriotic principles." 
 
 The popular and republican Society of the sans- 
 culottes of Vincent la Montague had already done much 
 in this direction. At its meetings, night after night. 
 by the light of smoking lamps or flickering candles, 
 patriotic oratory indulged in its most grandiloquent 
 flights. And Carrier and other patriots foamed and 
 fumed and exhausted themselves with incitements and 
 imprecations. 
 
 •'■ It is necessary/'' said Carrier, the wielder of the 
 whole power of the Stote in Nantes, the sans-culotte 
 sovereign and despot, " to strike these knaves of mono- 
 polist-, these aristocrats, these moderates. Denounce 
 them to me. No material proofs are necessary; the 
 denunciation of two good sans-culottes will suffice me." 
 
 And Goullin. giving advice as to admission of 
 members to the Society, said : : ' Take care not to admit 
 moderates, false patriots. Vmi must only admit revolu- 
 tionists.- -patriots having the courage to drink human 
 blood." 
 
 The Society took possession of the church of St. 
 Croix as a place "worthy of its reunions," and there 
 was an inaugural ceremony, with republican music, 
 attended by all the " pure Montagnards," and led by 
 Carrier, who delivered an address from the pulpit, "so 
 often profaned by the impure and fallacious words of 
 sacerdotalism and of the priests. 
 
 "All could see how superior the vrais Montcy/iards 
 are to the others by their hatred of despotism and their 
 luve of public liberties." 
 
 Carrier and the Revolutionary Committee quickly 
 settled themselves down to govern revolutionarily, and 
 to make the most of their opportunities.
 
 154 THE REAL FRENCH REVOLUTIONIST ch. 
 
 From the moment of installation the Committee had 
 been engaged in making or ordering arrests; persona] 
 hatred or jealousy or desire for vengeance was given 
 free rein, and a large number of the better class of 
 citizens, many of them late members of the various 
 public bodies, were seized and sent to prison. 
 
 The Maratist Company were also busily employed on 
 their own account in carrying people off to prison. 
 
 There was an ingenuity in their malevolence which 
 was extraordinary. The device by which the Committee 
 sifted the tares from the revolutionary wheat has been 
 described by a Maratist. 
 
 " A conspiracy is imagined. The alarm (generate) 
 is sounded. The sans-culottes, all the children of the 
 people, rush to their posts; but the rich, the egotists, as 
 usual, remain at home: that stamps them as suspects; 
 and so one goes and arrests them. That is only justice. 
 They remain at home, therefore they are accomplices in 
 the conspiracy, since they do not come to fight against 
 it." 
 
 On the morning of the 12th of November this 
 device was put into operation. The town was startled 
 by the sounding of the alarm, and the report that a plot 
 had been discovered to murder the Representatives and 
 all the authorities. Cannon were quickly put in con- 
 spicuous positions, and prompt measures were taken to 
 defeat the wicked design. A whole host of arrests were 
 then made, and in a brief time the Committee had safe 
 under lock and key the majority of those they feared: 
 among them many of the most respectable citizens 
 of Nantes, well-known patriots too, but they were 
 rich. 
 
 This was but innocent child's play compared to what 
 was to follow.
 
 xii NANTES 155 
 
 A few days passed, and Carrier and the Committee 
 gave to Nantes another more original and terrible demon- 
 stration of the new regime of liberty and fraternity, and 
 of what could he done in its name. 
 
 Moored in the Loire, gently swaying from side to 
 side as the current ran past her, lay a small sailing- 
 vessel with the somewhat proud name of La (Hoi re. 
 For some time she, had been anchored there. Now and 
 then a boat might have been observed putting off from 
 her, or going out to her; but these occasions were rare, 
 and she bore an aspect of desertion, as if she had been 
 plague-smitten. 
 
 But if her decks were almost deserted, below, stowed 
 away in her hold, in much the same cramped way as a 
 cargo of African slaves on an Arab dhow, were some 
 ninety priests. Exempted from deportation on account 
 of their age, — some were nearly eighty years of age, — or 
 on account of their physical infirmities, they had been 
 thrown into prison : and as the prisons were all over- 
 crowded, these unfortunate men had been finally 
 transferred to a floating prison, there to endure an 
 even harder fate. 
 
 Their crime 1 was that they had refused to take the 
 oath — that inexcusable crime in the eyes of the true 
 republican — and for a period of some eighteen months 
 they had, for their faith's sake, supported captivity, first 
 in one prison, and then in another, and now were in 
 their last prison, La Gloire. 
 
 Here, huddled together under the deck, in a habita- 
 tion hermetically sealed as soon as it became dark, sick 
 and starved, covered with filth and vermin, breathing a 
 poisonous atmosphere, in circumstances in which it was 
 scarcely possible for human beings to exist, it was 
 marvellous that life remained in them : but fortifying
 
 156 THE REAL FRENCH REVOLUTIONIST oh. 
 
 themselves and each other with the consolations of 
 their faith, which it was beyond the power even of 
 a Revolutionary Government to deprive them of, 
 they dragged out an agonising existence from day to 
 day. 
 
 On the 16th November they were still there. As 
 the day drew to its close they repeated their evening 
 [travel's : the light faded until all was dark. 
 
 And then, in the early or middle hours of the night, 
 there occurred an event winch Carrier described as of 
 "quite a new character." 
 
 Darkness veiled this event from fill human ken, 
 except the ken of those who took part in it ; but in the 
 calm quiet of the winter's night, for more than an hour 
 must it have been, fearsome cries echoed across the water, 
 the cries of men in their death struggle and agony, and, 
 after a time, all was still. 
 
 When the sun again rose, the hold of the vessel was 
 empty. 
 
 The next da}', or possibly the day after, for the exact 
 date is uncertain, though the fact is beyond question, 
 unwonted animation was perceivable on board; the deck 
 was being washed down, and all sorts of preparations 
 were being made, and the hold was transformed 
 into a banqueting saloon. Where ninety priests had 
 for weeks undergone unceasing agony of mind and 
 body, a table was spread, covered with a luxurious 
 repast. 
 
 In the evening the guests assembled. Carrier, the 
 Representative of the power and dignity of the great 
 new Republic of France, occupied the place of honour. 
 On his right sat his aide-de-camp Lambert y, on his left 
 Laloi. Foucault, with boots on which he had taken 
 from <me of his victims, Robin, Fouquet, and some
 
 xii NANTES 157 
 
 twelve or fourteen others were there. And as the least 
 progressed, and the wine begari to work, Lamberty 
 explained the mystery of the disappearance of the priests, 
 though to most of those present there was no mystery 
 about it. He deseribed in glowing colours how, when 
 the night came, he and his trusty companions had come 
 on board, and had forced the priests to come on deck 
 two by two. There they had searched and stripped 
 them, and hound them, and made them descend into a 
 barge which had been moored alongside, whence their 
 next descent was into the dark flowing waters of the 
 river, which soon carried them beyond view, and soon 
 silenced their cries. 
 
 Every sentence of this horrible recital was applauded : 
 the "brave comrades" who had assisted Lamberty in 
 these foul murders (for the priests were not under 
 sentence of anything but detention) were pointed out to 
 Carrier, who became ever more and more wildly gay. 
 "Sing," he said to Robin, "sing the song of 'La 
 Gamelle ' ; sing the song of the 'Mountain.''" And 
 Robin sang : — 
 
 Oui, sans fraternite 
 
 11 n'est point de gaiete ; 
 
 (For oh, without fraternity, 
 There is in life no gaiety) ; 
 
 and Carrier and the others joined in chorus, clinking 
 their glasses together. And as a mark of his apprecia- 
 tion of the services rendered, Carrier made a present of 
 the vessel La Gloire to Lamberty. 
 
 This was the first noyade. Though the idea of 
 drowning, as a means of getting rid of the enemies of the 
 country, had been mooted before in the Jacobin Club in
 
 1">8 THE UKAL FRENCH REVOLUTIONIST ch. 
 
 Paris, Carrier and liis Committee were the first to give 
 effect to it. Doubtless he felt proud of being the first 
 to give effect to this new method of dealing with re- 
 calcitrant priests — a "vertical deportation" as he or 
 (loullin facetiously called it; cheaper, too, and more 
 rapid than deportation. Doubtless, too, the actors felt 
 self-satisfied with their prowess. 
 
 But what an appalling scene, this drunken glorifica- 
 tion of wholesale murder, on the very scaffold of the 
 slaughter : what an illustration of the reality of the 
 boasted superiority of the new gospel of Revolution as 
 expounded by the '"'brave republican/' by the vrai 
 m ns-cidottc ! 
 
 The industry of the revolutionists was not confined 
 to priests. 
 
 Since the imaginary plot the [{evolutionary Com- 
 mittee and Carrier had been considering how best to deal 
 with the prominent citizens of Nantes whom they had in 
 their custody. 
 
 To bring them before the local tribunals at Nantes, 
 where the patriotism of most of them was so well known, 
 would, even at this period, have been useless: and so 
 the Committee determined to send them to Paris for 
 trial there by the .Revolutionary Tribunal, which could 
 be relied on to make short work of them. 
 
 And so on the 2 7th November, having selected about 
 132, they started them under escort for Paris. 
 
 There appears to have been ever}' intention on the 
 part of the Committee that they should be massacred 
 /'// route, a not unknown revolutionary device for getting 
 rid of people. " So much the better if they die," said 
 Chaux and Goullin : " it is so much gain to the nation ": 
 and ( roullin spoke of them as men no longer in existence. 
 But the plot miscarried, and after every imaginable
 
 xii NANTES 159 
 
 hardship, from which several died, some 120 readied 
 Paris, and were there consigned to prison, and for a time 
 to oblivion. 
 
 Rid of these people, the Committee turned its atten- 
 tion in other directions. 
 
 Want was pressing on the city, food becoming ever 
 more difficult to obtain — the plague was spreading, and 
 exciting growing alarm. 
 
 Robin, one of Carrier's staff, pointed out the evil 
 winch next wanted remedying. "The brigands," he said, 
 "eat the bread of the patriots. They had wished to 
 destroy the Republic. They now caused the risk of the 
 spread of the plague. People so notoriously culpable 
 had no right to live, and every one would profit by the 
 national vengeance being executed upon them." And. 
 so the national vengeance was determined upon by the 
 Committee and the Representative — the representative 
 of"' liberty" and "fraternity," and of the power and 
 authority and dignity of France, 
 
 An excuse soon arose. On the 3rd December some 
 half-a-dozen prisoners in the Bouffay had formed a plan 
 to escape by means of false keys. The Revolutionary 
 Committee, with the help of a spy of theirs who was 
 among the prisoners, magnified this into a vast conspiracy, 
 with ramifications throughout the prisons, for the destruc- 
 tion of the buildings, and the death of " patriots." 
 
 ( hi the next afternoon the six culprits were sentenced 
 to death, and forthwith guillotined by torchlight. But 
 tin's was not enough. As Carrier said, " A grand mea- 
 sure will deliver us of the rest." The same evening the 
 different administrative corps in Nantes met together, 
 the Revolutionary Committee and Carrier himself being 
 present. Their proceedings are really hardly credible. 
 After a "tempestuous" discussion, the question was put
 
 100 THE REAL FRENCH REVOLUTIONIST oh. 
 
 on Goullin's motion, " Shall the prisoners lie made to 
 perish in a mass ? Yes or no '. " There was no question 
 of the prisoners confined in one special prison being the 
 victims. Their wholesale slaughter was contemplated. 
 There was no question of their being first tried, not even 
 by the rapid-acting Military Commission. The derision 
 of the meeting was to settle their fate without further 
 bother, and that decision was unanimously, "' Yes." 
 
 Goullin playing the principal part, a sort of ""national 
 jury" was appointed, which drew up lists of those who 
 were to be shot, and he then signed an order, together 
 with Grandmaison and Mainguet, to General Boivin, 
 commandant of Nantes, to seize the prisoners named 
 on the list, some 300 in number, to conduct them to 
 l'Eperomiiere, and there shoot them. 
 
 Early on the 5th General Boivin received the order, 
 and protested against its illegality, none of the prisoners 
 having been legally tried, and some of them being only 
 confined on a charge of drunkenness ; and he refused to 
 execute it. 
 
 A fresh meeting was held, at which Phelippes 
 de Tronjolly, president of the Revolutionary Tribunal, 
 opposed the scheme, and the arm}" having refused to 
 carry out the measure, the administrative bodies refused 
 also to associate themselves with such a measure. But 
 the Revolutionary Committee, though thus foiled, deter- 
 mined to have recourse to other means of getting 
 rid of the prisoners — one where obstruction was not 
 possible. 
 
 And one gets one or two glimpses in the next few 
 days of Carrier and the Revolutionary Committee, Grand- 
 maison, Goullin, and Bachelier, sitting in solemn conclave, 
 with expert carpenter in attendance, organising the pre- 
 parations for further drownings or noyades, designing the
 
 xii NANTES 1 6 1 
 
 most effective and commodious form of barge for the 
 purpose, and selecting a staff for the work. 
 
 The staff selected were sans-culottes of the vrai-e&t 
 type, worthy of those who employed them, and of the 
 rank and file of the Maratist Company, whom they 
 worked with, and than whom they were no better — Lam- 
 berty, previously a spy in the Vendee, and whom Carrier 
 had made an adjutant-general, and who was one of his 
 most active and trusted instruments ; Eohin, a dissolute 
 and vicious youth ; Laveau, one of the prisoners saved by 
 Bonchamps at St. Florent, who thus showed his gratitude 
 to Vendean mercy ; Fouquet, who, two years previously, 
 had been turned out of the National Guard as unworthy 
 of wearing its uniform : Foucault, and several others, all 
 men of the most cruel and infamous character, all chosen 
 for "' their known civism, for their patriotism, and their 
 sans-culottic ardour." 
 
 "What a light is being thrown on what French " civism " 
 and " patriotism " really was ! Lamberty was placed in 
 command ; and Carrier, by virtue of his unlimited powers, 
 gave him full authority to do practically anything, and 
 to go anywhere, at any time, and prohibited any one 
 opposing him. 
 
 While they were still at work on their preparations, 
 a vessel arrived (on or about the 7th December) at 
 Nantes from Angers, laden with some fifty-eight priests. 
 
 Carrier was asked as to whether they should be sent 
 to a prison. " No," he replied ; " not so much mystery. 
 All these . . . must be put under water." 
 
 And on the night of the Oth his order was carried 
 (Hit. Details are unknown ; only this one, that Lam- 
 berty was not at the slaughter, and had a heated quarrel 
 with those who were, over the clothes and small property 
 of the victims, of which he wanted his share : and this 
 
 M
 
 162 THE REAL FRENCH REVOLUTIONIST oh. 
 
 one, that the nine sailors who helped in the business 
 each received four francs. And on the 10th, Carrier 
 wrote a letter to the Convention, in which he announced 
 a republican victory which had just been gained over 
 Charette ; adding to his report, " But why was it necessary 
 that this event should be accompanied by another which 
 is no longer of a new kind;' Fifty-eight individuals, 
 described under the name of refractory priests, arrived at 
 Xantes from Angers. They were immediately confined in 
 a vessel on the Loire. Last night they were all swallowed 
 {engloutis) up by the river. What a revolutionary torrent 
 is the Loire! — Saint et fraternity Carrier." 
 
 The reading of this letter in the Convention was, as 
 Mercier reports, " covered by immortal plaudits." 
 
 Henceforward, no possible exculpation of the Conven- 
 tion as to its knowledge of the noyades. 
 
 The arrangements were at last complete. 
 
 It was night, the night of the 14th December. 
 
 The inmates of the grim and gloomy old prison, Le 
 Bouffay, worn out with another day's misery, had sunk 
 into fevered torpor on the vermin -infected straw, or 
 tossed to and fro on the clammy floors in sleepless 
 anguish. Sickness and cold, semi-starvation and filth, 
 and a pestiferous atmosphere, had brought most of them 
 to the edge of the precipice which separates life from 
 death. They were not deep -dyed criminals, the pri- 
 soners ; many were under short sentences for only petty 
 offences, such as theft : many had not even yet been 
 tried. 
 
 Suddenly, in the early hours of the night, an unwonted 
 noise is heard in the prison. Loud voices, unusual sounds, 
 and disturbance ; and presently, nickering lights, and 
 heavy steps in the long dark corridors, and keys grating 
 in the locks, and the doors of all the cells opened by the
 
 xr. NANTES 1 63 
 
 turnkey, and the harsh command given: "(let up at 
 once, pack your tilings, especially your purses, they are 
 essential; leave nothing behind." 
 
 And then several drunken men, wearing the national 
 uniform, members of the infamous Maratist Company, 
 crowd in, calling out the names on the list. " The first 
 who does not answer," said a furious Maratist, " I will 
 stick my sword through." 
 
 Dazed with fear, ami in a panic of terror, the miser- 
 able prisoners obey the order. Those who delay are 
 dragged out by the brutal Maratists, half-mad with 
 drink, then all are plundered of everything they possess, 
 are hurried to the yard, where, by the flickering light of 
 torches, they are pinioned and bound in couples with 
 such savage force that the ropes cut almost to the bone. 
 
 It mattered nothing what offence they were in 
 prison for ; whether they were convicted or untried ; 
 whether innocent or guilty ; even whether they were 
 patriots or aristocrats ; revolutionary justice did not 
 condescend to discriminate; they were prisoners, and 
 all must come. 
 
 And Goullin and the big Grandmaisoii are there, 
 and Mainguet, aiding in the pinioning of the prisoners; 
 cursing and swearing and threatening — Grandmaison 
 emphasising his oaths and threats with his drawn 
 sword. 
 
 Some hours- — the greater part of the night — are 
 spent in this dreadful work. Horrible imprecations 
 are hurled at the prisoners, and jocular allusions as to 
 their fate. One asked for a glass of water, " No need," 
 said a Maratist. " in a few minutes you will drink out 
 of the big cup," — so clear the allusions that one wretched 
 prisoner exclaims, " We are lost, my friends, they are 
 Lroinu' to drown us."
 
 1G4 THE REAL FRENCH REVOLUTIONIST «i. 
 
 And as the number un the list — 155 — is short by 
 some, (ioullin wishes to send to the hospital near by 
 to complete the number; but time does not admit, and 
 as the pinioning process is slow, he urges haste. " Dear 
 friends, let us hurry ; the tide is going out." 
 
 At last at about four in the morning all was ready, 
 the prison gate was opened, and the miserable procession 
 started. Resistance is impossible ; escape almost hope- 
 less ;. almost, for one tried it, and got away, but another 
 who attempted it had his skull smashed in by Grand- 
 maison. And one who, unable to walk, fell by the way, 
 promptly had his brains blown out by a urai sans- 
 culotte, the shot resounding like a volley through the 
 empty and silent streets. 
 
 What a prolonged agony for these unfortunates, 
 this march along the dark streets — on by the Quai de 
 la Fosse, escorted or rather dragged or driven along by 
 armed and infuriated demons panting for their death. 
 Their worst fears were confirmed as they were drawn 
 up on the edge of the river, and by a faint moonlight 
 could see the waters rushing along. The barge which 
 was to be their tomb was not ready for their reception, 
 and they were kept waiting there while the finishing 
 touches were being given to it. 
 
 At last the agony draws to its close. The barge 
 is ready — they are made to descend into it, or are 
 pitched in, and battened down. With several members 
 of the Revolutionary Committee and of the Maratist 
 Company on board, it is east loose, and drifts for a 
 while with the current. And now, no longer able to 
 restrain their terror, silence is broken : fearful cries 
 arise, cries for mercy, amongst them the reproaching 
 cry, " Is it republicans who aet thus cruelly?" But 
 their executioners sanu r to drown these cries.
 
 xn NANTES 165 
 
 And then the death-struggle begins. Some had got 
 the cords loose, and struggled to be free, pushing their 
 arms through the gaps in the planks. Grandmaison 
 sabred these unfortunates, and plunged his sword 
 through the gaps in the planks, pleased doubtless by 
 the exclamation, " Ah, the scoundrel, he pierces me ! " 
 
 Opposite the island of Chavire the barge is anchored. 
 Goullin, Grandmaison, and their colleagues and the 
 Maratists descend into boats, and hover around to 
 witness the climax of their night's work. The 
 carpenters knock away the carefully prepared planks, 
 the water rushes in, rises, ever rises, until the barge- 
 slowly sinks with its human freight of nearly 130 
 souls. By some blunder of the carpenters, a few of 
 the victims come to the surface, and endeavour to swim 
 away. They are pursued by the men in the boats, 
 and knocked on the head. Two, however, actually do 
 escape, snatched from the very jaws of death ; the rest 
 are soon wrapped in eternal sleep, victims of republican 
 despotism which has been misnamed " liberty," and of 
 sans-culotte savagery which masqueraded as " fraternity."
 
 CHAPTER XIII 
 
 ' ttie calvary of the vendeans ' 
 
 The Campaign on the North Side of the Loire 
 
 While the extermination of counter-revolutionists was 
 thus, in the period immediately succeeding the battle of 
 Cholet, absorbing the attention of the revolutionists, the 
 Yendean army and people who had crossed the Loire 
 were moving off through Brittany, in the hopeless pursuit 
 of better fortune, getting farther and farther away from 
 their own country, and falling more and more a victim 
 to the ambitions and dissensions of their leaders. 
 
 The Revolutionary Government was first startled, and 
 then enraged, to find that the Vendeans had not been 
 annihilated at Cholet, that the Yendean war was not yet 
 over, that only the scene had been changed from one side 
 of the Loire to the other. 
 
 Fear conjured up all sorts of contingencies and 
 magnified the danger, and the Government dreaded the 
 possibility of the Yendeans making a dash for Paris, and 
 foresaw an alliance between them and the hated English, 
 which should give that inveterate foe a footing in Prance 
 and a basis for further operations. 
 
 Every effort must be made to prevent these dis-
 
 ch. xiii 'THE CALVAEY OF THE VENDEANS' 167 
 
 asters, and imperative orders were despatched to the com- 
 manders of the republican military forces to attack, over- 
 come, and annihilate the Vendeans as promptly as possible. 
 
 The jourueyings of the Vendean army on the north 
 side of the Loire, with their wives and families, have 
 been likened unto the wanderings of the Children of 
 Israel after they had departed out of Egypt and crossed 
 the Eed Sea, but the comparison is much in favour of 
 the latter. For the Vendeans took with them no spoils 
 of their enemies, only heavy burdens, in the helpless or 
 wounded members of their family, women, children, and 
 old people. For them, moreover, poor people, there was 
 no manna in the wilderness, there was before them no 
 land of promise flowing with milk and honey, not even 
 for their descendants. 
 
 Their time of trial was shorter — that was the only 
 difference in their favour. Ten weeks of strife and 
 battle, of restless wandering to and fro, of fatigue, cold, 
 hunger, and mental and physical misery in every shape ; 
 ten weeks of despairing struggle, with the heart-wrench- 
 ing trial of relatives and friends dropping by the wayside, 
 to be destroyed by the revolutionists, as surely as the 
 traveller who falls from his sleigh when pursued by a 
 pack of hungry wolves. And then, when every avenue 
 of escape was closed against them, and when the human 
 frame could stand no more, when no asylum but death 
 remained for them, the final valiant, heroic effort, and 
 final defeat, and death. 
 
 " It was not an army," says a depicter of these scenes, 
 " it was more like a migration similar to those of the 
 ancient times, when a whole people fled before fire and 
 flame in search of a new land." 
 
 Having crossed the Loire, the first necessity was the 
 appointment of new leaders in place of those who had
 
 1G8 THE REAL FEEXCH REVOLUTIONIST ch. 
 
 fallen, and Henri de la Iiochejaquelein was selected as 
 commander-in-chief. 
 
 Strenuous efforts were at once made to evoke some 
 order from the fearful chaos. An advance guard of some 
 10,000 to 12,000 men was formed. Then followed the 
 bulk of the wanderers, anyhow, without any order, com- 
 batants mixed up with non-combatants; "and filling up 
 the road, artillery, baggage, women carrying their 
 children, old men supported by their sons, the wounded 
 who could scarce drag themselves along, and soldiers — all 
 in confusion. . . . This sad procession occupied almost 
 always four leagues in length." 
 
 A community of anxiety and misery welded the 
 whole of them into one mass. " Every one experienced 
 the wish of running common dangers and of sharing a 
 common fate. Families and friends walked together and 
 tried to keep united." " We are all brothers and sisters 
 now," said a peasant ; " we must not separate." 
 
 A strong rear-guard was formed of the best troops, 
 and in this formation the whole body started for Iiennes, 
 in the hope and belief that Brittany would rise and help 
 them. 
 
 The republicans were quite unprepared for the 
 sudden movement of the Vendeans across the Loire, and 
 had no forces there which would enable them to offer any 
 effective resistance to the Vendean advance. 
 
 The A^endeans overcame everything at first, capturing 
 several small towns, and, on the 23rd October, capturing 
 the large town of Laval, where they were joined by some 
 GO 00 Bretons. 
 
 By this time the republican forces had crossed the 
 Loire, and, under the command of L'Echelle, with Generals 
 Marceau, Xleber, AVestermann, and the Mayeneais troops, 
 were following them pretty closely.
 
 xiii 'THE CALVAEY OF THE YENDEANS ' 1G9 
 
 At Entrammes, near Laval, they overtook the Yendeans 
 and attacked them (on the 27th October), and a fiercely 
 contested battle took place. The desperate valour of the 
 Yendeans prevailed, and the republican soldiers, each 
 with an " ceil sur le dos," as Kleber said, were driven 
 back with heavy loss. 
 
 " They fled like flocks of sheep," wrote a corporal 
 present. "Each one was afraid of being wounded, knowing 
 well that if he were so unfortunate no one would have 
 the humanity to help him to save himself." 
 
 The Mayencais troops, who stood their ground most 
 valiantly, were almost annihilated. Two republican 
 generals and a large number of officers were killed, 
 nineteen cannon and as many caissons were lost, also 
 many waggons of bread and brandy, and over 4000 men 
 were killed or wounded. 
 
 " We provided them with everything," adds the 
 corporal. " They were in a pitiable condition — reduced 
 to living on apples, and carrying off the spoons from the 
 houses they passed, to make them into bullets." 
 
 The republican defeat was so crushing that a council 
 of war was field. Kleber described to it the state of the 
 troops. 
 
 " It is necessary first to settle whether we have an 
 army or not. Already you would have decided this 
 question if, as I did, before daybreak, you had gone 
 round the camp ; if you had seen the soldier wet to the 
 bone, without tents, without straw, without boots, without 
 breeches, some without coats, knee deep in mud, shivering 
 with cold . . . the colours surrounded by twenty or 
 thirty, or at most fifty, men who form the different 
 battalions ; if, too, you had heard them complain, ' The 
 cowards are at Angers, and we — we are here in the 
 greatest misery.' "
 
 170 THE REAL FEEXCH REVOLUTIONIST ch. 
 
 With the army in such a state there was nothing for 
 the republicans to do hut to retire to Angers to re- 
 organise. The Vendean army thus found itself, for a 
 time at least, master of its movements. Once more its 
 fate, and that of the mass of people dependent upon it, 
 was in its own hands, or rather in the hands of its 
 leaders. 
 
 'Here we ought to have stopped," writes Madame 
 Lescure, " and returned in triumph to our own country, 
 having taken ample revenge on those Mayencais who 
 had driven us from it." 
 
 The question was decided at a council of war. 
 
 The commander-in-chief and Stoftiet and some others 
 were in favour of going hack at once and in triumph to 
 the Vendee, now that they were in a position to do so : 
 and many of the men were clamouring for this course to 
 he adopted. The prospect of Brittany rising to help 
 them was proving delusive, and having no provisions and 
 no money, the Vendean demands on the people of the 
 country they passed through for the necessary food were 
 awakening hostility instead of friendship. They were 
 making more enemies than friends. 
 
 But cabals and jealousies existed among the Vendean 
 chiefs, and considerable disunion prevailed. 
 
 Information reached the council from the emigres in 
 Jersey that an expedition to help them was being pre- 
 pared in England, and they were urged to seize a seaport. 
 Some of the new leaders of the Vendeans, such as the 
 Prince of Talmont. a vain and incapable personage, the 
 evil genius of the Vendeans, and Monsieur d'Autichainp, 
 being more ambitious in their aims than those who had 
 fallen, and dreaming of overthrowing the Revolutionary 
 Government itself and re-establishing the monarchy. 
 succeeded in imposing their will on the others, and the
 
 in. THE CALVARY OF THE YENDEANS ' 171 
 
 decision was come to to move on instead of going 
 back. 
 
 it was a fatal decision, but the responsibility for it 
 rests on the leaders, and not on the rank and file. 
 Gradually the unfortunate Yendeans had been led away 
 from the objects for which they had at first risen — the 
 free exercise of their religion and exemption from com- 
 pulsory conscription. They cared little for aught else. 
 And now they were powerless to give effect to their 
 anxiety to return to their own country ; there could be 
 no separation from the main body ; all must stand or 
 lull together, and so they bad to bow to the decision of 
 their leaders. 
 
 They moved on accordingly, and attacked and cap- 
 tured Fougeres, inflicting heavy loss on the republicans. 
 
 While there, two emigre emissaries arrived from 
 England with despatches from the English Govern- 
 ment offering the Yendeans help, and saying that 
 troops were ready to bear on any port the Yendean 
 leaders sliould name, and suggesting Granville. 
 
 A reply was sent accepting aid, and asking above 
 all for a prince of the French royal family, or a marshal 
 of France, to command the army, so that an end might 
 be put to tbe conflict of private pretensions. 
 
 And they pressed onwards towards Dol and Gran- 
 ville. The weather was horrible, the roads frightful. 
 The continual marching, the wandering life in the cold 
 air at this late season of the year, the extreme rigour of 
 the climate, the privations, and the bad food were 
 already telling severed}' upon them. Dysentery broke 
 out, and not a place did they pass through but they 
 were forced to leave many sick behind — at Mayenne 
 some 2 (JO, at Fougeres a large number. 
 
 They met witli no serious opposition. A republican
 
 172 THE REAL FRENCH REVOLUTIONIST en. 
 
 army was collected as rapidly as possible at Rennes, but 
 it was not formidable; and a force of about 1500 "re- 
 cpiisitionists " was collected at Mayenne. but they either 
 deserted or tied when a Yendean appeared. 
 
 ■• I fear to find myself alone by the end of the day." 
 wrote their general, Lenoir. 
 
 The Committee of Public Safety had been moved to 
 fury by the defeat at Laval. It was a rude awakening 
 from the dream of la. Vendee nest 'plus. 
 
 The orders to destroy Vendeans and the Vendee in 
 accordance with the decree of the 1st August were 
 reiterated — not merely against the Vendeans on the 
 north side of the Loire, but against the Vendee 
 itself. 
 
 And a new decree was made on the 1st November 
 declaring that every town which received the brigands, 
 or gave them help, or which had not resisted them to 
 the utmost, was to be punished as a rebel town, razed, 
 and the property of the inhabitants confiscated to the 
 Republic. 
 
 The Committee wrote to their colleague Prieur (de la 
 Alarne) complaining vehemently of the slackness and of 
 the feeble measures being taken by the Representatives 
 to crush the Vendeans. " "We hope that you, with your 
 fiery spirit (dme de feu), your military eloquence, and 
 your pronounced patriotism, will repair so many 
 blunders. We have given orders for considerable re- 
 inforcements from the army of the north." 
 
 And to dean Ron St. Andre, another Representative. 
 it wrote that it "was strongly determined to neglect no 
 steps which would clear the territory of the Republic of 
 this race of brigands." and that he was " to take the 
 strongest measures that the sea or the maritime Depart- 
 ments should be their tomb."
 
 xiii 'THE CALVARY OF THE VENDEANS' 173 
 
 On the oth November Barere confessed from the 
 tribune in the Convention that " the atrocious Vendee 
 remained inexplicable." 
 
 But, he added, " the terrible day approaches when 
 the torch of truth will illumine the depths of these 
 dens (repaiirs) in the Vendee ; the day when, with sure 
 hand, we will tear the thick veil which still for a few 
 moments covers all these distant intrigues {^intrigues 
 lointaines), all these local manoeuvres, all these military 
 treasons, and these divers ambitions of the chiefs. 
 Victories coloured, half- successes exaggerated, fabulous 
 tales, all will have their proper place {tout aura sa place), 
 and the nation will be avenged." 
 
 Granville, the seaport, was at last reached ; and the 
 attack on it began on the 14th November ; but Gran- 
 ville was a walled and fortified place, with a garrison of 
 over 5000 men, and the A'endeans had no siege artillery, 
 no scaling ladders, no military appliances for attacking 
 such a place, and after a not too vigorous effort to 
 capture it, they were repulsed with heavy loss. 
 
 The blow was decisive. The effect was disastrous ; 
 and the danger of the position of the Vendean army 
 and its followers suddenly became apparent to all. 
 The confidence of the Vendeans in their chiefs vanished : 
 they became outspoken in their discontent with their 
 leaders, some of whom they accused, not without appar- 
 ent justification, of the intention of deserting them and 
 escaping across the sea, and they declared their deter- 
 mination to return to the Vendee. 
 
 Winter was rapidly closing in upon them : the 
 severity of the weather, the drenching rains, the pene- 
 trating winds, the bitter eold, were piercing them to 
 their marrow. There was no sign of emigre help, nor 
 of the English fleet — which by no possibility could
 
 174 THE REAL FRENCH REVOLUTIONIST ch. 
 
 have arrived off the French coast within the time. No 
 course, in tact, was open but retreat, and, in consterna- 
 tion, they turned south again, making for Angers, in the 
 despairing hope of there crossing the Loire and once 
 more entering their own country. 
 
 But though in consternation they were still full of 
 tight ; and as it was said at the time by an eye-witness : 
 •■ The entire army was like a wounded boar, which before 
 perishing would crush the unskilful hunter who came 
 in his way." 
 
 On the 20th November they had got back once more 
 to Do! — their woes and miseries pressing ever heavier 
 upon them — their strength failing them from hardship 
 and privation. At nine at night the town was alarmed, 
 and in the darkness fighting began. The next day they 
 found themselves face to face with the army of Marceau, 
 Kleber, and Westermann, and a desperate battle ensued. 
 Fortune favoured now one side, now the other. " When 
 the men were retreating great efforts were made to stop 
 them. A number of women performed prodigies of 
 resolution and decision of character. The priests exer- 
 cised a still greater influence. It is the only time that 
 1 have seen them fanaticise the soldiers by employing 
 all the means of religion to animate them. While 
 the people paused to listen to the cannon, the curate of 
 St. Marie de Ehe got upon a hillock near me, raised 
 a large crucifix, and with a stentorian voice began to 
 preach to the Vendeans. He was carried away by his 
 enthusiasm ; he asked the soldiers if they would really 
 be so infamous as to give up their wives and their 
 children to be slaughtered by the Blues; he told them 
 the only means of safety was to return to the battle. 
 ' My children,' said he, ' I will march at your head, the 
 crucifix in my hand : let those who choose to follow me
 
 xin 'THE CALVARY OF THE VENDEANS' 175 
 
 kneel, I will give them absolution ; if they die they 
 will go to Paradise ; but the cowards who forsake God, 
 and abandon their families, will have their throats cut 
 by the Blues, and will go to hell.' More than 2000 
 men knelt down, and he gave them absolution with 
 a loud voice ; and with the curate at their head they 
 departed, calling out ' Vive le Roi ! We go to 
 Paradise.' " 
 
 In the midst of the fighting a thick fog came on, 
 and then night — and the battle was drawn. 
 
 It was resumed the next day. The Vendeans once- 
 more fought with desperate courage, and completely 
 routed the republican army, inflicting very heavy loss 
 upon it, and An train was entered. 
 
 Here they learned that their wounded, which they 
 had left in hospital at Fougeres, had been massacred 
 in their beds by the soldiers of tin; Eepublic. As some 
 republican administrators expressed it: " Our army lias 
 given to the stragglers and the sick of the brigand army 
 passports to go to the devil." 
 
 Here, too, they learned some horrible details as Lo the 
 treatment of some of their women by the republicans ; 
 and recognising among the prisoners they had captured 
 several soldiers who had been released at fougeres on 
 swearing not again to fight against the Vendeans, they 
 immediately shot them. 
 
 They were so exhausted by their prolonged trials, 
 and by their almost superhuman efforts, that they did 
 not avail themselves as quickly as they might have of 
 the advantages of their success. For them now victories 
 even were defeats, and everything which delayed their 
 march to the Vendee and augmented the number of 
 their wounded added to their difficulties. 
 
 A council of war was held, but the men declared that
 
 176 THE REAL FRENCH REVOLUTIONIST ch. 
 
 they would only go the road to the Vendee, and their 
 desire had to be acceded to. 
 
 With enemies on every side of them, and closing 
 in more and more upon them, they bravely struggled on, 
 upheld by the one hope of once more reaching their 
 beloved Vendee. 
 
 The march from Antrum was unopposed, and on the 
 3rd December they presented themselves before Angers. 
 But the town was not now abandoned as it had been in 
 the previous June. Instead of which, the gates were 
 closed, and inside a considerable garrison to defend it. 
 Strong in itself, it laid been made stronger by rapidly 
 constructed defences and additional batteries. For the 
 Vendeans to attack it with the limited resources at 
 their disposal, and with their weakened and diminished 
 numbers, was literally dashing their heads against the 
 stone walls. But they were scarcely in a condition to 
 judge what was wisdom and what was folly. 
 
 "Worn out with cold and fatigue and sickness and every 
 kind of hardship, they were in a state of appalling 
 misery. The winter was one of exceptional and terrific 
 severity: and grief, anxiety, hunger, and exposure had 
 crushed the spirit of the men. Still, in their desperation 
 to secure the means of crossing the Loire into their own 
 land, they attacked it. but after thirty hours of valiant 
 though hopeless effort, they had to desist. Retreat 
 became necessary. And when, the next morning, some 
 republican officers came out of the town to make a 
 reconnaissance, they found in the plain the remains of the 
 Vendean bivouacs with men and women and children 
 lying dead there — dead from cold and misery. 
 
 Confusion aiming the Vendeans now was paramount. 
 They were stunned by the disaster, and knew not 
 whither to turn, or what to do. " Thev had lost every
 
 xiii 'THE CALVARY OF THE VENDEANS ' 177 
 
 hope of safety ; the army gave itself up to the most 
 complete despair ; it no longer saw any means of repassing 
 the Loire : sickness increased ; on all sides were heard 
 the cries of the unfortunate wounded who had to be 
 abandoned. Famine and bad weather added to all this 
 misery. The chiefs were harassed in mind and body ; 
 they knew not what determination to take." 
 
 Some of the men started of their own accord on the 
 road for Bauge — anywhither, so long as some start was 
 made, some action was taken : and, grateful for any lead, 
 the mass of the army and its unfortunate companions 
 followed. 
 
 At La Fleche there was a combat, and the repub- 
 licans there were routed ; passing through which the 
 Vendeans continued their journey northwards away from 
 home and country to Le Mans, which they reached on 
 the 11th. 
 
 " Everybody was overcome with fatigue . . . generals, 
 officers, and soldiers, everybody was cast down. It was 
 evident we should be destroyed sooner or later; and that 
 the struggles we made were only the agonies of death. 
 We were surrounded with suffering ; the sight of the 
 women, children, and wounded weakened the strongest 
 minds at the very time when a miraculous courage 
 was necessary. . . . Everything presaged our utter 
 ruin." 
 
 The following day they were again attacked, and the 
 battle was continued, the army of Kleber, Marceau, and 
 the impetuous AVestermann having come up. 
 
 The combat reached the climax — the acme — of horror 
 of the campaign. In parts of the fiercely, despairingly 
 contested field of battle the revolutionists gained the 
 advantage ; in other parts they were worsted, but as 
 night fell the town had been in great part captured by 
 
 N
 
 ITS THE REAL FRENCH REVOLUTIONIST ch. 
 
 the revolutionists, and many of the Yen deans were in 
 full night. And all the long winter's night, in cold and 
 snow and wet, and by the occasional gleams of a pale 
 moon, there was desperate lighting in the narrow and 
 irregular streets, and a fearful butchery; and when day 
 broke the streets were piled with corpses, " many of them 
 naked women whom the soldiers had despoiled and killed 
 after violating them," and the houses were Idled with 
 dead and dying; and crowding and crushing out of it by 
 the one bridge towards Laval were women and children 
 and old people, and sick and wounded — all, in fact, who 
 could still move. 
 
 The Representatives (Bourbotte, Prieur (de la Marne), 
 and Turreau) in their report which was read before the 
 Convention on loth December gave an account of the 
 victory. 
 
 •• Chiefs, marchionesses, countesses, priests in plenty, 
 carriages, baggage, cannon, guns, everything has fallen 
 into our power. . . . The streets, the houses, the public 
 places, the roads, are piled with corpses, and tor fifteen 
 hours the massacre lias lasted. . . . The treasure, 
 baggage, everything is in the hands of our soldiers, even 
 to the silver crosses, the mitres, the croziers, the banners, 
 the signs and instruments of fanaticism with which the 
 priests made drunk this mad and ferocious horde. In 
 tine, citizens, this is the most splendid day we have had 
 during the ten months in which we have been fighting 
 the brigands. Everything presages that those to follow it 
 will not lie less happy/' 
 
 The Convention, on receiving the news, decreed that 
 the 'army of the west had deserved well of its country, 
 and called on the brave republicans of the north who 
 were on their way to the scene of action to complete 
 tla' entire destruction of the brigands.
 
 xiii THE CALVAEY OF THE VENDEANS ' 179 
 
 In all some 17,000 Vendeans, women and children in- 
 eluded, were estimated as having perished. " The A'endean 
 army received its death-blow, and it was inevitable." 
 
 The flight to Laval was continued, the pursuit kept 
 ii}). " Heaps (if corpses," wrote Frieur (de la Marne), 
 " are the only obstacles which the army opposes to the 
 pursuit of our troops"; and Gamier (de Saintes) wrote, " In 
 the space of fourteen leagues of the road there is not 
 a fathom's length upon which a corpse is not stretched." 
 
 And an enthusiastic revolutionist commissioner— 
 Maignan by name — ■ gave his description, which also 
 throws light on the republican character: — 
 
 " They had taken the road to Laval, and we followed 
 them. I never saw such a carnage. The road was piled 
 with corpses . . . women, priests, monks, men and 
 children, all have been given over to death. I let no 
 one off. I did my duty. There is pleasure in avenging 
 one's country." 
 
 The republican cavalry, under Westermann, with 
 some light artillery, vigorously kept up the pursuit, 
 harassing and attacking the Vendeans without cessation 
 — killing all who through fatigue or other cause fell 
 behind; and the infantry followed by forced marches as 
 rapidly as possible. 
 
 " One must render justice to the army," wrote 
 Maignan. " It works well. Westermann is indefatigable ; 
 he gives the rebels no breathing time. On the right 
 and on the left the soldiers shoot those who have not 
 been exterminated by his advance guard. Oh, how that 
 goes (comme ca va) '. What a delight to see the triumphs 
 of the Republic ! " 
 
 As if the valiant republican army was not doing 
 quite enough in the way of slaughtering, the peasants 
 were hounded on to complete the work ordered by the
 
 180 THE HEAL FRENCH REVOLUTIONIST ch. 
 
 Convention. ( kirnier (de Saintes),a Representative, issued 
 a proclamation enjoining the inhabitants of these districts 
 (under a penalty of death) to take guns, pitchforks, any 
 weapon in fact, and to pursue the brigands. 
 
 How thoroughly they obeyed this proclamation is 
 described by Maignan the commissioner. 
 
 " At Pouancc I saw the inhabitants of the commune 
 hunt the brigands as one hunts the wolves. At Nort all 
 the inhabitants were hunting the scoundrels. When 1 
 arrived there, nearly two hundred were in the charnel- 
 house which they had made 1 . Every moment, four, five, 
 etc., etc., are brought in. Immediately a shot tumbles 
 them over into the ditch." And then he adds tins char- 
 acteristic touch of the true republican, "I am quite satisfied 
 with the spirit of the citizens of this part of the country." 
 
 And Benaben, a commissioner, wrote : " The peas- 
 ants put the corpses in heaps alongside the roads very 
 much as if they were pigs for salting.'"' 
 
 In one place, some five leagues from Le Mans, he saw 
 a hundred naked bodies piled in a heap. 
 
 Collected once more in a sort of way at Laval, with deci- 
 mated ranks, and fewer leaders, for some had fallen, sonic 
 had fled, the Yendeans attempted to make for Ancenis, in 
 the forlorn hope of being able to get over the Loire there. 
 
 lint the Loire was no longer low, as it had been in 
 October; it was a great wide racing flood of brown 
 water. Only a few boats could be obtained, and only a 
 few succeeded in crossing, their two principal leaders, 
 Henri de la liochejaquelein and Stofnet, among the 
 number. The rest, now leaderless, and hard pressed by 
 the republicans closing in on them, failed to get across, 
 lust some hundred men in a tight, and, turning west- 
 ward, once more wandered on. 
 
 I low any survived this (light is incomprehensible.
 
 xin 'THE CALVARY OF THE VENDEANS ' 181 
 
 The weather was terrific — ceaseless torrents of rain : 
 the roads in a fearful state. Their only food was such 
 as they happened to be able to seize ; for days they 
 lived on raw turnips ; their ammunition was nearly at 
 an end. Though exhausted by fatigue and enfeebled 
 by fever, dysentery, and disease, no opportunity for 
 repose could be got. With ever-thinning ranks, with 
 ever - diminishing strength, they still kept moving, 
 pressed hard by the republicans. 
 
 On the 22nd they reached Savenay. Here, unable 
 to move farther, the republican army overtook them. 
 Here, on the 23rd, they made their final stand, and 
 suffered annihilation. 
 
 The battle began at the break of day. The re- 
 publicans attacked. "The 2 K(S <^<" charge is heard 
 everywhere," wrote Kleber. " Canuel overwhelms the 
 enemy on the left, Marceau in the centre, and Kleber on 
 the right. The cry of ' Vive la Republique ' fills the air. 
 The Vendeans fly, and fall under the fire of the 
 republicans. Savenay is crossed ; each column takes a 
 different direction in pursuit of the rebels: the carnage 
 becomes horrible ; one part of them go to drown them- 
 selves in the marshes of Montoir, the remainder throw 
 themselves into the woods and disperse there. Vehicles, 
 cannons, everything falls into the power of the republicans, 
 and this time the destruction of the enemy is certain." 
 
 Benaben says: "More than 1200 have been obliged 
 to lay down their arms and to sue for life. AVestermann 
 has had about 400 1 of them shot ; the rest were; shot by 
 orders of the court-martial. . . . The loss which the 
 enemy has suffered is immense. The entire of this 
 
 1 This number he corrected the next day, with ruder information, 
 
 and stated it to be over 2000 ; and over and above these, he says, sonic 
 1200 were noyaded.
 
 1S2 THE EEAL FEENCH REVOLUTIONIST ch. 
 
 great army lias sunk. . . . To-morrow we will all 
 scatter ourselves as tirailleurs and make a general 
 battue in the woods where the rebels have been able 
 to take refuge." 
 
 Over the final horrors of the to-morrow and the days 
 immediately following a veil may be drawn. The hunt- 
 ing down and ferreting out and slaughter of individuals 
 may be left to the imagination. The one great resulting 
 fart was that scarcely any of the vast horde of SO, 000 to 
 100,000 Vendeans who had crossed the Loire ten weeks 
 before lived to re-cross it. Non-combatants as well as 
 combatants were all involved together in the common 
 doom. AVomen were hunted down and slaughtered as 
 remorselessly and triumphantly as was the most valiant 
 soldier; children, too, of tender age were slaughtered: 
 sick and wounded i'ell under the massacring steel or 
 bullet. All, to use the expressive phrase of the Bible, 
 were " put to the sword." 
 
 And they were valiant to the last these " fanatics,''' 
 these men for whose abuse the dictionary of the French 
 language was exhausted for terms of contumely and 
 reproach. 
 
 The revolutionary general Beaupuy has left strong 
 testimony as to their courage and lighting qualities. 
 " They wanted but the uniform;"' he said. " to make them 
 soldiers. . . . The troops who have conquered such 
 Frenchmen can flatter themselves that they can conquer 
 the allied defenders of the cause of kings."' 
 
 Certainly time after time these Vendeans had. under 
 every possible circumstance of discouragement) fought as 
 veritable heroes: and in their dogged perseverance to 
 the very end. they showed a sterling courage which 
 stamps them as having possessed some of the very 
 highest qualities of mankind.
 
 xni 'THE CALVARY OF THE VENDEANS ' 183 
 
 Two incidents reported by Benaben, the above- 
 mentioned republican commissioner, throw such a flood 
 of light, of the grimmest kind, on the conduct of the 
 revolutionists in the concluding scene of this bloody 
 campaign, that they must be described, and best in his 
 own words. 
 
 At the close of the battle of Savenay he met some 
 republican volunteers or troops escorting some hundred 
 Vendean prisoners to execution, and as they went they 
 sang the " Marseillaise " — 
 
 Allons enfants de la patrie, 
 Le jour de gloire est arrive. 
 
 And he remarks, " Here is an atrocious action." 
 
 And then he goes on to describe another. " Here is a 
 worse," he says ; " incredible, but attested by all the army." 
 
 Five hundred to six hundred brigands lay down their 
 arms crying " Vive la nation," " Vive la Eepublique." 
 A general (I know not which) 1 had them hemmed in by 
 one or two battalions, and then ordered that fire should 
 be opened on them. They all fell, some shot, some from 
 fear. But as there were many who still moved, he 
 cried, " Those who are not wounded, stand up." These 
 poor people, thinking that it was intended to spare their 
 lives, hastened to do so : but a second volley is fired into 
 them, and those not killed are finished off with the 
 bayonet or sabre. 
 
 "Such traits of inhumanity," he adds, "are unworthy 
 of the most ferocious nation, are of a character to revolt 
 every mind." 
 
 The battle over, Westermann wrote to the Committee 
 of Public Safety : 
 
 " There is no longer a A'endee. She is dead under our 
 
 1 Rumour, however, says it was Westermann.
 
 184 THE REAL FRENCH REVOLUTIONIST oh. 
 
 free sword {sabre Hire), with her women and her children. 
 I have just buried her in the marshes and woods of 
 Savenay, in obedience to the orders you gave me. 
 
 " I have crushed the children under the feet of the 
 horses, and massacred the women, who, so far at least 
 as they are concerned, will breed no more brigands. 1 
 have not to reproach myself with a prisoner. I have 
 exterminated all. The roads are strewn with corpses. 
 There are so many in several places that they form 
 pyramids. The shooting of the prisoners goes on with- 
 out ceasing at Savenay, because every moment brigands 
 arrive, who pretend to surrender themselves as prisoners. 
 We make no prisoners. It would be necessary to give 
 them the bread of liberty, and pity is not revolutionary." 
 
 This was waging war " revolutionarily," as the revolu- 
 tionary authorities in Paris wished. 
 
 Francastel, too, had written to the Convention, " No 
 more brigands this side of the Loire " : and the citizen 
 soldier who brought the letter to Paris was invited to 
 address the Convention. 
 
 He said, amidst applause, " AVe have made no 
 prisoners, because we do not make any more " ; and 
 Couthon, the President of the Convention, addressed him 
 and said : " Soldier of the Republic, the applause of the 
 National Convention conveys to you its lively satisfac- 
 tion. Go; return to your brothers-in-arms ; tell them 
 that they have deserved well of their country." 
 
 And the Convention, wild with joy at getting the 
 news of the annihilation of the Vendeans, forthwith 
 decreed a vote of thanks to the army, and declared that 
 it had deserved well of its country. 
 
 Vet over and above all the scli'-gratulat ions and 
 votes of thanks and expressions of approval by the 
 Convention, there rises the wailing reflection of Biron :
 
 xiii 'THE CALVARY OF THE YEXDEAXS ' 185 
 
 " Here Frenchmen fall under the. blows of Frenchmen. 
 
 The villages which we ravage belong to us ; all the 
 blood which we shed is ours." 
 
 And the same sentiment touched the heart of 
 Marceau, one of the chief actors in the fearful drama ; 
 for in a letter to his sister, who had been celebrating his 
 victories, he wrote : 
 
 " What, my dear sister, you send me felicitations on 
 these two battles, or rather these two carnages ; and you 
 wish to have some of the leaves from my laurels. Does 
 it not occur to you that they are stained with human 
 blood, with French blood? I shall not return to the 
 Vendee. It revolts me too much to fight Frenchmen. 
 T wish to turn my arms against the foreigner. In that 
 direction alone is glory " (or fame). 
 
 But such sentiments had no place, however, in the 
 revolutionary mind as displayed by the Convention, and 
 by those who were acclaiming themselves as the vrai 
 re'puUicain.
 
 CHATTER XIV 
 
 EXTERMINATION 
 
 Rebellion is rebellion, no matter how well justified it 
 may be, and those who rebel must expect the worst it' 
 they are not successful. But after all is said in ex- 
 tenuation of severity, there is a limit which cannot be 
 passed without incurring the reprobation of civilised 
 humanity. 
 
 It is another of those extraordinary inconsistencies 
 of the French revolutionists that the right of insurrec- 
 tion had been proclaimed by them in their Declaration 
 of the Tights of Man as one of the primary and most 
 sacred rights. Vet when the Vendeans rose in insur- 
 rection against the Republican Government, having been 
 provoked and forced thereinto by the action of that 
 Government, action in diametric opposition to the great 
 principles it professed and acclaimed, no language was 
 adequate to condemn their conduct, no measure was too 
 severe for their repression and punishment. Ferhaps 
 those who made the Declaration thought mainly of 
 justifying their own action in the past, and did not 
 think of the contingency of any one exercising the right 
 against themselves. 
 
 But even acknowledging that for self-preservation
 
 ch. xiv EXTERMINATION 187 
 
 sake the Revolutionary Government had to suppress the 
 Vendeans, though it itself was a Government only just 
 attained by rebellion and violence, and granting that, 
 being an i'pso facto Government, it was justified in 
 repressing rebellion, though it itself had provoked and 
 was alone responsible for that disaster, no imaginable 
 reasons or excuses can justify the extreme and brutal 
 barbarism with which the repression was effected. 
 
 The cruelty, the mercilessness, the inhumanity, with 
 which the Vendeans were visited and pursued by their 
 own fellow-countrymen, finds no parallel in the history 
 of civilised races. Extermination, pure and simple, that 
 was the decree against them — they, and their sons and 
 their daughters, their man-servants and their maid- 
 servants, and every living thing in connection with 
 them — innocent or guilty — all alike. And so far as 
 their country was concerned, that would have been 
 destroyed too if the National Convention had had the 
 power to annihilate matter. 
 
 The exasperation of the Committee of Public Safety 
 has been sought to be explained, and the implacability 
 of the Government attempted to be justified on the 
 ground of the efforts of the Vendeans to get help from 
 the emigres in the Channel Islands, and from the 
 English, the enemies of France. The Government, it is 
 said, felt that the Vendee was anti-French, and must be 
 extirpated to save France. " All thought the Patrie 
 could not exist with this 'cancer' in its side, and, with 
 clear conscience, gave the Vendee over to the surgery of 
 the Terror." 
 
 Put those who use this argument ignore a fact which 
 completely shatters their contention, namely, that the 
 revolutionists entered on this process of " surgery " long 
 before these later incidents of exasperation. From the
 
 188 THE REAL FRENCH REVOLUTIONIST ch. 
 
 very outset, when the Vendeans had dared to defy them, 
 they had been on bloody thoughts intent ; and their 
 frequent defeats and humiliations in the Vendee first 
 exasperated and then infuriated them. 
 
 Soon after the outbreak of the Revolution, large 
 numbers of royalists had fled to England and the Channel 
 Islands, and the Revolutionary Government lived in a 
 constant state of alarm that they would obtain help from 
 England, and come back in force to attack France. This, 
 too, long before the war broke out between England and 
 France. 
 
 Some leading royalists in Brittany had been endea- 
 vouring to organise a rising in Brittany, and a royalist 
 expedition, and to get help from England ; but, as has 
 already been stated, so far as the Vendeans were con- 
 cerned, the first great measure of repression, that of the 
 19th March, was enacted before any communication 
 passed from the Vendean leaders to England. As a 
 matter of fact there were no Vendean leaders before the 
 outbreak of the civil war. 
 
 For a considerable time after the outbreak, moreover, 
 the English Government knew little either about the 
 war or the objects of the Vendeans ; and it was by no 
 means anxious to commit itself to a landing on the 
 coast of France, especially on a dangerous coast with 
 practically no harbours. 
 
 And the Vendean leaders, conscious of the unpopularity 
 which an alliance with the enemies of France would 
 entail, desired far more the leadership of a Prince Royal, 
 and the help of the emif/r<fs, than the actual help of 
 English forces. D'Elbee himself said that they bad no 
 want of foreign belp to raise the throne again, to give 
 back to the clergy all their privileges, and to the noblesse 
 their rights. Arms and military stores and money
 
 x [ v EXTE RM I NAT TON 1 8 9 
 
 they were anxious to get ; but military help from the 
 English would certainly have damaged their cause by 
 exciting against them the patriotic feeling of France. 
 
 As the war went on more frequent communications 
 did pass between them and England, and the fact would 
 very naturally have intensified the fury of the Revolu- 
 tionary Government against the Yendeans, had intensifica- 
 tion been possible ; but the revolutionists were already 
 at white heat, breathing nothing but fire and slaughter, 
 destruction and annihilation against the Yendeans, and 
 nothing the Yendeans did or left undone could have 
 modified the revolutionary rage against them. 
 
 But going even further, and granting that the 
 Yendean leaders were culpable, and granting that com- 
 municating with the enemies of the " patrie " was in the 
 eyes of a Government whose sole shred of respectability 
 was its patriotism, an unpardonable crime, deserving the 
 severest punishment, it was nevertheless iniquitous in the 
 highest degree that the extremity of punishment should 
 be enforced against the Yendean rank and file, and 
 against the helpless and the weak, the old people and 
 women and children, against those whom they themselves 
 were always calling fanaticised and misled. 
 
 At most, only the A'endean leaders were concerned in 
 or cognisant of the communications with England : and 
 the Republican Government can never be exonerated from 
 the most horrible and heinous crime of ruthlessly visit- 
 ing the whole of the Yendean people, even to the women 
 and children, with a fierce and vindictive punishment for 
 an offence of which they are wholly innocent. 
 
 The revolutionists did not falter in their determination. 
 Conscience troubled them not at all, and giving people 
 over to " the surgery of the Terror " was quite congenial 
 work to them, and in complete logical accord with all
 
 190 THE REAL FRENCH REVOLUTIONIST en. 
 
 their oft -reiterated opinions. And in so handing them 
 over, there was no meanness, no dissimulation, no 
 treachery, to which they would not. did not stoop, provided 
 they compassed the end in view — the extermination of 
 the Yt-ndeans. 
 
 A Government is certainly expected to abide by its 
 word. If anything- human can be binding, that is. And 
 the promise given by the direct representative of that 
 Government is equally binding. But this view was not 
 held by the true sans-culotte. In October, just about 
 the time of the battle of Cholet. a terrible illustration of 
 this fact was given. 
 
 Merlin (de Thionville). a Representative and an ex- 
 treme revolutionist, himself an actor in the scene, gave 
 an account of it some time after in the Convention : — 
 
 " Arrived at Montaigu, I issued a proclamation in the 
 hope of winning over to us the rebels. 
 
 " ' Frenchmen, for the last time the Republic opens 
 her arms to receive you. . . . Vou have to-day to resist 
 a disciplined army which has never known flight. 
 Deliver your arms, surrender your chiefs, and this army. 
 come to exterminate you, will become a protecting force 
 for your persons and property.' " 
 
 In reply, the inhabitants of some twenty communes 
 laid down their arms. " Carrier was present when 
 several of them arrived, and he spoke to them from the 
 door of the headquarters. I quitted the Vendee. 
 Carrier, invested with full powers, remained their absolute 
 master : and these same communes were shot. Men 
 were assassinate I who fell on their knees and who 
 showed my proclamation which they had kept as a safe- 
 guard." 
 
 One prominent and most discreditable feature of the 
 revolutionary character is this, that the more the
 
 xiv EXTERMINATION 191 
 
 revolutionist became masters of the position, the crueller 
 and more remorseless were their acts. 
 
 As quickly as possible after the Vendeans had crossed 
 the Loire, the military forces of the Eepublic were in 
 pursuit of them, and, as has been already stated, military 
 measures were taken to annihilate them. These, how- 
 ever, were not enough. 
 
 As the Vendean army moved on into Brittany, 
 encumbered by the mass of helpless non-combatants 
 clinging to it for protection, a miserable trail of suffering 
 humanity was left behind, in village and cottage, on 
 the roadside and in the ditches, of sick and wonnded 
 and infirm, old men and women and children, those who 
 could go no farther. All these were pounced on by the 
 revolutionists, and fell a speedy prey to revolutionary 
 '•' -Justice." 
 
 For, with the object of bringing revolutionary justice 
 into operation in all the places through which the 
 Vendeans passed, the criminal tribunals of the Depart- 
 ments were made ambulatory : and, to supplement them, 
 the Representatives created travelling Military Commis- 
 sions with their guillotines, so to speak, in their trunks, 
 so that all who fell out of the Vendean ranks might 
 be gathered by the revolutionary net, and not one 
 escape. 
 
 Xo sooner were the Vendeans at a safe distance from 
 a place or town through which they had passed, than a 
 Revolutionary Tribunal of some sort at once installed itself 
 there, at once seized those who had been unable to go 
 on, at once arrested all who were; suspected of aiding 
 the brigands, erected its guillotine, handed over to the 
 executioner a number of victims, then, packing up the 
 bloody paraphernalia of revolutionary justice, moved on 
 to some other safe place to repeat the performance.
 
 192 THE REAL FRENCH REVOLUTIONIST en. 
 
 Thus, when the Vendeans left Laval, where they had 
 stopped several days, the Felix commission came to 
 administer revolutionary justice. 
 
 When they were repulsed at Granville, a Military 
 Commission was promptly installed there. At Rennes, 
 not very tar oil' their line of march, where the prisons 
 were crammed with Yendean stragglers or derelicts, and 
 where typhus was raging, two military tribunals were 
 quickly put in full function, with the usual results. 
 
 At Avranches, let the republicans tell their own tale. 
 It helps one to realise the balder reports of others in 
 other places. The." Administrators " of Avranches wrote 
 to the Committee of Public Safety: — 
 
 " As soon as we had been informed that the scoundrel 
 army had evacuated the town, we hastened to return to 
 it, and to resume our functions. One of our first cares 
 was to have some fifty-five or sixty of these blackguards 
 shot whom we had arrested, or who had remained in the 
 hospital." 
 
 And Laplanche, the Representative in those parts, 
 wrote to the Convention: — 
 
 " We found here on our arrival many rebels who had 
 remained behind, and to whom our inopportune arrival 
 did not give time to fly. The hospital, equally, was 
 full of them. The national vengeance was executed on 
 them, and there is no further question about them." 
 
 Thus both the Committee of Public Safety and the 
 Convention had official knowledge of these horrors, and 
 as they did nothing to stop them, they can only be con- 
 sidered as accessories, and as approving of them. 
 
 Even to St. Malo Yendean prisoners had been sent, 
 and a Military Commission appointed to try them. 
 Women were shot, and people carried from the hospital 
 to the field of carnage and shot. Death even should not
 
 xiv EXTERMINATION 193 
 
 rob the commission of its metier, for it declared twenty- 
 five Vendeans who had died in prison as guilty, and 
 ordered the confiscation of their goods. 
 
 The blood of the Vendeans the revolutionists were 
 determined to have, and the spirit as well as the letter 
 of the terrible decrees against them was carried to the 
 extremest limit. 
 
 Xo fact so convincingly illustrates the extraordinary 
 indifference to the cost of attaining this end, or so 
 elucidates the almost incredible callousness of republican 
 authorities, as an order issued by the representatives 
 Esnue Lavallee, Prieur (de la Maine), actually a member 
 of the Committee of Public Safety, and Turreau, to the 
 republican generals in Brittany who were fighting the 
 Vendeans there. 
 
 The generals were ordered, in case of absolute necessity, 
 to get rid of (se clef aire) — in other words, to kill — their 
 own republican sick and wounded, should they be found 
 to hinder the march of the army in any important 
 movement. It is true it was to be done " in the most 
 humane possible way.'"' 
 
 And the reasons are given. " The wounded or sick," 
 said the Representatives, " being frank republicans as we 
 ourselves are, ought, as we do, to sacrifice themselves for 
 the public safety. They are not able to fight and die 
 for the nation with arms in their hands. It is necessary, 
 therefore, that they die in another manner." 
 
 If such was the state of mind as regards their own 
 men, what consideration could be expected from them 
 in dealing with their enemies ? 
 
 It was not, however, only in the trail of the Vendean 
 army that the revolutionists at this time were active, or 
 indulging in ruthless severity. Everywhere they could, 
 it w T as the same story. 
 
 o
 
 194 THE REAL FRENCH REVOLUTIONIST ch. 
 
 Angers was cram mod with prisoners. As the Vendean 
 arm)' might come in that direction it was felt desirable 
 that they should be removed. 
 
 Robert, the erstwhile Paris comedian, now a general 
 at Aimers, has in a letter to the Minister of War, dated 
 29th November, described what became of some of 
 them. 
 
 " I announce to you that about two thousand Catholic 
 prisoners who were detained here, and whom we, acting in 
 concert with citizen Francastel, made evacuate on different 
 points, have perished. A part of these gentlemen re- 
 volted against the guard, who did justice in the matter 
 (qui en a fait justice). When the rest were crossing 
 the Ponts - de - Ce two arches collapsed, and they un- 
 fortunately fell into the Loire, where they were drowned. 
 Unfortunately their feet and hands were tied. Vive la 
 Republique." l 
 
 So soon as it was actually ascertained that the 
 Vendeans were advancing on xVngers, the members of 
 the Military Commission there took to their heels and 
 fled to Done, but not wishing to be deprived of their 
 prey in the shape of prisoners, they took a lot with 
 them. Of these, GO were, in the revolutionary style now 
 becoming common, shot on the way at one place, GO 
 more at another place. It was, in fact, almost im- 
 possible to move prisoners from one place to another 
 without many being shot en route, the republican 
 escorts apparently being unable to keep their hands off 
 them. 
 
 Some survived till Done was reached. Here, on the 
 17th December, G9 were shot; on the 18th, 41; on 
 the 20th, 58 ; and on the 22nd, 31. Statistics may be 
 dry; these quiver with human agony. 
 1 The words in italics are underlined in the original (0. de Chavigny).
 
 xiv EXTERMINATION 195 
 
 " The fusillades took place ordinarily near a quarry 
 called ' Justices de Fier - Bois.' There the dead and 
 dying were pitched pell-mell ; the evening of an execu- 
 tion one could hear half-stifled groans issuing from this 
 tomb." 
 
 Once the fate of the Yendeans on the north side of 
 the Loire was sealed by their repulse at Angers, the 
 sphere of operations for Revolutionary Tribunals and 
 Military Commissions widened considerably, and there 
 was a tremendous glut of work for them. 
 
 The Yendean army being in process of annihilation 
 and unable to protect itself, much less others, those 
 who were dependent on it were the first victims of the 
 catastrophe. The thousands of non-combatants, women, 
 sick, wounded, old people, and children, who so far had 
 escaped death or massacre by the republican troops, and 
 wdio could now proceed no farther, were there to be dealt 
 with. 
 
 Military Commissions roved all over the place. 
 Wherever " great blows " were to be struck, one, or 
 more, was sent. 
 
 Promptly on the great republican victory at Le Mans 
 a Military Commission was appointed there, under the 
 presidency of Bignon of infamous notoriety. 
 
 Here an exceptional number of Yendean prisoners 
 laid been made, and for long after Le Mans was the 
 scene of appalling horrors. At the outset many were 
 shot at sight — " arbitrary fusillades," as they have been 
 called; but what was infinitely worse, 400 wounded, 
 who were unable to fly and were in hospital, were 
 massacred there at night. 
 
 Then followed executions after form of sentence by 
 Military Commissions, large numbers of women being 
 shot actually at the door of the house where the
 
 196 THE REAL FRENCH REVOLUTIONIST oh. 
 
 Representatives Turreau and Bourbotte were stopping — 
 "a veritable butchery," as Benaben, an eye-witness, wrote 
 of it. 
 
 Tbere were three large prisons at Le Mans, one being 
 the church of l'Oratoire, in which 1200 prisoners, mostly 
 women, were crammed. The town was without food. 
 The prisoners, forgotten by the inhabitants, implored in 
 vain for death or a morsel of food. 
 
 One who went into the church described how " a 
 thousand spectres ruse at once and with one voice cried 
 : bread/ ; ' 
 
 And in addition to hunger a pest broke out. Fur 
 days the dead were unburied, and then only half so. 
 Le Mans " was a vast cemetery, a centre of contagion, a 
 charnel-house.'' 
 
 Dysentery and typhus swept thousands away. The 
 tear of the spread of the plague, or Yendean sickness, was, 
 it is said, one of the causes of the expedition used in 
 killing them. But the sordid greed of the revolutionists 
 helped to their own destruction, for the clothes they 
 tore from their victims spread the contagion, like 
 Nessus' shirts, and were fatal to those who took them. 
 
 When the Vendeans, continuing their flight, had left 
 Laval, a Revolutionary Tribunal was established there, 
 also a Military Commission, and on the 16th, 17th, and 
 20th December 120 prisoners, from 10 to 71 years of 
 age, were shut. During their execution the judges, who 
 were installed at a window before a table covered with 
 glasses of wine, drank to the senate RrpuUiqi'.e and to 
 t lie death of the calotins. 
 
 At Ancenis, where the Hying Vendeans had also 
 halted for a brief while, a Military Commission was 
 appointed to deal with the unfortunate debris of the 
 Vendeans left there.
 
 xiv EXTERMINATION 197 
 
 To what acts even a Representative could descend in 
 his consuming passion to destroy the Yendeans is shown 
 by a letter from the culprit himself. Merlin (de Thion- 
 ville), the Representative; wrote from Ancenis in 
 December while pursuing the A'endeans : " The cure 
 Rodrigue of Basse Goulaine wished to follow the column 
 of brigands. I killed him with one blow of the sword. 
 Let Nantes be tranquil. I would go to hell to extermi- 
 nate the last of the brigands." 
 
 When the linal disaster occurred at Savenay the 
 Bignon Military Commission promptly took up its 
 quarters there, and in three days — 25th, 27th, and 28th 
 December — condemned between GOO and 700 prisoners 
 to be shot, and acquitted none. 
 
 The mind almost refuses to take in the actuality of 
 these horrors, or to grasp that they had a real existence. 
 
 One sees the general picture- — the retreating mass of 
 people, made up of sick and wounded, the aged and 
 feeble, struggling along, and the extemporised army still 
 giving what protection it could to those dependent on it, 
 still valiantly upholding the cause for which it had 
 appealed to arms, though the numbers of its fighting 
 men were rapidly diminishing, and the line of retreat 
 strewn with its dying and dead. That is easily under- 
 standable. 
 
 But the individual sufferings of those fallen behind, 
 surrounded by merciless and implacable foes, the pro- 
 tracted anxiety, the prolonged trials, the loss of kith and 
 kin, the fading of hope, the final despair and heartbreak, 
 who can now realise them ? 
 
 A heart-wringing letter from a young wife who went 
 through part of the awful pilgrimage, written the moment 
 before going to execution, lifts a tiny section of the veil : 
 " I only take my pen to send you my last adieux and
 
 198 THE REAL FREXCH REVOLUTIONIST ch. 
 
 those of my sister, and to beg you to give them to all 
 those who are clear to us, and particularly to your friend 
 Pierre. Tell him that we lost our mother at La Fleche, 
 my father at Le Alans, and that the guillotine ends our 
 days at Alencon. People consider us guilty, and try us 
 as such. You who knew us since infancy know what 
 truth there is in it. AVe lose our lives without regret : 
 the miseries which we have endured for eight months 
 are well calculated to detach us from it. ... If you ever 
 see my husband again, tell him I die adoring him, that 
 death, which will soon freeze my heart, will never efface 
 his image, that the memory of him comes with me 
 beyond the tomb.'"' 
 
 And she and her sister were but two out of that 
 great mass who had crossed the Loin 1 after the battle of 
 Cholet. 
 
 The final destruction of this A'endean host was like 
 the foundering in a tropical sea of a great ship, laden 
 with people. Disabled by a gale and rapidly sinking, 
 she reels and plunges helplessly along, until the final 
 plunge : and then the sea, almost dark with ravening 
 sharks, fighting with each other for the human victims 
 as they struggle in the water, dashing wildly hither and 
 thither in the reddening waves, until the last vestige of 
 anything human has been torn to pieces and devoured. 
 
 The dei'eat of the A'endean arms was so overwhelming 
 that the Republic in its hour of triumph might have 
 shown some compassion towards those over whom it had 
 triumphed. Instead of this, its appetite for blood 
 seemed only whetted, and the Representatives, "far from 
 combating the outburst of savage passions, aided it with 
 all their efforts; they fanned the fanaticism of the Revolu- 
 tionary Committees, they stimulated the zeal of the Mili- 
 tary Commissions, and directed with a cold and implac-
 
 xiv EXTERMINATION 199 
 
 able cruelty the extermination of a people conquered and 
 taken prisoner." 
 
 In addition to the non-combatants who fell into the 
 hands of the republicans, and in addition to the 
 \ r endeans who were taken with arms in their hands, 
 there was a third and very large class — men who had 
 laid down their arms on the promises given them that 
 their lives would be spared. 
 
 There is not a vestige of doubt that promises to this 
 effect were made to the Vendeans by the republican 
 authorities, Representatives and generals alike, and then, 
 most infamously, broken. 
 
 The Abbe Gruget, who resided concealed in Angers 
 all the dreadful time of the Terror there, states in his 
 narrative of the events there : " During the siege of 
 Angers by the Vendeans the generals and officers had 
 forbidden the troops to kill those they made prisoners, 
 still less those who delivered themselves on the promise 
 of their lives being spared on their undertaking not to 
 bear arms again against the Republic. This was public, 
 and every one knew of it. But Francastel refused to 
 ratify this engagement. Those who surrendered were 
 imprisoned, and then shot." 
 
 The Abbe Gruget further declared that Francastel set 
 snares for the. Vendeans, hypocritically causing printed 
 notices promising amnesty to be scattered on the roads. 
 
 Many A r endeans surrendered, but they paid with their 
 lives the penalty for their belief in republican promises. 
 
 Confirmatory of this infamous conduct on the part of 
 the revolutionists is a declaration made about a year 
 afterwards by General Cordellier, a revolutionary general, 
 that he had seen at Saumur some 700 to 800 men who, 
 he was told by General Commaire, were brigands of the 
 Vendee, who had laid down their arms, " in virtue of
 
 200 THE REAL FRENCH REVOLUTIONIST oh. 
 
 the invitation which had been made them by the Repre- 
 sentatives then on mission with the army of the west," 
 and that Commaire had orders to shoot them, which was 
 done. Also at Angers the same thing was done. 
 Astonished thereat, he spoke to General Robert, and 
 learned from him that he (Robert) had orders from 
 Franeastel to shoot or drown all the brigands who came 
 and surrendered their aims, orders which were carried 
 out. The practice, in fact, was general. 
 
 After the 16th December several Vendeans came to 
 the municipality of Ingrandes declaring that they were 
 tired of the war, and that, if promised their lives, 
 they and many of their comrades would surrender. 
 The magistrates of Ingrandes received those overtures 
 favourably, as giving a symptom and hope of a 
 near peace, encouraged the Vendeans to surrender, and 
 about 200 were sent to Angers until their fate was 
 settled. 
 
 General Moulin, entering into these pacific views, 
 gave a safe-conduct to ten Vendeans to go and persuade 
 their friends to surrender. In the course of a few days 
 about 1200 surrendered. They were detained at St. 
 Florent waiting for an answer from Franeastel, to whom 
 Moulin had written. Moulin, who appears to have 
 acted in good faith, was disavowed in the promises of 
 amnesty; and the 1200 were sent to St. Gemmes near 
 Angers and l'onts-de-Ce, and without any trial wen 1 all 
 shot. 
 
 For his efforts towards pardon of the Vendeans 
 Moulin was ordered to Nantes by Carrier, where he was 
 thrown into prison; and Carrier afterwards made him 
 publicly state that if he had given some passports to 
 some Vendeans it had only been with the object of 
 uettiim a larger number to surrender.
 
 xiv EXTERMINATION 201 
 
 Similar testimony came from other places. 
 
 At Nort, some miles north of Nantes, the republican 
 hussars overtook the fugitive Vendeans. " Surrender, 
 friends," they cried out, " no harm will be done you ; 
 the Republic, full of clemency, pardons you." Two 
 hundred surrender ; the infantry are massacred by the 
 forces of that Republic ; the cavalry were conducted to 
 Nantes, and there, by Carrier's orders, shot. 
 
 This possibly is the same incident given more 
 definitely by Mellinet, the well-known historian of 
 Nantes. " On the faith of a proclamation," he says, 
 "of 19th December (29 Frimaire, An ii.), promising 
 amnesty, about 100 Vendean cavalry came to Nantes 
 to make their submission. The next day Carrier had 
 them shot." 
 
 That promises were made appears also from the 
 following : — 
 
 Seven to eight hundred Yendeans came (December) 
 to surrender their arms. Carrier ordered them to be shot. 
 The administration asked for a delay, and invoked the 
 promises made to the rebels who submitted themselves 
 to the Republic. It asked for their examination, as 
 many of them were pronounced republicans who had 
 been made prisoners by the rebels. Carrier appeared to 
 approve, but by the next day they had all been shot. 
 
 And one more proof is given in a later report of 
 the popular society at Fontenay. 
 
 " The law of March 19, 1793, condemned to death all 
 who took part in the revolt — that of 10th May limited 
 this penalty to only the chiefs — that of 5th July denned 
 the term ' chief.' ... A law of October ordered all 
 to surrender their arms under pain of being considered 
 chiefs — and proclamations to this effect were published 
 by Representatives and the constituted authorities. . . .
 
 20i' THE REAL FRENCH REVOLUTIONIST ch. 
 
 "In spite of this, the agriculturists who went and 
 surrendered their arms — who took the oath — who 
 returned with certificates declaring' their submission to 
 the law, these same cultivators were arrested at their 
 own homes by patrols and put to death, just as rebels 
 taken with arms in their hands. Where is the security 
 of the public faith when it can be violated with 
 impunity ? " 
 
 The proofs that this system of deception on the 
 part of the " brave, the true republican " was constantly 
 practised are overwhelming. 
 
 If anything could have added to the agony of the 
 last moments of these unfortunate Vendeans, it must 
 have been the bitter sense of treachery and deceit on 
 the part of the republicans. 
 
 With the increase in the number of persons to be 
 tried, the procedure of the various Revolutionary Tribunals 
 became less formal. 
 
 Letourneur, a Representative, wrote to the criminal 
 tribunal at Alencon that " one could not put too great 
 celerity into trying the Vendean rebels"; and Gamier 
 (de Saintes), another Representative, wrote to the 
 criminal tribunal at Le Mans : — 
 
 " It is here a matter of judging revolutionarily. All 
 minute formalities should be put aside. . . . You must 
 drop the idea that you are only judges whom the law 
 has surrounded with forms. You assume here a 
 different, a revolutionary character. You ought to judge 
 revolutionarily, and promptly rid society of these 
 monsters." 
 
 The one formula, "relations with the brigands, with 
 arms in their hands," sufficed ; whether true or not, no 
 one could know, fur no questions were asked of any one 
 except the prisoner, and no witnesses were heard.
 
 xiv EXTERMINATION 203 
 
 Soon even the Military Commission did not give 
 themselves the trouble to designate the offence. " They 
 killed, and all was said." (On tuct, et tout fut dit.) 
 
 A president of one of them remarked : " Some of the 
 prisoners have the impertinence to ask for the proofs 
 the nation has against them. The nation has suppressed 
 this abuse of the ancien regime. They are guilty 
 because we wish it." 
 
 As Babeuf asked : " What did the slaughterer risk ? 
 His judgments and their execution were subject neither 
 to scrutiny nor revision." 
 
 The revolutionists were far from confining their efforts 
 to the wake of the Yendean army. 
 
 Saumur had not been in the line of retreat of the 
 Vendean host, but nevertheless revolutionary activity in 
 it had been great. All through the autumn the Revolu- 
 tionary Committee, with its subordinate committees, had 
 been hard at work there. The municipality and the 
 Revolutionary Tribunal had been brought under the com- 
 plete control of the Committee. Incessant requisitions were 
 made for all sort of things — suspects, real or imaginary, 
 had. been arrested and crammed into prison ; the Military 
 Commission from Angers came thither on vne tow-ne'e 
 patriotique (a patriotic tour), four cUgorger hs prisons, 
 and the guillotine had been erected en permanence. 
 
 The " terror " in a small place like this was awful. 
 
 " Those who had the right, or arrogated to themselves 
 the right, of ordering arrests, were infinite in number. 
 Generals, Representatives, members of the Revolutionary 
 Committee, commandants, even the doorkeepers of the 
 prisons, rivalled each other in zeal." 
 
 As the result of this facility of arrest, the prisons 
 were crammed. There were three of them, and a church 
 used as such; in one there were once 400 prisoners: in
 
 204 THE REAL FRENCH REVOLUTIONIST en. 
 
 another nearly 250, including women, and children of 
 four and even two years of age. 
 
 Too much reliance must not be placed on these figures. 
 fur the prison registers were most imperfectly kept: how 
 imperfectly, appeared in evidence. On one occasion some 
 prisoners escaped. The gaoleress was arrested. With 
 difficulty she escaped death; all the more so, as she 
 was asked to account for forty prisoners inscribed on 
 the register, about whose fate nothing could ever be 
 ascertained. 
 
 And the mortality was frightful. In six months 1G99 
 deaths were declared at the Mairie. 
 
 The Military Commission aided disease to the best of 
 its capacity in emptying the prisons, having recourse, 
 as time went on, to executions en masse. 
 
 On 24th December the church of Nantilly was full 
 of prisoners. The Military Commission sent one of its 
 members, Eoussel, " to empty it." 
 
 He went, took down their names, interrogated them : 
 and apparently, with compunction as to the youth of 
 some, separated all under eighteen years, and had them 
 confined in the choir. 
 
 That evening 70 were shot at Asnieres : and, two 
 days later. 75 more. 
 
 On the 26th December the Military Commission went 
 tu the prison, interrogated, convicted all, except those 
 under eighteen ; and the same evening 235 were, on 
 the pretence of a walk, taken by a detachment of o00 
 men to a held near Munet, where they were shut — all 
 except two, who actually escaped in the falling shades of 
 night. 
 
 The youths and children had been spared. Were the 
 era I a sT/is-culutte-i relenting; losing some iota of their 
 savagery? About a month after, in the beuinnnm of
 
 xiv EXTERMINATION 205 
 
 February, 112 prisoners were taken from the prison of 
 Xantilly in carts to Parnay, and there shot. 
 
 " Among the number," deposed the gaoler Poitou, 
 '• were 50 children and youths from twelve to eighteen 
 years of age, the greater number from twelve to fifteen, who 
 had been excepted from the first fusillade at Bournan." 
 
 These children cried comme des malheureux, and asked 
 to be allowed to serve the Republic, but, just the same 
 as the others, they were shot ; the members of the Mili- 
 tary Commission being present, as they usually, if not 
 invariably, were, to see their sentences carried out. One 
 wonders of what stuff these men were made, to go on 
 witnessing day after day the wholesale slaughter of men, 
 women, and children, whose deaths they had themselves 
 decreed without the semblance of evidence. 
 
 Saumur, in fact, presented on a small scale one more 
 illustration of the ways of the vrai sans-culotte — of the 
 methods and principles of revolutionary " justice " — of 
 the freedom and justice guaranteed to men under the 
 new regime of "liberty, equality, and fraternity." 
 
 Revolutionary atrocities were not confined to the east 
 and north-east of the A'endee. 
 
 Away in the south-west, at Fontenay, another Repre- 
 sentative, Lequinio, was ruling revolutionarily. On the 
 first night of his arrival at Fontenay, 9th December 179-'), 
 he appeared before the popular society there, and read 
 it some chapters of his book against the existence of a 
 ►Supreme Being, of a Divine Providence, and of a life to 
 come. The next day an incident occurred which pre- 
 sented him in a less harmless light than reading out his 
 own absurdities. 
 
 Some of the prisoners abused the wife of the gaoler 
 on account of their ill-treatment. One of them caught 
 her by the throat. She shrieked. The guard rushed in
 
 20G THE REAL FRENCH REVOLUTIONIST ch. 
 
 and killed the prisoner. Lequinio was banqueting with 
 the popular society, in the " Temple of Reunion/' formerly 
 the church of Notre Dame. He was informed of the 
 revolt in the prison. Furious at being disturbed in the 
 middle of his repast, he ordered the alarm to be sounded ; 
 had the prison surrounded: and. having sent in a guard 
 and made all safe, went in himself, blew out the brains 
 of the first man he saw, made his officer kill another, and 
 then returned to the society to glorify his firmness, and 
 to receive its applause. The next day he established a 
 Military Commission, which promptly set to work, con- 
 demning women as well as men. 
 
 On the 15th December Fontenay got a fright, that 
 the Vendeans were advancing to attack it. 
 
 Lequinio, who was at Rochefort at the moment, was 
 at once informed. He sent a reinforcement of troops, 
 and at the same time an order to shoot all the prisoners 
 at Fontenay, several hundreds in number, without form 
 of trial, if the enemy appeared before the walls. 
 
 His letter, informing the Committee of Public Safety 
 of his action, was read before the Convention on the 
 19th December: — 
 
 "' I must tell you that, without such measures, you 
 will never finish the Vendean war. It is the abominable 
 moderation of the administrators which has created the 
 Vendee. It is the moderation of the administrators and 
 generals which continued it. I have said everywhere 
 that no prisoners should be made: and, if I say it. I wish 
 that similar measures were adopted in all our armies. . . . 
 As to the Vendee, that is indispensable if you wish to 
 be done with it." 
 
 The local authorities, not so bloody-minded as the 
 Representatives, sent the prisoners off to Niort, and so 
 evaded the fulfilment of this horrible order.
 
 xiv EXTERMINATION 207 
 
 The Military Commission he ordered to dispense with 
 ordinary formalities, and prohibited them paying any 
 regard to representations made to them in favour of any 
 prisoner. Within a few months it sentenced about 200 
 persons to death, mostly simple peasants. 
 
 Here, as in other places, it was the people (in whose 
 favour the Revolution was made) who furnished to the 
 scaffolds the great mass of victims. 
 
 Not content with the ordinary methods of slaughter- 
 ing the Yendeans, the republicans were devising new 
 ones. 
 
 A somewhat common one was to shoot their prisoners 
 while escorting them from one prison to another. 
 
 The massacre at Ponts-cle-Ce has already been de- 
 scribed. 
 
 On the 2nd December some TOO prisoners — mostly 
 Yendeans — who were being transferred from Saumur to 
 Orleans by order of the Representative of the people, 
 Levasseur (de la Sarthe), arrived at Chinon. They had 
 as escort a company of infantry and some dragoons 
 under the command of " Le Petit," aged eighteen, the 
 president of the Revolutionary Committee at Saumur. 
 
 The next morning, at five o'clock, they were conducted 
 out of the town, as if to continue their journey. On a 
 signal from Le Petit, a general volley carried death into 
 their ranks. More than 200, among whom were women 
 and children, were stretched on the earth, dead, or 
 writhing in the last convulsions of agony. 
 
 The wounded were then finished off. The remainder 
 were collected, and marched on ; many of them only to 
 suffer death in a similar manner farther on. 
 
 The prisoners had never even been tried, and Le 
 Petit's excuse was that he had orders from Levasseur to 
 shoot them all.
 
 208 THE EEAL FRENCH REVOLUTIONIST en. 
 
 Convoys of prisoners melted away, being shot on 
 the road. 
 
 " Woe to those who couldn't walk.' writes Benaben. 
 •' On the pretext of there being no vehicles to convey 
 t hem, they wore shot." 
 
 A convoy of seventy-two prisoners was sent to Nantes 
 from Ancenis, of whom only four arrived at their 
 destination. One of the escort said : " They were 
 shot in parties every now and then," and the excuse 
 given was that they had attempted revolt. The 
 removal of prisoners was, in fact, a sort of human 
 paper - chase, the course being tracked by bleeding 
 corpses. 
 
 It really did not matter very much. It was only a 
 question of a very little sooner, or a very little later, for 
 if they reached their destination their fate was equally 
 certain. 
 
 In addition to the unfortunates who thus were being 
 done to death by one means or the other, north, west. 
 south, and east, there were those who died in the prisons. 
 Anything approaching complete reccords are not avail- 
 able, but from isolated records one can get an idea of 
 what the general state of things must have been. The 
 number who died in Saumur prisons has already been 
 mentioned. 
 
 At I)oue. in one month (December 1793), 1 34 persons 
 died in the prison. 
 
 At Montreuil in Anjou, where a lot of women were 
 confined in the Chateau, typhus broke out, and over 200 
 died — died at the rate of 20 to 3 a day. 
 
 And these were but two prisons of the great number 
 which existed. 
 
 And so, over the whole scene of the Venclean struggle 
 during these winter months, Representatives and IJevolu-
 
 xiv EXTERMINATION 209 
 
 tionary Committees and popular societies were filling the 
 prisons, Revolutionary Tribunals and Military Commis- 
 sions were hard at work emptying- them — meting out 
 death to the unfortunate persons brought before them, — 
 innocent and guilty alike. 
 
 And from the sandhill top at Sables to the Place du 
 Ralliement at Angers ; and from Granville and Renues 
 in the north to Fontenay and La Rochelle in the south ; 
 the blade of the guillotine was rising and falling with 
 awful frequency ; and day after day musket-volleys were 
 ringing out their messages of death ; and all men were 
 being shown what " fraternity," according to the idea 
 of the brave republican, really was, — not fraternity, as 
 he with lying lips asseverated, but the very antithesis of 
 it — " fratricide."
 
 CHAPTEE XA T 
 
 THE TERROR AT ANGERS 
 
 In the history of the iniquities and tyrannies of the 
 great French Revolution, Nantes has occupied a most 
 conspicuous place. 
 
 But there was another town also involved in the 
 Vendean revolt which was the scene of revolutionary 
 brutalities rivalling those of Xantes, a town where, 
 during this awful period, demonstration was also given 
 of how the Revolution worked out in actual practice, 
 and where the real character of the true republican and 
 rrai sans-culotte, from the highest State official down- 
 wards, was revealed in all its hideousness and impulsive- 
 ness. 
 
 This was Angers, the capital of the old province of 
 Anjou, one of the oldest fortresses of France, still 
 surrounded by high walls, with gateways and towers, and 
 commanded by the ancient, grim-looking, and formidable 
 Chateau. " Black Angers" was it called, from its 
 narrow ami gloomy labyrinthine streets, and from the 
 dark hue of the high and centuries-old houses, with 
 their overshadowing style of architecture; a town 
 crowded with churches, and convents, and public build- 
 ings, and cemeteries : a veritable relic of the dark' ages.
 
 ch.xv THE TERROR AT AXGERS 211 
 
 And now, in the guise of liberty and fraternity, the 
 dark ages had come back to it again, with all their 
 horrors of tyranny, and intolerance, and religious perse- 
 cution multiplied a hundredfold. 
 
 It was an important town, situate on a river, doing a 
 good trade, and many of the inhabitants were wealthy, 
 which was a temptation to revolutionary cupidity. 
 
 Here, as has been already described, by the end of 
 October, all the preparations had been made for the free 
 working of revolutionary ideas, for the full play of 
 revolutionary government. 
 
 The epoch of " liberty, equality, and fraternity " 
 had some little while back dawned on the town ; now 
 its inhabitants were about to revel in the full noon-tide 
 splendour of those glorious principles as interpreted by 
 the vrai ri-puhlicain, the true sans-culotte. 
 
 Here, with nobody to gainsay them, no public 
 opinion to check them, the revolutionists had it all their 
 own way, and were to give another illustration to the 
 world of their true character, another realistic portrait 
 of those most repulsive individuals. 
 
 No heed whatever had been paid by the Government 
 in Paris to the protest of the electors against the de- 
 moralising rule of the Representatives, except that two 
 of the Representatives then ruling despotically there had 
 been recalled, in October, and two worse despots sent — 
 Hentz and Francastel. 
 
 Had and tyrannical as Choudieu had been, Francastel 
 was worse — was in fact one of the very worst of those 
 tyrants which the era of " liberty " bad given to the 
 people of France — a cold-blooded, cautious scoundrel of 
 the cruellest type — a merciless despot. 
 
 Nature does not always associate a brutal exterior 
 with an infamous character. Francastel "was a o-entle-
 
 212 THE REAL FRENCH REVOLUTIONIST ch. 
 
 man. His exquisite elegance and the beauty of his face 
 formed a singular contrast with the cynicism of his acts 
 and words." He dressed the pari of a revolutionist 
 verv accurately, as he wore constantly the three-cornered 
 hat, embroidered coat, the tricolour sash, and short 
 breeches, with varnished top-boots. But neither features 
 nor dross could cover the depths of wickedness that 
 tilled his whole nature. He was cooler-headed than 
 must of the conspicuous figures on the revolutionary 
 stage, and was ever careful to avoid giving any 
 written orders, or leaving any written proof of his 
 actions as regarded the brigands. "He ordered us to 
 burn all these monuments (or records) of death," said 
 one of his instruments. Enough, however, remains to 
 enable us to realise his real character. 
 
 '• As for me." he wrote in one of his letters, " pene- 
 trated with the sense of duties imposed by true justice 
 and the welfare of the people, I will always fulfil my 
 mission with the same inflexibility. The A^endee shall 
 be depopulated, but the Republic shall be avenged and 
 tranquil. Let Terror not cease to be the order of the 
 day, and all will go well." 
 
 And on the 2Gth of Xovembor he wrote to the 
 Committee of Public Safety: "Lire and steel have not 
 yet been sufficiently employed in this cursed country, 
 in spite of reiterated orders. Continually prisoners are 
 sent us and more prisoners." {On nous enroie conti- 
 nudle me nt des i>~/'isonn~ters et tovjowrs des pi'isonniers.} 
 
 Mercilessness and ruthless severity were prominent 
 features in his character. 
 
 " Xot even a child in the cradle should lie spared," 
 In- is reported to have said. 
 
 And so, with an irresponsible bloodthirsty despot of 
 Ibis type in supreme authority in the town: with the
 
 xv THE TERROR AT ANGERS 21:3 
 
 gates closed to all except those who could obtain a 
 revolutionary passport ; with a Revolutionary Committee 
 and two Military Commissions in keen working order ; 
 and with a guillotine erected in permanence in the Place 
 du Ralliement, the preparations were all complete for 
 the administration of revolutionary justice, and the 
 population was given full assurances for their enjoyment 
 of the blessings of liberty, equality, and fraternity which 
 the Revolution was supposed to have brought. 
 
 Just as at Nantes the Revolutionary Committee was 
 made up of a gang of infamous wretches, so here was 
 the Committee composed of men of the most infamous 
 character. 
 
 With the sacred names of liberty, equality, and 
 fraternity on their lips, they gave themselves over to 
 every form of atrocity. Though professing to do every- 
 thing for the Republic, they did everything for them- 
 selves. They stole, they plundered the public funds, 
 they levied money illegally, they appropriated everything 
 they wanted, they lived on the proceeds of pillage. 
 They abused their power to debauch girls and women 
 in prison. They revelled in drunken orgies. And to 
 do this they waded through rivers of blood, the blood 
 of their own countrymen and countrywomen, even the 
 blond of children, setting every principle of justice and 
 humanity at naught, and perpetrating such crimes that 
 posterity could not credit the facts were they not 
 vouched for by ample evidence. 
 
 The Revolutionary Committee had throughout the 
 summer been in a state of feverish energy, filling their 
 days with ordering or superintending domiciliary visits, 
 and arrests, and imprisonments, and sending victims to 
 the Military Commissions to be formally sentenced to 
 death — and executed : and spending their nights in
 
 214 THE REAL FRENCH REVOLUTIONIST ch. 
 
 drunken orgies and debauches. They were, so to speak, 
 let loose on society, and were making the most of their 
 opportunity. " A single suspicion, a single verbal 
 denunciation was sufficiently powerful motive for our 
 arrests," they themselves wrote. 
 
 The religious persecution in Angers had been un- 
 ceasing in its activity and virulence. Under the active 
 instigation, first of Choudieu, and then of Francastel, 
 who was a revolutionary inquisitor, the anti- religious 
 mania was given full swing. 
 
 The proceedings in the Convention on the 7th 
 November 1793 added fresh impetus to the persecution, 
 and religious persecution ran riot. In this enlightened 
 era, with its boasted " liberty of opinion " and " freedom 
 of worship," there was neither one nor the other, only 
 very much the reverse. Priest-hunting had been carried 
 on unintermittently, and still afforded good results. To 
 have been at the celebration of the mass by an unsworn 
 priest was a crime punished by death; to have taken 
 part in a religious procession, even a year before, was 
 a crime punished by death ; to be found in posses- 
 sion of any religious emblem was a crime punished by 
 death. 
 
 The anti-religious fury vented itself even on inani- 
 mate objects. The monuments in the churches, the 
 sepulchres, inscriptions, marbles, the altars, everything 
 destroyable was destroyed, and everything portable was 
 carried away: even members of the Committee helped 
 in the destruction, and one of the members of one of 
 the Military Commissions cut some of the pictures to 
 pieces with his sabre. The buildings themselves were 
 turned into prisons, or stables, or to any sort of secular 
 purpose, all except the cathedral, which was converted 
 into a Temple of Reason that new and enlightened
 
 xv THE TERROR AT ANGERS 215 
 
 worship which was to succeed the low and degrading 
 superstitions of Christianity. 
 
 It might he thought that the revolutionist would 
 have had enough of the real thing to prevent him 
 hungering after the counterfeit presentment. But this 
 would 1)0 a misappreciation of the revolutionary char- 
 acter, for at the theatre at Angers a piece was acted 
 called ( ' The capture of Cholet, or the destruction of the 
 brigands of the Vendee." The Revolutionary Committee 
 — whose permission for its performance had of course to 
 he obtained — blessed it as " a piece which breathed the 
 purest patriotism/' 
 
 The hero — a vrai sans-culotte — declaimed sentiments 
 in accord with the revolutionary feelings of the moment. 
 " I fear not death," he said, " but I pray I may lie 
 spared till I have exterminated the last of the tyrants, 
 and their odious satellites. Kings I detest. Priests — 
 the mere name infuriates me — I abhor. Nobles I 
 despise": and then lie burst into song: "Let us strike, 
 till their vile blood streams under our blows." And 
 then, as if there were not enough death and destruction 
 going on outside, there was a stage tight between the 
 republicans and the Vendeans, the hero with his sword 
 hewing daylight through the latter, capturing cardboard 
 castles, and finally planting the tricolour on the highest 
 tower. And the Jacobins, and soldiers, and public 
 functionaries loudly applauded, and betook themselves 
 to their homes with fresh zest to participate the next 
 day in the real business, the fusillades or guillotinings 
 nt' their unfortunate fellow-countrymen. 
 
 The repulse of the Vendeans in their attack on the 
 town on the 3rd and 4th December, and their crushing 
 del'eats at Le Mans, Laval, and Ancenis, brought thousands 
 of them within the reach of the arm of revolutionary
 
 21G THE REAL FRENCH REVOLUTIONIST ch. 
 
 justice, and quickly the prisons of Angers, and several 
 churches and other large buildings converted into prisons, 
 were filled to suffocation with them. Here they under- 
 went all the miseries, all the cruelties which imprison- 
 ment at this time entailed. 
 
 But it was not merely the Yendeans who were seized 
 on by the revolutionists ; all those who had, or were 
 suspected of having, given the Yendeans any help, or 
 food, or shelter during their wanderings on the north 
 side of the Loire, were also treated as enemies of the 
 Republic. And prisoners were brought in " in batches 
 of 50 or 100 without any proch-terhavx — without any 
 denunciations, without even a list of their names." 
 
 Francastel rose to the occasion. He wrote to Felix, 
 the president of the Military Commission : — 
 
 '•' Your presence here becomes very necessary. Every 
 place is crammed. A sort of policy (une sorte de police) 
 sends this herd to our prisons. The time will come to 
 judge them all. Indulgence, forgiveness for the past, 
 compassion, tenderness, all these beautiful names only 
 cover weakness, moderation, and perfidy. You know 
 that a herd of several hundred women were taken at 
 Mans. They are amazons, royalist paladines, concubines 
 of priests, cles dames en pelisse, etc. "Well, all that 
 inspires interest. To whom ? To the revolutionists ; 
 to the members of a Military Commission. Come here 
 — I count on you — I know your principles; your 
 republican inflexibility, your unshakable intention to 
 purge theVendean generation, to bleed it till it is white''' 
 (scngner a hlo.nc). 
 
 And Felix came, and hundreds wore promptly haled 
 before his Military Commission — the proceedings of 
 which were like all the other Military Commissions in 
 that part of the country, "a profanation of justice."
 
 xv THE TERROR AT ANGERS 217 
 
 Legally, the majority of the prisoners should have 
 been tried before the criminal tribunal, but it was the 
 privilege of the Representatives to ignore all laws. 
 
 Even Felix and his commission could not keep pace 
 with the work expected from it, and so another was 
 appointed, with Proust as president, and Vacheron and 
 Morin, two awful scoundrels, among the members. 
 
 So great was the press of work that the judgments 
 were noted in the registries of the court with a single 
 letter — " E " to fusillade or shoot, " G " to guillotine, 
 and an " X " to detain. And so keen were the judges 
 to slaughter, that against many names the fatal letters 
 " G " and " E " were doubled — as if they wished to have 
 the unfortunate people guillotined or shot twice over. 
 
 One of the members of the Revolutionary Committee 
 declared that if it was necessary to note the particulars 
 of those who deserved death one would never be done. 
 " Let us rather than lengthen our work by writing, 
 shorten it by beheading." 
 
 Even yet, however, the procedure did not meet the 
 necessities of the case, and Erancastel ordered that the 
 members of the Commission should go to the prisons 
 and there interrogate and deal with the prisoners. 
 
 This was done : and the prisoners were interrogated 
 in batches, and condemned in batches, Vacheron and 
 Morin being conspicuous, and Hodoux and Lepetit also 
 aiding. And report says that the members of the 
 Military Commission outraged some of the women before 
 their execution. 
 
 What an exhibition of "justice" — a justice claiming 
 to be superior to all the world had yet seen or imagined, 
 revealed now to an ignorant humanity by the gospel of 
 Revolution. 
 
 Glance at it as depicted by those who saw it. A
 
 218 THE REAL FRENCH REVOLUTIONIST ch. 
 
 large chamber or corridor in one of the temporary 
 prisons, crowded with prisoners steeped in misery and 
 physical suffering — men, women, and even children, 
 many scarcely alive. 
 
 " Your name," says a judge to one, " Your name, 
 and yours, and yours — " 
 
 Possibly in a few cases a question or two in addition 
 was asked, but there was no attempt at taking evidence, 
 for there was no one to give it. There was no attempt 
 at identification even. They were there in prison ; that 
 was evidence enough ; they were guilty. 
 
 And then turning to the lot of them, he says: "You 
 have been interrogated. You are all convicted of having 
 conspired against the sovereignty of the Trench people. 
 The Commission, in the name of the law, condemns you 
 to the penalty of death. The sentence will be immedi- 
 ately carried out." 
 
 In a way worse even than tins, a large number were 
 never interrogated at all — being sick — their names were 
 simply put on the list at the caprice of one man, some- 
 times of a drunken man, and in many cases mistakes 
 were made, and persons were executed for others. 
 
 Even this very cursory procedure was sometimes 
 waived. 
 
 Hundreds of those taken prisoners were sent to exe- 
 cution on the mere direction of Francastel, without any 
 interrogatory or form of trial. There is no vestige of 
 evidence anywhere that they were brought before a 
 military court-martial first, as directed by the law of 
 10th March. On the contrary, at Vial's trial it was 
 stated in evidence that '' prisoners were sometimes taken 
 to Francastel, and on coming out of bis house were led 
 away 100 yards or so and shot." They were con- 
 veniently regarded as Jmrs In Jul -outlaws — and batches
 
 xv THE TERROR AT ANGERS 219 
 
 of them were put to death on the edge of the river in 
 the centre of the town, within half a gunshot of the 
 street where Franeastel resided : even women and children 
 were there butchered, whose cries in the silence of the 
 night struck terror into the hearts of the inhabitants. 
 
 Daily the guillotine ended the lives of numerous 
 priests or royalists or other victims of the better class — 
 men and women alike. And every ingenuity was exer- 
 cised to add insult and ignominy to the sufferings of 
 the victims. 
 
 Death by decapitation was reserved for persons of a 
 higher position, as being more humiliating than death 
 by shooting. A letter, dated 1st January 1794, from the 
 Mayor and municipality of Angers to the Mayor of Paris 
 ran thus : " Our holy mother guillotine works. Within 
 three days she has shaved eleven priests, one former nun, 
 a general, and a superb Englishman, six 1'eet high, whose 
 head was de trop. It is in the sack to-day." 
 
 Victim after victim of revolutionary intolerance — 
 of revolutionary tyranny — ascended the fatal steps, 105, 
 it is said, on one day, the 12th January 1794; the 
 drums rolled to prevent their final words or cries being 
 heard, and the blade fell. And the Abbe Gruget, who 
 was in concealment in a house which commanded a 
 partial view of the scaffold, has recorded how he heard 
 the cries, or rather the howls, which burst forth as each 
 head fell, and how he saw hats waved in the air to 
 the cherished cry of "Vive la Republique!" in sign of 
 approbation. 
 
 The members of the Military Commission, not con- 
 tent with sentencing hundreds to death, seldom deprived 
 themselves of the pleasure of witnessing the execution 
 of their sentences. They had a room in a house near 
 where the guillotine was so near that the victims
 
 220 Till-; REAL FRENCH REVOLUTIONIST ch. 
 
 could hear their jukes unci buffooneries — with a window 
 whence between the mid-day dinner and the coffee and 
 liqueur which followed it they could lick their lips 
 (lecher d.v. rcyard) at the sight of the blood of their 
 victims. 
 
 Report has it that noyading, or execution by drown- 
 ing, was also had recourse to. 
 
 Carrier said, later, there had been noyades at Angers, 
 and a letter from the Revolutionary Committee at Angers 
 — who would have known for a certainty — supports his 
 statement. Writing to Francastel as to the disposal of 
 sixty priests, the Committee asked, " Shall we send 
 them to Nantes \ Shall we give them over to the 
 Military Commission ? Shall we have them shot at a 
 coiner of a wood \ or shall we embark them on the 
 Mayenne (the river which runs through Angers; to make 
 them fish for coral opposite la Baumette ? Speak, 
 citizen, and whatever may be your decision, you may be 
 sure it will be punctually carried out." 
 
 The reasons given, or rather the excuses mad',', by 
 the Military Commission for sentencing to death were 
 remarkable. Some persons were sentenced for being 
 "enraged fanatics,"' others for being "real pests," for 
 being "gossips," for having "dangerous tongues." one for 
 being "an old scoundrel who would not take the oath," 
 one, an old woman, "an aristocrat, not liking anyone, 
 accustomed to live alone," one for being "a fanatical 
 beast, 3 one a fanatique en diable. Property was of 
 course a crime. One, Leclerc by name, possessed 40,000 
 franc--: "eyoiste pur consequent''- and therefore must die. 
 
 A priest, •'. Moreau, was asked if lie "had seen the 
 famous miracle of the resurrection of the brigands." lie 
 replied, " No. Those who have been killed have no 
 wisli to come to life a^ain for fear that the same fate
 
 xv THE TERROR AT AXGERS 221 
 
 might again befall them," — and he was sentenced to 
 death ; but he would have been any way, so it was not 
 his answer which doomed him. 
 
 The criminal tribunal was but little better, for it 
 sentenced to deatli a man who, by his position, had 
 obtained the release (from the Yendeans) of several 
 prisoners — ■ " patriots " presumably — on a charge of 
 having communicated with the rebels. 
 
 Neither age nor sex was considered by the revolu- 
 tionary judges. One old man of eighty - four was 
 guillotined, and, on 19th January 179-4, among the 
 list of persons sentenced to death by the Military Com- 
 mission, are recorded the names " Fenime Meunier and 
 her six little children." 
 
 And whilst on the side of the judges and the 
 Revolutionary Committee and of the Republican Govern- 
 ment of France there were thus these appalling cases of 
 brutal injustice and cruelty, on the side of the un- 
 fortunate and wronged victims there was a display of 
 magnificent heroism. 
 
 People of the very humblest class, as well as those of 
 the higher classes — men, women, and children — all, in 
 this dark hour of trial, acquitted themselves with 
 splendid fortitude, with an heroic courage. Some 
 members of religious societies, by their answers, con- 
 demned themselves. "With the fearless spirit of true 
 martyrdom, they scorned equivocation or lies ; " would 
 rather die than take the oath, being convinced that 
 their conscience would be compromised"; and they died. 
 
 Their conduct drew admiration from even the 
 Revolutionary Committee of Angers. In March 1794 
 it testified, " Our nobles go to death with firmness 
 (caracUre), and our charlatans of priests piously and in 
 sacerdotal dress."
 
 222 THE HEAL FRENCH REVOLUTIONIST ch. 
 
 But thf number of those guillotined was small as 
 compared with those who were shot. 
 
 The narratives of the butchery and slaughterings of 
 these unfortunates are somewhat confused. But it is 
 absolutely clear that thousands perished at Angers and 
 at the Ponts-de-Ce by fusillades. Of that there is no 
 shadow of doubt. 
 
 This latter place was sonic two and a half miles from 
 Angers, and was a village composed of the houses on 
 and on both sides of the series of bridges which here, 
 from island to island, crossed the Loire. 
 
 Here on the 27th, 28th ; and 29th December about 
 S00 prisoners were fusilladed on the Prairie de Saint 
 Genmies, a great open space near the river, the majority 
 being men who, trusting to the lying promises of the 
 vrais rfyuhlicains that no harm would be done to them if 
 they surrendered and laid down their arms, had sur- 
 rendered, but who now were murdered, by order of 
 Franeastel, tire Representative, without trial or legal 
 process of any kind. 
 
 On the following days further fusillades took place, 
 bringing the number up to about 1500 ; and, on the 
 1 2th January, another lot of .'300 were put to death 
 here. They were made to kneel with their faces 
 towards the Loire, and were shot in the back. Two 
 members of the Pevolutionary Committee (of whom 
 Vacheron, a Parisian volunteer, was one) were present, 
 and even actors, killing with sabre or bayonet ; and 
 Vacheron, the secretary to the Representatives, and their 
 house manager or butler, used to make himself con- 
 spicuous by a ferocious joy ami by Ids barbarous songs. 
 The dead or dying were not even buried, but flung 
 naked into the Loire, a process described by one of the 
 republican generals as "sending them to Nantes by
 
 xv THE TEBEOE AT AXGERS 223 
 
 water," their clothes being torn from their bodies and 
 taken back to Angers and sold. 
 
 It was not, however, alone at the Prairie de Saint 
 Gemmes that the fusillades took place. A larger number 
 of victims of revolutionary injustice and fury were 
 slaughtered in the park of the priory of La Haie, a wild 
 and secluded spot some little distance out of Angers, 
 stretches of rough grass land surrounded by trees and 
 tangled undergrowth of wood. 
 
 The actual fusillades or shootings are almost too 
 horrible for description, but the unpleasant task must 
 be gone through, as the proceeding throws a flood of 
 light on the French revolutionist as he really was. 
 
 The victims who had been sentenced in such unjust, 
 off-hand, and callous manner by the members of the 
 Military Commission were bound together in couples in 
 the respective prisons, and then led to a central meeting- 
 place in the town. 
 
 Here they were formed into one long procession ; 
 and then, through the dark and gloomy streets of 
 Angers, they took their final way. 
 
 What a sight for humanity to gaze at, humanity to 
 shudder at. 
 
 "Watch them as they pass. 
 
 The military band playing patriotic airs leads the 
 way. And then, proud with the importance of office, 
 the commandant of Angers and the members of the 
 Military Commission, gorgeous in uniform and with 
 tricolour cockade. 
 
 And then the long chain of prisoners — sometimes 
 100, sometimes over 400 in number — bound together in 
 twos and twos, with soldiers on their right and on their 
 left to prevent their escape, and presently to do them to 
 death.
 
 224 THE HEAL FRENCH REVOLUTIONIST ch. 
 
 And tin' prisoners — infamous criminals, according to 
 la justice rh'nhi.tionnctire, but, in reality, unfortunate. 
 miserable, wronged, mostly innocent victims of revolu- 
 tionary tyranny and injustice. They, in twos and twos, 
 worn and haggard from privation and suffering, heart- 
 broken in appearance and fact, half-starved, and many 
 smitten with mortal disease, walk with staggering, falter- 
 ing steps to their unjust, their iniquitous doom : some 
 in dazed and silent agony, some in prayer, some in the 
 triumph of martyrdom singing a hymn. 
 
 Usually the majority were women, the greater part 
 of them poor Vendeans whose greatest crime had been 
 that rather than face the brutalities of the republican 
 troops and vrais sans-cv.lottes in the Vendee, they had 
 bravely followed their lighting relatives, and shared 
 their sufferings in the disastrous Vendean campaign on 
 the north side of the Loire ; or women whose unpardon- 
 able crime had been that, unable to stifle the feelings of 
 humanity, they had given food or help to their starving 
 and perishing fellow-countrymen and women, or who 
 were suspected of having done this thing. 
 
 Immediately behind the prisoners were some carts 
 carrying those of the condemned whose age, weakness, or 
 infirmities prevented walking ; or those who fainted by 
 the way, and who were picked up and pitched into 
 them any way. And then more soldiers closed the 
 procession. 
 
 Down the steep street they come, past the Chateau, 
 across the bridge, then up the rough ascent to the old 
 gateway, out through it along the " Chemin cle Silence," 
 on to the Pare de la Haie, where the last scene was to 
 lie enacted. 
 
 No spectator dare show the slightest sign of sympathy 
 as the sad procession passed along. One woman, one
 
 xv THE TEEEOE AT ANGEKS 225 
 
 day, unable to repress a cry of indignation at the sight 
 of the unfortunates piled anyhow in heaps in the carts, 
 was seized on the spot, was fastened on to the "chain," 
 and led off with the others to share their fate. 
 
 The procession entered the park ; an immense ditch 
 was there yawning to receive them. Placed in a row on 
 the edge of the ditch, they awaited death with that 
 fortitude which their faith gave them. The dread 
 signal was given, the drums rolled, but loud above the 
 drums rang out the death-dealing shots. The bullets 
 missed some. Then the soldiers hurled themselves 
 sword in hand on the survivors, and finished them off 
 with sabrings, and bayonetings, and blows from the 
 butt-ends of their guns, trampling with fury upon their 
 miserable victims, wallowing, as it were, in blood and 
 slaughter. 
 
 And then, when the last has been done to death, and 
 the butchery was over, the blood-stained clothes were 
 torn from, the bodies and carried ostentatiously back by 
 the uniformed executioners to town, where they were 
 sold. Sometimes, like the tricotcuscs in Paris, the 
 dealers, allured by the prospects of gain, waited actually 
 on the scene of the slaughter for the sale of the clothes 
 of the victims whose end they witnessed. 
 
 And while these appalling scenes were going on — 
 the sounds of the shots reaching the ears of those still 
 left in prison — republican fetes were being constantly 
 held to inspire the people with the beauties of republican 
 principles, to lead them into the paths of liberty and 
 enlightenment, and to prove to them that the new 
 Eepublic was an arcadia of peace, innocence, pure enjoy- 
 ment, and freedom. 
 
 A fete of childhood, with its procession of children ; 
 a fete of old age. with its procession of aged people; 
 
 Q
 
 220 THE UEAL FRENCH REVOLUTIONIST ch. 
 
 fetes of agriculture ; fetes of industry. On one day, the 
 dectnlt, the revolutionary Sabbath, a republican pro- 
 cession to the Temple of Reason, where patriotic 
 discourses were delivered, followed by a civic banquet 
 and public games. And on the other days of the 
 revolutionists' week processions of helpless and innocent 
 women and children and old people along the Chemin de 
 Silence to the revolutionary shambles in the park, and to 
 eternal silence. 
 
 During one fearful month there were nine fusillades 
 on a large scale at the Pare de la Haie, and some two 
 thousand persons were butchered. 
 
 One special feature of horror attaches to these 
 fusillades at Angers, placing them in atrocity alongside, 
 if not above, even the crimes at Nantes, and that was 
 the dreadful fact that an enormous proportion of the 
 victims were women, though at Nantes, too, women were 
 massacred wholesale. 
 
 Of the 300 persons shot on the loth January, about 
 one-half were women. 
 
 Of the 408 shot or hacked to death on the 20th, 
 300 were women. 
 
 On the 22nd, when 88 were shot, all were women. 
 
 On the 1st February, of the 400 shot, about half 
 were women. 
 
 What a scene must have been presented that 20th 
 January in the Park, when 300 women were brutally 
 massacred. A long row of 300 helpless and feeble 
 women, bound hand in hand, trembling and half-dead 
 with fear, standing on the edge of a great ditch so soon 
 to be their grave, and opposite them a number of soldiers, 
 the representatives of the authority of the Republic of 
 France, (dad in tin.' full panoply of war, with muskets 
 loaded and bavonets fixed, waiting for the signal to
 
 xv THE TERROR AT ANGERS 227 
 
 slaughter these weak and defenceless victims. And then 
 the signal given, and then the bloody work. 
 
 A scene which should burn itself into the brain of 
 humanity by its inapproachable horror. 
 
 The infinite cruelty of it — these masses of armed men 
 who might have been serving their country to some 
 purpose on the frontiers instead of massacring helpless 
 French women at home. The infinite pathos of it — many 
 of these poor people absolute heroines and martyrs dying 
 for their faith as much as the martyrs in a Roman arena, 
 others whose only crime was that they followed their 
 husbands or brothers across the Loire to avoid the 
 brutalities of the revolutionary troops — their own 
 countrymen. And now, after the long sufferings and 
 privations, tiie agonies of weeks, this was their cruel doom. 
 
 How can such a stain ever be wiped from the 
 escutcheon of a nation ? 
 
 Immeasurable in cowardice, unfathomable in wicked- 
 ness, were these wholesale holocausts of women. The 
 first laws of humanity should have made the judges and 
 the executioners, and all concerned, recoil from this 
 dastardly inhuman work. But they did not. 
 
 Was the newly-founded Republic in such a critical 
 state or position that it was endangered by the existence 
 of these women 1 Were they all slaughtered out of 
 patriotic exasperation because some few of the Vendean 
 chiefs had asked England for help ? Justification there 
 can be none, but what explanation is there possible '. 
 
 Whatever explanation may be attempted, the fact 
 remains, and is beyond question. It was not even a 
 sudden outburst of passion 1))' people uncontrolled by the 
 Government. It was quite the contrary, for week after 
 week, with cold deliberation and with carefully organised 
 arrangement, the revolutionists, from the Representative
 
 22S THE REAL FRENCH REVOLUTIONIST oh. xv 
 
 Francastel down to the lowest sans-culotte official, pro- 
 ceeded in the perpetration of atrocities which would 
 have been a disgrace even to barbarism. 
 
 That they should have been persevered in so long 
 displays the innate brutality and cruelty of the French 
 revolutionist, of the vrcci sans-culotte. That they should 
 have been uninterfered with by the Government in Paris 
 — with whom the Representatives were in direct and 
 constant communication — incriminates the authorities 
 there also, the National Convention and the Committee 
 of Public Safety. 
 
 There is but one consolation to be derived from these 
 appalling iniquities. 
 
 Their occurrence gave to the world, for its informa- 
 tion and guidance, one more invaluable illustration, 
 one more example, of revolutionary '"justice" — in all its 
 stages of cruelty and unfairness, arrest, imprisonment, 
 trial, sentence, execution — revolutionary justice, not as 
 theorised about by philosophers, or idealised by enthusi- 
 astic republicans, but the actual thing as it worked out 
 in practice.
 
 CHATTER XVI 
 
 NOIKMOUTIE]; 
 
 In the far west of the Vendee lay Xoirmoutier, an island 
 when the tide was in, a promontory when the tide was 
 out, a wild and melancholy storm-swept., storm-beaten 
 place, lonesome even when husking in the summer sun, 
 hut desolate beyond description in the gloomy, stormy 
 days of winter. 
 
 A sort of idea existed among the Vendeans that as 
 there was a port there, although it was but a small one, 
 it might lie of use to them to obtain supplies from 
 England or Spain, and among the republicans there, was 
 a constant dread that it might be used as a base for a 
 landing by the English. And so it had been fought for 
 on more than one occasion. 
 
 Early in the year it had been taken by the Vendeans, 
 then captured from them by the republicans. In October 
 it had again been taken by the A'endeans under Charette, 
 and nearly 200 republicans shot, as reprisals for some of 
 the barbarities inflicted by the republicans on the A'en- 
 deans; some republican soldiers in the hospital even, it is 
 said, being massacred, so embittered were the; A'endeans. 
 Tut after the fearful atrocities already committed by the 
 republicans reprisals were only to lie expected.
 
 230 THE REAL FREXCH REVOLUTIONIST ch. 
 
 It had remained in the hands of the Vendeans until 
 the end of the year, although the Committee of Public 
 Safety had given the order on October 21 that it was 
 •" to be captured or sunk in the sea."' Hither for safety 
 sake had come many refugees, priests, and other victims 
 of revolutionary fury : hither had been brought the 
 Yendean commander-in-chief, d'Elbee, with chest ripped 
 to pieces by the fourteen wounds received at the battle 
 of (J ho let. 
 
 After the annihilation of the Vendeans on the north 
 side of the Loire, the republicans, anxious to complete 
 their triumph, determined to wrest this place from the 
 Vendeans. Plans were made accordingly, and Turreau, 
 the commander-in-chief, had come to be present at the 
 assault. Generals Haxo. Dutruy, and Jordy were in 
 charge of the actual operations, and three Representatives, 
 L. Turreau,. Prieur 'de la Marne), ami Bourbotte, were 
 there to supervise. 
 
 On the .'3rd January a combined attack by sea and 
 land was made, and after a somewhat feeble defence the 
 Yendean garrison surrendered. Far better it' they had 
 fought it out to the bitter end. for they could not have 
 fared worse. 
 
 A German hussar brought to the Representatives a 
 formal capitulation. The Representatives accepted it on 
 condition that the Vendeans piled their arms and sub- 
 mitted to ln-ing made prisoners. The Vendeans, who 
 ought by this time to have known their opponents 
 better, expressed their willingness to do so. There were 
 about 1 1 00. 
 
 On the approach of the republican troops, the royalist 
 oflicers presented themselves before tin 1 Representatives, 
 anil declared that the garrison submitted to the Republic, 
 and undeitoiik not to serve acrainst it if their lives were
 
 xvi NOIIiMOUTIEK 231 
 
 spared. Not until the white flag was hauled down 
 would the Representatives listen. When that was done, 
 they said, "We ought not, and we do not wish to come 
 to any terms with brigands. Let them all be put to the 
 sword." 
 
 The action of the Eepresentatives in accepting the 
 surrender implied acceptance of the terms on which it 
 was made ; but truth, honour, every moral obligation, 
 were as naught when the revolutionary cause was thought 
 to be served by setting them aside. 
 
 It was known that the Eepresentatives were very much 
 disposed towards massacre. Carrier, speaking at Xantes, 
 at the Society of Vincent la Montague, with reference to 
 the coming attack on the island, had said: " Every one there 
 must be exterminated — everything burned. Soldiers who 
 are truly republican ought never to allow themselves to 
 be moved by a false pity. Nothing more beautiful than 
 to be willing to sacrifice all human sentiments to national 
 vengeance." 
 
 His opinions were fully shared by his colleagues at 
 Noirmoutier. Their ideas of the beautiful coincided. 
 
 The Vendeans were made prisoners, and promptly 
 marched off to the church, and there imprisoned. 
 
 Those of the inhabitants of Noirmoutier who had 
 not to reproach themselves with having helped the 
 royalists, thought that they could present themselves 
 to the republican army as peaceable people, but they 
 were (prickly disillusioned, and were the first to become 
 the victims of the fury of the soldiery. In vain they 
 begged for mercy. To such appeal the republicans were 
 ever deaf. Without caring to distinguish the innocent 
 from the guilty, and as if they had entered a town taken 
 by assault, they indiscriminately put to death all the 
 men they found.
 
 S.'rl THE REAL FRENCH REVOLUTIONIST ch. 
 
 This portrait of one of the republican troopers who 
 took a prominent part in this slaughter— a brute named 
 Felix — is drawn by F. Piet, an eye-witness: — 
 
 "A sombre and farouche air, eyes of fire almost 
 hidden beneath heavy eyelashes, a swarthy complexion, 
 hard features, long red moustaches, a forehead furrowed 
 by debauch., which usually gave to his face a ferocious 
 aspect. Stained by the grossest of vices, keen for pillage, 
 he knew how, without emotion, to face dangers. A 
 butcher does not drive the knife into the throat of the 
 animal he kills with greater calm than Felix massacred 
 his fellow-creatures. This monster alone killed more 
 than twenty heads of families." 
 
 Once captured, the island was ransacked to find any 
 persons who might be concealed on it. 
 
 " After having encircled the island by the vessels of 
 our little fleet," wrote the Representatives to the Com- 
 mittee of Public Safety, " we searched it from one end 
 to the other, as one would do at a rabbit-hunt; and this 
 battue forced from the woods, even from caves and under- 
 ground places, a deluge of priests and wives of emigre's." 
 
 Among the captured, and to the intense joy of the 
 Representatives, was d'Elbee, the commander-in-chief of 
 the Vendeans, still hanging between life and death. 
 
 All of them, as well as the prisoners who had sur- 
 rendered, were doomed to death. 
 
 The decision is specially noteworthy as having been 
 shared in, if not actually imposed, by the Representative 
 1'rieur (cle la Marne), who was himself a member of the 
 Committee of Public Safety. It was decisive proof and 
 demonstration of the determination of the Revolutionary 
 Government to accept no surrender from the Vendeans 
 at large, and no stronger affirmation of the policy of 
 extermination could possibly be given than that a
 
 xvi NOIEMOUTIEE 2?,:\ 
 
 member of the Committee of Public Safety should him- 
 self in person give such an order. 
 
 A Military Commission of " men of the right temper " 
 was appointed on the spot by him and the two other 
 representatives " to administer prompt justice to all the 
 traitors." 
 
 It was purely a form, and the prisoners, some 1200 
 in number, were all promptly sentenced to death. 
 
 General Haxo, a general of the Mayencais, made a 
 valiant stand against this wholesale execution. " Repre- 
 sentatives," lie said, " we are soldiers, not executioners , 
 we do not know how to massacre our enemy when he is 
 unarmed." In vain he pleaded that the lives of men 
 who surrender at discretion ought to be as sacred as that 
 of the unfortunate who has been hurled on the shore by 
 the tempest. 
 
 His efforts were useless. The necessity was pointed 
 out to him of conforming to the decrees of the Conven- 
 tion, and of giving a great example to the enemies of the 
 Republic. The prisoners therefore must die. 
 
 " We had a two days' job of it " (j\\>vs en cumes four 
 deux jours), wrote a republican soldier, who was evidently 
 a participator in the slaughter. And a republican officer 
 has left a gruesome description of the horrible proceed- 
 ings : " [n the space of two days all the under officers 
 and soldiers succumbed to the murderous lead. They 
 were taken from the church in batches of sixty at a 
 time. They were conducted to the quartier of Banzeaux, 
 on the border of the sea. There, pushed along and often 
 wounded before receiving the mortal blow, they made 
 useless efforts to (/sea])!' it. Amidst the smoke of the 
 musketry they appeared as bloody shades — fallen to the 
 ground they were stripped and buried." 
 
 Before this horrid work was begun General Haxo
 
 234 THE REAL FRENCH REVOLUTIONIST ™. 
 
 had left with the greater part of his army to attack 
 an assembly of Yendeans somewhere on the mainland. 
 General Turreau also, for different motives, started by 
 sea for Xantes. 
 
 Specially instructive is the light thrown upon the 
 real character of these three Representatives by a revolu- 
 tionist. F. Piet, who, as aide-de-camp to General Dutruy, 
 was brought much in contact with them, and was an 
 eye-witness of the scenes he described. 
 
 Describing the Montagnards he says: :: It is easy to 
 set' that their delirc is that of a political fanaticism, of 
 which all the excesses are the same as those of religious 
 fanaticism. Their hearts were hardened, they struck 
 without remorse, knew no law but their own frenzy, and 
 looked on as a crime the defence of those whom they 
 named as enemies of the Republic; they were furious 
 with their own fury, and it seemed to them that death 
 was too light a punishment for their victims. 
 
 " Such were the three .Representatives — Bourbotte, 
 Prieur (de la Marne), and L. Turreau. Bourbotte pos- 
 sessed in an eminent degree the ( revolutionary energy.' 
 Prieur and Turreau were not so sanguinary as Bourbotte, 
 especially when not excited by drink, which they took 
 immoderately. Unceasingly they had on their lips the 
 words patrie, liberty, fraternity, which they used as talis- 
 mans to dazzle and inflame credulous minds. . . . Up to 
 this time they had no occasion to unveil Tor betray) to 
 me their real character. 1 was far from thinking that 
 they only preached certain social virtues the better to 
 command crime. Their title of mandataires of the 
 nation gave them great importance in my eyes." 
 
 Tie evidently, like many others then and since, had 
 al last to suffer disillusionment. 
 
 I'Klhee was too important a person to lie treated as
 
 xvi NOIRMOUTIEK 235 
 
 summarily as the ordinarily soldier. For two days, 
 whilst lying on his bed of suffering, he was interrogated 
 by the Representatives, and the commander-in-chief 
 Turreau, who were anxious to get from him all the 
 information they could before they closed his mouth for 
 ever. 
 
 How easily the whole trouble in the Vendee could 
 have been assuaged had the Revolutionary Government 
 been capable of taking a statesmanlike view of the position, 
 and of subduing within themselves their savage and 
 vindictive " possession " against the Veil deans, is apparent 
 from d'Elbee's statement. 
 
 Asked as to what means he could suggest for the 
 pacification of the Vendee, he is reported to have re- 
 plied : " A general amnesty — the refractory priests not 
 included ; but leaving the toleration of them to the 
 discretion of agents who should be employed to effect the 
 pacification. ... In each district there should be an 
 agent known and trusted by the rebels to work in concert 
 witli the local authorities." 
 
 He swore upon his honour that although lie desired 
 a monarchical government reduced to its proper degree 
 of authority, he would have lived as a peaceable citizen 
 under any form of government, provided it assured his 
 tranquillity and the free exercise, or, at least, the tolerance 
 of the religious faith he had always professed. 
 
 And then he said : " T am so little an enemy to the 
 republican system, that, if my execution is delayed until 
 this system is well on foot, and I am no longer required, 
 I offer to work under any surveillance." 
 
 And he named several districts which he could pacify. 
 
 But a conciliatory policy was not revolutionary, indeed 
 one may say that common sense was not revolutionary, 
 and his offer was declined.
 
 23U THE REAL FRENCH REVOLUTIONIST en. 
 
 His fate was inevitable, and he was sentenced to be 
 shot. And. doubtless, with the deliberate design of 
 adding to his grief, — for these revolutionary Representa- 
 tives were refined in their schemes for inflicting suffering, 
 — his friend de Boissy, and his brother-in-law Duhoux, 
 were to be shot with him. 
 
 The closing scenes are pathetic and dramatic to a 
 degree, but horrible in their exposure of the brutality and 
 reckless injustice of persons of such exalted positions as 
 the Representatives. 
 
 •■ The evening before, at a supper at which I was 
 present/' wrote Piet, " the Representatives were discussing 
 the military arrangements for the execution, when one of 
 them pretended to be annoyed that it was not a partic 
 van'ce, a ['arty of four. "'Eh. sac re Dieu," said Bourbotte, 
 "haven't we got the traitor Wieland ? " (Wit-land was 
 an officer of the Republic who had unsuccessfully defended 
 Xoirmoutier against the Vendeans in October — since 
 which time he had been residing there, a prisoner of the 
 Vendeans, on parole.) 
 
 No sooner suggested than agreed to. Wieland should 
 make the fourth : his death was decided on. 
 
 What an illustration of the secret ways of revolutionary 
 justice 
 
 The court of justice — a supper-table. The tribunal 
 — three drunken or semi-drunken Representatives. The 
 trial— no prisoner, no witnesses, nu proof, no evidence, no 
 opportunity given for explanation or exculpation, only a 
 sentence — death. 
 
 The Vehmgerieht or the Inquisition could not have 
 improved on this, could not even have equalled it. 
 
 A more shameful murder can scarcely ever have been 
 perpetrated in the name of authority. Even (: revolu- 
 tiunarv justice" could scarce! v go further than this.
 
 xvi NOIEMOUTIEE 2:; 7 
 
 The next day Wieland was .sent for, and for form's 
 sake was brought before the Military Commission. He 
 asked for a delay of twenty-four hours, but the Repre- 
 sentatives " ordered the Commission to send him to execu- 
 tion without listening to anything." 
 
 Forthwith is he led to execution with the others. In 
 vain he claimed the right, sacred in all nations, except 
 France, the right of being heard before his life was taken 
 from him ; but it was denied him. And in vain the 
 Yendean leaders — his companions in doom — exonerated 
 him from the charge of communicating with them. He 
 had been their enemy and not their friend, they said. 
 But the will of the Eepresentatives must take its course. 
 
 And so, that wild winter's afternoon, the last scene of 
 their lives was enacted. 
 
 D'Elbee, too ill to walk, was carried to the place of 
 execution in a chair. And then, just as the signal for 
 the fatal volley was about to be given, Madame d'Elbee, 
 the loving wife and faithful companion of all his dangers 
 and trials, in a transport of agony, rushed shrieking on 
 to the scene, " precisely under the windows where the 
 Representatives wen; feasting their eyes on the frightful 
 spectacle of their victims waiting to receive the death- 
 shot." 
 
 And the drums roll, and the volley rings out, and 
 there is a partie carree of bleeding corpses ; d'Elbee still 
 in lus chair, the others lying on the sand. 
 
 And the troops march off the ground as usual with 
 flying colours, and bands playing lively republican airs ; 
 and the representatives retire to refresh themselves after 
 their labours, and to contrive some new display of 
 revolutionary justice which shall equally redound to 
 their credit. 
 
 For was it not a great work satisfactorily* ac-
 
 2:38 THE REAL FRENCH REVOLUTIONIST ch. xvi 
 
 eomplished '. Noirmoutier captured : the Vendean 
 commander-in-chief finally got rid of; the "national 
 vengeance" executed on "the traitor Wieland"; and 
 down there in the sands, sonic little distance off, the 
 bodies of 1200 or more who would never again trouble 
 the Republic. 
 
 Once more, " ( s 'a va ! " " Ca ira ! " "Vive la Ri- 
 publique ! " " Vive la justice revolutionnaire ! "
 
 CHAPTER XVII 
 
 NOYADES AND FUSILLADES 
 
 If events at Angers were giving an illustration of how 
 the principles of " liberty, equality, and fraternity " really 
 worked out in actual practice under the newly-formed 
 Republic, Nantes was giving exactly a similar illustration, 
 only on a larger, and, in some ways, an accentuated scale. 
 
 Carrier had been ruling it with a fierce and cruel 
 despotism which was becoming ever more violent and 
 extreme as time went on. 
 
 He expressed himself to the Committee of Public 
 Safety as quite pleased with the progress made. 
 
 "You cannot form an idea," he wrote (about 12th 
 December), " of the rapid progress which the public spirit 
 has made here in the last three weeks. You would have 
 difficulty in believing that it is at the full height of the 
 Revolution — everywhere one only hears cries of the most 
 ardent civism — the tricolour iloats from every window — 
 everywhere are patriotic inscriptions — the old churches 
 become public establishments — everything announces the 
 death of fanaticism and of superstition, and the assured 
 triumph of patriotism." 
 
 A few days after this, however, even so extreme a 
 body as the Society of Vincent incurred his censure —
 
 240 THE REAL FLENCH REVOLUTIONIST ch. 
 
 that popular club which contained the elite of Nantes 
 sans-eulottism, which had done so much to further the 
 Revolution in that city, and where he and his friends 
 were in the habit of ventilating, amidst echoing applause, 
 their wildest and most atrocious ideas, their crudest 
 theories. He fell foul of it about the case of one 
 Gamier, and on the 15th December came down to the 
 society, abused its members all round, there and then 
 dissolved it, and had the key of its meeting-place brought 
 to himself. For three days the society remained non- 
 existent : then with his permission it was reopened; but 
 the incident left a scar on the society — " Liberty.''" they 
 said, <; had been invaded." 
 
 Other more serious matters, however, engaged his 
 attention and that of the Revolutionary Committee. 
 
 So worried (desoU) was the Committee by the 
 perpetual appeals made to it by the relatives of .the 
 prisoners for their release, that it issued a notice on 
 1 4th December (24 Frimaire) announcing that it would 
 be deaf to any such appeal, and furthermore that it 
 would regard as a suspect any individual who solicited mi 
 behalf of a prisoner. 
 
 Nantes being a great city, with an estimated popula- 
 tion of 100,000 persons, would in itself have afforded 
 ample material for the display of revolutionary energy. 
 There were enough people in it to keep the guillotine at 
 work, and even fusillades and noyades, in full swing. 
 
 But the gradual dissolution of the Vendean army on 
 the north side of the Loire, and its miserable followers, 
 from the time of the repulse at .Angers to the final 
 catastrophe at Savenay, had resulted in constant arrivals 
 at Nantes of large numbers of Vendeans who had been 
 taken prisoners, or who bad surrendered on revolutionary 
 promises of amnesty.
 
 xvn NOYADES AND FUSILLADES 241 
 
 " The defeat of the brigands," wrote Carrier to the 
 
 Convention on the 20th December, "is so complete that 
 our posts kill them or capture and bring them to Nantes 
 by hundreds. The guillotine is not equal to the task. 
 I have taken the line of having them shot. They 
 surrender themselves here and at Angers by hundreds. 
 I assure to these the same fate as those. I invite my 
 colleague Francastel not to put aside this salutary and 
 expeditious method. Tt is on principles of humanity 
 that I purge the soil of Liberty of these monsters." 
 
 This letter was read before the Convention on 2Gth 
 December. 
 
 I hit it was not only by shooting that the revolu- 
 tionists at Nantes were purging the soil of Liberty. 
 
 After the first successful demonstrations of the 
 feasibility of drowning, it also was used as an expeditious 
 and effective method ; the guillotine, too, was kept 
 steadily at work ; and supplementing them all was the 
 unceasing death-roll of the prisons, — hundreds upon 
 hundreds being let die, rapidly or slowly, through 
 deliberate neglect and indifference. 
 
 Nantes, in fact, presented at this period the appear- 
 ance of a great slaughter-house or abattoir, only instead 
 of cattle and sheep, human beings were being slaughtered, 
 — men, women, and even children, — and the butchers 
 were the bons and braves rfyublicains, and the 
 vrais sans - culottes, animated by "patriotism," and 
 imbued with " pure principles " of the highest Montagnard 
 standard. 
 
 The unfortunate Vendeans who came, or were 
 brought to Nantes were mostly sent at once to the 
 " Entrepot." 
 
 Eossignol, the commander - in - chief, had once 
 absurdly remarked, " Since I assisted to overthrow the 
 
 i;
 
 242 THE REAL FRENCH REVOLUTIONIST en. 
 
 Bastille, no prison ought to exist," and the saying is 
 interesting as being typical of the absurdity of many 
 of the views ut' the revolutionists; hut prisons not alone 
 went on existing, hut, as revolutionary liberty developed. 
 they rapidly increased in number, and for the one 
 prisoner in custody under the ancient regime, hundreds 
 wen' in custody under the new revolutionary regime. 
 
 The old Bouffay, which for centuries of tyranny had 
 answered all the requirements of the times, held, when 
 densely packed, some 200 prisoners. The Chateau of 
 Xantes also held a considerable number. For the new 
 era of liberty, however, they were quite inadequate, and 
 so the Convent of St. Claire, emptied of its previous 
 inhabitants, was pressed into service, and packed with 
 prisoners. Then, with the object of separating the 
 women from the men, all having hitherto been stowed 
 indiscriminately together anyhow, a building called "the 
 Good Shepherd " was taken. Here, where 200 persons 
 might have been lodged, 700 women were put, as many 
 as .'50 to 40 being crammed into a small chamber, 
 sick and dying, all together. 
 
 And there were several other prisons, the favourite 
 one of the Revolutionary Committee being the Entrepot, 
 a great barrack of a place, where several thousand 
 prisoners could be kept. It was the favourite on 
 account of the facilities it afforded for the free play of 
 revolutionary " fraternity." 
 
 It was situated at the extremity of one of the least 
 inhabited parts of Xantes: close to the Loire, which 
 simplified the noyades ; and close to the great quarries 
 of Cigant, which were a safe and convenient place for 
 the fusillades. The prisoners had not to be conveyed 
 far to meet their fate. 
 
 Here were sent pell-mell in December some of the
 
 xvn NOYADES AND FUSILLADES 243 
 
 debris of the Vendean army ; on three days, the 24th, 
 26th, and 28th December, 1500 arrived, having sur- 
 rendered on the faith of the amnesty promised by the 
 republicans. 1 Either, too, were drafted from the other 
 prisons in Nantes the suspects and counter-revolutionists 
 whom the Revolutionary Committee had determined to 
 get rid of. 
 
 It was the last stepping-stone to death. No sooner 
 was it nearly emptied by noyades and fusillades than it 
 was promptly filled again; and of the 8000 to 10,000 
 persons imprisoned here, only a very few escaped the 
 destruction decreed by Carrier and his accomplices. 
 
 Its condition was appalling — " a veritable slaughter- 
 house, a tomb where the prisoners perished of misery, 
 and were practically buried alive." Epidemic disease 
 raged in it ; and so fearful was its state that even the 
 soldiers mounting guard on it died of illnesses contracted 
 there. Fever and dysentery were specially virulent, and 
 the prisoners attacked by illness were left to die in their 
 misery. Medical attendance there was none ; food in 
 sufficient quantities to maintain life was scarcely forth- 
 coming, and the only drinking-water was contaminated 
 by sewage and every filth. 
 
 The cold, moreover, during that fearful winter was 
 dreadful, and the prisoners died by scores, sparing the 
 various Revolutionary Tribunals the trouble of trying 
 them, and the revolutionists the trouble of deciding 
 whether to drown or shoot them. 
 
 Pest-houses were all these prisons, and a committal to 
 any of them was almost tantamount to a sentence of 
 death. 
 
 Life in them was literally hell upon earth. 
 
 From the dawn of one day, when the cold gray rays 
 of morning light slowly illumined the festering mass of
 
 244 TUK REAL FRENCH REVOLUTIONIST oh. 
 
 human misery within the walls, until the dawn of the 
 next day when the sun rose on the same spectacle 
 of republican "fraternity," what human agony was 
 end lived ! 
 
 The misery of cold, the gnawing pains of semi- 
 starvation, the brutalities of the gaolers, the endless 
 sight of suffering, the grief and woe, and mental and 
 physical torture, the awful heartbreak from destruction 
 uf home and loss of family; and then at night, the 
 fevered sleep on sewage-soddened earth or vermin-laden 
 straw, the ceaseless moaning of the sick or dying, all 
 crowded, crushed, and crammed together. How life re- 
 mained under such circumstances is almost incompre- 
 hensible. 
 
 Arid over and above the hopeless misery of it all was 
 the infuriating sense of cruel, infamous, and irremediable 
 wrong. 
 
 Nor was there any sign of mercy or shadow of turn- 
 ing on the part of those in authority in the new Republic. 
 Mercy and pity and justice all had vanished under the. 
 new regime, which was to have introduced " liberty and 
 equality and fraternity" into the countries of the earth, 
 and to have been the prelude to, if not absolutely itself, 
 the millennium of humanity. 
 
 As if there were not enough tribunals at Nantes for 
 the form of sentencing the inmates of the prisons, the 
 Representatives l'rieur (de la Marne) and L. Turreau 
 ordered the Military Commission of Le Mans, presided 
 over by the infamous Bignon, which had done such expe- 
 ditious work at Savenay, to proceed at once to Nantes, 
 and there administer revolutionary justice. 
 
 Arrived in Nantes on the 28th December, if set to 
 Work on the following day, and as a beginning sent 100 
 persons to he shot. In thirteen days it sentenced 1GG9
 
 xvii XOVADES AND FUSILLADES 245 
 
 persons to death, and did not acquit a single one, as 
 many as 280 being condemned in one single day. It 
 devoted two days to women and girls, sentencing to 
 death G2 one day, and 45 the next. By the 19th it 
 had brought up its total of capital sentences to over 
 1900. And then, reldche cm tliedtre rouge ("vaca- 
 tion at the red theatre "). And this was the work of 
 but one of the Commissions there sitting — the worst, it 
 is true. 
 
 It is impossible now to present anything approaching 
 a complete account of the victims sentenced by the Mili- 
 tary Commissions or Revolutionary Tribunals, or of the 
 infamies perpetrated by the Revolutionary Committee, by 
 Carrier, and by the Marat Company, complete records of 
 persons imprisoned, tried, and punished not being avail- 
 able. Records were but very incompletely kept, if at all, 
 and the time came when every effort was made to hush 
 up these revolutionary abominations, and to destroy the 
 proofs and traces of them. 
 
 These 1900 unfortunates, and thousands of others, 
 many without any form of trial, were mostly noyaded or 
 fusilladed, only a comparatively small proportion being 
 guillotined. 
 
 As regarded fusillades, the services of the members of 
 the Revolutionary Committee were scarcely required, and 
 so the members devoted themselves mainly to carrying 
 out noyades. Fusillading was quite a simple process. 
 A chain of prisoners, a military escort, a short march to 
 the quarries of Gigant, a volley, some bayoneting, and 
 the thing was done. Rut noyading required much 
 greater preparation, and the Committee, together with 
 Carrier's aides, Lamberty and Robin, gave a great part 
 of their time to this congenial work. With the facility 
 begotten of experience, they embarked on larger opera-
 
 24G THE REAL FRENCH REVOLUTIONIST ch. 
 
 tiuiiSj ami on or about the 23rd December a great coup 
 was made. Some 800 persons were noyaded. It was 
 night. " T\v<j barges," said an eye- witness, " laden with 
 people, stopped at a place called Prairie-au-Duc. There 
 I and my comrades witnessed the most horrible carnage 
 that could possibly be seen. More than 800 persons of 
 all ages and both sexes were inhumanly drowned and 
 cut to pieces. 1 heard Fouquet and his satellites re- 
 proach sonic among their own people that they did not 
 know how to use their sabres, and he showed them by 
 his example how they ought to use them. The barges 
 did not sink to the bottom quickly enough, so they fired 
 with their guns at those who were still above water. 
 The cries of these unfortunate victims only seemed to in- 
 crease the energy of their executioners. 
 
 " I wish to observe that all the individuals who were 
 drowned this night were previously stripped naked as 
 one's hand. In vain the women besought that they 
 might be left their chemises ; but the drowners laughed 
 at their tears, and joked about the figures of their 
 victims, with horrid comments according as they were 
 off or young. Their rags, their jewels, their assignats 
 were the pro)' of these anthropophagi, and what one can 
 scarcely believe is, that those who thus despoiled them 
 sold these spoils the next day to the highest bidder."' 
 
 Humanity itself is stained by such an appalling 
 atrocity. Eight hundred men and women, old and 
 young, helplessly bound, driven along at the sabre's 
 point, stripped naked in this bitter mid-winter night, 
 and hurled into two great barges; for hours exposed in 
 their nakedness to the frigid blasts of the night wind, 
 while the preparations for their doom were being com- 
 pleted; battened down to prevent their escape: and 
 then, as the barges sink, the gradual rising and linal
 
 xvii XOYADES AND FUSILLADES 247 
 
 inrush of glacial water, and a hail of bullets to make all 
 sure ; and then, at long last, release for ever from revolu- 
 tionary " fraternity." 
 
 Such a scene is almost above what the wildest 
 imagination of the human mind lias pictured to itself in 
 its attempts to realise the horrors of a hell. What must 
 their sufferings of mind and body have been ? What 
 must have been the physical and mental torture they 
 underwent ? Horror upon horror piled upon them, all 
 the surroundings serving to heighten their terror — the 
 cold, the darkness, their nakedness. And the vast 
 majority of them as innocent of offence against their 
 country or the State as the child unborn. 
 
 And while scenes such as these were being enacted, 
 Carrier, the Representative of the great new Eepublic 
 which was to be the shining light to all nations of the 
 world, Carrier, wdiose mere word could have stopped 
 them, was usually spending his night in feasts and 
 drunken revels at the home of luxury he had made for 
 himself at Richebourg, and in the arms of one of his 
 numerous mistresses, or of some unfortunate victim of 
 the Revolution who had taken his fancy. 
 
 The noyades continued. On Christmas Eve there 
 was one: on Christmas night another; and well on into 
 the second halt' of January. 
 
 AH through these fearful human sacrifices to the 
 Fetish of Sans-culottism one does not come across one 
 single trace of feeling or generosity on the part of those 
 concerned in them. Nothing but brutality of the lowest 
 sort, from Carrier down to the meanest wretch of the 
 Marat Company; no mercy: none snatched from doom, 
 except now and then some women, more w r ell favoured 
 than the rest, who were smuggled oil' to the harems of 
 these sans-culotte butchers.
 
 248 THE REAL FliEXCH REVOLUTIONIST ch. 
 
 Foucault having said one day that two vessels were 
 td be despatched that night, Bachelier threw his arms 
 round Ins neck Qui sauta an col) saying, " You are a 
 brave man. and I don't know a better revolutionist." 
 
 One day in Xivose — the exact date is unknown — 
 Lamberty was chatting with several generals, and, 
 pointing to the Loire, he said, "Well, some 2800 have 
 already gone that way/' One of the generals asked what 
 he meant. "Oh yes," said Carrier, who was one of the 
 party, " 2800 brigands are in the national bath." 
 
 Due thing is absolutely certain, and that is that from 
 the middle of Xovember 1793 to well on into the 
 following January noyades constantly took place. The 
 exact number may be in doubt ; the precise number of 
 victims at each of them may be in doubt; but that 
 thousands of persons thus perished at the hands of the 
 revolutionists of Xantes is beyond all shadow of doubt. 
 
 The process of noyading was somewhat changed as 
 time went on. Prisoners, instead of being taken en 
 Hoc from the Entrepot, were drafted out in small 
 numbers at a time to floating prisons, to vessels moored 
 in the river, from which, on convenient occasions. 
 the noyades were made. Xor were the noyades confined 
 to night. They took place sometimes in broad daylight, 
 and so carelessly was the system worked, that on one 
 occasion the existence of a lot of prisoners in a vessel 
 was absolutely forgotten for forty-eight hours. When 
 the hold was opened to receive some fresh arrivals, they 
 were discovered, but some sixty of them were dead : 
 and Robin had the bodies thrown overboard by the new 
 hatch of vict ims arriving on hoard. 
 
 And (here appear to have been noyades of women 
 exclusively — one of 144 women, and another, it is said, 
 somewhat dubiously, of about 80 women of improper
 
 xvn NOYADES AND FUSILLADES 249 
 
 character, which latter incident is seized on by some 
 admirers of the Revolution as proof of Carrier's high 
 morality, and of his desire to improve the moral condition 
 of Nantes. 
 
 The noyades were not confined to grown-up people. 
 Children were included in the roll of victims. There is 
 no room for doubt in the matter. 
 
 Bignon, the president of the notorious Military 
 Commission, declared, some time after, that " Carrier had 
 pronounced sentence of death against certain children, 
 and had the barbarity to have it carried out." Goullin, 
 the leading member of the Revolutionary Committee — 
 also some time later — declared that it was by order 
 of Lamberty and Fouquet, Carrier's executioners, that 
 children were drowned. Fourier, the director of the 
 revolutionary hospital, said, i: To my knowledge they 
 noyaded fifty to sixty children at a time." And Phelippes 
 de Tronjolly said, :- ' In these noyades have been included 
 the children of persons who have been guillotined — 
 children of the age of ten to twelve and thirteen years." 
 
 As many as 600 children are said to have perished 
 in the noyades, and, according to some reports, children 
 of four to six years were among the victims. 
 
 And there was one "sabrade" or execution by 
 sabring. 
 
 Seven or eight persons one night came out from the 
 presence of the Revolutionary Committee to be taken 
 to the Entrepot. It being late, and the distance to go 
 considerable, their escort massacred them under the 
 windows of the meeting-place of the Committee. The 
 next morning, blood, bits of clothing, and other traces 
 of the massacre were found. 
 
 The Revolutionary Government in Paris cannot be 
 exonerated by an)' plea of ignorance from the crime of
 
 250 THE REAL FBEXCH KEVOLUTIOXIST ch. 
 
 allowing those horrors to be perpetrated, for knowledge 
 of the fact that noyades were taking place at Xantes was 
 not confined to Xantes. 
 
 The news was published in Paris as conspicuously as 
 any news could be. 
 
 At the sitting of the Commune of Paris on the 1 lth 
 Xivose (31st -December 1793) a letter from Xantes, dated 
 26th December, was read containing this passage: — 
 
 "'The number of brigands which have been brought 
 here within the last ten days is incalculable. They 
 arrive at every moment. The guillotine being too slow, 
 and as shooting them means the expenditure of powder 
 and ball, one has adopted the plan (on a pris Jc parti) of 
 putting a certain number in big boats, conducting them 
 to the middle of the river about half a league away from 
 the town, and there sending the boat to the bottom. 
 This operation is continually taking place."' This letter 
 was published in Paris on the 2nd January in the Gazette 
 Kationale and other papers. 
 
 While the noyades, these nocturnal executions, were 
 proceeding, fusillades were turning daylight to account 
 in getting rid of Vendeans and counter-revolutionists, 
 real or alleged. 
 
 The exact numbers so done to death are unknown. 
 Carrier admitted that about 100 to 200 a day were shot. 
 But the fusillades were nearly, if not quite, of daily 
 occurrence, and so great was the slaughter that the 
 burial of the victims could not keep pace with the 
 executions, and repeated complaints were made to the 
 council of Xantes of the negligence in interring the 
 
 • lead. 
 
 The Society of Vincent la Montague on the 12th 
 .January stated that the bodies were scarcely covered by 
 a tew inches of earth. " Often one sees the limbs of
 
 xvn NOYADES AND FUSILLADES 251 
 
 the corpses appearing above ground"; and on the 18th 
 January the council decreed that all capable citizens 
 should be employed in burying the dead ; and two days 
 later it made another urgent decree on the subject, 
 "owing to the public health being endangered by an 
 epidemic caused by the corpses of men and animals." 
 
 The fusillades mostly took place at the quarries of 
 Gigant at the western end of the town, some also at the 
 extremity of Iiiehebourg. 
 
 The procedure here was the usual one. " The un- 
 fortunate prisoners were conducted between two rows of 
 soldiers, 30 to GO or more at a time. They were led to 
 the border of a ditch where they were to be buried, so 
 as the sooner to be done with the jolt. A roll of drums 
 gave the signal for the fusillade, which did not cease 
 until all had fallen. Unfortunate he whom the balls 
 had spared, for he was finished off witli the bayonet. 
 The bodies were then stripped and thrown into pits. 
 For several months 300 to 400 men were engaged 
 burying them." 
 
 Hero too, as at Angers, there were special fusillades 
 of women. 
 
 " One day I commanded," deposed Debourges, a 
 commandant of a battalion of the National Guard, "a 
 detachment of National Guards who escorted some 
 women of 1G to 18 years of age who were being taken 
 to be shot at Gigant. On arriving at this place of 
 horror, \ saw a sort of gorge, where was a quarry in the 
 form of a semicircle. There I perceived the dead 
 bodies of 75 women. They were naked, and by a 
 refinement of barbarism they had been turned over on 
 their backs. . . . 
 
 "When these unfortunates had arrived at this quarry, 
 already strewn with the corpses of those of their own
 
 •J.V' THE REAL FRENCH REVOLUTIONIST ch. 
 
 sex, they were ranged in a row ami shot, and those who 
 escaped the bullets could watch the guns being loaded 
 which were to finish them off; others were assassinated 
 by blows of the butt-ends of the muskets. After these 
 massacres the Germans searched them, and other bar- 
 barians stripped them naked and turned them over on 
 their barks." 
 
 " The Germans searched them '' — the phrase requires 
 explanation. 
 
 In palliation of the infamy thrown on the Republic 
 by these atrocities, it is said that the executioners were 
 not Frenchmen, but Germans, who had deserted and 
 found their way to Paris. But the defence is worthless : 
 fur even if some of the butchers were foreign members of 
 the Parisian volunteers, the circumstance does not extenu- 
 ate the Government, for they were in the service of the 
 Republican Government, and they acted under the orders 
 of republican officers. 
 
 Nor does even this flimsy excuse apply to the noyades, 
 where all the executioners were real sans-culottes and 
 republicans, and many of them members of that exalted 
 body, the Revolutionary Committee of Nantes. 
 
 This treatment of women and children, of innocent 
 girls, and wives, and mothers, and of tiny and utterly 
 irresponsible children, is the finishing touch to the infamy 
 <»f the French revolutionist : for there is a special brutality 
 about it which exceeds even the brutality of their other 
 crimes. There is an extra degree of cowardice about it, 
 as women were incapable of defending themselves, and 
 there was the very climax of injustice about it. as their 
 ignorance and dependence on others were the strongest 
 claim tn considerate treatment. But any such claims 
 on their behall were ignored. 
 
 Carrier's views on the subject are on record. Time
 
 xvii NOYADES AND FUSILLADES 253 
 
 after time he inveighed against women and children in 
 the most vehement and vindictive terms, accusing them 
 of every crime so as the better to justify his own severities 
 towards them. " The women of the Vendee are all 
 monsters/' lie said. "... The women of the Vendee ! 
 It is by them that a hostile race grows again. The 
 children — they are vipers to be crushed " : and it 
 was in this spirit that he and his aides persistently 
 acted. 
 
 But he only voiced the general revolutionary ideas 
 on the subject. Even in the Convention itself anathemas 
 were hurled against both women and children. They 
 were spies, and they fought, they murdered, they tortured 
 the "' patriot-.'" 
 
 And so to women the vrais sans-culottes were pitiless. 
 They shot them by hundreds at a time, they drowned 
 them by hundreds, they imprisoned them by thousands, 
 they guillotined them, they sabred them. 
 
 In and around the Vendee, where Revolution had 
 free room for the display of its true characteristics, un- 
 checked by any external influences, a Vendean girl or 
 woman was. in the eyes of the sans-culottes, too often 
 but a creature to satisfy their lust. and. from the highest 
 to the lowest, power and position were abused to secure 
 the gratifications of their passions. 
 
 In ways the revolutionists aggravated their atrocious 
 conduct. In the noyades at Nantes women were stripped 
 naked by members of the Revolutionary Committee and 
 Maratist Corps before they were drowned. In the fusil- 
 lades they were stripped after being shot. 
 
 Other brutalities are also narrated, but over them 
 the veil of silence must be drawn. 
 
 Even had the women been the most infamous 
 wretches, the conduct of the sans-culottes would not
 
 254 THE REAL FRENCH REVOLUTIONIST ch. 
 
 have been justified. But thousands of the victims were 
 absolutely innocent of offences, except that they were 
 inhabitants of the accursed Vendee, or fanatics of super- 
 stition: whilst hundreds of them were "patriots" and 
 republicans, though even that did not secure them against 
 outrage, for they were women. 
 
 The treatment of children by the revolutionist was 
 on a par with his treatment of women. The laws of 
 all civilised and modern races treat children with in- 
 dulgence. But so it was not under the glorious regime 
 of liberty and the French revolutionist. The same 
 callous brutality was displayed to them as towards 
 women, the same unreasoning and vindictive cruelty. 
 " They are vipers to be crushed.'' 
 
 Hundreds, indeed thousands of them, from years of 
 discretion down to the babe at its mother's breast, were 
 cast into prison to rot and die in those pest-houses, and 
 hundreds and thousands of them died. 
 
 But even worse was the deliberate way of doing them 
 to death by formal legal procedure. 
 
 "Many of these little scoundrels have been tried 
 and condemned by the Military Commission," said Carrier 
 afterwards in the ('(invention. 
 
 They were condemned as "brigands" — as counter- 
 revolutionists — for having borne arms against the 
 Republic. 
 
 And as the result of such condemnations every form 
 of death which was meted out to the most formidable 
 counter-revolutionists was meted out to them too. 
 
 They were guillotined. Thus at Nantes, on the 17th 
 December, four were put to death : one of whom as it 
 was being bound to the fatal plank of the guillotine 
 addressed this ipiestion, agonising in the innocence of it. 
 to tin' executioner, " Will you hint me much [
 
 xvii NOYADES AND FUSILLADES 255 
 
 They were noyaded — they were fusilladed. 
 
 What atom of excuse can Le offered for such in- 
 humanity ? Were children of tender years such danger- 
 ous enemies of the Republic that they must he slaughtered? 
 Did the " safety of the country " demand the sacrifice of 
 these innocents? Did " patriotism," that cloak for the 
 iniquities of the revolutionist, — that first and last plea 
 and excuse for all his crimes, — ■ exact the death of 
 beings of such tender age that they were incapable of 
 knowing the difference between one form of political 
 government and another ? 
 
 Manifestly the vrai sans-cidotte thought, or chose 
 to think so. Manifestly their destruction was part of 
 the creed of the :; brave republican," for from the Repre- 
 sentatives downward, little mercy was shown towards 
 children : and by the acts of its servants the French 
 Republic of that time has been stamped indelibly with 
 a ciime than which a more heinous one can scarcely be 
 conceived. 
 
 An alternative policy was once suggested to Carrier, 
 some time early in January. Savary went to him to 
 speak to him of the horrors of which the details were 
 being spoken about in the town. 
 
 •'•' I arrived at Carrier's, who received me well. We 
 spoke about the Vendee. ' You desire, no doubt/ said I, 
 Mhe end of this frightful war.' ' Yes, certainly,' he 
 replied. ' Well, a lirst-rate opportunity presents itself 
 at this moment to attain that object.' 'What is it?' 
 ■ Tins is it. You know the present disposition of the 
 people in the Vendee : you know that they only sigh for 
 repose and tranquillity : they only ask for indulgence and 
 protection : these are the best arms to employ now.' 
 Ai these words Carrier assumed a somewhat more re- 
 served air. 'It is said.' I added. : that there exists in
 
 256 THE REAL FRENCH REVOLUTIONIST en. 
 
 the depot a large number of Vendeans, old men, women, 
 and children ])iled on top of each other, in want of 
 everything, dying of cold and misery: it is said even 
 that a frightful epidemic prevails among them. You 
 can put an end to this scourge : you can even draw from 
 this circumstance the means of assuring the peace of 
 the Vendee.' 'And what are the means?' he asked. 
 'This." I replied. 'These prisoners belong to all the 
 families in the country; the old men, the women, the 
 children, are not to be feared : give them back their 
 liberty: let them return to their hearths and homes: 
 they will narrate to their families and to their neigh- 
 bours what they have undergone; the disasters to their 
 army : and these living witnesses of misfortune will be 
 for the others a terrible lesson which they will never 
 forget/ Carrier reflected a few moments, and then said 
 to me, ' (Jo to the depot: bring me a list of those who 
 are there.' I went to the depot. It would he impos- 
 sible for me- to retrace in all its hideous colours the 
 frightful picture which presented itself to me in this 
 pestiferous (empesti) place. . . . The next day I went to 
 Carrier, who appeared to compassionate the fate of this 
 crowd of miserables. ' 1 consent.' he said, 'to give them 
 their liberty, and to send them back to their homes.' 
 ' Well,' 1 replied, ' give me the order or authority in 
 writing; I will take care of the rest.' 'An order in 
 writing.' he replied: ' I do not wish to get myself guillo- 
 tined.' Such was the sad result L obtained." 
 
 While these atrocities were in full swing, and all the 
 revolutionary authorities were working at fullest power, 
 there emanated from the Committee of Public Safety the 
 most urgent commands to vigour. 
 
 Though the suspension of the ('(institution and the 
 establishment of revolutionary government "until peace
 
 NOYADES AND FUSILLADES 
 
 20/ 
 
 came," had been decreed on the 10th October 1793 (19 
 Vendemiare, An ii.), it was not until the 4th December 
 (14 Frimaire, An ii.) that the Convention adopted a law- 
 setting out in detail the organisation of the Revolutionary 
 Government, which was in reality a new — a revolu- 
 tionary — Constitution. And it was not until the 29th 
 December that, by circulars to different bodies, the Com- 
 mittee of Public Safety interpreted the decree of 4th 
 December, and set forth clearly and precisely the 
 revolutionary system of government in its entirety. 
 Circulars to the Representatives, to the generals com- 
 manding, to the Revolutionary Committees, to the popular 
 societies, to the Departments, to the districts, to the 
 communes, to the national agents with the districts, and 
 to those with the communes, to the Revolutionary 
 Tribunals, the criminal tribunals, the Military Commis- 
 sions, and the public accusers of same, and, as regarded 
 military offences, to the citizens composing the military 
 tribunals. 
 
 Unrolled before us, in the fustian grandiloquence of 
 revolutionary rant, is the whole plan of revolutionary 
 government, the whole machinery of revolutionary 
 despotism. 
 
 The Representatives were told that they had been 
 sent to cleanse the air of liberty, to open a large passage 
 to the Revolution which found the scattered fragments of 
 monarchy and the debris of federalism. 
 
 The generals were told that the time of disobedience 
 was past; and they were reminded how Rome sent to 
 execution those of her children who had not paid heed 
 to her commands. 
 
 The Revolutionary Committees were invoked as 
 " sentinels of liberty," and they were told that they 
 were the hands of the political body of which the 
 
 S
 
 2f>8 THE REAL FRENCH REVOLUTIONIST ch. 
 
 Convent ion was the head. " Von are the levers it uses 
 to crush resistance. You are like the redoubtable and 
 warlike implements which, placed by the general, wait 
 but the electric communication of flame to hurl forth 
 terror and death. 
 
 " Approach this terrible ministere with an upright 
 heart and pure hands. . . . Be so great (grands) that 
 even the eyes of your enemies can never discover in your 
 conduct a single stain." 
 
 The popular societies (which, under the control of the 
 Society of Jacobins in Paris, had become almost official 
 bodies of the State) were called on " to place the pinnacle 
 on the edifice of the Revolution of which, vigilant 
 sentinels at the advance posts of opinion, they had 
 already created the indestructible foundation — they were 
 to unveil the intriguer ... to tear the mask from the 
 Tartufes of patriotism, to denounce the faithless agent, 
 the cowardly deserter, and the egoist who had no 
 country " : they were to be the torch to the Repre- 
 sentatives in their task of purifying the constituted 
 a ui horities. 
 
 The Revolutionary Tribunals — Military Commissions 
 included — who wen 1 charged with "the national 
 vengeance," were told that there was no treaty between 
 virtue and crime: they were to purge their souls of all 
 weakness; they were to have no family but la pati'le, 
 and were to sacrifice (like Brutus) brothers, friends, 
 children, if the)' were culpable. "Such is the high 
 level of your dut ies." 
 
 And the district authorities were told thai, the law 
 ought to take the (light and the talons of the eagle: 
 they were the sentinels of the Revolution; that it was 
 by their eyes the Government saw: that, so to speak, 
 thev were t he electrical conductors of its thunderbolts:
 
 xvii NOYADES A XI) FUSILLADES 259 
 
 ami they wore charged with supervising the execution 
 of revolutionary laws and of the measures of the 
 Government. 
 
 These incitements to energy were not wanted at 
 Nantes, or Angers, or elsewhere in the Vendee, for 
 every section of the republicans there was acting up to 
 the fullest height of Montagnard fanaticism. 
 
 To make the system uniform throughout France, a 
 new decree as to Representatives was made, also on the 
 29 th December. As to measures of " public safety," 
 their powers remained unlimited, but were confined to 
 the Departments in their charge. Francastel was re- 
 appointed to Angers ; and Carrier, "as a new mark of 
 its confidence" (conJia?ice), with Prieur (de la Marne) as 
 associate, was confirmed in his appointment, which is as 
 conclusive proof as can well be given that the Committee 
 of Public Safeiy approved of their actions.
 
 CHAPTEE XVIII 
 
 CARRIER AND THE REVOLUTIONARY COMMITTEE OF 
 NANTES 
 
 Carrier has figured largely in the pictures of the 
 French Revolution, and he has been made more or less 
 the scapegoat for the worst of the revolutionary horrors. 
 
 He has been depicted as a being so towering over 
 others in wickedness, so entirely abnormal in tempera- 
 ment, and exceptional in ferocity, that other malefactors, 
 and other crimes, by contrast, were made to look not 
 really so bad ; and it is argued that it is not fair to 
 judge the Revolution by the standard of his atrocities. 
 
 This view, though consoling to the apologists and 
 admirers of the French Revolution, is, however, funda- 
 mentally false. 
 
 Had he been the sole product of his kind, such an 
 argument might have had some little plausibility : but 
 there was such a host of malefactors, both military and 
 civilians. — some who aided him in his atrocities, others 
 who perpetrated atrocities quite as bad in their own 
 spheres, — that he was very far from having possessed ;i 
 monopoly of cruelty and tyranny, as is usually implied, 
 and is very far indeed from standing on that pinnacle of 
 wronir which would isolate him from his fellow-workers.
 
 ch. xviii CARRIER 261 
 
 By no means does he stand alone. A stronger light 
 falls upon him. That is all. And in the shadows and 
 background was not merely a crowd, but a great horde 
 of wretches as bad as he was, only not so conspicuous or 
 notorious, because not so well seen. 
 
 As a matter of fact, in Nantes alone there was little 
 difference in all the vicious elements of character between 
 him and the members of the Revolutionary Committee, 
 between him and his own staff, or between him and the 
 members of the Marat Company. 
 
 Xor was there much difference between him and 
 several of his Representative colleagues. Francastel, for 
 instance, at Angers, was quite as eminent in cruelty, 
 tyranny, and injustice of all sorts, though not so notorious, 
 being endowed with a greater amount of prudence, doing 
 his work more secretly, not talking or ranting so much 
 about it and liberty : being careful not to leave so many 
 proofs of his iniquities behind, and never having been 
 dragged into the publicity of a court of law as Carrier was. 
 
 Xor is there sufficient to confirm the theory of 
 Carrier having been insane, which is also put forward in 
 mitigation of his misdeeds. 
 
 He was of an extremely violent and unrestrained 
 temper : but he cannot escape the execration of posterity 
 on the plea of insanity. Conspicuous through all his 
 acts were the very common and matter-of-fact motives of 
 vanity and self-indulgence ; and his furious violence was 
 often but the result of his ease and self-indulgence being 
 interrupted and interfered with. 
 
 An arch -impostor he was, as all his colleagues, aides, 
 and underlings were : spinning grandiloquent phrases 
 about " liberty," but practising a brutal tyranny : canting 
 about " equality," and only pulling down everything to 
 raise themselves into the places of those they pulled
 
 02 THE REAL FKEXCH REVOLUTIONIST C h. 
 
 down, and to enable themselves to perpetrate on a more 
 extended scale, and with intensified energy, the very 
 misdeeds and climes and self-indulgence for which they 
 slaughtered theii predecessors. 
 
 disinterested not one of them was. No fact stands 
 nut elearer in all this horrible business. 
 
 Here in the Vendee and its surroundings, where one 
 Sees the revolutionists in their unchecked, unrestrained. 
 m I, therefore, natural character, able to do as they liked. 
 and undeterred by any outside opinion or comment, one 
 sees that revolutionary principles were only the cloak 
 for the gratification of their passions: and the expression 
 and parade of those principles were only the means for 
 attaining their own selfish ends. To obtain the means of 
 _: itifying all their passions., be the cost to other people 
 what it might, and then to gratify them to the utmost 
 1 issible extent, that was the creed: those were the con- 
 sistently worked for objects, of the men who claimed for 
 th niselves the title, and acclaimed their comrades with 
 the title of " true patriot " and " brave republican." 
 
 A Revolution which placed such men in authority was 
 ,i calamity, a curse of the direst sort, and not a blessing. 
 
 Unfortunate indeed was it far all classes at Nantes 
 that lie and his picked crew of rumans ever came into 
 autln >rity in the place. 
 
 Th ' _ ■ it ity should fall under such guvcrnnient 
 and such tyranny must have been indeed a suiprise to 
 
 - who had helped to destroy tile old l'eginic because 
 ' ■'• - tyrannical, and who expected liberty and freedom 
 undel the HeW a ginie. 
 
 ('.irrier. when he came to Xante-, was deeply imbued 
 Tth very thm-nugh sans-culotte revnlutinnary idea-. 
 
 " In the Vendee." he said, "every one is a brigand: 
 ill nv ci lunt-'i'-revi ilutioiii>ts."
 
 xvni CARRIER 263 
 
 There may not have been much justice in the idea, 
 but it simplified things very much. 
 
 And as tn Xantes, he said, " The people of Nantes 
 act only from motives of coterie. . . . Steel, water, and 
 fire shall nationalise their town. . . . All the Nantais 
 are scoundrels. One must play ball with their heads." 
 
 Against every one possessing any property, too, lie 
 held equally thorough views. 
 
 in a speech which he made before the popular society 
 at Ancenis, a small town on the Loire, he said, " I see 
 everywhere beggars in rags. You are as stupid as they 
 are at Xantes. Plenty is close to you, and you want 
 everything. Don't you know chat fortune, the riches of 
 these fat merchants, belongs to you ? And is not the 
 river there ? " 
 
 And at Xante's, speech after speech which lie made 
 contained fierce indictments against "the fat merchants," 
 agents, tradesmen of every rank and sort and kind, whom 
 he charged with being monopolists, who only sought to 
 deprive the citizens of the necessaries of life : and incite- 
 ments to the lowest of the populace to exterminate them, 
 and to appropriate their property. 
 
 liis ideas soared even higher than this; for once, at 
 a dinner, lie declared that the population of France was 
 too large for the food produced — that it ought to be 
 reduced — by the nobles, magistrates, priests, business- 
 men — then working himself up into a fury he cried out. 
 "Kill, kill!" 
 
 Extermination and destruction, these were his ideas, 
 these his passions. 
 
 As to the methods of carrying out his views he had 
 no scruples. 
 
 Death — that was the one penalty. " All the brigands 
 and all the conspirators ought to be shot."
 
 L'G4 THE REAL FKENCH REVOLUTIONIST ch. 
 
 Noyades, fusillades, sabrades, guillotine, death by disease 
 and hardship in prison, all served his purposes, and 
 served them thoroughly. 
 
 The guillotine by itself not being sufficiently rapid, 
 he had recourse to noyades ; and even wholesale noyades 
 not getting through the work of destruction quickly 
 enough, lie had recourse to fusillades. 
 
 The Military Commissions and other tribunals even 
 did not work rapidly enough to suit him: for on one 
 occasion he gave an order to Citizen Phelippes de Tron- 
 jolly, president of the criminal tribunal, to have immedi- 
 ately executed, without trial, twenty-four " brigands " 
 who had just been arrested with arms in their hands — 
 although there were four children among them aged 
 thirteen and fourteen years. 
 
 A couple of days after he similarly sent twenty-seven 
 to execution without trial — of whom seven were women, 
 four of them sisters — the youngest seventeen, stated to 
 be "brigands taken with arms in their hands." "But 
 we have not been tried or heard," cried these unfortunate 
 girls. ■■ It is an order of Carrier's," was the reply: "at nine 
 o'clock it will be carried out" — and carried out it was. 
 
 And on another occasion he sent for the president of 
 one of the Military Commissions and told him that if all 
 the prisoners in the Entrepot were not condemned within 
 two hours, he would have all the members of the Com- 
 mission shot. 
 
 There were in fact no limits to his sanguinary ideas. 
 
 " We will make a cemetery of France," he said. 
 "rather than not regenerate it in the manner we want " ; 
 luil thai t mo was the policy of the Convention as to the 
 \ endi'e, ;is expressed in its decrees. 
 
 He lived in an incessant impulse of slaughter. 
 Speaking to some of the municipal authorities as to the
 
 xviir CARRIER 265 
 
 treatment of Vendean prisoners who laid down their 
 arms, he exclaimed : 
 
 "' You set of imbeciles. You are poor s, I must 
 
 tell you that. The fusillade and the guillotine must he 
 kept going; that is the only way to get any repose. It 
 is hotter to kill the devil than to let the devil kill one- 
 self." 
 
 One day he fell foul even of the Revolutionary Com- 
 mittee. 
 
 "What is this Committee about?" he exclaimed. 
 " Five hundred heads ought to have fallen by this time. 
 I don't see one. Your heads will have to answer for the 
 execution of my orders." 
 
 He had but one regret, and he expressed it strongly, 
 that he had not the power himself to butcher all his 
 victims. 
 
 But he did the next thing to it. Reports give us a 
 glimpse of him driving up to close proximity of the 
 guillotine on the day of the execution of the twenty 
 brigands and four children, sent to death by himself 
 without trial, and looking on at it at its deadly work. 
 He must have been at it on other occasions too, for 
 speaking much later to a merchant of Nantes of the 
 measures against the priests, he recalled the pleasure he 
 enjoyed in seeing the grimaces which these — — s of 
 priests made when dying. 
 
 Again, lie was present while some unfortunates were 
 being put into a barge to be noyaded, and was seen speak- 
 ing to Goullin. And lie is said to have been seen one 
 night, in a. cloak', accompanying the procession of victims 
 on their way to a noyade, and to have been heard saying, 
 " Hurry up : walk in line." 
 
 When shown one of the barges which was to be used 
 for a noyade, he remarked, " Comme e'est commode."
 
 2G6 THE REAL FItEXCH REVOLUTIOXIST ch. 
 
 This was one side of his life - this " cleansing of the 
 air of liberty." as the Committee of Public Safety called 
 it —this " opening a large passage to the Revolution": 
 and it' one part of his time was given up to these horrors 
 and iniquities, the rest was given up to the other side of 
 his life- -an almost unceasing debauch. 
 
 While all around him death was reaping a tremend- 
 ous harvest ; while thousands were suffering from sick- 
 ness and disease which a wise governor might have 
 checked and alleviated ; and while almost the whole 
 of the people of Xantes, some 100,000 in number, 
 patriots and republicans constituting the vast majority, 
 were half starving, this ruler of the new regime, far from 
 sharing with them their miserable diet of a small ration 
 of ji'i in (Viyrdite, or bread of equality, as it was called, 
 was showing the new spirit of equality and fraternity by 
 revelling with some chosen friends in every procurable 
 luxury. 
 
 His cook used to go out early, before the usual market 
 hour, to get poultry for him. 
 
 Had he been a royalist, his house would have been 
 burned down by an "enlightened" mob of sans-eulottes. 
 and his head would have been paraded through the 
 streets stuck on a pike. But lie was a sans-culotte, a 
 Montagnard, a member of the Convention, a Representa- 
 tive of the people, with unlimited powers, and no one 
 could say aughl against him. 
 
 lb' had a villa at Richebourg, one of the suburbs of 
 Nantes, and here Ins nights, and sometimes his days, 
 were -pent in the wildest debauch. 
 
 His favourite sultana was "la Caroii,'"' a daughter 
 "I' mie of the directors of the vessels used in his 
 uoyades. She' figured in the fetes of the Montague as 
 the u'.iddess .if libertv. where -he showed herself half
 
 xvin CARRIER 2 07 
 
 naked, adorned with a red cap, and with a pike in her 
 hand. 
 
 After thus displaying herself to the people, she went 
 to preside over the scandalous orgies at the Palais du 
 Bceuf, the name of the house which Carrier had given 
 her; "where he realised with his friends and their 
 mistresses everything that the imagination could invent 
 in the way of luxury and orgy." 
 
 In the bacchanals at this villa, one saw these women 
 showing themselves off, covered with magnificent sets 
 of diamonds torn from the victims of the Revolution 
 before their heads fell beneath the knife of the executioner. 
 And Goullin — "a charming man" — when Carrier was 
 not present, amused himself fingering the beautiful 
 jewels, and saying, " Ah, this belonged to the beautiful 
 
 Countess of X . It is Venus who has the heritage 
 
 of Madame de Pompadour. It is the parure of royalty 
 on the breast of liberty." 
 
 One night, in the midst of one of these orgies, three of 
 the Maratist Corps came to tell him that some 500 prisoners 
 were arriving, men, women, and children, and asked what 
 was to lie done with them. " Pretty sort of question," 
 lie replied, furious at being interrupted; " send them to 
 drink in the glass of the calotins." An answer which 
 excited the ferocious laughter of the guests. But as the 
 stupid executioners of the Compagnie Marat did not 
 always understand the symbolical answers of their master, 
 one of them said, " What orderest thou, Citizen Represent- 
 ative ? " " Parblev, let them be pitched into the water," 
 replied Carrier. " And the children ? " added one of the 
 Maratists, with hesitation. "Sacra mille clicux, in what 
 country am I V he cried in a ferocious voice ; "all of them 
 just alike." A slight remonstrance from one of them. 
 "Am I Representative of the people or not?" he cried
 
 268 THE REAL FKEXCH REVOLUTIONIST ch. 
 
 furiously, taking his sword in his hand, " do you want to 
 go in their place .' " Then taking his glass, he proposed 
 the health of those who were going to drink a la grande 
 ta.<sr, and the guests drank the toast, repeating the 
 words of the Representative. 
 
 And on one such evening O'Sullivan. who had dis- 
 tinguished himself at one of the noyades by massacring 
 some of the victims witli a small knife, imitated the 
 grimaces o( his victims as the knife pierced their throat. 
 a performance which made Carrier roar with laughter. 
 
 Carrier did not always take his pleasures at home. 
 
 He had made Lamberty a present of the ship Lo 
 GJoirc, and here Lamberty. following the footsteps of 
 his master, had established his own seraglio. Thither 
 Carrier often went, doubtless as a change from the dis- 
 tractions of his own residence. 
 
 Tims Carrier's hundred and ten and odd days and 
 nights passed at Xantes — an uninterrupted spell of in- 
 justices, crime, cruelty, and debauch — illustrating for the 
 information and advantage of posterity what the true 
 revolutionist was when he was free from all restraint. 
 and when lie was in a position to act according to his 
 own ideas. 
 
 The proceedings of the Revolutionary Committee ai 
 Xantes also afford deep instruction as to the real char- 
 acter of the new regime, as it came home to the people. 
 Instead of the city gaining an enlightened, intelligent . 
 and honest governing body as presumably it should 
 have under the regime of •"liberty." its control passed 
 into the hands of a gang of reckless, ignorant, and 
 eriminal men well described as "a committee of 
 assassins." 
 
 A iimiv unmitigated lut of scoundrels than they were 
 cannot 1"' imagined. There was not a crime which
 
 xviii THE REVOLUTIONARY COMMITTEE 209 
 
 they did not commit ; not a vice in which they did not 
 indulge. They perpetrated every iniquity for which 
 they accused the ancien regime, adding some new ones 
 to the repertoire of their predecessors, and multiplying 
 the number a thousandfold. Assassination, robbery, 
 rape, lying, and every form of deceit — these were their 
 daily acts, their nightly occupations. They murdered 
 justice, and made their own depraved wills the standard 
 of law. As one of them said, when told that even 
 under a Revolutionary Government some laws existed 
 which ought to be followed, " A republican makes laws 
 for the occasion" (lois de circonstance). 
 
 Of their cruelties something has been already said ; 
 but those narrated were only examples of their general 
 conduct. Their callous cruelty, their indifference to 
 suffering and bloodshed, were appalling. Murder and 
 assassination on the largest scale scared them not. 
 They did not stop at ordering slaughter, nor even at its 
 supervision, but man}' of them degraded themselves into 
 being actually the executioners, many of them perpetrat- 
 ing with their own hands the deed of blood. 
 
 They killed as they liked ; they stole as they wanted, 
 silver, food, wine, tobacco : and there was no defence 
 against them, no protection from them. 
 
 Cruelty and bloodthirstiness were, however, but one 
 side of their character. And just as they excelled in 
 these things, so they excelled in cupidity and rapacity, 
 and turned their position to account. The extenuation 
 of patriotism even cannot be allowed them : for, under 
 the mask of patriotism, they only thought of themselves. 
 and how to gain wealth, how to obtain the means and 
 opportunity for gratifying their vanity and indulging 
 their passions. 
 
 The most devouring cupidity possessed them. Pecu-
 
 270 THE REAL FRENCH REVOLUTIONIST en. 
 
 liarly sans-culottish was their conduct as to articles of 
 food. Vehement denouncers of monopolies of fond, and 
 declaimers as to the enormity of the crime of making 
 money out of this necessity of life, they themselves 
 made money by their transactions in it; forcing the 
 owners of food to sell it at the price fixed under the 
 law of maximum, and to take payment in assignats or 
 worthless paper money: and then reselling it for two or 
 three times the price by exacting payment in hard coin. 
 
 "A good republican/' it had been said, "'"ought to 
 despise gold or silver — the vile metal of the slave."' 
 This view was not, however, shared by them. 
 
 They robbed people right and left. Domiciliary 
 visits and arrests gave them complete facilities for doing 
 this. An unfortunate sent to prison on any charge 
 they chose to make, his property 'which strictly should 
 have been under the protection of the law) was at their 
 mercy: and they quickly took all of it that was of 
 value. 
 
 ( hie case may be cited as an example of their 
 rapacity — that of two brothers, Thoinnet by name — 
 two of the richest merchants of Nantes, and devoted to 
 the Republic, as proved by their gift of 300,000 francs 
 to the city for the purchase of coin. While they were 
 lighting as volunteers against the Vendeans, the Marat 
 Company came one night to their house, opened every- 
 thing, carried away money and everything of value they 
 could lay their hands on, then put the oilicial seals on: 
 and then other Maratists came and broke the seals, and 
 took more things, and re-sealed. Seven times this 
 happened; and Chaux and Goullin carried away 227 
 barrels of wine, and a lot of grain, and other things. 
 
 And when the brothers Thoinnet returned from 
 fmhtine; thev were arrested as '• susnects '"' 'their onlv
 
 xvin THE REVOLUTIONARY COMMITTEE 271 
 
 crime being that they were rich;, were sent to prison 
 and let die there, leaving twelve children who would 
 have died except for some kind attendants. Chaux 
 said they were aristocrats, had communications with 
 rebels, and that their spoils (dipouilles) belonged therefore 
 to the Republic — in other words, to himself. 
 
 If capable of such a coup as this, it may be easily 
 inferred how other people were treated. 
 
 And then also they sold pardons, secretly of course. 
 
 Posing as immaculate patriots, they compromised 
 with counter -revolutionists for cash down, and gave 
 liberty to men who but for such payment would have 
 been included in the next list of prisoners for execution. 
 They knew well how to inspire fear, and thus made the 
 rich pay heavy ransoms. 
 
 One" Geslin, paid 80,000 francs (or over £3000) 
 not to be arrested. In another ease 70,000 livres, or 
 nearly £3000, was paid them for the release of a 
 prisoner. One, Job, gave 50,000 francs to secure his 
 acquittal and release. 
 
 Individually or collectively mattered not. Chaux 
 took 5000 livres ostensibly for the "salubrity of the 
 air," but gave no receipt : and on another occasion with 
 threats demanded "an offering to the Committee." 
 
 Goullin extracted 24,000 livres from a lieutenant- 
 general of the ex - admiralty, Lieutand by name, "for 
 the poor, and the salubrity of the air." 
 
 Adjutant-General Richard and four of his satellites 
 took widow Mallet to prison and carried off her money 
 and 70,000 His. of tobacco — pretending that it was in 
 requisition. She was let out, but as she asked for her 
 property back, she was again imprisoned. 
 
 Tinard robbed "an honest family" of 4000 livres of 
 jewellery and other things.
 
 272 THE REAL FRENCH REVOLUTIONIST ch. 
 
 And not content with robbing those they put in 
 prison as suspects, they robbed their own friends the 
 republican citizens of Nantes by arbitrary impositions, 
 
 and exactions, and taxes. 
 
 And not content with this, they robbed the State 
 too — the 'patrie, the beloved France, the R^puhlique one 
 and indivisible — to which they professed such devotion, 
 and which was in sorest need. 
 
 The property of convicted rebels was confiscate to 
 the Republic, but, very conveniently, the Committee 
 made no lists of the money or property seized, and they 
 quietly carried off to their own houses wine, wood, and 
 other articles from the houses of emigres or prisoners, 
 without having bought them, or giving account of same 
 to the nation — a process by which the goods "reached 
 their patriotic destination." 
 
 In some at least of their proceedings there was a 
 stroke of humour, however reprehensible the act may 
 have been. Bachelier, the president, a notary, imprisoned 
 six of his rival notaries, so as to get their practice, 
 three of whom died in prison. Goullin, who succeeded 
 Bachelier as president, got rid of a debt by letting the 
 man he owed it to die in prison ; and he quietly settled 
 himself down in a furnished house from which the owner 
 had been sent to prison, and on which the seals of the 
 Republic had been placed. And on one occasion, where 
 some very valuable jewels and other property were being 
 sold by auction, they arranged that ladders should lie 
 kept away, and that things should fetch nothing. Lace 
 worth 100,000 francs was sold for 18 francs. 
 
 ('liaux also used his power to imprison his creditors: 
 a receipt for his debt to them released them, a refusal 
 doomed them to the scaffold. He also bought some 
 national property for 00.000 francs, Out never paid for it.
 
 As Phelippes said,. Le Cornite recevait de toutes mains 
 (" It received from every quarter"). And Goullin, with 
 that loathsome hypocrisy and cant which were so pro- 
 minent and remarkable features of the revolutionary 
 character, wrote to some district authorities : — 
 
 •• Brave comrades, let us work in concert to establish 
 (ctsscoir) and enrich the Republic. She claims the 
 vigorous arms and the disinterested hearts. So main- 
 traitors disturb her, so many knaves pillage her. Con- 
 stancy and incorruptibility and her throne will become 
 immovable.'' 
 
 All the pictures we get of the lives and habits of 
 these men show them as (loins; everything which the 
 ancien regime had been so execrated for doing, and 
 which it was wiped out for doing. 
 
 They revelled in sumptuous repasts, whilst the 
 "patriot" poor of Xantes were suffering from want or 
 dying of starvation. They indulged themselves in every 
 obtainable luxury, whilst man}' of those from whom they 
 had wrung the means for such indulgence were steeped 
 in poverty and misery. And to win and keep their 
 power so to do they stopped at no crime. 
 
 Xo record exists of all their crimes — only a part, a 
 small part, are known. One can only form an idea of 
 the full measure of their iniquities by those which are 
 known. 
 
 With women they were merciless ; sensual brutes, 
 availing themselves of their power and opportunities to 
 appropriate any on whom they cast their eyes. Carrier 
 had given them the lead and example, but they needed 
 little encouragement. 
 
 1'helippes, who knew them probably better than any 
 one else did, and who had 1 letter means than any one of 
 forming an opinion, wrote : — 
 
 T
 
 274 THE REAL FRENCH REVOLUTIONIST ch. 
 
 "There is no crime of which the Revolutionary Com- 
 mittee has not made itself guilty. It has played with 
 the laws and violated them, even those of the Revolu- 
 tionary Covernment. It has covered with mourning 
 and desolation the Department of Loire tnferieure. . . . 
 The extortions are frightful. The revelations are ter- 
 rihle ; . . . they would he more horrible if the dead 
 could speak. But terror, night, the Loire, and death 
 have shrouded under impenetrable veil more than half 
 the crimes committed by these men." 
 
 The tale of revolutionary scoundrels at Nantes is not 
 yet complete. 
 
 Carrier did not rely solely on this Committee to do 
 his work. He had several aides-de-camp, persons more 
 directly receiving their orders from him. 
 
 There was Lebatteux, who commanded the " Scouts 
 of the Mountain/' and levied contributions wherever he 
 went, and gave no account of them: there was Fouquet, 
 whom he had raised to the rank of adjutant-general of 
 artillery: and there was Robin, a dissolute and cruel 
 youth of nineteen or thereabouts; and then 1 was Lam- 
 bert}*, who appears to have been his right hand in carry- 
 ing out the noyades, whom also he raised to the rank of 
 adjutant-general of the artillery. 
 
 Between them and the Revolutionary Committee there 
 was little to choose, for some members of that Committee 
 took part in all their iniquities. 
 
 To have any communication or dealing with brigands 
 was a capital offence; but where women were concerned, 
 these rmis an iis-ruhtt<'$ made "laws of circumstances" 
 for themselves. 
 
 Lamberty, to stock his seraglio in the ship which 
 Carrier had given him, had made it up of women who 
 were in prison as counter-revolutionists, and whom he
 
 xviii THE REVOLUTIONARY COMMITTEE 275 
 
 secretly abstracted from the clutches of the Republic ; 
 unhappy women, who could not hope to save their lives 
 except by yielding themselves to his passions. Among 
 the women he took was a certain Giroust de Marcilly, 
 "an ex-noble"— " the most inveterate enemy of the 
 Republic; a woman who in her hatred of the Revolution 
 could only be compared to Marie Antoinette." 
 
 He and his friend Fouquet had succeeded in carrying 
 her and her maid off while she was on her way from trial 
 by the Military Commission, where the}' had been 
 sentenced to death. He appropriated her, while Fouquet 
 took her maid. .She was only one of a number. There 
 was (lingreau, the maid of Madame de Lescure ; also two 
 sisters Dubois, taken out of the prison of the Entrepot. 
 A whole lot of women were thus taken, and the whole 
 Lauio; of Carrier's henchmen were mixed up in this busi- 
 ness, O'Sullivan, Lavaux, Robin. So common had 
 become such procedure that the Revolutionary Committee 
 at last made a decree ordering all who had withdrawn 
 brigands (i'etir6 dcs brigands) to remit them to the 
 established authorities for .judgment. 
 
 It was this Lamberty who, in one short but luminous 
 phrase, quite unconsciously described the Revolution as it 
 bad in effect worked out. 
 
 Foiled one da}- in an attempt to abstract some female 
 prisoners from one of the prisons at Nantes, he turned 
 on the officer oi the prison who was thwarting him, and, 
 drawing his sword, with menace of death declared that it 
 was the la glaive de la loi (the sword of the law), and 
 that the officer should suffer. 
 
 lie spoke truly. It was so. The sword of the law 
 — or, in other words, the authority of the State — had 
 passed into the hands of depraved and degraded and 
 cruel ruffians like himself.
 
 270 THE REAL FEEXCH REVOLUTIONIST en. 
 
 It had come into the hands of men who were every- 
 thing that was lowest and basest in humanity — tyrants, 
 murderers, slaughterers of the innocent, liars, thieves. 
 debauchees, and drunkards, uneducated, ignorant, and 
 degraded wretches ; men utterly devoid of any sense of 
 right, or justice, or humanity ; men who, mouthing about 
 " liberty/' "equality," and " fraternity," were the incarna- 
 tion of the opposite ideas — tyranny, inequality, and 
 fratricide — and the accentuated embodiment of all the 
 vices they condemned in others. 
 
 This was the great reality of the Revolution ; this is 
 how it worked in practice; very different indeed from 
 all those high-flown theories of justice and humanity 
 and all the virtues with which people dressed up the 
 Republic. And it is exactly because la glaive de la loi 
 (the sword of the law) had come into such infamous 
 hands that the revolutionary Republic stands, and must 
 for ever stand, condemned in the judgment of rational 
 men. 
 
 The regime which had gone before them may have 
 been all that its enemies said — may indeed have been 
 deserving of the fate which befell it: but in everything 
 for which they condemned it, this revolutionary regime is 
 more strongly to be reprobated. 
 
 Instead of liberty succeeding tyranny, only a greater 
 tyranny followed ; instead of equality succeeding in- 
 equality, only another form of inequality was substituted : 
 and instead of all men rushing together in fraternal 
 embrace, a bloody and prolonged civil war broke out, and 
 whole hecatombs of Frenchmen were slain by their own 
 countrymen and brothers. 
 
 It may give a shock to those persons who associate 
 "liberty" with the Revolution to find that the nearest 
 precedent in civilised history to the methods and actions
 
 xvin THE REVOLUTIONARY COMMITTEE 277 
 
 of the Revolutionary Committees of Nantes and Angers, 
 and indeed of the Revolutionary Committees and Govern- 
 ment generally, was that afforded by that fearful engine 
 of religious tyranny, the Spanish Inquisition. And it 
 even, in the height of its might and power, fell short of 
 its revolutionary imitator. 
 
 It would seem indeed as if the revolutionists had had 
 the precedent of the Inquisition in their minds when de- 
 vising and organising the Revolutionary Tribunals and 
 Revolutionary Committees, improving on it as an instru- 
 ment of tyranny where improvement was possible, and 
 making the procedure more stringent and severe, and the 
 escape of innocence more impossible. 
 
 The Inquisition has been graphically described by 
 Motley. 
 
 " It was a bench of monks, without appeal, having its 
 familiars in every honse, diving into the secrets of every 
 fireside, judging and executing its horrible decrees without 
 responsibility. ... It arrested on suspicion, tortured till 
 confession, and then punished by fire. Two witnesses, 
 and those to separate facts, were sufficient to consign the 
 offender to a loathsome dungeon. Here he was sparingly 
 supplied with food. . . . He was informed of the testi- 
 mony against him, but never confronted with the witness. 
 . . . The torture took place in a gloomy dungeon. The 
 victim, whether man, matron, or tender virgin, was 
 stripped naked and stretched on the wooden bench. . . . 
 The executioner, enveloped in a black robe from head to 
 foot, glared at his victim through holes cut in the hood 
 which covered his face, and practised successively all the 
 forms of torture which the devilish ingenuity of the 
 monks had invented." 
 
 Almost verbatim might the description be applied to 
 the Revolutionary Committees and Tribunals, only it
 
 273 THE REAL FRENCH REVOLUTIONIST ch. 
 
 would but inadequately describe the persecuting and ini- 
 quitous system of the revolutionists. 
 
 The Revolutionary Tribunals were benches of civilian 
 or lay judges, or military commissioners, from whom 
 there was no appeal., and the mockery of legal forms em- 
 ployed was certainly greater. 
 
 The Revolutionary Committee had. like the Inquisi- 
 tion, its familiars in almost every house, diving into the 
 secrets of every fireside, and executing its horrible decrees 
 without responsibility. 
 
 It arrested on suspicion, but, worse than its prototype, 
 took guilt for granted, without asking for confession ; it 
 did not even inform the prisoner of any testimony against 
 him: it confronted him with no witness — indeed usually 
 had no witness to confront him with : it punished with 
 tli'' mental and physical torture of an awful imprisonment 
 in dons o\' disease and tilth and semi-starvation, and then 
 with death, by water. Steel, or lead. 
 
 One slight difference there was. Instead of the 
 executioner being clad in a black robe from head to foot, 
 and with face concealed, the revolutionary executioners. 
 Grandmaison. Lamberty, or Vacheron. for example, were 
 undisguised, and swaggered in the national uniform of 
 the new Republic, displaying conspicuously what delu- 
 sively was regarded as the emblem and insignia of 
 " liberty." the tricolour cockade. 
 
 Even in the final scene of all. the similarity of pro- 
 cedure was remarkable. 
 
 With the [nquisition, " the auto-iln-fc or execution of 
 the victims was a solemn spectacle. . . . The procession 
 was tunned with great pomp. . . . The monarch, the 
 high functionaries of the land, the reverend clergy, the 
 populaee regarded it as an inspiring and delightful 
 
 t'eeival \, i]|."
 
 xvni THE REVOLUTIONARY COMMITTEE 279 
 
 With the French revolutionists, on gala days of great 
 fusillades, the authorities usually attended in full uniform, 
 and military bands played ; even he who was actually 
 the sovereign, the Representative, the despot with un- 
 limited powers, has been present at executions. At 
 other times the judges looked on at the executions from 
 the windows of their dining-room, " between their coffee 
 and liqueur " ; and at the guillotinings the populace 
 exhibited their appreciation of the delights of the recrea- 
 tion by attending in considerable numbers and by 
 shouting " Vive la Republique ! " as each head fell under 
 the blade of the guillotine. 
 
 A comparison between the Inquisition and the revolu- 
 tionary system of government as exhibited in the Vendee 
 is to the advantage of the Inquisition. 
 
 For one thing, the Inquisition was more merciful. An 
 avowal of error, or recantation and submission to the 
 tenets of the Church, often secured a pardon or a miti- 
 gated punishment. 
 
 With the Military Commission there was no such 
 leniency. An avowal of error, no matter how genuine or 
 submissive, was answered instantly by a sentence of 
 death. For another thing, too, the Inquisition confined 
 itself mostly to religious practices and opinions, whilst 
 the Revolution covered the whole field of political, civil, 
 religious, and social life. 
 
 And if one finishing touch to the repulsiveness of 
 revolutionary tyranny were required to make it wholly 
 execrable, it was that its crimes were perpetrated under 
 the false name, and under the cloak, of " liberty."
 
 t HAl'TEi: XIX 
 
 Wi 
 
 : .y.N : 
 
 
 L\] 
 
 Li: 
 
 
 .e Rev luri n became an accomplished fact, and 
 ■;' 1; was ieelared as n great existent reality. 
 .vas placed first tnd : remost ol th< three greai 
 he new id r ol things intri lu« ■ I ' -y the la vi lu- 
 Li: erty. eest itio ap» str p'hos were daih i 1- 
 ::./. issi :. 1 in\ :ati ns were unceasingly :... 
 : :h a_h:. : express:* :.. ol aetr n. la' ei;v was 
 
 : r-r '_ .'• 
 
 
 inn x. tla nut tieosis 
 
 :: :. ry eti-.-rt, aa.i only under a Piewdutionan 
 u: al 1 true HI erty exist. 
 
 La: a:;: illy i e 'conclud- h theref a . that 
 : every s r: w aid vanish, at least from France, 
 under the m-w ■ i ier ol things HI erty w< ul I 
 
 h i: might I _: illy ' ■• exj ■ te i tl it the m re 
 v the rev 'luri- nary i ioas were re ilised. the 
 : r:\ there v. aid he: :. that the ;: lh ] r- 
 • ::: w -ild • attained when sa h a} <k-s ..t 
 
 w: . a:-a--:. ■ . etween " :.e-i v 
 
 :,- .].. :. 
 
 Se is leu
 
 TERROR 
 
 281 
 
 the French Revolution, thai not merely have grave 
 doubts arisen whether the Revolution was all even its 
 apologists claimed for it. but it becomes ever plainer that 
 it was, in fact, a greater and more transparent " sham :: 
 than the unrealities which it was lauded for having 
 swept away. 
 
 For, if one finds that a system of government, how- 
 ever theoretically admirable, when put into actual opera- 
 tion and practice, works out diametrically opposite to 
 the theories on which it is based, it is only natural 
 that the soundness of the system should be vitally 
 impugned. 
 
 Certainly it is a fact that, as revolutionary opinions 
 gained greater ascendency, liberty became less and less : 
 until, at last, as revolutionary government was really 
 perfected, and one public authority after another was 
 reduced into obedient implements in its hands, liberty 
 ceased to exist. 
 
 Nantes affords a remarkable illustration of this great 
 truth. Of most cities in France it ought to have shown 
 the beauteous effects of revolutionary principles. There 
 liberty should have flourished, for whatever anti-revolu- 
 tionary leaven there had been in it had been eliminated. 
 Republican and revolutionary clubs and societies, by dint 
 of a. process of purgation, had attained the height of 
 principles beloved by ardent revolutionists; the local 
 authorities were strongly republican : a Revolutionary 
 Committee was in full and undisputed authority over 
 everybody and everything ; and over all. in supreme 
 power and with unlimited authority, was the delegate 
 of the Convention, the '"' Representative of the people," 
 selected by Robespierre himself. Here, then, there should 
 have been the fullest enjoyment of liberty, the most com- 
 plete absence of anv vestige of tvrannv.
 
 282 THE REAL FRENCH REVOLUTIONIST ch. 
 
 But so it was not. In defiance of all avowed prin- 
 ciples of the Republic, liberty did not exist. 
 
 Of personal liberty there was none. On every house 
 a list had to be posted up on the door of the people 
 inside. From where one was, there was no departure. 
 Movement to any part of the country was impossible 
 without a passport, which was only obtainable if one 
 were a professed sans-culotte, or, through intermediaries. 
 got access to some sans-culotte in authority, who for a 
 sufficient consideration would grant it. 
 
 Within one's house, too, one was liable at any moment 
 to domiciliary invasion, and search and arrest. 
 
 Liberty of trade — liberty to earn an honest liveli- 
 hood — was there none. The law of 26th July 1793, 
 directed against monopolists, declared all to be guilty of 
 monopoly who kept any articles of first necessity from 
 sale, in which articles were included almost every article 
 of daily food or use, even to clothes and metals: and the 
 law of maximum, which fixed the prices above which the 
 articles might not be sold, fixed them at such ruinously 
 low prices that there was a heavy loss on their sale. 
 Moreover, every merchant or tradesman was ordered to 
 write up the list of supplies he had in his stores, and 
 disobedience to these injunctions entailed dangerous, even 
 the extremest penalties. To enforce these laws a system 
 was devised, so ruinous to all concerned (except the 
 revolutionary officials), that all trade was destroyed. 
 
 And in addition to these laws, there were constant 
 requisitions on the part of the Government, or of the 
 local authorities and Revolutionary Committees, not merely 
 of food, but of all sorts of things, at prices which were 
 <juite unremunerative to makers or to producers, and no 
 one could refuse to obey under pain of confiscation or 
 worse. Production was thus discouraged, was practically
 
 xix TEEEOE 283 
 
 stopped, whilst the whole system of distribution was first 
 disorganised, and then eeased to lie. 
 
 In fact, tyranny in trade and eomnierce was extreme ; 
 and if the law was in any respect not quite despotic 
 enough to secure its object, the Representatives gave more 
 extensive interpretation to it. Thus " the private in- 
 dustry and personal initiative of citizens were struck by 
 complete paralysis," and the commerce of Nantes — the 
 life of the great city — was destroyed. 
 
 And as for religious liberty, not alone did it not exist, 
 but it had been perverted into the most vehement and 
 violent religious persecution. The original Declaration 
 of the Eights of Man on 25th August 1789, and the 
 new edition of those Eights made on 8th December 
 1 703, had solemnly declared that no one was to be inter- 
 fered with [inquUti] on account of his opinions, even of 
 his religious opinions. But, despite this solemn declara- 
 tion, religious freedom had been deliberately annihilated. 
 From the very outset, as has been seen, a violent religious 
 persecution was one of the features of the new regime of 
 liberty. The ministers of religion had been swept away: 
 churches closed and turned into meeting-places for Eevolu- 
 tionary Committees, or other secular purposes. Fetes of 
 reason were substituted for religious fetes or worship ; 
 and, finally, the revolutionary calendar, abolishing the 
 religious Sabbath, and substituting a secular Sabbath 
 for it, was designed to be an obliterating blow against 
 religion. 
 
 Public religious worship was thus non-existent. Even 
 private worship was almost impossible ; for the possession 
 of a prayer-book, of a string of beads, or of any religious 
 emblem or token, was held to be proof of correspondence 
 with refractory priests, an offence visited with arrest, and 
 sentence, and death.
 
 284 THE REAL FRENCH REVOLUTIONIST . „. 
 
 Nor was it any different as regards liberty of expres- 
 sion or thought. 
 
 Political opinions, not in full accordance with the 
 latest phase of sans-culotte ravings, were ruthlessly sup- 
 pressed. Hundreds had been sent to the scaffold for some 
 expression which was twisted into some disrespect to the 
 Republic. 
 
 Not step by step, but stride by stride, had republican 
 opinions become extremer, and the more extreme they 
 became, the more violent became the true republican 
 against those who did not keep pace with him, or who 
 showed any signs of hanging back. Moderates, Federal- 
 ists, Girondists, were all accursed, and regarded as dan- 
 gerous enemies of the Republic, as were the royalists and 
 clericals. 
 
 Revolutionary Government could not abide even the 
 suspicion of a rival. It could not brook the slightest 
 imputation against itself. Criticism of its acts was an 
 offence punished with death. It lashed itself into fury 
 at the faintest sign of opposition or even disapprobation, 
 and its fury was terrible in its unreasonableness, appal- 
 ling in its injustice, and remorseless in its operation. 
 Before its wrath every vestige of liberty was annihilated. 
 and nothing remained but a despotism so complete, so 
 evil, so unjust, so merciless, and cruel, that the world's 
 history must be ransacked to lind a parallel to it, and 
 then the parallel could not be found. 
 
 And there was the special and peculiar aggravation 
 of this despotism, thai revolutionary ingenuity had 
 drawn the net so tightly round all men that they were 
 defenceless against any blow that might be aimed against 
 them. 
 
 Law alter law had been passed against every form 
 of depreciation of or opposition to the Revolutionary
 
 xix TEE ROE 285 
 
 Government ; but lest any possible loophole should 
 still remain, suspicion was made tantamount to guilt. 
 Suspicion covered everything. And the courts of 
 justice, the last safeguard of the innocent, were 
 perverted into obedient instruments of tyranny, and 
 afforded no protection to even the most manifest 
 innocence. 
 
 The executive machinery of the Revolutionary Govern- 
 ment was perfect in its malignant despotism. In 
 Xantes as in Angers it was in the hands of a horde 
 of " apostles of carnage," responsible to no one, keen 
 for blood, covetous of other men's goods, and eager to 
 raise themselves to revolutionary power and fame, 
 though the steps by which they ascended should be 
 the heaped corpses of innocent men and women and 
 children. 
 
 And the result was that not " liberty " but " terror " 
 reigned ; an appalling terror ; terror racking unceasingly 
 the minds of all ; for at last it came to such an 
 extreme that none, not even the republicans and revolu- 
 tionists themselves, had any security against being the 
 victim of the next blow. 
 
 Mutual trust was completely destroyed, for the friend 
 might, for self-preservation's sake, become an enemy. 
 Xo one dared to communicate his thoughts to another, 
 through fear of being overheard, or that an evil 
 interpretation might be put on his words. 
 
 " It was a time to have ears that would not hear, and 
 eyes that did not see." 
 
 " If one met one's brother, one dare not address 
 him, — one dare not speak to him, through fear of being 
 suspected of evil intentions." Men became afraid even 
 to look at each other, lest a plot might be read in a 
 look of grief or disdain. Spies surrounded them ;
 
 286 THE REAL FRENCH REVOLUTION 1ST C h. 
 
 their conversations were listened to, their correspondence 
 was opened and read. The slightest sign of humanity, 
 or of sympathy with the victims of the revolutionists, 
 or of giving help to any one was dangerous, for pity 
 was regarded by the revolutionists as a crime and not 
 as a virtue. 
 
 And the terror grew as during the dark winter 
 months the saturnalia of carnage grew wilder, as the 
 rr((is sans-calottes plunged ever deeper into the abysses 
 of infamy; and as men realised that they could not even 
 show that they knew anything of the horrors being 
 daily perpetrated in their midst without imperilling 
 their individual safety. 
 
 And the feelings of all were weighed down by the 
 sense that nothing they could do, or abstain from doing, 
 could secure them against disaster. There was no refuge 
 possible, no safety anywhere. Even a cringing sub- 
 missive obedience to the laws did not secure immunity ; 
 tor in one sense there was no law, and every one's life 
 was at the mercy of any malicious individual who chose 
 to fabricate a charge against one. 
 
 And there was no appeal for mercy, or even for 
 justice to any one ; for he to whom the appeal would 
 come, if it ever reached him, was the person charged 
 by the Revolutionary Government to perpetrate the 
 very acts complained of: whilst in Paris, the Com- 
 mittee of Public Safety and the National Convention 
 turned a deaf ear and a blind eye to the acts of their 
 deputy. 
 
 ( hi the people of Nantes the perpetual guillotinings, 
 the noyades, the fusillades had, as they were intended 
 to have, a tremendous effect. To the victims of those 
 inhumanities the end at any rate had come of their 
 miseries and sufferings. But those who survived
 
 xix TEE EOT? 287 
 
 cowered under the tempest of revolutionary violence, 
 and were struck with absolute terror. Complaint meant 
 death ; and so they had to sutler in silence, and groan 
 in secret, and they sank into a dumb stupor. The 
 agony begotten of the unceasing dread that they, or 
 the beloved members of their family, might at any 
 moment be torn from hearth and home, and sent to 
 death, weighed them down to the; lowermost depths 
 of mental anxiety and torture. No man left his house 
 but with the fear that he might never come back to 
 it again, or if he did come back to it, might find it in 
 the possession of the Maratist Company, sealed witli 
 their appropriating seal, and his wife and children 
 swept away to prison. Once there, they were beyond 
 help, for merely to ask for mercy for a prisoner had 
 been made a crime by the Revolutionary Committee, 
 and once in prison, they were on the outer sweep of 
 the whirlpool, certain a little sooner or a little later 
 to be drawn into the vortex, and to disappear for ever 
 in the devouring abyss. 
 
 And daily they had visible or other proof of the 
 possible fate awaiting themselves, — in the processions of 
 victims through the streets on the way to death ; in the 
 sound of the volleys of musketry borne to the ear as the 
 victims met their fate ; or, if they passed the Place du 
 Douffay, in the dull thuds of the blood-besmeared guillo- 
 tine, and the cheers of "Vive la Eepublique," as one 
 head after another tell into the fatal basket, and the 
 blood, despite three feet of sand to absorb it, trickled in 
 little streams across the Place until it reached and fell 
 into the river. 
 
 Daily their nostrils were assailed by the pestilential 
 smells arising from the unburied or half-buried bodies of 
 the thousands of victims of revolutionary cruelty, or the
 
 28S THE REAL FRENCH REVOLUTIONIST en. 
 
 festering masses of a still living humanity in the numerous 
 revolutionary prisons. 
 
 Their eyes, too, were shocked by the dead bodies of 
 tlic liuyaded or fusilladed lying on the banks of the river, 
 left there by the current. Or. most horrible of all, by 
 the sight of half-starved dogs slinking along with bloody 
 jaws, and in their mouths bones or lumps of Mesh torn 
 from the half-buried corpses of the Vendeans or other 
 victims done to death in the name of liberty. 
 
 Even night brought no relaxation of the mental 
 strain nor offered any repose: for darkness afforded no 
 protection against violence and arrest. Rather did 
 darkness add to their fears, were that possible. Every 
 sound almost, the roll of distant wheels, the heavy foot- 
 step of the chance passer-by, the gusts of wind which 
 shook their doors, was felt as the herald of danger and 
 death. Frequently, too, the cries of their neighbours 
 being haled to prison made them realise how very real 
 and near the danger was, whilst the shrieks of the victims 
 of the noyades chilled their hearts and souls with dread 
 that such might soon be their end. 
 
 And then, thanks also to this most desirable of terms 
 of government, their material circumstances caused them 
 the deepest anxiety. The necessities of life were scarcely 
 obtainable. 
 
 With many families actual famine prevailed : whilst 
 want was universal, except among the sans-culotte officials 
 who monopolised for themselves all the luxuries they 
 could lay hands on. The needs of the Government 
 entailed a ruinous taxation, and the grasping avarice of 
 its corrupt administrators consummated the ruin of those 
 whd had any property. 
 
 And as if all these ills were not enough, disease 
 came, and a dangerous epidemic raged throughout the
 
 xix TERBOB 280 
 
 town. The overcrowded and pestilential condition of 
 the prisons had resulted in a fearful prevalence of fever, 
 and dysentery, and other sicknesses, which not alone 
 thinned the number of prisoners, but clutched those out- 
 side the prison walls as well. 
 
 Thus everything, in this era of Liberty, combined to 
 make both the mental and physical condition of the 
 people miserable beyond description. 
 
 It is impossible to even imagine the terror, the miser}', 
 the suffering which existed. 
 
 For months, all through the weary winter months of 
 o-loom and wet and cold, this terror grew and grew, and 
 became ever more and more accentuated as crime after 
 crime was committed, and as the victims, from being 
 numbered by tens and hundreds, passed into thousands 
 and thousands. 
 
 It was like the terror of the nightmare in which the 
 agonised cry for relief can find no utterance. 
 
 Gradually, too, the terror involved all classes in its 
 fearsome grip. 
 
 " Scarce a house in Nantes but was wet with the 
 tears of the wronged or the suffering. Scarce a stone 
 but was stained with blood." 
 
 " Nantes was frozen with terror."
 
 CHAP TEE XX 
 
 NATURES PROTEST 
 
 If man remained silent under these appalling violations 
 of all the principles of humanity — if no human hand or 
 voice were raised to check them — Nature, at least, would 
 not remain an assenting witness of the diabolical infamies 
 of the " good republicans " of Nantes, of the " true sans- 
 culottes " of the Revolution. 
 
 And so, far out over the Atlantic the storm begins to 
 move — to gather force. The clouds of heaven become 
 darker — the wind increases in energy- — the sea labouring 
 ever more and more, in deep agitation. A western gale 
 sweeps in on the coast of France; higher and higher 
 mount the waves; and the great masses of water are 
 driven before its fur}'. 
 
 Xo common gale is this, but such a one as in the 
 memory of man had not been witnessed before, lasting 
 on ami on, in furious wrath and grandeur, banking up 
 the waters of the vast deep, and hurling them at last 
 right up the estuary of the Loire. 
 
 And as the great mass of waters swirled and 
 foamed up the tidal way to Nantes, under the leaden 
 sky of the cold winter's day, they gathered in their 
 embrace the countless bodies of those whom a demoniacal
 
 oh. xx NATURE'S PROTEST 291 
 
 cruelty had sent to death in the frigid bosom of the 
 river. 
 
 The great Ocean would repudiate participation in the 
 crimes of the murderers who sought to bury in the secrecy 
 of its depths the evidence of their infamies, and now, 
 with indignant might, it forced the river to bear back 
 the accumulated proofs of their guilt, to affright the gaze 
 of the great city with the magnitude of the crimes com- 
 mitted within its precincts. 
 
 And so, borne on the rising, rushing tide, come these 
 ghastly remains of the victims of French revolutionary 
 "justice." Somehow there was in it a resemblance to a 
 school of porpoises, as one sees them disporting themselves 
 in the waves, suddenly appearing and disappearing, just 
 long enough on the surface to catch the eye of the 
 beholder ; but these tenants of the waters, appearing 
 and disappearing, were of a, different hue and kind, and 
 instead of being full of life and volition, they were 
 helpless and inert. 
 
 In all stages of decay — in all the horrors of de- 
 composition — in the fixed and ghastly attitudes of an 
 agonising end — in all the rigidity of death — naked as 
 when they were born into this world of woe and misery 
 — many displaying the gaping wounds inflicted by the 
 vrais sans-culottes who had done them to death, or by 
 those Maratist " friends of the people " who were the 
 trusted henchmen of the Revolutionary Government — 
 come these bodies, borne on the dark and angry tide. 
 
 On they come, in horrid ghastly procession, jostling 
 each other as they roll inertly, impassively along. Here 
 and there a hand or arm appears above the water, as if 
 to demand the attention of living men — here and there 
 a pallid face appears for a moment above the weaves, 
 then disappears ; then whole figures are seen rolling and
 
 202 THE LEAL FRENCH REVOLUTIONIST ch. xx 
 
 swaying in the waters of the river, and ever}" now and 
 then a body is pushed up on the hank., and left there, so 
 that all men may indubitably know what those moving, 
 white, shadowy figures beneath the water are. 
 
 In hundreds upon hundreds they come. Old and 
 young — men. women, and children — a great final gather- 
 ing of the dead — to make one final, united protest against 
 the hellish fiends who had done them to death, and 
 against the system in whose name they had been de- 
 stroyed. 
 
 It was a silent protest, for those mute lips could 
 never open in speech again ; but it was a protest which 
 will last through all time. 
 
 Nor did it at the moment pass quite unheeded. The 
 municipal authorities of Nantes made a decree ordering 
 the inhabitants of the city to abstain from drinking the 
 water of the Loire, and from eating any fish caught in 
 the river : and an extra number of grave-diggers were 
 employed to bury the bodies thrown up on the banks. 
 
 And so, once more, " En avant '. :: " Vive la Ee- 
 publique ! " " Vive la justice revolutionnaire ! "
 
 CHAPTER XXI 
 
 ' THE INFERNAL COLUMNS ' 
 
 Part I 
 
 Just as Carrier's regime at Nantes, Francastel's at 
 Angers, and that of other Representatives in other places 
 presented to the world startling and appalling illustra- 
 tions of tyranny under a Republican Government, and of 
 the negation of liberty and justice which had to be 
 endured under it, so the regime of Turreau, the com- 
 mander-in-chief in the Vendee, disclosed another illus- 
 tration of the limitless powers for evil in the form of 
 government which was being heralded to mankind as 
 the acme of liberty, the ideal of justice, and the em- 
 bodiment of brotherly love. 
 
 In Xantes, in Angers, and in many other places, 
 one saw under the banner of " liberty, fraternity,, and 
 equality " a despotism of the civil power — every natural 
 right of man set aside and contemned, every form of 
 liberty crushed, every protection of justice ignored. 
 
 In the Vendee under Turreau's regime one sees a 
 fierce military despotism, where the musket and the 
 bayonet ami the torch were the instruments of a tyranny 
 rivalling in injustice and atrocity even that of the civil 
 power.
 
 294 THE REAL FRENCH REVOLUTIONIST ch. 
 
 The general idea of Turreau's procedure had been set 
 out a little while previously by Carrier. 
 
 Tt might be thought that, what with noyades, fusil- 
 lades, and guillotinings, nocturnal debauches, and all the 
 other pleasures of the vrai sans-culotte, Carrier would, 
 have had enough to occupy him. His soul appears, 
 however, to have hungered for further fields of energy, 
 for on the 1 lth December he wrote to the Committee 
 of Public Safety: — 
 
 " I am as interested as you are in the prompt ex- 
 termination of the brigands. You can, you ought to 
 rely on me. I understand, yes I understand to-day, the 
 business of war. I am on the spot. Remain at ease, 
 and let me act. So soon as the news of the capture of 
 Xnirmoutier shall have reached me, I will send an im- 
 mediate order to Generals Dutruy and Haxo to put to 
 death, in all the revolted country, all the individuals of 
 both sexes who are found there, indiscriminately, and to 
 accomplish the burning of everything. 
 
 " For it is well that you should know that it is the 
 women who, with the priests, have fomented and sus- 
 tained the war in the Vendee ; that it is they who have 
 had our unhappy prisoners shot; who have butchered 
 many ; who fight with the brigands ; and who pitilessly 
 kill our volunteers when they meet any detached ones 
 in the villages. They are an enhance proscrite (a cursed 
 breed), like all the peasants, for there is not a single one 
 of them who lias not borne arms against the Republic. 
 They must be absolutely and totally purged from the 
 soil." 
 
 The Committee of Public Safety took no steps to 
 prevent such n horrible programme being carried into 
 effect, made no protest even against the extreme char- 
 acter of those views and intentions, and so must be held
 
 xxi 'THE INFERNAL COLUMNS' 295 
 
 as approving, at any rate as not discountenancing, the 
 idea. 
 
 The day after writing this epistle, he wrote to 
 General Haxo, who was in the western part of the 
 Vendee : — 
 
 " It forms part of my plans, and these are the orders 
 of the National Convention, to carry off all the means 
 of subsistence, every commodity, all the forage, in one 
 word, everything belonging to this accursed country, 
 and to give every building in it to the flames, and to 
 exterminate all the inhabitants." And he added this 
 order : " You are ordered to burn all the houses of the 
 rebels, to massacre all the inhabitants, and to carry 
 away all the food." 
 
 But the atrocious credit of converting these brutal 
 and merciless ideas into actual facts must be given to 
 another than he, namely to Louis Marie Turreau, who 
 had been appointed commander-in-chief in the Vendee 
 (as successor to L'Echelle); and if Carrier is for ever 
 infamous on account of the noyades, so may General 
 Turreau take his place beside him in the temple of 
 infamy as the organiser and director of the " infernal 
 columns " which massacred thousands upon thousands 
 of unarmed and innocent citizens, " patriots " as well as 
 brigands. 
 
 The idea of reducing the whole of the Vendee to a 
 blackened mass of desolation by lire, and to a desert, 
 by the massacre of all the inhabitants, was certainly 
 quite in accordance with the reckless brutality of re- 
 volutionary procedure, and was as a matter of fact in 
 accordance with the opinions of the Committee of Public 
 Safety and of the Convention in Paris. 
 
 It did not appear to matter that by the end of 1793 
 the triumph of the republicans in the Vendee was
 
 29G THE REAL FEENOH REVOLUTIONIST en. 
 
 practically complete. Once the great mass of the Yen- 
 deans had migrated from their own lands across the 
 Loire;, and once the fight had shifted to the north side 
 of the river, the Upper Vendee had quieted down: there 
 were no assemblies of brigands ; " not ten men were 
 assembled in arms; one could go through it with an 
 escort of four orderlies," wrote a general; the adminis- 
 trations and various local authorities had resumed their 
 functions, and confidence was being re-established. 
 And in the Lower Vendue, though Charette was still 
 spasmodically carrying on the strife, the peasants, 
 wearied of the frightful war, were imploring the protec- 
 tion and clemency of the republicans; and Haxo was 
 able to report that all the roads were safe and that the 
 country was free. 
 
 The annihilation of the Vendean host on tlie north 
 side of the Loire, and the complete triumph of the 
 republicans there, made the Vendean cause more hope- 
 less than ever. The few remaining chiefs were leading 
 a wandering and hunted life of hardship and hourly 
 danger. " There existed no longer a A ,r endee." " Every- 
 thing was tranquil in the insurgent country." 
 
 The war, in fact, might have been considered at an 
 end, — would soon have been completely so, if wise or 
 moderate counsels had any existence. 
 
 The general cry was for peace. But peace was not to 
 be — -indeed, one might say, peace was not revolutionary. 
 
 Turreau had come, a bon sans-culotte, with a "great 
 idea" in his head, the realisation of which would make 
 him for ever famous — " a promenade " in the Vendee, 
 as he lightly called it. The attempted realisation of 
 his idea lighted up a second war in the Vendue. 
 
 On the 1 5th January he was at Saumur, and there 
 lie wrote to the Representatives announcing his great
 
 xxi THE INFERNAL COLUMNS' 297 
 
 idea, which, he said, he had formed before his appoint- 
 ment. 
 
 " My intention is to burn everything, reserving only 
 some few places as cantonments for the troops most 
 suited for the destruction of the rebels ; but this great 
 measure should be prescribed by you. I am only a 
 passive agent. . . . You must also pronounce in advance 
 as to the fate of the women ami children I come across 
 in the revolted country. If they are all to be put to 
 the sword, I cannot carry out such a proceeding without 
 an order which will relieve me from the responsibility." 
 
 The Representatives, L. Turreau, who was his cousin, 
 and Bourbotte, left the letter unanswered, and wrote to 
 the Committee of Public Safety asking for their own 
 recall on the ground of ill-health. 
 
 Nevertheless, two days later, he issued a general 
 order, organising six divisions of troops, each in charge 
 of a general. 
 
 The six divisions were commanded by the generals 
 Bonnaire, Boucret, Cordellier, Duval, Grignon, and 
 Moulin. 1 Each of the divisions was to be divided into 
 two columns. These twelve columns, amounting to 
 about 12,000 men in all, placed on a line embracing 
 practically " the diameter of the country," were to sweep 
 the Vendee from east to west. All the corn and forage 
 and provisions found were to be seized and put in carts, 
 and sent to safe centres for the benefit of the Republic. 
 The most scrupulous search was to be made for the 
 rebels, all of whom were to be bayoneted, whilst the 
 villages, farm-houses, woods — in fact, everything that 
 would burn — were to be s>iven over to the flames. 
 
 1 Savary, jealous of the reputation of the Mayencais troops, says : 
 " Xo general, no ofiicer, nor any portion even of the troops of Mayence 
 were employed '' (Savary, iii. 45).
 
 298 THE REAL FRENCH REVOLUTIONIST ch. 
 
 Thirteen communes out of the whole country were 
 exempted from this decree of destruction as being proper 
 places for the necessary garrisons. 
 
 This barbarous plan surpassed in atrocity even the 
 decree of the Convention of the previous August, which, 
 though ordering the destruction of the Vendee, did not 
 condemn the population en masse, but directed that the 
 old men, women, and children should be removed before 
 the villages were destroyed. Xo such exception was 
 made by Turreau. 
 
 On the 19th January he wrote to the Minister of 
 War announcing his plans for the extermination of the 
 rest of the rebels, and informing him that the columns 
 were to make "a general battue," and so definitely purge 
 the country of the brigands. And on the same day he 
 wrote to the Committee of Public Safety informing it in 
 full detail of his intended " military promenade," which, 
 he expected, would be finished about the 3rd or 4th of 
 February, and sending it a copy of his letter to the 
 Representatives. 
 
 " I have reason to hope you will approve. Please 
 send me an answer by return courier. ... I am 
 abandoned by the Representatives." 
 
 Doue, from which he wrote, was little more than 
 a couple of days' post from Paris, but he would not wait 
 for a reply. As a matter of fact, some three weeks 
 passed before one was sent. 
 
 lie bad established his headquarters at Done, and 
 there he held a council of war, informing the generals of 
 his great plan. Some of them remonstrated as to the 
 impolicy of the scheme, but he crushed remonstrance by 
 saying that his plan was approved by the Committee of 
 Public Safety. 
 
 The generals were u'iven their detailed instruct ions,
 
 xxi 'THE INFERNAL COLUMNS' 299 
 
 What they were may be gathered from Cordellier's 
 orders to his column : — 
 
 " All the brigands who are found with arms in their 
 hands, or convicted of having taken them to revolt, 
 shall be bayoneted to death. Girls, women, and 
 children in similar circumstances shall be treated in the 
 same way. Suspected persons shall not be spared 
 either ; but in their cases the general must have given 
 an order for their execution. Persons of whose civism 
 the general shall be satisfied, would be at liberty to go to 
 the rear of the army." 
 
 And so, on the 21st January, all preparations being 
 made, the " infernal columns " are let go, and the Vendee 
 is delivered to fire and sword, Turreau himself taking- 
 command of the centre column to see how his plan 
 worked out. 
 
 In the previous year the light had been more or less 
 of a fair stand-up character — that much could be said for 
 it — now, there is no fight ; it is a horrid and unprovoked 
 massacre of defenceless and surprised men, women, and 
 children, for none are spared. No inkling had reached 
 the unfortunate people of the fate in store for them; no 
 warning had been given them ; they were not in arms 
 fighting — had made no sign of taking to arms— nor had 
 they done anything to draw down such violence upon 
 themselves. The thunderbolt fell before the lightning 
 flashed. To them the first tidings of the fate in store 
 for them are the furious invading horde of armed men, 
 the rough capture of their fellow -villagers, the loud 
 reverberations of the death-shots from the muskets, the 
 shrieks of the falling victims, the prodding and hewing and 
 hacking of bloody bayonets or sabres, the blazing torches. 
 
 Like a cyclone of destruction these " infernal columns" 
 swept down upon their hellish mission.
 
 :;0U THE REAL FUE.WII REVOLUTIONIST cu. 
 
 Stretched out in echelon, searching right and left, on 
 they come : the cavalry sometimes with their horses' 
 hoots mullled so that no alarm might be given and the 
 surprise he complete. Here, in the recesses of a valley, 
 a farm-house is found, the farmer is seized, " suspect " of 
 course : his servants, male and female, are captured. 
 brigands also; lucky if his wife and daughters are not 
 violated before his eyes before they are killed; a few 
 minutes and all are lying mangled, mutilated corpses, or 
 writhing in their death agonies ; and then, whatever 
 property or valuables there are in the house are swept 
 into the soldiers' sack-, or hoisted into the carts or 
 waggons, to be divided later between the plunderers — 
 generals, officers, and soldier-: fiends with lighted brands 
 rush hither and thither, setting tire to the house, to the 
 sheds, to the woods, to everything that will burn; and 
 then, with shouts of " Vive la L'epubliqiie .' " " Ca-ira ! " 
 push on to further conquests. 
 
 In the villages the procedure is a little slower; the 
 slaughter and destruction being on a larger scale, the 
 amount of pillage greater, the search for it more pro- 
 longed. There, sometimes, the victims were kept over- 
 night — and what a night. 
 
 Here is one night, in one place — a scene multiplied 
 by many in the earlier period of the "infernal columns." 
 
 " Everything was quiet in the bourg until about six 
 o'clock in the evening — near the time of pillage. But 
 as the citizens knew that their houses were to be burned 
 the next day. they attached little value to their property, 
 knowing that they could not save it from the flames. 
 At this hour the aspect of affairs changed. The soldiers. 
 
 po ed with tlie idea that they were to burn and kill 
 
 everything in this unfortunate country, gave themselves 
 up to all sort of excesses, — the women wore violated,
 
 xxi 'THE INFEEXAL COLUMNS' 301 
 
 pillaged, mutilated : the men were .struck down ; and 
 soon the greater number of officers, worse a thousand 
 times than the soldiers, allowed themselves the greatest 
 violence against the unhappy women who had prepared 
 their supper for them, nourishing their naked swords 
 and threatening to cut their heads off if they did not 
 consent to the officers gratifying their brutal passion. 
 They breathed only blood and carnage, and threatened to 
 kill every one." 
 
 The fearful night slowly drags its length along, every 
 moment an agony to the unfortunate and innocent 
 villagers surrounded by these drunken fiends ; dawn at 
 last breaks — ■ the cold, gloomy, clammy dawn of a 
 winter's day ; and then the final scene — the collecting of 
 the terror-stricken women and children ; the shootings 
 and sabrings and bayonetings, till the last villager 
 has been done to death, and a heap of slain lies 
 there, jocularly called a " patriotic mountain " (des 
 montagnes patriot i([ues). And the column passes on 
 with its plunder, leaving behind it blazing roofs and 
 rafters, and charring corpses, and a village — wiped out. 
 Once more " En avant ! " " Vive la Eepublique ! "' 
 
 Think of it. Eleven l " infernal columns " under 
 republican generals and officers, scattered in one great 
 line across the A^endee, most of them hard at work at 
 this hellish employment, most of them revelling in it, 
 getting up in the morning to it ; killing the women and 
 girls they had violated and outraged in the night, and 
 the children, to get their hand in for the day : seizing 
 anything valuable that they could get, appropriating all 
 the food and drink they could find, setting ablaze the 
 
 1 Those historians who have vaguely noticed, these horrors say there 
 were twelve columns, but Moulin could only form one column, not 
 having enough troops for a second, and being himself ill, had to appoint 
 a substitute to take the command (Savary, iii. 82).
 
 302 THE REAL FRENCH REVOLUTIONIST ch. 
 
 roof that had sheltered them, and then, moving on to 
 new slaughtering grounds, adopting the devices of a 
 hunter to secure their prey : shooting, stabbing, hacking 
 all through the day all they unearth; burning every- 
 thing that will burn, until the evening comes : a fresh 
 village is captured, and the night's debauch of drink and 
 violation once more comes round. 
 
 " What did I find there ?'" wrote a republican officer who 
 had seen some of these places in the wake of the 
 republican troops. " Fathers, mothers, children of every 
 age and both sexes, bathed in their blood, naked, and in 
 attitudes which the most ferocious person could not look 
 at without shuddering."' 
 
 And so, under the presidency and immediate super- 
 vision of Louis Marie Turreau. commander-in-chief of 
 the republican army in the Vendee, the merciless 
 slaughter and destruction by the republican troops and 
 generals go on, day after day. Villages and bourgs, or 
 small towns, right and left, are burned : farm-houses 
 destroyed; everything that will burn is burned, every 
 human being killed, every living thing slaughtered or 
 driven away. 
 
 Horrible and incredible in brutality as their proceed- 
 ings were, the generals wrote jocular reports to Turreau: 
 
 '■' To-morrow," wrote Grignon, " I shall begin the feux 
 <1? j'l'ir, 1 turning and bayoneting everything that comes 
 in the [lower of my column." 
 
 And Cordellier wrote: " 1 will arrange so as not to 
 lie cold to-morrow morning before starting"; and on 
 another day: "The municipal authorities declare to me 
 that tin.' only anti-revolutionists in the commune are 
 some women whose husbands are away with the brigands. 
 As they appear to me to be suspects, 1 will take care 
 that thev L r et their breakfast to-morrow morniim."
 
 xx, THE INFERNAL COLUMNS' 303 
 
 Playful terms also were used. " All those we find go 
 to the headquarters," a phrase which with " to go to the 
 hospital " or "behind the hedge" were equivalent expres- 
 sions to their being sent to death. 
 
 Several of the generals were keen in their work. 
 "1 arrived here this evening," wrote Grignon, "after 
 burning and smashing heads a I' ordinaire. . . . We 
 kill about 100 a day. Perhaps 300 were killed 
 yesterday." 
 
 And Boucret wrote : "There are about 1500 houses 
 in these communes, not counting farm-houses. I do not 
 wish that there remain a trace of them ; the country 
 shall be purged with fire and sword. Not a brigand 
 shall escape me." 
 
 Now and then an even ghastlier note is struck. 
 
 " I have to inform you," wrote Grignon to Turreau, 
 " that the soldiers break their guns in killing with the 
 bayonets the brigands whom they find in the broom and 
 in the woods, and the brigands resist (se revoltent). 
 Would it not be better to kill them by shooting them ; 
 that would be quicker '( " 
 
 The columns are tracked by " cinders and corpses. 
 . . . The eyes met nothing but bloody objects in every 
 direction ; the fields near the road were covered with 
 butchered victims." 
 
 It is a carnival of butchery, pillage, rape, and confla- 
 gration ; everywhere burnings — " at tbis moment forty 
 farmsteads light up the country " — ■ and everywhere 
 slaughterings, mostly of women. " This morning," wrote 
 Boucret, " I had fourteen women and girls shot " — a 
 truly valiant deed to record, one of which a French 
 general of the regime of liberty and fraternity was 
 apparently proud. 
 
 On the 25th January, Turreau, the arch-organiser
 
 304 THE REAL FRENCH REVOLUTIONIST «... 
 
 and superintendent of it all — the nominee of the Com- 
 mitter of Public Safety— wrote to the Committee: — 
 
 •■ 1 have begun the execution of the plan I conceived 
 of crossing the Vendee in twelve columns. Ilaxo has 
 divided his army into eight parties, who come to meet 
 us. My columns on the right and left have already 
 done wonders. Xot a rebel has escaped their search. 
 . . . If my intentions are well supported, there will not 
 exist in the Vendee in another fortnight houses, food, 
 nor army, nor inhabitants, except those who, hidden in 
 the depths of the woods, have escaped the must scrupu- 
 lous search. ... It is important that this country be 
 entirely cleared out, even of those who are believed to 
 be revolutionists, and who perhaps wear but the mask of 
 patriotism. . . . 
 
 •• Behold, citizens, this is the third letter I write to 
 you without a reply. I beg you to lie so good as to tell 
 me if you approve of my dispositions, and to inform me 
 by special courier of the new measures you adopt, so that 
 I may conform to them." 
 
 (July two loopholes for escape from death and 
 destruction had been left to the unfortunate inhabitants 
 of the Vendee. 
 
 One was that persons only " suspected " were not to 
 be killed without the order of the general, and no harm 
 was to be dime to those in whom the general recognised 
 civic or revolutionary sentiments, and who were accord- 
 ingly to be free to go to the rear of the army. 
 
 And for escaping destruction by fire, houses or farms 
 were not to be burned until the stores of food in them 
 had been removed. 
 
 But both these exceptions were entirely illusory, for 
 in most cases the soldiery took the decision into their 
 own hands, not waiting to inquire whether persons were
 
 xxi THE INFERNAL COLUMNS' 305 
 
 suspects or not, and when they found they could not 
 carry away the stores, they usually set fire to them. 
 
 At the very outset of the movement of the " infernal 
 columns " it was found that many districts inhabited by 
 ;i patriots,"' and men who had actually been fighting the 
 Yendeans, came within the sphere marked out for the 
 action of the columns. Some communes escaped, because 
 a few of the generals were less bloodthirsty than the 
 others. Some houses, too, escaped being burned, because 
 the corn and supplies of food could not be moved from 
 them, there being no vehicles. 
 
 General Duval wrote : " All the places I have passed 
 through are inhabited by patriots," and he braved 
 responsibility and spared them. Moulin wrote : " The 
 conduct of the communes of Rochefort and Chalonne has 
 not been such as to justify their being involved in the 
 general proscription." Grignon found one place so 
 " patriotic " that he did not burn it : whilst even 
 Turreau himself could find nothing against one place he 
 passed through, and had to spare it. 
 
 But usually this was a matter of no consequence ; no 
 discrimination was exercised ; as a matter of fact, the 
 orders left no room for discrimination, and patriot com- 
 munes were devastated : the success of the plan depended 
 on a clean sweep being made, and the patriot inhabitants 
 were massacred, their property being as good as that of 
 the brigands. 
 
 Plunder was what was wanted by the columns, and it 
 was quite immaterial whence it came, or who was the 
 victim. 
 
 ft was not alone, therefore, the brigands who were 
 butchered : the blows of the revolutionists fell remorse- 
 lessly upon their own allies, friends, and comrades, 
 " patriots " and republicans. 
 
 X
 
 THE REAL FRENCH REVOLUTIONIST en. 
 
 The saus-culottc generals, with their impatient sweep 
 ; • v luti nary mind, considered all in the Vendee as 
 : ' Is. uid .mly ri; to 1 ■:• exterminated. 
 
 "There are only brigands in the Vendue." wrote 
 Griirnon. " I wish :o exterminate them all." 
 
 Eve:: National Guards, alth ugh republi ens. and 
 
 •:i wno 
 
 d actually been fighting against the 
 '::_.:::-. were shot. Even the local and municipal 
 auth rities in their scarfs ot o trice, and "patriots" with 
 eertifLates of eivism. were not exempt nee., slaughter 
 by these valiant generals, by these hei k officers and 
 
 ah. ... ...v.. w L..e ?pueie L'l ... — j mien, i 
 
 he:..::-" were iuv lved in one huge system of in : :~- 
 
 pillage md plunder. The columns were "armies of 
 extermina: rs." 
 
 And so the xLumns continued theii daily, their 
 ni-htly. career. 
 
 ■ For the _: : of the Republic. L- EcharJ : _-.;• - 
 
 exists :: 1 uger. Not , single house remains there." 
 
 ■■ Continue, my comrade."' wrote Turreau to Grignon. 
 
 A::; F:o. asrel wrote to Grigu- n ■ :. 29th January: 
 
 I ::. : y :: over '■: :'■: :\r te continue with the same 
 
 .. tivity and the same revolutionary inflexibility " : 
 
 h -e:._ ::. ; previous letter to him. written before the 
 
 o:: : :> ns ire ; urstiug •' •".: :■ ' with them. 
 The ..:..:::_: .: the republican columns was api hL:._.
 
 THE INFERNAL COLUMNS 
 
 307 
 
 " The delinquencies " [deiitsj, wrote Lequinio, one of 
 the Representatives at the time, ''''are not confined to 
 pillage : violation and barbarism of the most outrageous 
 description are to be seen in every corner. Republican 
 soldiers have been seen violating women on the stone 
 heaps at the side of the roads, and the next moment 
 shooting or stabbing them. Others have been seen 
 carrying babies on the point of the bayonets or pikes 
 which had pierced at the same blow mother and child. 
 Nor have the rebels been the sole- victims of the brutality 
 of the soldiers and officers; the daughters and wives of 
 the patriots even have- often been raises en requisition, as 
 the phrase is. 1 ' 
 
 Ijijubts have been thrown by republican writers 
 these statements of Lequinio. Jullien, about whose 
 revolutionary republicanism there can be no question, 
 amply confirms even his strongest, most startling asser- 
 tions: "Entire communes destroyed, burned, communes 
 which had opposed the rebels. Would you believe it." 
 he says in a letter to the Committee of Public Safety, 
 ■•'that under pretence of following your orders they 
 butcher children, women, municipal authorities in their 
 scarf- of office after a civic banquet given by them to 
 a division of the army ? Would yuu believe it. that at 
 a moment when famine appear- to threaten the country. 
 they set fire to the supplies of food, and those not 
 burned are left to the enemy ) Would you believe that 
 your generals give the example of pillage, and wish to 
 degrade to the vile trade of thief the sublime employ- 
 ment of defender of the patrie '• 
 
 '■ The inhabitants of a commune which had helped to 
 arrest some of Charette's scoundrels, fearing to be the 
 victim- of the devastation ordered by the commander-in- 
 chief, went to General Bard, who gave them a certi:: ite
 
 308 THE REAL KItEXCH REVOLUTIONIST ch. 
 
 in these terms : ' I declare that the commune of . . . 
 
 lias always shown itself well disposed, that the inhabitants 
 have daily brought me brigands to shoot, and that they 
 ought to be treated as friends of the Republic,' 
 
 " The municipality presents this certificate to the 
 general charged with the execution of ' great measures,' 
 as they are called. He answers that he has contrary 
 orders; he has these unfortunates disarmed; he allows 
 their wives and daughters to be violated in their pre- 
 sence, and ends this scene of horror by massacring all, 
 even to the children at the breast. Everything is given 
 over to pillage and fire." 
 
 Jullien adds : 
 
 " I have read not one but twenty letters from different 
 soldiers or officers of different corps. I have heard 
 generals, citizens, inhabitants of the localities, strangers 
 who were witnesses of the facts, all unite to unveil the 
 same crimes. 
 
 " 1 send herewith a proclamation of General Turreau, 
 which alone is, in my eyes, an offence, because it presents 
 a tissue of lies, because it depicts as victories the mas- 
 sacre of children and women, or of unarmed peasants, 
 and that he conceals all the reverses : and it is thus that 
 one deceives a free people." 
 
 The Vendeans who " had gone asleep, so to speak, 
 in the hope of peace," and been awakened from their 
 slumber by flames and death-shots all around them, and 
 by the tales of fugitives, recovering from the first shock 
 of incredulous surprise, lied in advance of the troops, 
 concealing their property as best they could, and driving 
 their cattle away. 
 
 " Even to the domestic animals," it was said, "every 
 living thing tied at the sight of the national uniform 
 without waitiiiL! to be pursued."
 
 xxi 'THE INFERNAL COLUMNS' 309 
 
 As many as could rushed once more to arms to defend 
 or avenge themselves. 
 
 And the "patriots" in the Vendee, affrighted by 
 the rumours and reports reaching them as to the treat- 
 ment of their friends, began soon to take alarm, and to 
 fear that they themselves would be carried away by the 
 devouring flood of military revolutionary violence ; and 
 remonstrances and petitions began to flow in to the 
 generals and Representatives and governing authorities ; 
 petitions from communes, and towns, and villages, and 
 patriot municipalities, and republican local authorities — 
 all for exemption from the decree of proscription and 
 destruction. 
 
 " This commune has always been faithful to the 
 law." ..." These communes have always shown them- 
 selves supporters of the Revolution." ..." If there is one 
 commune which should remain intact it is this one." 
 
 Some went so far as to protest to Turreau about the 
 conduct of his troops. 
 
 " General," wrote the president of the district author- 
 ities at Cholet, where Turreau himself was, " your 
 soldiers, calling themselves republicans, deliver them- 
 selves over to debauch, to all the horrors of which can- 
 nibals even would not be guilty," — a protest for which 
 Cholet had later to pay dearly. 
 
 But the petitions were ignored. Such trivialities as 
 the destruction of some " patriots " could not interfere 
 with the carrying out of the great idea of a sans-culotte 
 general. And so the massacres and burnings went on, 
 and drove all those who could escape from them, and 
 who were threatened by them, into revolt ; — forced even 
 those who had not taken part in the first war to take 
 part in this new one, fabricated once again by the 
 republicans themselves.
 
 310 THE REAL FRENCH REVOLUTIONIST ch. 
 
 Elsewhere than in revolt there was no chance of 
 safety: for there was no opening left for conciliation, 
 nothing was gained even by submission, for submission 
 meant a prompt and cruel death. 
 
 The immediate result of all the hellish work of 
 these " infernal columns " therefore was that the whole 
 <it' the inhabitants, patriots as well as brigands, were 
 Hung into the arms of the remaining Vendean leaders, 
 C'harette and Stuillet. Once more war broke out, and 
 " all the Upper A'endee, which a fortnight before could 
 have been regarded as pacified, was again in insurrec- 
 tion." 
 
 in other wavs, too, all did not go as smoothly as the 
 military despots in the Vendee desired. Difficulties 
 began to crop up. The woods would not burn; they 
 were too wet. The roads, too, are execrable, — prevent 
 the fulfilment of projects : the weather wet, — not suited 
 for burnings. And then, to the annoyance and indigna- 
 tion of the generals and troops, come rumours of assem- 
 blages of brigands, a circumstance which necessitates 
 care, and suggests danger : and then resistance begins ; 
 and then worse, sudden attacks out of the mysterious 
 depths of the unburnable woods as of yore: and then 
 republican defeats. 
 
 Once the " infernal columns " and their chiefs were 
 faced, once the element of danger to themselves came in. 
 they quailed. 
 
 Once more the battle-cries of the Vendeans struck 
 terror into the republicans. Sometimes not even battle- 
 cries were required. " At the first sight of the scoundrels 
 our brigade, without tiring a shot, tied as far as Nantes 
 and wished to enter it." 
 
 " I)ucasse is here' more dead than alive: not one of 
 his soldiers had wished to tight, and forthwith were in
 
 xxi 'THE INFEENAL COLUMNS' 311 
 
 utter rout." Moulin wrote of his soldiers " all trembling " ; 
 and Dubois - (J ranee, a Representative at Nantes on 
 special duty, wrote to the Minister of War : — 
 
 " As this war is cruel and no prisoners are made one 
 side or the other, our soldiers fear the brigands as 
 children fear mad dogs." 
 
 And so there are defeats — defeat at Geste on the 1st 
 February, where one of Cordellier's columns was routed , 
 defeat near St. Fulgent, where Grignon was routed — the 
 '•' commandant " of the battalion of Paris being the first 
 to fly. The soldiers, too, of the columns begin to be 
 worn out : — the debauch of murder and rape and arson 
 being somewhat fatiguing ; — bread fails them. " My 
 soldiers have passed a detestable night (in bivouac) " : 
 that is, a night when there was no drinking, violating, 
 or murdering. Numbers become sick and invalided, or 
 want to get back with their plunder to the towns to 
 spend it in riotous living ; their boots melt off their 
 feet : their clothes are torn off their backs : fever breaks 
 out : gradually, in fact, the columns come to a stand- 
 still. 
 
 Turreau complained that he had been deceived as 
 to the true state of the country ; and, with unconscious 
 self-inculpation, declared that he was " far from imagin- 
 ing that the brigands were in a condition to oppose 
 the least resistance to the imposing march of his 
 columns." 
 
 And throwing the blame on his generals, he got 
 himself back on the 4th February to Nantes.
 
 CHAPTER XXII 
 
 ' THE INTERNAL COLUMNS ' 
 
 Part II 
 Military Despotism 
 
 The second Vendean war, thus so wantonly created and 
 set aflame, differed essentially from that which ended at 
 Savenay. 
 
 In the earlier campaign, the idea of the restoration 
 of royalty had been kept constantly before the people 
 by the leaders ; and had been believed in by them as 
 tin' best means of recovering their religions liberty; but 
 now most of the leaders had fallen, and almost the whole 
 of their followers with them, and the idea had ceased 
 to have much influence. 
 
 Xow the war was purely one of self-preservation. 
 (Jreul ulterior motive there was none. 
 
 The, few remaining leaders — Charette, Stolllet, and 
 Sapinaud — si ill fought under the white flag of royalty, 
 and still proclaimed that they wished to restore the 
 monarchy : and so the strife still bore the aspect of a 
 royalist war. But the people who now were appealing 
 tn arms did so. not for the purpose of re-establishing
 
 ch. xxii 'THE INFEEXAL COLUMNS' 313 
 
 royalty, but for things affecting them more closely and 
 immediately — for self-preservation and protection, for 
 the means of defence against destruction, and for the 
 opportunity of retaliation on their merciless foes. 
 
 Royalty, indeed, had little claim upon them. It 
 had done nothing to arouse their enthusiasm or even 
 to earn their affections. For almost a year they had 
 continued the desperate and fearful fight against the 
 tyranny of the revolutionists. But though the seaport 
 of Xoirmoutier was for months in their possession, no 
 royal prince had come to lead them, not a single royalist 
 rmigre of distinction or commanding position had come 
 to their aid ; no financial or other help had been given 
 them, not even the cheap encouragement of words, 
 beyond a few insincere and ridiculous letters. They 
 had been left entirely to their own resources, and what- 
 ever regard for royalty they may have once felt, had very 
 considerably, if not entirely, cooled off. 
 
 This, however, is now a matter of minor consequence, 
 fur it is the conduct of the revolutionists, and not that 
 of the Vendeans, which is of surviving interest. 
 
 Turreau's action which caused the outbreak of the 
 war was a demonstration how short, under the republi- 
 can form of government, was the step to actual military 
 despotism : and how slender the protection possessed by 
 the people against military domination and violence, even 
 though those people were republicans and "patriots." 
 
 The government in the Vendee was, as a matter of 
 fact, seized by Turreau. He may have thought that 
 his position as commander-in-chief authorised him to 
 do anything, but undoubtedly, viewing his proceedings 
 as a whole, he usurped an authority which no recorded 
 decree of the Convention, nor even an order of the 
 Representatives, authorised him to assume or possess.
 
 314 THE REAL FRENCH REVOLUTIONIST ch. 
 
 He formed his own plans, even to the provoking of a 
 second war; and he went his own way regardless of any 
 one or of any laws. 
 
 And the Committee of Public Safety made no move. 
 It seemed, indeed, as if the Committee had chucked the 
 reins, and was willing to let any one do its vile work 
 for it : to let any enormity be. perpetrated provided 
 " the cancer " of the Vendee was effectually extirpated. 
 
 And, certainly, enormities were perpetrated scarcely 
 credible in their merciless cruelty, their low barbarism. 
 
 The " terror " in Nantes under Carrier and the 
 Revolutionary Committee, fearful though it was, was 
 rivalled in injustice and severity and destructive fury by 
 the " terror " under Turreau and his " infernal columns/' 
 
 The one was a despotism of the civil power ; the 
 other was a military despotism ; the former kept up 
 the pretence of acting under the sanction of revolu- 
 tionary law, such as it was; the latter acted under no 
 law except that which the generals and soldiers made 
 tor themselves. 
 
 Turreau did not wait for the approval of the Com- 
 mittee of Public Safety, nor even for that of the Repre- 
 sentatives. He did not wait for Representatives to lie 
 attached to his troops. He wished to do it all himself, 
 and to lie independent. 
 
 Differing from the ordinary practice of Military Com- 
 missions following the troops for the trial of prisoners 
 and other suspects by orders of the Representatives, and 
 according to such laws as existed, on this occasion no 
 such commissions and no criminal tribunals accompanied 
 or followed the columns. 
 
 He made his own provision for such contingencies. 
 Military authority was to be supreme, none other to he 
 recognised.
 
 xxii 'THE INFERNAL COLUMNS' 315 
 
 And so the existence and the property of the in- 
 habitants of the Vendue, " brigands " and " patriots " 
 alike, were completely at the mercy of the military 
 power. 
 
 Primarily, the late of all the people the military 
 came across, as they proceeded on their " promenade," 
 was in the hands of the soldiers, who, acting on instruc- 
 tions, usually, when they saw any one, killed him or 
 her straight off without asking questions. 
 
 But a certain number of cases were reserved for 
 decision by the generals, who thus became the arbiters 
 of the fate of those not immediately done to death by 
 the soldiery. 
 
 Here the generals sometimes appear to have im- 
 provised courts - martial, though whether in the form 
 prescribed by the law of March does not appear. 
 
 Benaben lias rescued from oblivion the records of 
 the proceedings of two or three of such courts-martial — 
 records which throw a lurid gleam of horror around 
 their actions. And as, presumably, the acts described 
 in these records are but examples of the proceedings of 
 all the other " internal columns," one can understand 
 somewhat of the enormity of the cruelties and abomina- 
 tions of which these columns, with Turreau at their 
 head, were guilty. 
 
 For cold-blooded, deliberate, cowardly cruelty, where 
 can a parallel be found ? 
 
 On the 25th January such a court-martial sat at 
 Les Gardes in the Canton of Chemille— which was in 
 the sphere of action of one of Cordellier's columns ; 
 and on that one day, or more probably in the evening, 
 after the day's marching of the column was over, it con- 
 demned to death one man, thirty women, and twenty- 
 four children — among those fifty-five, two mothers, each
 
 316 THE REAL FRENCH REVOLUTIONIST ch. 
 
 with her four children ; one mother with her three 
 children ; and three mothers, each with her two chil- 
 dren. And, the climax — a little mite, a girl of four, 
 "Jeanne Gourdon, quatre ans" — an orphan, probably, as 
 her name stands by itself. 
 
 Imagine what one can of the scene — a little girl of 
 four being formally tried by drum-head court-martial, 
 with fierce -looking armed and blood -besmeared men 
 round her waiting impatiently for the business to be 
 got through ; the merciless sentence on this tiny inno- 
 cent incapable of understanding aught, scarcely able yet 
 to do more than speak, and that not well ; and then the 
 dragging her away to a distance, and the doing of her 
 to death by bullet and bayonet by some braves sans- 
 culottes in the national uniform of the new Republic. 
 
 11 Jeanne Gourdon, quatre ans, exeeute'e par le moyen 
 tli' la fusillade." 
 
 ("Jeanne Gourdon, four years, executed by means of 
 the fusillade.") 
 
 In the majority of cases the generals appear to have 
 acted quite alone in the sentences to death, for their 
 reports are full of their own doings. 
 
 " I ordered him to be shot." . . . " T had them shot." 
 . . . •• T have sent behind the hedge about GOO persons 
 of both sexes." . . . "They have just brought me two 
 brigands who would declare nothing, so I pronounced 
 death." 
 
 That "I" so dear to revolutionary sans - culotte 
 vanity : no mention of court-martial, or any kind of 
 tribunal. That would have been derogatory to the 
 dignity of a sans-eulotte general. 
 
 Even Turreau himself transgressed this way. That 
 is proven. Writing from Cholet on the 25th January 
 to tin 1 Committee of Public Safety, he said:-
 
 xxii THE INFERNAL COLUMNS' 317 
 
 " Another capture in our nets, one Dutrehan, cap- 
 tain of cavalry of a corps of rebels, and M. Meloux, 
 royal notary, will be shot to-morrow by my orders." 
 
 Evidently there was to be no form of trial, even 
 by court-martial, for the committee of surveillance (or 
 Revolutionary Committee) at Cholet wrote to Turreau 
 that :t was important that as Dutrehan was well known 
 as a chief of the brigands, he ought to be sent before a 
 Military Commission to be tried in accordance with the 
 law. " However, in case you decide to have him shot, 
 we ask you to send us a ' discharge ' for this individual." 
 The Committee, in fact, felt responsible for him, and was 
 anxious to be able to account for him should any ques- 
 tions be asked. 
 
 At the headquarters where Turreau himself was, the 
 proceedings were of the most summary kind. Any 
 A'endeans who arrived, or were brought in, men and 
 women alike, were interrogated by the staff, Turreau 
 being himself sometimes, if not usually, present. The 
 sittings were generally held after the mid-day dinner, 
 and afforded evidently a sort of digestive occupation or 
 distraction. A few questions were asked. The only com- 
 passion shown the prisoners was silence as to their fate. 
 A sign to their guard, and they were led out and shot. 
 
 " Thus each day," wrote Beaudesson, who was present 
 in Cholet on duty, " one saw new crimes of this sort. I 
 had not the slightest idea whence could come these 
 sanguinary orders which were executed on only the 
 verbal directions of the stall'." 
 
 Turreau — when later he was himself in the toils of 
 the law, his own infamous acts being called in question 
 — laid down the proposition with emphasis : " Nothing 
 — no, nothing can legit imatise the arbitrary act which 
 deprives an accused person of the means of exculpating
 
 318 THE REAL FRENCH REVOLUTIONIST ch. 
 
 himself. It is thus that despotism acts — thus the 
 despot does not try {ne juge pas), lie assassinates." 
 
 But when sitting in judgment on the unfortunate 
 Vendeans, he acted to the full the part of the despot he 
 describes. He never gave to the accused persons the 
 means of exculpating themselves — thus, tried by his 
 own dictum, he did not ''try'" hut he "assassinated." 
 
 One i if the crimes for which Carrier subsequently was 
 convicted was, that he ordered people to be executed 
 without trial by existing tribunals. 
 
 In this respect Turreau and his crew of generals were 
 worse criminals even than Carrier. Moreover, against 
 him and them the damning fact is, that no decree of 
 the Convention had exempted them from the revolution- 
 ary laws which prescribed tribunals for the trial and 
 sentence of counter-revolutionists, and that lie ami they 
 acted without regard to such laws. 
 
 Not even a decree of the Representatives had author- 
 ised him to act as he did. 
 
 Turreau, disregarding all law, was determined to 
 make himself absolute military dictator in the Vendee. 
 Even tii the overriding of the local civil revolutionary 
 authorities existing there, he meant to be dictator. 
 
 lb: avowed it clearly in a letter which he wrote to 
 the Challans administrative body: — 
 
 " Each of the generals whom 1 have the honour to 
 command has received from me positive orders to execute 
 these rigorous measures without permitting themselves 
 to listen to any reclamations; even those of the con- 
 stituted bodies. They have orders nut only to act 
 militarily against the administrative bodies, but even 
 against you if you dare henceforth to oppose the least 
 obstacle tu the execution of my orders." 
 
 Ami in a letter to General Carpentier, he wrote:
 
 xxii 'THE INFERNAL COLUMNS' 319 
 
 " Consider above everything that the pretended consti- 
 tuted authorities are nothing in this infamous country, 
 that everything should he done militarily." 
 
 Thus, just as Nantes and Angers afforded the illustra- 
 tion of the Revolution resulting in a fearful despotism of 
 the civil power, supporting and keeping itself in power 
 by the perpetration of every injustice, cruelty, and 
 brutality imaginable, so the Vendee afforded the illustra- 
 tion of another abomination, a military despotism of the 
 most cruel and brutal character, enforced by men of the 
 same kind and category as Carrier and his crew. 
 
 Together we get a real view of the great, the glorious 
 French Revolution as it worked out in practice, and as 
 it affected not the king and royalists, not the noblesse and 
 aristocracy of France, but a large mass of the actual 
 people of the humbler classes — the labourers and arti- 
 sans, and the working women as well as working men. 
 
 And so under this precious Republican Government, 
 whatever way one looks, one is confronted with despotism 
 of tlu j most extreme, violent, and horrible character; the 
 "liberty," "equality," "fraternity," which the Revolution 
 was supposed to bring having vanished as the mirage 
 of the desert. 
 
 And as for the new man, the product of the Revolution, 
 the enfranchised, enlightened individual, freed from the 
 fetters of tyrants and the shackles of superstition — of 
 him too we have a view at which humanity must ever 
 shudder. 
 
 To massacre in cold blood men of his own country 
 and race, even his own political friends and comrades ; 
 to outrage, violate, and slaughter Frenchwomen ; to kill 
 the children of his own countrymen, even to the babe at 
 its mother's breast ; to hack to pieces the helpless sick 
 and wounded lying in any hovel or even ditch that gave
 
 322 THE REAL FRENCH REVOLUTIONIST ch. 
 
 Carrier two months previously had told the Committee 
 what he intended ordering ; and Turreau had informed 
 it fully and in plain language of his intentions, and in 
 part of his performances. 
 
 But the clearest demonstration of the real views of 
 the Committee and of the Convention was the fact that, 
 while the devastation and severities were mildly blamed, 
 nothing was done to stop them. 
 
 " "Why did not the Committee;"' asks Savary in review- 
 ing its conduct, "at least compel respect for the part 
 of the decree of 1st August which ordered that the old 
 people, women and children should be conducted into 
 the interior of Trance, and their food and safety provided 
 for, with all the regard due to humanity '. 
 "And why did they not recall Turreau?" 
 The answer is to be found in a letter from the Minister 
 of War to Turreau, written somewhat later — early in 
 March 1794 — but referring to this very point : "You 
 have not taken in its right sense the letter of the 
 Committee of Public Safety, winch was only written with 
 the intention of giving a great impulse, and which in no 
 way announced a diminution of confidence. You ought 
 to know that if this diminution of confidence had any 
 existence the Committee would not have left you in your 
 place. 
 
 " So you should continue to serve with the generous 
 devotiou which belongs only to the vrai sans-culottcJ' 
 
 All that the Committee and the Convention did was 
 to appoint two Representatives, with whom Turreau was 
 to confer as to more effectual means of exterminating 
 the Yendeans. Carrau and Hentz, " men whom Hell 
 has vomited forth for the misery of these countries,'' 
 — as they are described by Lofncial, a revolutionary 
 Representative.
 
 xxn 'THE INFERNAL COLUMNS' 323 
 
 Avowedly the Government was influenced by the 
 consideration that the great campaign against France's 
 foreign enemies was approaching ; and policy exacted 
 that it should he believed that the war was over in " this 
 shameful part of the Republic " — this partie honteuse, 
 as Barere, speaking in the name of the Committee of 
 Public Safety, described it. 
 
 And so, with full knowledge of all that was going on 
 there, the Vendee was deliberately abandoned to the 
 caprices and fury of the infamous Turreau, and of the 
 Representatives newly attached to his army ; and the 
 approbation of the Committee of Public Safety, and of 
 the Convention, was given to those appalling inhumani- 
 ties which have indelibly stained the French Republican 
 Government of that period, and which have exposed to 
 mankind the true character of the much vaunted regime 
 of " liberty, equality, and fraternity."
 
 CHAT-TEE XXIII 
 
 THE KECALL OF CAKRIEI! 
 
 L\ Nantes the excess of evil at long last began to awaken 
 some faint degree of energy among the citizens who had 
 not been struck down by the revolutionists in power. 
 Murmurs of anxiety and discontent began to be breathed 
 from one to the other, then to find a little stronger ex- 
 pression. Then complaints began to be made, until at 
 last the hottest patriots, with the exception of some of 
 the Eevolutionary Committee and Carrier's more immediate 
 entourage, all desired Carrier's removal. They were 
 realising the unpleasant fact that Carrier was making 
 " terror " the order of the day against themselves. Fear, 
 however, dominated all to such an extent that they did 
 not dare to act — dared not write either to the Committee 
 of Public Safety or to the Convention ; and the real 
 crisis was not provoked until Carrier laid hands on one 
 of the republican anointed, one Champenois, a member 
 of the municipality of Xantes, a sans-culotte, and an 
 ardent and zealous republican. 
 
 A " patriot " who had come into possession of informa- 
 tion which he believed would lead to the arrest of the 
 redoubtable Yendean leader Charette had for three days 
 tried to see Carrier, but had been refused audience. lie
 
 ch. xxni THE EECALL OF CARRIER 325 
 
 confided his information to Champenois, who, being a 
 personage, went himself to see Carrier, but, being also 
 refused audience, went to the Society of Vincent la 
 Montague, to which he imparted Ins knowledge. The 
 Society, impressed with its importance, sent a deputa- 
 tion to see Carrier on this and other matters. Carrier's 
 secretary received them, and declared that if they were 
 enraged citizens come from the devil or hell they should 
 not see him. 
 
 One would think France was still under the old 
 regime and under a royal sovereign, when one reads 
 that on the 31st January 1794 a letlre de cachet} that 
 weapon of royal tyranny which was so furiously inveighed 
 against by all revolutionists, was issued by Carrier, the 
 great Representative of the new reign of liberty, against 
 Champenois, and that he was arrested upon it, marched 
 through the streets by a force with fixed bayonets, and 
 brought before the " supreme tribunal," in other words, 
 before Carrier himself, " an event recalling the old 
 regime," as a member of the popular society said of it. 
 
 The municipality plucked up its courage sufficiently 
 to ask Carrier for an explanation of his treatment of one 
 of its members. Carrier replied by removing Champenois 
 from his official functions. 
 
 Altogether, a serious row was brewing. 
 
 Carrier, furious, went to a meeting of the society, 
 mounted the tribune, raged against its members, and 
 threatened them. 
 
 And the now alarmed Society wrote surreptitiously 
 to Paris to inform the Committee of Public Safety and 
 the Society of Jacobins of the way Carrier had been 
 conducting himself. 
 
 1 This designation of lettre de cachet is given to it by the popular 
 society of Nantes in their register.
 
 326 THE REAL FRENCH REVOLUTIONIST ch. 
 
 " We reproach him for his severity . . . we reproach 
 him for being almost inaccessible to good patriots . . . 
 whilst he accords his preferences to his women and to 
 the coxcombs who surround him . . . we reproach him 
 for having threatened with the bayonet the first magis- 
 trate of the people who went to see him to ask him to 
 procure some bread for more than 80,000 mouths in 
 want of it, saying to him when he referred to tin 1 
 difficulties of getting audience with him, that ' if the 
 functionary had done his duty he would have stuck his 
 bayonet through his belly.' " 
 
 Other reproaches there were too. 
 
 " A deputation of the three administrative bodies of 
 this town was badly received by him; taken by the 
 throat (pris a la gorge), and one of his phrases was this, 
 • Last year I rode an ass which spoke better than 
 you.' 
 
 "... All which proves how much liberty we have. 
 . . . The Society is really not free, since one cannot 
 express one's opinion without running the risk of being 
 arrested." In addition to these communications the 
 Society sent off a deputation of two persons to Paris 
 to see the Committee of Public Safety. 
 
 How the strife would have ended is quite uncertain, 
 but the scale was suddenly turned by the arrival on the 
 scene of Marc Antoine Jullien, a young man of eighteen, 
 son of Jullien the friend and confidant of Robespierre. He 
 was in the Departments in the west on a special mission, 
 a secret agent of the Committee of Public Safety. 
 
 In the course of his mission he had already felt 
 obliged to urge the Committee to recall Carrier, on 
 account of a quarrel with another Representative ; but 
 the letter had fallen into Carrier's hands, who was there- 
 fore furious with him.
 
 xxiii THE EEC ALL OF CARRIER 327 
 
 Jullien's arrival at Nantes and his proceedings at a 
 meeting in the church of Saint Croix, where the Society 
 of Vincent sat, were duly reported to Carrier, and also 
 his attendance at some secret conclaves held immediately 
 after. 
 
 On returning to his hotel Jullien was met by General 
 Vimieux with a large body of soldiers, and was immediately 
 arrested. Although the night was far advanced, he was 
 taken off in a carriage to Carrier, who received him in 
 bed. 
 
 " It is you, you d — d . . . who has denounced 
 me to the Committee of Public Safety as an ultra- 
 revolutionist. But I have you now, and you shan't 
 escape me. Know that in one instant I can cut the 
 thread of your life, and as it is sometimes of moment to 
 the general good to get rid secretly of certain people, I 
 will not take the trouble of sending you to the guillotine, 
 I will be your executioner myself." Then, turning to 
 Vimieux, he said, "Let him be despatched to-night" 
 (expedid), " you shall answer me for it." 
 
 What a lightning flash this on the methods of 
 revolutionary "justice," baring to the world's vision the 
 dark places of sans-culotte tyranny, illuminating in one 
 second the very acme of despotism — sentence of death 
 without trial — -verbal command by one of the highest 
 officers in the State to a general officer to murder. 
 
 Jullien let him talk. Then he faced him. " Listen," 
 he said. " You may make me perish in the darkness of 
 to-night ; but don't forget that I hold a mission from 
 the Committee of Public Safety. My death will not 
 remain unpunished, as those of your other victims. My 
 father is a Representative. He and I are friends of 
 Robespierre. In ten days or so you will be called to 
 render account for my blood, and you will yourself
 
 328 THE REAL FRENCH REVOLUTIONIST cu. 
 
 perish as a vile assassin." Upon which Carrier subsided, 
 pretending that there was a mistake in the warrant of 
 arrest, that it was another Jullien who was to have been 
 arrested. And so Jullien got back safely to his hotel. 
 
 Then, without losing a moment of time, and with all 
 possible speed, he fled to Angers, out of Carrier's juris- 
 diction, having been "obliged to leave with precautions, 
 which an agent of the Committee ought not to be obliged 
 to take" (as the Committee of Public Safety itself wrote 
 soon after). 
 
 Thence he indited several letters, and sent two 
 Xantais to Paris with them. To his father: — 
 
 " On receipt of my letter fly, I pray you, to Robes- 
 pierre. It is imperative to stitle the Vendee, which 
 comes to life again. It is imperative to recall Carrier, 
 who kills liberty." 
 
 To Bare re he wrote : — 
 
 " It is imperative to save Nantes and the Republic. 
 1 have found there the ancien regime. ... I have seen 
 in Carrier a satrap, a despot, an assassin of public spirit 
 and liberty. I do not exaggerate." 
 
 To Robespierre he wrote : — 
 
 •'The public spirit is stilled; liberty no longer exists. 
 Recall Carrier." 
 
 And to Robespierre again, a da)' or two later, he 
 wrote, giving fuller details. He informed him of the 
 fusillades: he informed him of the noyades : "1 am 
 assured that he had all those who Idled the prisons of 
 Nantes taken indiscriminately, put into boats, and sub- 
 merged in the Loire." He informed him of Carrier 
 saying to him that one could only effect a revolution by 
 such measures. " Xo one dares to speak, to write, nor 
 even to think. . . . Public spirit is dead: liberty no 
 lonirer exists. The energies of the sans -culottes are
 
 xxiii THE EEC ALL OF CAEEIEE 329 
 
 stifled : the true republicans weep with despair to have 
 seen despotism reborn. ... I have seen in Nantes the 
 ancu n rdgime." 
 
 And so it had come to this, after all the strivings, 
 and strugglings, and slaughterings, and bloodshed, and 
 horrors of the Involution, after the holocaust of hundreds 
 of thousands of French men, women, and children, that 
 the Eevolution had reproduced, and in an intensified 
 manner, the very thing which it had intended to destroy. 
 
 Instead of a royal despot in the seat of authority. 
 there sat a sans-culotte republican despot. That was 
 the sole difference ; with this variation, that the new 
 despotism was infinitely worse than the old — more coarse, 
 more brutal, more ignorant, more depraved, more merci- 
 less, more bloody ; that every vice which disgraced the 
 old regime disgraced also the new — disgraced it with vices 
 more accentuated in character, and of a deeper and more 
 horrible dye ; and, over and above all these things, the 
 new despotism knew not what justice was, or meant — 
 had not the crudest or most elementary ideas on the 
 subject. 
 
 Proved up to the hilt was it, and never again unprov- 
 able, that a republican form of government, as then 
 organised in France, afforded no safeguards against the 
 extremest abuse of tyrannical power ; that it gave no 
 shadow of a guarantee for liberty, equality, or fraternity ; 
 or for the enjoyment of any of those rights of man which 
 had been so loudly proclaimed ; that it gave no prospect 
 even of justice ; that it had, in fact, no greater claim to 
 lie regarded as God's truth than any other form of govern- 
 ment which humanity has tried. 
 
 AY bile Jullien's letters were speeding to Paris, the 
 reaction against Carrier was making way. 
 
 Utterly unexpectedly, Carrier was braved by the
 
 330 THE PEAL FEENCH REVOLUTIONIST oh. 
 
 members of the Revolutionary Committee, which had done 
 most of his cruel work for him ; not out of any regard 
 for "liberty," but out of regard for their own skins and 
 perquisites. The Committee appeared to have got an 
 inkling that sundry of his aides and instruments, such 
 as Lambert)*, Fouquet, Eobin, and others, were plotting 
 to oust them : Carrier, too, they believed, had formed 
 the project of purging the Committee, as he did not rind 
 it docile enough: so they took the initiative and struck. 
 
 On the 10th February (22 Pluviose), F'ouquet, adju- 
 tant-general of artillery, one of his most active hench- 
 men, and manager of noyades. was arrested by order of the 
 Revolutionary Committee, and shut up in the Bouffay, in 
 one of those dark cells to which he had doomed hundreds 
 of human beings, and from which he had dragged them 
 to drown them in the waters of the Loire. 
 
 Before Carrier could strike a return blow. Jullien's 
 letters had been considered by the Committee of Public 
 Safety: where, in spite of opposition from some of the 
 members, it was decided that Carrier should be recalled : 
 and, on the 8th February, the Committee had written to 
 him : — 
 
 " You have desired to be recalled. 1 Your heavy labours 
 in a city so little patriot, and so near the Vendee, deserve 
 that you repose yourself for a little : and all your col- 
 leagues will see you again with pleasure in the bosom of 
 the National Convention. Your health has been impaired 
 by your constant occupations. The intention of the Com- 
 mittee is to give you another mission, and it is necessary 
 that you come and confer with it." 
 
 And on the same day they appointed one of their 
 own body, Prieur (tie la Marne), as his successor. 
 
 ' So far. li" traeo of the expression oi' any such desire on Lis part has
 
 xx. 1 1 THE RECALL OF C.AEPJEE 831 
 
 In their letter to Prieur they wrote : " Carrier lias 
 been perhaps badly surrounded, intriguers are the cursu 
 of Representatives of the people. Carrier has been harsh 
 (dur) in his methods. He employed means which do not 
 make the national authority beloved." 
 
 Prieur had himself employed means which did not 
 make the national authority beloved, and the change 
 was by no means as great for the better as could have 
 been desired ; but still it was a change, and that was 
 something. 
 
 On the evening of the 14th Carrier made his adieux 
 to the municipality of Xantes, and the next day left, so 
 quietly, that people scarcely knew whether he had gone 
 or not. And so Xantes was rid of Carrier. 
 
 He had had his day, his full swing, unchecked, un- 
 thwarted. Never had revolutionary principles such an 
 opportunity for showing their merit ; never had a sans- 
 culotte revolutionist a better field for convincing men of 
 the beauties of republican government. He had given the 
 " terrible examples " which he said he would ; heads had 
 rolled on the scaffold as he said they should roll ; he had 
 carried out all his threats ; thousands had drunk from 
 " the great bowl " (/« gr ancle, lasse) : thousands had been 
 shot : the air of liberty had been cleansed {deblayi) ; reli- 
 gion had been annihilated ; the teachers of superstition 
 destroyed ; the country had been purified by fire, purged 
 and purged, and bled till it was white. 
 
 And yet the effect was totally different from what 
 those who carried out these drastic measures had anti- 
 cipated. 
 
 The result was, not the glorification of Revolution 
 and of the new system of government, but the condemna- 
 tion of it. 
 
 To great masses of the people the reign of terror
 
 3 3 2 TILE REAL FRENCH REVOLUTIONIST ch.xxiii 
 
 was a revelation of suffering and misery, of insecurity, of 
 evils, compared with which those which had gone before 
 were indeed light, and a disclosure of dangers hitherto 
 unthought of, and they recoiled from it. Not suddenly, 
 for that they could not do, but slowly, and with fear and 
 trembling., lest any rashness should provoke a repetition 
 of the disaster. 
 
 The one abiding effect of this reign of revolutionary 
 authority had been to discredit irreparably the system of 
 government under which such things had happened. For 
 what greater evil could be imagined by a people than 
 having to live under a form of government where such 
 things are possible ?
 
 CHAPTER XXIV 
 
 ' THE INFERNAL COLUMNS ' 
 
 Tart III 
 
 HAri'Y would it have been for the unfortunate inhabit- 
 ants of the Vendee if their hard lot had received any 
 mitigation at the same time that Xantes was being 
 relieved of Carrier ; but Turreau and his " infernal 
 columns " were still roaming about seeking whom thev 
 might devour, and the Representatives Hentz, Francastel, 
 and Garrau were attached to his army to advise and 
 help him : and military despotism continued to reign 
 there, rampant and omnipotent. 
 
 Harrowing and heartrending indeed is the history of 
 the events of the next few months there, and there is 
 a monotony of horrors and injustice about it which 
 absolutely repels the historian ; but fresh incidents were 
 constantly occurring which disclosed fresh traits of the 
 revolutionary character, and presented fresh aspects of 
 the new regime of liberty, equality, and fraternity. 
 
 One never seems to come to the end of the black- 
 guardisms of this crew of revolutionists, Representatives, 
 generals, or men. Always below the apparently lowest 
 depth of cruelty and blackguardism another deeper dis- 
 closes itself; and were one to throw a veil completely
 
 !4 THE REAL FRENCH REVOLUTIONIST 
 
 CTI. 
 
 over the events of the next few months it would he 
 difficult to believe or to realise that the horrors which 
 accompanied the march of the "infernal columns" were 
 to the utmost capabilities of the republicans, persevered 
 in tor month after month, through the spring and into 
 the summer, until at last repression exhausted itself, and 
 it began to be forced in on the mind of the Revolutionary 
 Government that the course hitherto pursued in the 
 ^ endee was not leading to a consolidation of the power 
 of the Republic, but, if anything, was endangering it 
 Leqmnio, phrasing the feelings of the Vendeans, wrote : 
 "Pardon was promised to those who laid down 
 their arms. The promise was broken. By the law of 
 July only the chiefs were to be punished. We are 
 punished according to the laws of March. The revolu- 
 tionary columns confounded the innocent with the .>uiltv 
 They burned and pillaged everything and bayoneted 
 women, children, and old people. I have lost everything 
 I have nothing left. I shall tight to live." 
 
 And they fought— and considerable numbers of the 
 " patriots " had now been driven to fight too. And so 
 they made common cause. 
 
 Jullien had let in light on Carrier's proceedings at 
 A antes; his letters confirm the statements of other 
 republican writers who let light in on the proceedings 
 of republican officers placed in power by the Revolution. 
 All through the history of the strife between the 
 bepubbc and the Vendee appears the fact damning to the 
 revolutionists, that there was on the part of the republi- 
 can sans-clotte generals a deliberate intention to prolong 
 the war. 1 & 
 
 Their salaries ami perquisites and plunder were too 
 valuable, their mode of life too enjoyable to be ended one 
 moment sooner than avoidable.
 
 xxiv 'THE INFEENAL COLUMNS' 335 
 
 " I have seen among the generals/' wrote Jullien, " a 
 well-formed design of prolonging the war. . . . ; We will 
 finish it when we want to,' they said." 
 
 He accused them, too, of actually corresponding with 
 the Vendean chiefs : " It is proved," he said, " that they 
 often let a comrade be defeated through motives of 
 jealousy of his success : it is proved that time after time 
 they allowed themselves to be defeated, so that they 
 could say that the stores had been taken by the enemy, 
 and thus conceal and cover their own robberies ; it is 
 proved that they had sent a ' patriot ' colleague to certain 
 defeat and death because he knew too much of the 
 abuses goin<>' on." 
 
 All those things, he said, were proved. 
 Those who were not traitors were intriguers, who 
 occupied themselves with satisfying their own personal 
 ambition, and not the public interest. 
 
 " Egotism, vanity, avarice, and perfidy have eternal- 
 ised the Vendee. 
 
 " The Vendee is at the gates of Xantes, and the 
 generals are inside the walls steeped in pleasure and 
 indolence. 
 
 " An army is in Xantes without discipline, without 
 order ; and small corps are sent out to butchery. On 
 one side people pillage, on the other they kill, the 
 Republic. A crowd of generals (un peiqyle tie generaux), 
 proud of their epaulettes and the gold embroidery on their 
 collars, rich with the salaries they steal, bespattering with 
 their carriages the pedestrian sans-culottes, are always 
 with women at the plays and spectacles, or at the 
 sumptuous fetes and repasts which insult the public 
 misery." 
 
 The description reads like an echo of the indictment 
 of the old regime ; for these were precisely some of the
 
 336 THE REAL FEEXCH REVOLUTIONIST ch. 
 
 causes for offence which were cited as justifying the 
 Revolution. The monstrous contrasts of wealth and 
 poverty, of self-indulgence and privation, so passionately 
 inveighed against by revolutionists, and which were to 
 be abolished by them, had been quickly revived by them, 
 and again flourished, only this time it was under the 
 revolutionary order of things, and it was the revolution- 
 ists who had possessed themselves of the wealth and 
 were the self-indulgent. 
 
 Jullien's judgment was not tinged by impetuosity, for 
 a fortnight later he wrote : — 
 
 " Each day brings me fresh proof of the villainy of 
 our generals." 
 
 This picture of the French military authorities in 
 the Vendee was not overdrawn, for even Prieur (de la 
 Marne) and his colleagues issued a rigorous decree against 
 " the military of all rank- who, in considerable number 
 at Nantes, wallow in idleness and debauch, while their 
 brave brothers -in -arms are in incessant pursuit of the 
 brigands."' 
 
 And again, somewhat later, their successors. Bo and 
 Bourbotte, whose revolutionary characters were above 
 reproach, also issued a decree against military abuses, in 
 which they give a description precisely parallel to that 
 given by Jullien, and announced penalties against — 
 
 " The military, officers as well as soldiers, who had 
 left their corps and abandoned their posts to come to 
 Xantes, where, unblushingly, they spent voluptuously in 
 the theatre, in the cafes, and other places of pleasure, the 
 time which they have sworn to consecrate entirely to 
 the defence of the country." 
 
 Drunkenness was too universal a habit in those times 
 to be considered as a vice, but it was prevalent in all 
 ranks. '•' Our sans-culotte generals know nothing of
 
 xxiv 'THE INFERNAL COLUMNS' 337 
 
 the business of war," wrote a national agent, " but very 
 well that of drinking from morning to evening." Com- 
 manders-in-chief even set the example. Rossignol was 
 always drinking. Turreau was also addicted to the 
 practice. " I have seen Turreau twice, and drunk both 
 times. Many people informed me it was his custom." 
 His generals spoke of him as one qui ne se de'soiVait ^os, 
 who never got sober. 
 
 And once Grignon — -himself not immaculate in this 
 respect — had to complain of Huche : " General Huche 
 appeared at the head of my column drunk, and addressed 
 me in a manner not becoming for a general to be ad- 
 dressed in presence of his troops. I knew for some time 
 past that his head did not belong to himself after mid- 
 day, and that the service of the Republic might suffer." 
 A report supplemented by Adjutant- General Liebaut, 
 who said : " He must have drunk a lot." 
 
 As to other comparatively minor delinquencies on the 
 part of the sans-culotte revolutionary generals, such as 
 lying, duplicity, untrustworthiness, they were so habitual 
 as to excite no notice. But now and then some illustra- 
 tive incidents are incidentally recorded. 
 
 Thus Huche, appealed to by the local authorities of a 
 commune not to devastate it, told them that he would 
 write to Turreau for his decision ; but simultaneously 
 with his letter to Turreau, who was several days' post 
 away, he gave orders to his troops to destroy the com- 
 mune the very next day. 
 
 A precisely similar act is reported of Grignon. 
 
 Not the slightest reliance could be placed on the 
 words or promises of these men. Lying was, according 
 to their standards, a justifiable finesse. For truth they 
 had no regard. Of honour they had not the slightest 
 conception. 
 
 z
 
 338 THE HEAL FRENCH REVOLUTIONIST ch. 
 
 Que general, with evident self-satisfaction as to his 
 cleverness, has recorded how, tired with pursuing the 
 brigands, he announced an amnesty for all those who 
 surrendered voluntarily. " My ruse succeeded. Twenty- 
 one were sent yesterday to Nantes, with the request that 
 they should he made accept the constitution behind the 
 hedge. "What matters it what means one employs ? " 
 
 These, then, were the new military "patriots" which 
 the Revolution had hoisted into authority, and in whose 
 hands were the lives and property of every inhabitant 
 of the Vendee and its neighbourhood, ''patriots'"' and 
 " brigands " alike — men who prolonged the internecine 
 war for the sake of their own profits and emoluments : 
 paying in the life's-hlood of their own countrymen and 
 women the cost of their pleasures and the gratification 
 of their passions ; and plundering their country and 
 fellow-citizens so that they themselves might live in self- 
 indulgence and vice. And presiding over them all, and 
 over this saturnalia of crime and bloodshed, Turreau. 
 
 Theoretically the Revolution aimed at abolishing 
 iniquity in high places — aimed at installing in power a 
 better class of men than were there. Practically, how- 
 ever, as it worked out, it installed a far worse lot, and 
 initiated a severer and bloodier despotism. 
 
 Turreau having got a new lease of power, and being 
 bound therefore to do something energetic, he and the 
 Representatives held a council at Nantes to devise further 
 plans for bringing the Vendean war to an end. 
 
 There was not much room for further great ideas. 
 
 Unable, therefore, to devise any fresh atrocity upon 
 the Yendeans. the new measures were devised with the 
 intention of crippling them through the " patriots " re- 
 siding in the Vendee, and accordingly were directed 
 against those loyal to the Republic.
 
 xxiv 'THE INFERNAL COLUMNS' 339 
 
 The decree of February, ordering the disarming of the 
 people in all the communes in or near the revolted 
 country, patriots as well as suspects, was already being 
 acted on, but was exciting great hostility. 
 
 Its object was to prevent the brigands obtaining arms 
 or ammunition. 
 
 "With the object of preventing them obtaining men, 
 it was determined to remove from the revolted country 
 all the inhabitants who had not taken arms — in other 
 words, the " patriots," because some, under the appear- 
 ances of neutrality, secretly favoured the rebels, and 
 because others, although republicans, gave them help 
 under compulsion. 
 
 And a circular was addressed to the administrators of 
 the Department by Hentz and Francastel setting forth 
 with innocent simplicity the advantages of such a pro- 
 ceeding. 
 
 " You surely are penetrated with the importance of 
 this measure, which will have the effect of leaving only 
 rebels in the revolted country, whom one will be able more 
 easily to destroy without confounding with them innocent 
 and good citizens." 
 
 The impracticability of such a plan was quickly 
 pointed out to them by the inhabitants of Nueil, who 
 declared that it was impossible to obey this rigorous 
 order to quit their homes and to leave their property at 
 the mercy of the enemy. 
 
 " The distance of some six leagues from the nearest 
 town, the impracticable state of the roads, their wives, 
 children, furniture, animals to be transported to heaven 
 knows where, are insurmountable obstacles. Moreover, 
 the cultivation of the land and the culture of the vines, 
 without which they would be reduced to starvation, are 
 considerations which merit your attention."
 
 340 THE HEAL FPEXCH REVOLUTIONIST ch. 
 
 And then, even the unfortunate " refugees " from the 
 revolted Departments were not yet far enough away from 
 the Vendee. Among them also traitors might lurk ; 
 " they were evil-disposed persons, aristocrats, scoundrels," 
 so all were to be moved farther on- — only not nearer to 
 Taris than fifteen miles. "If they are patriots," it was 
 sententiously remarked, i: they will endure this removal." 
 
 Thus, ''•'covered with opprobrium and infamy, con- 
 demned in public opinion by the decree of the Representa- 
 tives, ruined, without help and without support, they 
 were obliged to move away, and to beg the protection of 
 some distant administrations where they were exposed to 
 insult and outrage." 
 
 These measures taken, it was hoped that a sufficient 
 display of energy had been made. 
 
 And all the while the ghastly work of killing and 
 burning and destroying went on. .February. March, 
 April, May — no longer by definite " infernal columns" 
 working on a definite plan, but as, when, and where 
 possible, whenever sufficient troops could be got to move, 
 any detachment of troops under any general, in the 
 Upper Vendee and in the Lower Vendee, in the Bocage and 
 in the Plain — not a day passing without tens or hundreds 
 beiu- massacred under every conceivable circumstance 
 of cruelty. General Duquesnoy (February 1G) took credit 
 to himself for having killed 3000 of them — " to wit, 
 2000 taken without arms, and 1000 killed at Pont- 
 . lames." Other generals also sent in large death-rolls. 
 
 Turreau, on the 2nd March, told the Committee of 
 Public Safety that 15,000 brigands had been destroyed 
 by the columns. 
 
 Making ample allowance for gross exaggerations, it is 
 evident that fearful cruelties were being inflicted on the 
 people in the Vendee- -"patriots" and " brigands " alike
 
 xxiv 'THE INFEENAL COLUMNS' 341 
 
 Huche, one of the worst of the whole revolutionary 
 lot — an actual assassin, a drunken monster, this " tiger," 
 this "enemy of humanity," as Lequinio called him, sent 
 Turreau an account of the sortie he had made from 
 Cholet against the Veudeans : — 
 
 " I stirred them up pretty lively (Je les ai egayte de 
 bonne manure). More than 500, as many men as 
 women, were killed. This canaille had the audacity 
 to provoke us by defiances, and shouts, and reproaches. 
 I had the copses, the ditches, the hedges, and the woods 
 searched, and it is there we found them cowering. All 
 were bayoneted or sabred, because I had prohibited the 
 waste of ammunition." 
 
 And Turreau wrote in reply : " Courage, comrade, 
 and soon the neighbourhood of Cholet will be cleansed 
 of rebels. If each general or superior officer would 
 only kill them as you do, by the hundred, one would 
 soon be at the end of the business." 
 
 The end was by no means so near as Turreau wished, 
 although several generals were little if at all behind 
 Huche in the killing way. 
 
 Charette and Stofllet held head against the re- 
 publicans, appearing and disappearing here and there 
 and everywhere, in the most unexpected way, pouncing 
 on convoys, sweeping out of the woods on to weakly- 
 held posts ; now and then braving the larger columns of 
 the republicans ; ever being destroyed (according to re- 
 publican accounts), yet appearing again ; their followers 
 scattered and killed, yet coming to life and collecting 
 themselves together again; taking terrible toll every now 
 and then for the republican barbarities; paying the repub- 
 licans back in their own coin ; and receiving constantly 
 fresh recruits to their ranks from the " patriots " driven 
 to desperation by revolutionary or " patriotic " atrocities.
 
 342 THE REAL FRENCH REVOLUTIONIST ch. 
 
 The Representatives were every bit as bloodthirsty as 
 Turreau. 
 
 " We are convinced," wrote Hentz and Francastel on 
 the 14th March, " that the Vendean war will not be 
 finished until there remains no single inhabitant in this 
 miserable country." 
 
 And Garrau, the third Representative, thus expressed 
 his views : — 
 
 " It has been long enough and too long that this 
 infernal Vendee occupies us. If one could get a burning 
 glass large enough to burn and consume it entirely, one 
 would be doing well." 
 
 Thus from top to bottom of the revolutionary hier- 
 archy, all were bent on destruction ; and the burnings 
 of villages and farms and wholesale destruction of grain 
 and forage went on in spite of protests from " patriot " 
 sufferers. The demon of destruction had possession of 
 the revolutionists, and military tyranny and injustice 
 stalked throughout the land — a land which under the 
 new regime of "liberty, equality, and fraternity" that 
 the Revolution was to introduce should have been the 
 peaceful and happy home of an emancipated people ; 
 but which, thanks to the Revolution and the way 
 revolutionary theories and principles worked out, had 
 become a veritable "inferno." 
 
 The short-sighted folly of this destructive policy was 
 remarkable. 
 
 It mattered not that Nantes was suffering from 
 almost a famine : it mattered not that the troops them- 
 selves were often half-starved ; it mattered not that the 
 Republic itself was in urgent want of food for its million 
 of soldiers. Revolutionary generals and Representatives 
 could not descend to such considerations — and so the 
 burnings went on.
 
 xxiv THE INFERNAL COLUMNS' 343 
 
 Other forms of destruction, which also would by and 
 by tell against themselves, were recklessly indulged in ; 
 mills — wind- mills and water-mills — -were destroyed; 
 wind-mills especially, as it was believed that they were 
 used as means of signalling between the Vendeans. 
 
 " To-day I burned a dozen wind-mills," wrote Cor- 
 dellier. 
 
 Ovens and bakehouses, these too were destroyed. 
 And so, when the need came, the troops could not grind 
 the corn they captured into flour, or bake the flour 
 which they found into bread. 
 
 One butchery on a large scale took place at Bougue- 
 naix, on the river some little distance below Nantes. 
 
 Some republican cavalry who had been attacked near 
 there early in April, surrounded the place, and captured 
 210 men (if boys of 15 to 17 can be included in that 
 category) and 22 women. 
 
 Hither came, in hot haste, from Nantes, the Military 
 Commission under Bignon, and in two days it sentenced 
 209 men to death, and acquitted one aged 13. 
 
 They were promptly shot. 
 
 " I have seen a great deal of war," wrote General 
 Hugo (father of the poet), in later years. " I have gone 
 over vast fields of battle. Never has anything struck 
 me so much as the massacre of these victims of opinion 
 and fanaticism." 
 
 The trial of the 22 women was postponed a little and 
 left to another tribunal, and they were acquitted. 
 
 Gradually the "patriot" opposition gathered volume, 
 and remonstrances from the popular societies in different 
 towns in the Vendee, which were republican, and not 
 counter-revolutionary, presaged the commencement of a 
 storm of opposition against the severity of the Turreau 
 military regime.
 
 344 THE REAL FRENCH REVOLUTIONIST ch. 
 
 Once more, as in the case of the sans-culottes at 
 Nantes and Angers, no sooner were revolutionary prin- 
 ciples applied to themselves than there were mutterings 
 and resistance. 
 
 Astonishment and wrath flare forth in a letter which 
 the Committee of Surveillance at Fontenay wrote to 
 Turreau, March 29 : — 
 
 " Do you wish to know what the thousands of men 
 have done whom you wish to tear from their hearths in 
 delivering those hearths to the flames ? 
 
 " They have detested tyrants and fanaticism. . . . 
 Never did they take part in the crimes of the enemies 
 of the patrie — they have fought them — they have 
 beaten them . . . they have devoted life and fortune to 
 the Republic. 
 
 "... Hasten, general, to convince us that you pro- 
 tect virtue and liberty." 
 
 Rut it was not in the nature of a sans-culotte general 
 to protect either virtue or liberty, nor did the Revolu- 
 tionary Government do so either. 
 
 The gradual disillusionment of some of these 
 " patriots " as to what revolution meant, and as to how 
 revolutionary government practically worked out, is most 
 interesting. 
 
 "We think," wrote the popular society at Lueon to 
 the Representatives, "it cannot enter the minds of any 
 of our legislators to confound the innocent with the 
 guilty — the patriot with the enemy of the State." 
 
 But the recent history of revolutionary government 
 had very clearly shown that this was one of the chief 
 things that the revolutionist did do. And they them- 
 selves were quickly to have it proven to them. 
 
 General Huehe, the drunkard and murderer, at the 
 head of a body of troops, arrived there, and literally ran
 
 xxiv 'THE INFERNAL COLUMNS' 345 
 
 amok. Forthwith he sentenced two men to be shot. 
 The tribunal was the dinner-table; the judge, himself; 
 the prosecutor, himself; the evidence, the answers he 
 extracted from the prisoner. 
 
 This was revolutionary "justice." 
 
 The next day he had two more shot ; one, Bardou by 
 name, whose innocence had just been recognised by a 
 Revolutionary Tribunal winch had acquitted him. There 
 was no trial, nor other formality ; nothing but Huehe's 
 mere order. 
 
 "I had them shot," wrote Huehe, " as is customary 
 and right." 
 
 But Turreau by letter mildly reproved him for this. 
 
 " One ought not," wrote Turreau, " to employ those 
 measures when one has a Military Commission or Revolu- 
 tionary Tribunal close to one. Leave that to your chiefs 
 of columns to do when they are on the march." 
 
 And then he ordered the destruction and burning 
 of commune after commune in the neighbourhood — 
 patriot communes — perpetrating every imaginable 
 enormity. 
 
 Furious at opposition from the administrators of the 
 district, he wrote : " In the Vendee, no constituted 
 authority, according to my mind and that of all good 
 republicans, ought to hinder, contradict, or oppose itself 
 to military operations." 
 
 On receiving a remonstrance from the president of the 
 Committee of Surveillance as to his proceedings, he 
 said : 
 
 " What, Mr. President, you dare to criticise my 
 conduct. Do you know what are my orders i 1 have 
 the right to order you to be shot, and this very moment 
 you shall be." And on his being told that the president 
 was an excellent patriot, and one of the best on the
 
 346 THE REAL FREXCH REVOLUTIONIST ch. 
 
 Committee, he threatened to have the whole Committee 
 shot. 
 
 The revolutionists and patriots at Lucon at last 
 recognised what the new government really was. 
 
 '•' AVe are bursting with horror," they wrote, "at 
 seeing the abominable despotism which surrounds us."' 
 
 Just as Jullien had truly seen what revolutionary 
 government at.Xantes was — namely, the ancien regime— 
 so now these "patriots" of Lucon under the enlightening- 
 process of experience had come to see what revolutionary 
 government really was — " an abominable despotism."'' 
 
 That is just what it was. Xo "liberty" about it, — 
 no " fraternity," no " equality," and no justice. Only 
 despotism, an " abominable despotism." 
 
 It was a despotism, too, which with cold-blooded 
 indifference victimised its own republican supporters — 
 if even by that means it could get at those it considered 
 its foes. On the highly moral principle enunciated by 
 Collot d'Herbois, " If one spared the innocent, too many 
 of the guilty would escape." 
 
 A\ nile Huche was at Lucon, one of his most trusted 
 oflicers, his lieutenant, Coy Martiniere by name, had been 
 given an illustration of sans-culotte proceedings. He 
 was in charge of a detachment of troops, and had been 
 pillaging and burning and murdering in "patriot" 
 communes — communes so indisputably " patriot " that in 
 one of them the tree of liberty was growing. At Mareuil 
 he had had a woman shot and her three children — one 
 child of six months was in its mother's arms. At 
 Bellenoue he collected a lot of women and little children 
 one day, and had them all shot the next. He violated 
 innocent girls, and then had the barbarity to have them 
 assassinated. He promised a man his life tor money, 
 took the moiiev and had the man shot.
 
 xxiv 'THE INFERNAL COLUMNS' 347 
 
 The Revolutionary Committee, with full proofs of these 
 atrocities, for which lie probably would not have been 
 punished, and of some very definite offences against the 
 Republic — a more serious matter than these atrocities — 
 called on Huche to order his arrest, — a request which 
 Huche dared not refuse. 
 
 He was tried before the Military Commission, was 
 sentenced to death, and guillotined on the 11th April. 
 
 Ten days later the Representatives Garrau, Hentz, 
 and Francastel wrote to the Committee of Public Safety 
 as to this brutal murderer, violater, and pillager : — ■ 
 
 " The Republic should lie in mourning the day when 
 la Martiniere was guillotined for having done his duty 
 as a republican. . . . We groaned over it, and still 
 groan." 
 
 Strange idea of duty this, — stranger epitaph has 
 never been written by high State officials on a criminal 
 so infamous. 
 
 In endeavouring to form an idea of the extent of 
 revolutionary barbarities and crimes, one must always 
 recollect that those which have been recorded are but 
 an infinitesimal portion of those which were committed, 
 a few isolated instances or illustrations of widespread 
 practices. A corner of the veil only is lifted just for a 
 moment as we peruse the description of one scene of 
 crime ; that is all. 
 
 We get a glimpse of an " infernal column " at its 
 hellish work on two or three occasions. The details of 
 the horrors perpetrated day after day and night after 
 night, by it and the eighteen others, are concealed from 
 us. We only know from chance statements here and 
 there that one day was as another — one night was as 
 another — during those awful weeks — those fearful 
 months.
 
 348 THE REAL FRENCH REVOLUTIONIST ch. 
 
 We get glimpses of soldiers, officers, generals, and 
 even Representatives, plunged in drunkenness and de- 
 bauchery and crime, and know that that was the chronic 
 condition of most of them. 
 
 For a moment one gets a glimpse of a Revolutionary 
 Committee at work — -of a Military Commission ad- 
 ministering revolutionary '•'justice" — of Representatives 
 exercising their despotic powers in the secrecy of their 
 chambers, and we know that day after day these engines 
 of revolutionary tyranny and terror were in similar 
 manner dealing out injustice and death to innocent and 
 guilty alike. 
 
 Occasionally one gets from some of the actual victims 
 of tyranny and injustice the narrative of their maddening 
 wrongs and sufferings : but even so, these are but a few 
 of the voices of the tens upon tens of thousands who 
 went down in silence to their graves ; or if they voiced 
 their agonies and their wrongs, could not make their 
 voices reach the outer world or the tribunal of posterity. 
 
 As it is, one stands appalled at the horror of that 
 much of it which is known, and at the depths of human 
 depravity presented to one's gaze even by the momentary 
 raising of one corner of the veil; one is overwhelmed if 
 one tries to realise what the fearful drama must have 
 been in its entirety, as enacted behind the now im- 
 penetrable curtain. 
 
 Some republican writers contend that it was all 
 necessary for " tbe safety of the fatherland " — others 
 that it was justified because some Vendean leaders had 
 made appeals to England for help, and that these people 
 were allies with the enemies of fiance. 
 
 Such contentions only show the straits to which they 
 have been put in their ('Hurts to defend those who com- 
 mitted these enormities, and they bear their refutation
 
 xxiv THE INTERNAL COLUMNS' 349 
 
 on their face. For how can it be contended that the 
 violation and murder of women was essential for the 
 salut de la patrie ? Or that tiny children, down to the 
 babe at its mother's breast, were allies of the English, 
 and that so their destruction was justified ? 
 
 The quarrel between Huche and the Revolutionary 
 Committee at Lucon continued briskly. 
 
 " "Who has clad this man who seeks to overwhelm 
 us by terror, with absolute power?" it asked of the 
 Representatives. 
 
 The true answer to such a question was " the new 
 regime of liberty — the Republic." but the Representatives 
 would be little likely to give it. 
 
 The Committee — boldly persevering — issued a warrant 
 of arrest against Huche for various crimes, among them 
 that of having had Barclou shot; and for burning corn 
 and forage, instead of having them carried away ; and 
 for the great crime of dispersing by the bayonet the 
 republican society, "which abuse of authority was the 
 most terrible blow against the liberty and against the 
 sovereignty of the people." 
 
 The warrant was executed — Hue-he's troops sym- 
 pathising with the people instead of with their general. 
 He was arrested and sent to Paris. 
 
 Hentz and Francastel were furious at this audacious 
 proceeding. At the popular society at Xiort, Hentz 
 eulogised Huche, Grignon, and their agents. " Huche 
 was a good and frank sans-culotte- -the very man for 
 the Vendee. He had been reproached for having dis- 
 solved the' popular society. He had a right to do so. 
 In a counter-revolutionary town, such as it was, the 
 military are everything. I recognise no civil authority 
 there. A general is sovereign. Generals were above 
 being denounced or complained against. It would lie
 
 350 THE REAL FRENCH REVOLUTIONIST en. 
 
 absurd to imagine that a Revolutionary Committee could 
 arrest a general. A general ought to exercise supreme 
 authority. There should he no civil authority in the 
 Vendee." 
 
 Then on to Fontenay, where Ilentz harangued the 
 popular society for two hours on its audacity in making- 
 protests against the incendiarism of patriot communes, 
 dissolved it, and formed a new one of their own 
 creatures. 
 
 That done, they hurried to Lucon, the " execrable 
 Lucon " as they called it. Martiniere they could not 
 bring to life again, but they suppressed the Military 
 Commission which had dared to convict him, " without 
 giving him time or the means of defending himself," 
 and declared Lucon in a state of siege ; they dissolved 
 the popular society, and soon after had the members 
 of the Committee arrested and sent off to Paris. 
 
 It was a perilous undertaking to protest against 
 the proceedings of the vrai sans-ndotte. 
 
 Four members of the popular society at Niort were 
 sent by the people of Niort to Paris in April to depict 
 to the Government the horrors they were suffering 
 under the hands of Huche and Grignon and their 
 agents, the devastation and incendiarism of communes 
 faithful to the Republic, and tin 1 butchery of old people, 
 and women, and children, and carrying with them the 
 proofs thereof. They were treated as counter-revolu- 
 tionists ; accused of having advanced false facts ; and 
 were told that Hentz and Francastel were on the spot, 
 and had not reported anything about it. And they 
 very nearly paid for their zeal with their heads. 
 
 Even the troops at last showed signs of wavering. 
 Discontent was spreading among them, and began to 
 show itself. The men were sickening of the life they
 
 xxiv 'THE INFERNAL COLUMNS' 351 
 
 were leading. They had pretty well had their fill of 
 plunder, and many were anxious to secure its enjoyment. 
 Many were undergoing desperate hardships, having been 
 shamefully neglected by their generals. Bread failed 
 them, and clothes, and boots. Torrential rains poured 
 down upon them, illnesses of every kind swept the 
 ranks, and every now and then the Vendeans fell upon 
 them. 
 
 " I am in a terrible position," wrote Adjutant-General 
 Dusirat. " My column, on which you rely to make up 
 the 3600 men which you wish to confide to me, cannot 
 furnish me with more than 500 to GOO. . . . You have 
 no idea of the spirit which reigns in our troops, and 
 especially among the officers. They murmur loudly 
 against your dispositions." And in a letter to Turreau 
 he wrote, April 12th: "There is one great fact; that 
 it is impossible to end the Vendean war quickly with 
 the troops which compose the army of the west. . . . 
 Nothing decisive will ever be done with the troops 
 which we command at the present moment." 
 
 This view is passed on to the Minister of War, and 
 endorsed by Turreau. The cowardice of the soldiers, 
 which Turreau emphasised, was, he said, due " to the 
 riches of the soldier who had pillaged much." And as 
 to their state of health, lie said that more than 20,000 
 filled the different hospitals in different places around 
 the Vendee. 
 
 One finishing touch to the picture is given by General 
 Dusirat : — 
 
 " I begin to perceive that the greater part of the 
 soldiers 1 command prefer defeat to victory. That is 
 not surprising. After defeat one goes to Lone (a small 
 town, but still a town), and after a victory one pursues 
 the brigands."
 
 352 THE REAL FKEXCH REVOLUTIONIST ch. 
 
 And one more touch : " T tell you the truth, citizen 
 general. The cry, ' Here are the brigands.' inspires 
 terror among our soldiers ; and I can assure you that if 
 there is any place in the world where terror is the order 
 of the day, it is at St. Florent, and in some battalions of 
 my column/' 
 
 One graphic expression of the time summed it all up : 
 " The army, sleeping in crime, succumbed under the 
 weight of pillage and debauch." 
 
 As month succeeded month, and no definite result 
 was secured, the Committee of Public Safety had been 
 becoming more and more discontented with the conduct 
 of the war, their disapproval not merely being confined 
 to Turreau, but to the Representatives Hentz and Fran- 
 castel, who were with him. 
 
 Was it the first turn in the tide which induced the 
 Committee on the 9th April to order the Representatives 
 to issue a decree preserving factories (v. sines) from 
 destruction '. The inculcation to preserve anything in 
 the Vendee was a remarkable portent. 
 
 Hentz and Francastel endeavoured to back up Turreau 
 and the miscreant sans-culotte generals, and to fan the 
 name of hostility against the Vendeans. 
 
 "Every breathing thing in the Vendee is brigand 
 . . ." they wrote. " There is wanted in these parts 
 a man like Carrier, who saved Xantes by the vigour 
 of his measures, or some one like him." They de- 
 nounced the conduct of those who wished to lead 
 tin' Committee to grant an amnesty to the brigands. 
 •' To-day all the brigands whom we take say nothing 
 else to us but 'Only leave us alone, and we won't 
 trouble any one'"; but they (Hentz and Francastel) 
 scouted such an idea. They were too confirmed 
 in ways of bloodshed and brutality during their
 
 xxiv THE INFERNAL COLUMNS' 353 
 
 despotic rule in the Vendee to take any new or sensible 
 view of the position. 
 
 At the end of the month the Committee of Public 
 Safety recalled them. 
 
 Their departure was a happy riddance for the unfortu- 
 nate inhabitants of the Vendee, brigand and patriot alike. 
 
 Cruel, bloodthirsty despots — men dead to every sense 
 of justice or honour ; associated in iniquities innumerable, 
 in cruelties untold, friends of Carrier, admirers of and 
 applauders of Huclie and Martiniere- — they were two of 
 the most infamous wretches which the Eevolution in 
 the name of " liberty" produced. 
 
 Turreau remained a little longer. 
 
 For nearly another month the war dragged on; now 
 Vendean victories, now Vendean defeats; all on an ever- 
 diminishing scale. But success did not come to the 
 Revolutionary Government. The Vendee was not anni- 
 hilated, and the limit of forbearance towards even such 
 a true sans-culotte was at last reached. The Committee 
 of Public Safety could no longer ignore the increasing 
 volume of complaint and reprobation, and on the 13th 
 May it removed him from his command. But being a 
 vrai sans-culotte he was let down easy. He was given 
 another appointment — the Governorship of Belle-isle-en- 
 Mer — by Robespierre, it was said ; and the Vendee was 
 rid of one whose presence and career in it had been 
 altogether evil. 
 
 Personally Turreau was a despicable creature — one 
 of the vainest and meanest of those who strutted for a 
 short time on the revolutionary stage. Militarily lie 
 was a bungler of the highest order ; and, as a leader, 
 what can be thought of the man who, in an address to 
 his "brothers in arms" urging them to action, says, "I 
 will follow you ; do not doubt it " ? 
 
 '1 A
 
 354 TJIK HEAL FRENCH REVOLUTIONIST ch. 
 
 To humanity now he is only interesting as another 
 specimen of I he vrai repvMicain in authority, and as a 
 demonstration of how the Revolution worked out in 
 practice. 
 
 The military despotism exercised by him under and 
 in the name of the Republic was as absolute a despotism 
 as any which had been exercised by any previous royal 
 despots in France: it was, too, a despotism exercised 
 against, not the noblesse or wealthy classes, of whom 
 there were not many left, but against the people of the 
 humblest class, the rank and file of the agricultural and 
 industrial population — -the people who had helped to 
 make the Revolution, and who were to have been bene- 
 fited by it. Nor was it exercised alone against the 
 Yendeans — who were considered as rebels ; but also 
 against the " patriots," staunch supporters of the new 
 regime. 
 
 Turreau's military despotism in the Vendee was the 
 complement to Carrier's civil despotisin in Xantes. 
 
 In one way it was unquestionably more iniquitous, 
 inasmuch as his severities were unprovoked, and wholly 
 gratuitous. Carrier was given his authority publicly by 
 the Convention itself. Turreau usurped his. ( 'arricr 
 found the prisons full : found also at Xantes a numbei 
 of opponents to the extremer ideas of revolution, and he 
 hail bemi sent to deal with them. 
 
 Turreau found the Vendee peaceable and anxious foi 
 peace — upon that point there is an almost unanimous 
 opinion of the republican officials most qualified to speai 
 about ii — and he deliberately created the occasion for hif 
 inhumanities. He had no mission such as Carrier. lb 
 himself has avowed it in a letter to the Minister of War 
 dated 1.4th February 1704: "You know that, withoui 
 any authorisation, I have taken, and put into execution, tin
 
 xxiv THE INFERNAL COLUMNS' 355 
 
 most rigorous measures to end this frightful war." He 
 made an absolutely wanton attack on masses of peaceful 
 people, great numbers of them being "patriots" and 
 republicans, and not " brigands," and he remorselessly 
 proceeded to apply to them a military despotism in its 
 cruellest and bloodiest form. He created a fresh civil 
 war, causing a vast loss of innocent life, and the destruc- 
 tion of an enormous amount of property — a war lasting 
 not alone for the time he was in command, but for 
 months and months after he had been superseded. 
 
 But there is little profit in discussing his and Carrier's 
 relative positions in infamy. 
 
 The real, salient, emergent fact is, that each, in his 
 own sphere, and in different ways, proved the same con- 
 clusion — that a Kepublie could be as tyrannical, cruel, 
 and unjust a, Government as any other form of govern- 
 ment which humanity had ever tried and suffered under. 
 
 And as their combined spheres of authority covered 
 the whole held of government, the general conclusion 
 possesses irresistible force, 
 
 Together these two high officials of the Republic 
 afforded awful proof of the abominations of cruelty and 
 inhumanity which could bo committed by, and in the 
 name of, a Republic, which posed as being a revelation 
 to mankind of the liberty and fraternity and justice 
 which should prevail upon the earth ; and their actions, 
 aided, abetted, and in most part approved, by the Execu- 
 tive Government in Paris, exploded once for all the 
 colossal pretensions of the new Republic to be regard as 
 the realised ideal, the faultless paragon of Governments. 
 
 Indeed, not only was it demonstrated to be, not a 
 Government of law, justice, liberty, and order, or even of 
 any one of those things, but if was demonstrated by the 
 incontrovertible evidence of actual experience and visible
 
 356 THE REAL FRENCH REVOLUTIONIST ch. xxiv 
 
 fact to be a Government excelling in lawlessness, injustice, 
 tyranny, and disorder — a Government which afforded no 
 guarantee, no safeguard, no shelter even, against the 
 invasion and destruction of all the most cherished, the 
 most elementary, rights of man.
 
 CHAPTER XXV 
 
 A representative's expenditure 
 
 It is u relief to turn one's eyes for a moment from these 
 unceasing horrors to a phase of the life of a Representa- 
 tive which, while instructive, is in lighter vein, — to a 
 little bit of autobiography which, being apologetic or 
 deprecatory, is refreshingly free from the vanity and 
 brag and revolutionary cant of their usual reports, which 
 takes one, as it were, behind the scenes of a part of 
 their life when they were not actually occupied in de- 
 vising or carrying out deeds of bloodshed and tyranny 
 and injustice. 
 
 The Representatives were, of course, paid by the Con- 
 vention for their labours, and some of them managed, 
 one way or the other, to get through good round sums. 
 
 They travelled about with a regular retinue — one or 
 two secretaries and copyists, with military officers, couriers, 
 and others, vaguely called personnes ; and then they 
 required house or lodging, and such things cost no small 
 amount of money. 
 
 The Convention made a decree ordering them to send 
 in an account of the money they had received from the 
 Republic, and of their expenditure. 
 
 Among the accounts sent in was one from Bourbotte,
 
 358 THE REAL FRENCH REVOLUTIONIST ch. 
 
 — lie who at Noirmoutier proposed and decreed Wie- 
 land's death, and who also was guilty of many other 
 atrocities. 
 
 Justifying his expenditure, he described " the neces- 
 sity the Representative was under of having several 
 people with him, secretaries, copyists, also of having to 
 entertain generals, officials, and other public functionaries " 
 (Lequinio once entertained the executioner, it will be 
 remembered). His wine bill he was evidently anxious 
 about, which confirms Piet's statement that he took wine 
 immoderately. 
 
 " The excessive scarcity and dearness of wine decided 
 me to requisition the administrators of the district to 
 furnish me with that coming from (prevenant dcs) the 
 emigres, or those condemned to death, for my consump- 
 tion and that of the persons with me. 
 
 " On different occasions T received from the people 
 proofs of affection which became for me the cause of 
 some indispensable expense, notably at Nantes, Troyes, 
 etc. 
 
 " After having made several civic promenades, and 
 sung hymns in honour of 'liberty,' the crowd was so 
 large, the heat so excessive, our courses and our 
 dances so fatiguing, that I felt it my duty to provide 
 some refreshment for several of the citizens who re- 
 conducted me to my lodgings. 
 
 " I only enter into these details to give you an idea 
 of the nature of the expenses to which a Representative 
 on mission can be forced." 
 
 There was also an item of 250 livres for " refresh- 
 ments furnished occasionally to mounted orderlies who 
 accompanied me and the general-in-chief when we went 
 to make some reconnaissances.'"' 
 
 And there were items for new outfits. At the
 
 xxv A REPRESENTATIVE'S EXPENDITURE 359 
 
 capture of Saumur by the Vendeans, he says, " the 
 Representatives lost everything, saving only what they 
 had on." He himself got some of his things back, but 
 he had to replace many. Worse befell him, however, 
 at the republican defeat and rout at Vihiers, where he 
 lost his horse, arms, and equipage, and where all his 
 things were pillaged. " To escape from the fury of the 
 rebels, who pursued me even in the night," lie continued, 
 " I had to disembarrass myself of all my clothes which 
 impeded my march. I took off my boots. I threw 
 away my coat, without thinking an instant (for it was 
 difficult to do so in such circumstances) of what was in 
 my pocket." 
 
 The "what" was a pocket-book with 2100 livres 
 in it. 
 
 He winds up his report : " Here is my account. I 
 should have very much desired to have been able to 
 import more economy into my expenditure ; but, whilst 
 putting ostentation and luxury away from me, I also 
 thought that if a Representative on mission pushed the 
 simplicity of republican manners, of which he should 
 give the first example, beyond reasonable bounds, he 
 would, in the eyes of those over whom the power of 
 modest and reserved appearances has a useful effect, 
 diminish the consideration with which he is in need of 
 being always surrounded."
 
 CHAPTEE XXVI 
 
 THE TOWNS AFTEi: CARRIER'S RECALL 
 
 While Turreau had been devastating the Vendee with 
 his " infernal columns," the revolutionists in Nantes and 
 Angers, and elsewhere in the surrounding districts, had 
 been continuing their campaign in their usual way ; but 
 so many tens of thousands of Vendeans, counter-revolu- 
 tionists, and " patriots" had been wiped out of existence, 
 that the revolutionary battues could no longer be on the 
 splendid scale they had been. 
 
 Proceedings, moreover, were becoming somewhat 
 tempered by the slowly awakening opinion among larger 
 numbers of the people that the action of the revolu- 
 tionists in power was being carried to too great lengths : 
 by misgivings on the part of some who hitherto had 
 aided or abetted in the atrocities, that they themselves 
 might be marked down as the next victims, and on the 
 part of others by the desire to rest under their laurels, 
 and to enjoy at leisure the fruits of their plunder and 
 triumphs. 
 
 With Carrier's recall, the climax of tyranny, so far 
 as Nantes was concerned, was passed; but only the 
 climax, for, for some time after his departure, tyranny 
 there remained rampant; the prisons being full of
 
 ch. xxvi AFTEE CAEEIEE'S EEC ALL 361 
 
 prisoners, the Eevolutionary Committee still making 
 arrests, perpetrating fresh iniquities, and expressing its 
 intention " to prevent as far as possible aristocrats from 
 fouling the streets with their mephitic presence." All 
 the machinery of revolutionary government remained in 
 operation, and Nantes and its inhabitants had still to 
 go through a great deal before the peace necessary for 
 happiness, and the security necessary for material pro- 
 sperity, once more prevailed. 
 
 And away from down the Loire, from Bourgneuf, 
 there came, like a distant peal of the thunderstorm 
 which has passed, the news of a noyade ordered by 
 Foucault of noyade fame, promoted to the Governorship 
 of Paimbceuf. 
 
 There, on the 24th February, a noyade, not with 
 sinking of barge as at Nantes, but simply throwing, or 
 chucking, overboard into the rapid running river, 41 
 bodies and souls, as i: rebels to the law" — 2 men, one 
 of them aged 78 and blind, a dangerous rebel, 12 
 women, 12 girls, and 15 children, of whom 10 were 
 between 5 and 10 years of age, the remainder in arms. 
 The fact is not contested, was avowed by Foucault 
 himself. 
 
 After a little while the energy of the Eevolutionary 
 Committee was somewhat cramped by the enforced 
 absence of Goullin and Chaux ; these two " true 
 patriots," as Carrier called them, having been summoned 
 to Paris to explain a somewhat discreditable transaction 
 on their part. 
 
 Prieur, moreover, merciless and cruel as lie was, 
 did not lend himself in Nantes, as Carrier had done, to 
 measures of wholesale and extreme violence. 
 
 That things had improved by the latter part of 
 March is evident from the fact that seventy-two priests
 
 3G2 THE REAL FRENCH REVOLUTIONIST ch. 
 
 who were in prison on board a ship in the Loire were 
 there alive, and not noyaded. 
 
 The proceedings against Lambert) 7 and Fouquet, 
 although kept as secret as possible, helped somewhat 
 towards the change of feeling. 
 
 These two criminals had been sent before the Mili- 
 tary Commission, of which Bignon was president, by the 
 Revolutionary Committee on a charge, not of the count- 
 less murders and noyades and other crimes they had 
 committed, but of abstracting from the Republic and 
 defrauding the sword of justice of several women who 
 were 1 counter-revolutionists. 
 
 To murder counter-revolutionists, and even innocent 
 people, was evidently, according to the revolutionary 
 standard of morality, not an indictable offence. To pre- 
 vent them being noyaded, or, in other words, to deprive 
 the Republic of its prey, was a capital offence. 
 
 When the lives of only " brigands " or counter-revolu- 
 tionists were at stake, a few minutes, if even that, usually 
 sufficed to dispose of a case once it came before a Mili- 
 tary Commission : but now where sans-culottes were con- 
 cerned, revolutionary justice proceeded more hesitatingly. 
 Bignon considered it "a very delicate affair,' - and 
 unusual delay took place between the commencement of 
 their trial and the decision. Communications with 
 Carrier were deemed necessary, the culprits having 
 defended themselves by pleading the necessity of obeying 
 Carrier's orders. 
 
 Lilt Carrier refused to intervene in any way; he 
 would throw no light on the matter, being probably glad 
 to secure the destruction of two accomplices who knew 
 too much, and who would be dangerous witnesses should 
 be himself by any chance be put on trial, lie protested 
 that tliev were " the two best patriots of Nantes," but
 
 xxvi AFTER CARRIER'S RECALL 363 
 
 none the less he took no step to clear them, or to help 
 them to avoid their fate. 
 
 They were convicted on the 14th April — that one 
 act of justice the Bignon Military Commission performed 
 — and they were sentenced to death and guillotined, and 
 with their deaths eternal silence fell over countless of the 
 most heinous crimes of the revolutionists at Nantes. 1 
 
 While Goullin and Chaux were away in Paris, 
 Phelippes de Tronjolly had been looking into things. 
 From being president of the Revolutionary Tribunal, he 
 had been reduced to being public accuser before it, and 
 he had become a bitter eneny of the Revolutionary Com- 
 mittee owing to a well-founded belief of its intention to 
 cUharrasser itself of him by the guillotine or other 
 equally efficacious means. Xo one was better qualified 
 to unveil the iniquities of the Committee, and, carefully 
 choosing his ground, he, in virtue of his office, formally 
 called on the Committee for explanations as to certain, fur 
 them, very awkward matters — for instance, for the pro- 
 duction of two men who had been prisoners in the 
 Bouffay, of whom he could get no account ; and also for 
 an account of moneys received by the Committee, which, 
 according even to revolutionary law, they were bound to 
 supply, but which obligation they had hitherto ignored 
 or evaded. 
 
 Just at this time, too, the power of the Committee was 
 also crippled in another very material respect. Hitherto 
 it had had the various tribunals of revolutionary justice 
 in Nantes almost absolutely under its control. It only 
 had to signify a wish as to the fate of a prisoner, and 
 the wish was obeyed. On the 8th May an order of the 
 Committee of Public Safety suspended the operations of 
 all the Military Commissions established in the Depart- 
 
 1 The records of this case are not in existence (Berriat St. Prix, p. 4).
 
 364 THE REAL FBENCH REVOLUTIONIST ch. 
 
 mcnts, and nil persons accused of " conspiracy " were to 
 be sent before the Eevolutionary Tribunal in Paris. 
 
 Thus the power of dictating to the tribunals which 
 were to try their victims was taken from them, and they 
 were deprived of the means of murdering their victims 
 under the forms of law. 
 
 J tow effective these Military Commissions, which 
 " clad murder with the mantle of the law," had been can 
 be realised from the fact that the celebrated Bignon 
 Commission, the worst of all of them, it is true, in a little 
 less than five months, namely, from the 14th December 
 1793 to the 8th May 1794, sentenced 2919 people to 
 death, 8 to deportation, 9 to irons, 1 to prison, and 
 acquitted 40. Of these, some 800 or so had been 
 sentenced before the Commission came to Nantes. 
 
 A change of representatives also made things less 
 favourable for them. 
 
 Prieur (do la Marne) was sent to Brest, and Bo and 
 Bourbotte succeeded him. Bo's arrival towards the end 
 of May marked, it is said, the end of the actual " reign 
 of terror " there, though not the end of much injustice 
 and cruelty. 
 
 Phelippes all the while was hard at work ferreting 
 out some of the misdemeanours of the Eevolutionary Com- 
 mittee, and on the 31st May lie reported to the repre- 
 sentatives that the members of the Committee had on 
 different occasions ordered the removal to their own 
 dwellings of wine, wood, and other articles taken from 
 the houses of 6mig?fa or suspects, and had rendered no 
 account thereof, as by revolutionary law they wen; bound 
 to do, and he demanded an account of same, and also par- 
 ticulars as to certain instances in which the official seals 
 hail been broken. 
 
 The Revolutionary Committee, said Phelippes, had
 
 xxvi AFTEE CARRIER'S RECALL 365 
 
 received more than a million livres. It contented itself 
 with surrendering 73,000 livres, but could give no 
 account of the balance. 
 
 The matter was so serious, it was reported to the Com- 
 mittee of Public Safety, and on the 6 th June Bo and 
 Bourbotte. acting under the direct instructions of the 
 Committee, called for a reply within twenty-four hours. 
 
 The replies not being forthcoming, the Representa- 
 tives on the 12th June ordered the arrest of the mem- 
 bers of the Committee, and the same day these bons et 
 braves republicains found themselves experiencing some 
 of the miseries to which they had unjustly doomed 
 thousands of their countrymen. 
 
 Gradually the trend of affairs continued towards 
 moderation. The Revolutionary Government in Paris, 
 although Robespierre was still supreme, and also the Con- 
 vention, was becoming more impressed with the convic- 
 tion that moderation would have better effects with the 
 Vendeans than extreme measures, and the Representa- 
 tives Po and Bourbotte, taking their cue from Paris, per- 
 severed in a milder regime. 
 
 The Revolutionary Committee being under lock and 
 key, the people slowly gathered courage to speak. Light, 
 too, was thrown on the state of the prisons of Nantes, 
 which still were crowded, the prisoners venturing on 
 appeals for mercy. 
 
 On 17th June some 500 women, imprisoned in the 
 old Convent of the Good Shepherd, sent a petition to the 
 Representatives : 
 
 " Our misery is at its climax. Shut up more than 
 eight months ago in an unhealthy building, contagious 
 diseases carry off every day some of our companions. 
 You would be touched, Representatives, to see 500 
 women heaped together — some infirm, some even blind,
 
 36C TJIE REAL FEENCH REVOLUTIONIST oh. 
 
 some of over seventy years of age, pregnant women, 
 nurses, mothers of families, poor and indigent — the 
 greater number victims of private hatred. We have not 
 been able before this to make known our innocence, as 
 
 our relatives were prohibited asking for our release." 
 
 And in the next month, being still in prison, they 
 again complained : " The devouring heat of the sun con- 
 sumes our bodies, weakened by grief. The want of 
 water, increasing our thirst, becomes a new torture." 
 What an awful picture of revolutionary " fraternity." 
 A commission of inquiry reported that in all there 
 were about 4000 prisoners in Nantes, of whom more 
 than 1000 were women. And their report was the old 
 story: "The afflicting picture of masses of men breath- 
 ing a mephitic atmosphere, lying on the ground or 
 paving-stones, without straw or covering, without linen 
 or clothing, without sufficient nourishment"- a story 
 which, though it may weary one by repetition, lias to be 
 borne in mind, for it was a constant factor in the system 
 of revolutionary tyranny, the sufferings of the imprisoned 
 thousands never ceasing. Tor now considerably over two 
 years, under the regime of " liberty and fraternity," 
 thousands of prisoners were each day and night welter- 
 ing in misery and physical agony in the revolutionary 
 torture-houses. 
 
 But enough has been said on this painful subject to 
 convey some faint idea of what revolutionary prisons 
 were. They played a great part in the tyranny of the 
 "good republican " and vrai sans-culottc. They were the 
 means of inflicting untold suffering and infamous injustice 
 upon all, whether guilty or innocent, whom the revolu- 
 tionists marked down as their prey. 
 
 Various have been the estimates of the number of 
 persons who actually died in the prisons of Nantes during
 
 xxvi AFTEE CARRIER'S EECALL 367 
 
 the regime of the revolutionists. Dr. Laennec said 
 10,000, Lallie 9000, Guepin 5000, Goullin 2000. Tlie 
 truth probably is much nearer 10,000 than 5000. 
 
 But Nantes was only one place where these evils 
 existed. All around the Vendee, or wherever in it 
 revolutionary authority existed, in Angers, Done, 
 Saurnur, Fontenay, Xoirnioutier, there were prisons 
 crammed with prisoners, and the same evils, the same 
 misery existed. The roll of victims of revolutionary 
 "justice" who died in prison in the Vendee and its sur- 
 roundings, could it by any possibility be obtained, would 
 1)C appalling, and the infamy of it is increased by the 
 fact that the vast bulk of the prisoners were " untried," 
 and, according to the theory of even revolutionary law, 
 innocent. 
 
 The plain matter of fact truth is that the revolu- 
 tionists—utterly reckless of human life, utterly regard- 
 less of human suffering — let the unfortunate prisoners 
 die en masse. it mattered not whether the prisoners 
 were innocent ; whether age, infirmity, or physical in- 
 capacity absolutely prevented them taking any action 
 against the revolutionary regime; they were in prison, 
 let them die ; their death saved further trouble. 
 
 As it was in Nantes this spring and summer of 
 1794, so was it in Angers, only there the tyrannical 
 rule of the Eevolutionary Committee and of the Eepre- 
 sentatives died more slowly. The Committee kept up 
 its character. Perturbed at a change of opinion which 
 it noticed, it wrote a long letter to Francastel defending 
 its actions and its principles. 
 
 In their "revolutionary infancy" they said they had 
 been too considerate or lenient, and had done things 
 which they had since rectified. 
 
 "As long as you leave us our powers we will go our
 
 368 THE REAL FRENCH REVOLUTIONIST ch. 
 
 way, proud, full of confidence in the justice of our past 
 and future operations ; we will revolutionise, we will 
 electrify, we will ; Maratise ' our fellow-citizens, and our 
 last cry will be ' Vive la Montague '. Vive la Republique ! 
 one and indivisible ; war against traitors and anarchists l ,: ' 
 
 A fusillade on the 10th February resulted in a 
 quarrel between the Military Commission and the Re- 
 volutionary Committee. The previous day some twenty 
 persons had been arrested in their own houses for no 
 other offence than being aristocrats, and were included 
 in the fusillade, though they had not even been tried. 
 
 The Revolutionary Committee, which aspired to hold- 
 ing exclusive power, thought that the Commission was 
 taking too much upon itself. " You stop our march, and 
 we will not suffer it any longer. It is more than can 
 be put up with {(Sen est trop)." " Do not accuse us of 
 ambition," the Committee sanctimoniously remarked; 
 '•'the sole ambition we have is to administer justice": 
 and it prohibited the members of the Commission from 
 going any more into the prisons to draw up there the 
 death-lists. The quarrel resulted in a cessation of the 
 fusillades for a time, but they were resumed, though on 
 a smaller scale, and terror continued to reign. 
 
 The state of affairs in Angers at this precise time is 
 graphically set forth in the following highly descriptive 
 and characteristic letter from the Revolutionary Com- 
 mittee to the Committee of Public Safety: — 
 
 " Our prisons empty themselves : then they are idled 
 up again : then they are emptied again. One would 
 believe that the country was purged. Eh. well, not at 
 all. It is a hydra. One may cut away [on a beau 
 rmijirr), there always remains a head. 
 
 The ferocity and injustice of the .Military Commission 
 had become such that some of the best " patriots " ol
 
 xxvi AFTEE CAEEIEE'S RECALL 3G9 
 
 Angers, and at last even many of the Jacobins, did not 
 feel themselves safe. 
 
 When the patriots became possessed of the idea that 
 their own heads might be the next to be cut away, 
 they began to think that the existing state of things 
 was not quite so desirable as it had hitherto seemed, 
 and they leagued themselves with the Moderates against 
 the extreme Montagnards actually in power. 
 
 In March the Revolutionary Committee was dissolved, 
 and a new one appointed, somewhat less violent, and 
 with somewhat curtailed powers. 
 
 But executions on a considerable scale did not even 
 then end, for on the 8th April 441 women were inter- 
 rogated, of whom 84 were ordered to be shot — a pro- 
 portion of acquittals which shows a great change ; and 
 on the 15th April 99 persons, of whom over 40 were 
 women, were condemned, and shot the following day at 
 La Haie, in presence of Felix and the other members of 
 the Commission. 
 
 The movement against the proceedings of the Military 
 Commission gained strength, and at last complaints began 
 to voice themselves against even the Representatives. 
 
 Early in May, all the Military Commissions came to 
 an end ; but a special exception was made as to the Com- 
 mission under Felix. Tie and it were sent to Xoir- 
 moutier, there to continue the brutalities which had 
 distinguished them at Angers, and. which had earned for 
 them a certificate of character from Hentz and Fran- 
 castel. " The Representatives announce their satisfac- 
 tion witli the energetic manner, revolutionary and full of 
 dignity, with which the Military Commission of Angers 
 lias exercised its functions." 
 
 Revolutionary vindictiveness against women did not 
 terminate with the extinction of the Military Commis-
 
 370 THE REAL FRENCH REVOLUTIONIST en. 
 
 sions and Revolutionary Tribunals in the provinces. 
 Several batches of prisoners were sent up from the 
 Vendee for trial in Paris. 
 
 One list is on record showing that a batch of 22 
 Vendeans were removed to Paris for trial. Of these, 2 1 
 were women. 
 
 The act of accusation against them expressed the 
 views of the revolutionists in authority in Paris us 
 regarded Vendean women. 
 
 " They were all the instruments and the accomplices 
 of tlie priests and the nobles who, in the name of Heaven, 
 inundated French territory with the blood of its citizens. 
 In the Departments of the Vendee, Deux-Sevres, and 
 others, all have contributed, either personally or by 
 their husbands or their children, and by the help they 
 have given, to this disastrous and sanguinary war, which 
 has cost the country so many citizens, and which has 
 delivered entire Departments to devastation and fin-, in 
 fact to all the excesses of an expiring fanaticism.'' 
 
 They appeared before the Revolutionary Tribunal on 
 the 25th dune 1 794, and out of them all only two were 
 acquitted, one of them being a girl of fourteen years of age. 
 
 Noirmoutier, probably on account of its remoteness, 
 to the last retained its notoriety as the scene of revolu- 
 tionary horrors of the most atrocious type. Thither 
 had been sent prisoners from Fontenay, from Challans, 
 from Sables, where "the prisons were infected with a 
 pestiferous and morbiferous air," until at last the island 
 became " one vast prison. 
 
 One day the Revolutionary Committee at Sables 
 d'Olonne sent over a small ship with about 200 
 prisoners. Tyroco, a captain, and a member of the 
 Military ( 'ommission, went down with soldiers to receive 
 them. When disembarked, some 50 or GO were too ill
 
 xxvi AFTEB CARRIER'S RECALL 371 
 
 or weak to walk, and lay there helpless on the ground. 
 Said Tyroco, " Their condemnation is certain. They 
 have only been sent here to be shot. Help can only 
 prolong their sufferings, and defer their death by a few 
 days. Comrades, let us end their ills, let them be shot." 
 
 And so some 50 persons perished there and then on 
 the sands, done to death — people innocent according even 
 to revolutionary law and the Declaration of the Rights 
 of Man. 
 
 " Posterity," wrote Piet, " will have difficulty in 
 believing in such crimes " ; but posterity, having at last 
 learned what infamous wretches the revolutionists were, 
 and what crimes they committed, has no difficulty what- 
 ever in believing his narrative. 
 
 Felix and his Military Commission must, however, 
 have slackened in their energies as time went on, for a 
 few days before the 9th Thermidor — the date of the 
 downfall of Robespierre — Carnot had written on behalf 
 of the Committee of Public Safety to the Representa- 
 tives at Niort a letter with quite the old ring about it. 
 He told them instanter to order that revolutionary 
 justice at Noirmoutier should resume its course, and that 
 vigorous measures should be taken against the pro- 
 moters, chiefs, and abettors of tin 1 cruel war. 
 
 " AVhence has been taken the idea that the Govern- 
 ment wish to pardon the authors and abettors and 
 instigators of the outrages committed in the Vendee 
 against the sovereignty of the people ? 
 
 "Hasten, on the contrary, dear colleagues, to deliver to 
 the avenging sword all the 1 promoters and chiefs of this 
 cruel war, that the scoundrels who for so long have torn 
 the bowels of the patrie receive at last the deserts for 
 their crimes." 
 
 Alter the 9th Thermidor, when more moderate Repre-
 
 372 THE REAL FRENCH REVOLUTIONIST ch.xxvi 
 
 sentatives came there, they found over 400 prisoners 
 " groaning in irons for a long time, and in the most 
 frightful misery." 
 
 How many had died there before these were tardily 
 released? How many had been done to deatli by 
 revolutionary "justice" in that remote place, that secret 
 prison-house, away from the vision of men, and out of 
 the ken of the world, who can tell ?
 
 CHAP TEE XXVII 
 
 THE COUNTRY AFTER TURREAU'S RECALL 
 
 There is no clearer proof of the iniquity of the system 
 of government which had been carried on in the Vendee 
 than the admission by the National Convention and the 
 Committee of Public Safety that they had been wrong. 
 Not an open and avowed confession — that would have 
 been too much to expect — not even a complete and 
 generous reversal of policy, but, at first, a hesitating 
 and grudging reversal, forced on them by the inherent 
 strength of the A'endean cause, the inherent rottenness 
 of the revolutionary cause, and by the failure of their 
 policy of extermination. 
 
 The Committee of Public Safety, sensible at last of 
 the disadvantages following Turreau's method of finishing 
 the Vendean war, determined en a new procedure, and 
 on the loth May gave precise instructions to General 
 Vimeux, his successor. 
 
 Though a mitigation of the previous system, the new 
 one was still very severe, but, within little more than a 
 week, the Committee again toned down its views. 
 
 The fact was that the curses of the revolutionists 
 were coming home to roost. 
 
 The insensate destruction of the great stores of grain
 
 374 THE REAL FRENCH REVOLUTIONIST ch. 
 
 and other food found in the Vendee, which had been 
 one of the keynotes of the policy of the Revolutionary 
 Government, was telling now against themselves. 
 
 Starving the Vendeans into submission was found to 
 entail starvation of themselves first. Nantes, with its 
 100,000 inhabitants, mostly republicans, was nearly 
 famished, the people being reduced to live on less than a 
 pound of bread a day. The republican troops there 
 and elsewhere in the west were also on starvation rations ; 
 Paris itself was daily bordering on insurrection on 
 account of the want of food. The great armies on the 
 frontiers, amounting to almost 1,000,000 of men, had 
 also to be fed. Every grain of corn, therefore, was 
 wanted. 
 
 And so a change of policy was imperative. The 
 Convention, forced to see the danger of a continuance of 
 the scarcity, became deeply concerned as to the prospects 
 of the next harvest ; and the Committee of Public 
 Safety, Robespierre included, made an elaborate decree 
 with the object of getting into cultivation again the 
 land which it itself had ordered to be laid waste. 
 
 A Commission of Agriculture was appointed to 
 undertake the task. A census was to lie made in each 
 commune; seed was to be supplied to those who had 
 none ; workmen were even to lie paid to do the work 
 which the agricultural classes had previously done in 
 their own interests, preparing the land, sowing the 
 grain, reaping the harvest. 
 
 And to put a stop to the pillaging practices of the 
 troops, the strictest military discipline was ordered to be 
 maintained, and, what was most important, only those 
 were to be treated as rebels who carried arms, who had 
 no domicile, and who did not come to the assemblies of 
 the commune and inscribe their names there.
 
 xxvii AFTER TUEREAU'S RECALL 375 
 
 The military necessities of the Republican Govern- 
 ment had also considerable influence in the change of 
 policy. The French had lost the important position of 
 Kaiserslautern, which covered the Lower Rhine, and it 
 was a matter of the greatest urgency to send help to 
 that part of the frontier. Troops accordingly must be 
 taken from the army of the west. 
 
 But the Committee of Public Safety was mistaken in 
 thinking that the Vendean war was almost finished, and 
 was over-sanguine as to what troops could be sent, for a 
 great part were absolutely without arms, and more than 
 one-third of the army w r as in hospital. 
 
 Moreover, the situation in the Vendee still was more 
 serious than the Committee thought. Charette and 
 Stoftiet were still able to show a bold front and to strike 
 heavy blows. 
 
 " The affair of the 1st -Tune," wrote General Dusirat, 
 '■'cost us 243 men, 1 colour, and 19 carts." 
 
 The new commander-in-chief (Vimeux) made no con- 
 cealment of the real state of affairs. " The end of the 
 war," he informed the Committee on the 14th June, 
 " depends absolutely on the means which you fix, and the 
 combined and persevering measures you order. There 
 are still battles to be fought, and many brigands to be 
 killed. Not alone do we find them in force, but they 
 even attack us. ... To tell you this war will end in so 
 many decades — only an ignoramus or a charlatan could 
 hold such language." 
 
 The change of policy on the part of the Government 
 ijuickly found imitation on the part of the generals. 
 Their acts became more moderate, and their reports also. 
 Women and children and old people were brought in as 
 prisoners instead of being murdered: sometimes even 
 men who were not found actually in arms. But still the
 
 3 70 THE REAL FRENCH REVOLUTIONIST ch. 
 
 generals report attacks on the brigands, and their 
 defeat with heavy losses — some real, some more or less 
 exaggerated. 
 
 Boussard, on the 14th June, made an attack on le 
 Marais, capturing with it old people, sick, and 300 to 
 400 women, also an enormous quantity of grain — "at 
 least 30,000 sacks," he said. 
 
 " Thirty men without arms surrendered." 
 
 " Two hundred men have parleyed with heboid. 
 The gentler means (Jes moyens tie douceur} of the Com- 
 mittee of Public .Safety assure the return of a large 
 number of the others. Happy presage for the harvest." 
 
 As June went on the tendency towards clemency 
 continued. 
 
 The agents of the Agricultural Commission continued 
 their work to the best of their capacity, and (on the 
 21st) the Commissioners issued a proclamation to the 
 Yendoans : — 
 
 "Men, misled or intimidated by certain measures 
 winch the Government never authorised, the Patrie opens 
 its arms to you. Return to your hearths, continue to 
 cultivate your iields, prepare to secure your abundant 
 harvest, and be confident that t lie Government will shut 
 its eyes on the past. One will think no more of the 
 evil than to seek the means to cure it. . . . Return to 
 your hearths with confidence, surrender to us your arms, 
 ami we give you the most positive assurance that you 
 will not be disturbed. 
 
 " When the Republic promises safety and protection, 
 she always keeps her word. Those who tell you to the 
 contrary are 'calumniators.'" 
 
 And Vimeux issued an address to the army on the 
 2Gth June: — 
 
 " Soldiers of the Patrie, you are called to take
 
 xxvii AFTEE TUEEEAU'S EEGALL 377 
 
 part in the execution of the beneficent measures decreed 
 by the Commission of Agriculture. 
 
 " Frenchmen and republicans, you will fight the rebels 
 who oppose in arms the national wish. But you will 
 open your arms to the men seduced or carried away by 
 violence, who have ceded to the perfidious suggestions of 
 the priests and of the nobles ; and who, recognising 
 their error, return to their hearths with the olive-branch 
 of peace in their hand, with repentance in their heart, 
 and with the firm desire to obey the laws of the 
 Eepublic. You will respect property. It is the base of 
 society ; it is the riches of the nation. You will 
 protect individuals. Humanity commands it, your 
 glory exacts it." 
 
 The style of these proclamations was very different 
 from those of the previous year. 
 
 The results of the new policy might have been more 
 effective and rapid were it not fur what had gone 
 before. 
 
 The base deceptions practised by the republican 
 generals had very naturally destroyed any possibility of 
 now believing in the promises held nut. 
 
 "The brigands declare,"' wrote Grignon (duly 8th), 
 '" that the amnesty now offered them will no more 
 avail them than that of last year, that one is only 
 treating with them to deceive them, and that after 
 surrendering their arms one would put them in prison 
 and shoot them, as had been done to their comrades the 
 previous year." 
 
 Thus was another curse coming home to roost. The 
 shameful breaches of promises given by republican 
 Eepresentatives, generals, and officers had produced the 
 natural result of a complete distrust of any pledge or 
 promise or proclamation now tendered by them.
 
 378 THE REAL FRENCH REVOLUTIONIST ch. 
 
 And the Vendean chiefs issued proclamations warning 
 the Yendeans against these overtures. 
 
 " Yon invite us to return to our hearths," said some 
 of them to the republicans. ; " Where shall we rind 
 them 1 You have burned our houses and massacred our 
 wives and children. You wish now to get our crops and 
 our arms." 
 
 Though the Republic had entered on a more moderate 
 course of action, there was still a hankering after 
 severe measures, especially when the proposed healing 
 measures were so badly received. Even Bo wrote to the 
 Committee of Public Safety : — 
 
 •"' I think it will be necessary to put all the columns 
 in march, and fall vigorously and promptly on the 
 brigands, who only take the sheep's skin to conceal the 
 rage of the wolf." 
 
 The Committee of Public Safety, after considering 
 generally the state of affairs in the west, gave orders 
 that the troops should be kept in constant activity. 
 The generals were to report to the Representatives what 
 they had done "for the extermination of the brigands." 
 Each day of inaction would be regarded as a crime. 
 " They will be responsible for indiscipline among the 
 troops, as well as for any arts of inhumanity, which can 
 only aggravate the evil instead of putting an end to it." 
 
 Another incident occurred which showed that the 
 Committee of Public Safety were still rather sitting upon 
 the rail between coercion and conciliation. 
 
 A report got about at Xantes that the Committee had 
 decreed amnesty to the brigands of the Vendee. The 
 Committee wrote (duly ~) indignantly denying the truth 
 of the re] tort, and saying: "Any one who knows the 
 principles of the Committee cannot give the slightest 
 credence to such calumnies/'
 
 xxvi. AFTEE TURREAU'S RECALL 379 
 
 The upshot of it all appeared to be that the Com- 
 mittee had gone hack to the policy of the neglected 
 decree of the 10 th May of the previous year, to spare 
 the rank and file, " the duped and fanaticised," as the 
 republicans always talked of them, but to he merciless 
 towards the chiefs who had misled them. 
 
 The conduct of the Yendean chiefs should have facili- 
 tated the task of the Republican Government, for bitter 
 dissensions broke out between them, and unity of action 
 on their side need no longer be feared. The chiefs went 
 their own ways and fought independently ; and there were 
 combats here, there, and every place, sometimes im- 
 portant, sometimes unimportant, but less formidable than 
 previously, the forces being smaller. Fighting, however, 
 was, on the part of the Yendeans, manifestly necessary, 
 for not yet was revolutionary cruelty over. 
 
 Huche, who, inconceivable as it may appear, was, in 
 spite of all his infamies, still entrusted by the Revolu- 
 tionary Government with a command, broke out into a 
 week's debauch of massacre and incendiarism and pillage 
 in J uly. 
 
 " Four columns have been set in motion. Castles, 
 mills, bakehouses burned and destroyed, more than 300 
 persons of both sexes found here and there, bearing con- 
 vincing proofs of their brigandage, killed . . .", he 
 himself reported. 
 
 It was quite in his old form ; a repetition of brutal 
 horrors, a revival of the promenades of one of Turreau's 
 " infernal columns," ruthless massacre of peaceable and 
 innocent men, women and children, reckless destruction 
 of grain and provisions urgently wanted by starving 
 people, and this too in face of the proclamation of the 
 21st June of the Agricultural Commissioners. 
 
 Complaint now more quickly reached the Government
 
 380 THE REAL FRENCH REVOLUTIONIST ch. 
 
 in Paris, and once more Huche was removed from his 
 appointment and ordered to appear before the Committee 
 of Public Safety: and the Representatives on the 30th 
 duly, on the same day that the news of Robespierre's 
 downfall reached Nantes, issued a decree condemning acts 
 such as had been perpetrated. 
 
 But they also, barking back to the severer methods of 
 revolutionary government, decreed that all rebels captured 
 with arms in their hands would be treated as rebels and 
 brigands, and those taken without arms, who were recog- 
 nised as having taken active part in the rebellion, should 
 be tried by the Military Commission still existing at 
 Xoirmoutier. 
 
 The decree produced a very bad impression, as it was 
 very naturally interpreted as contrary to the generous 
 and loyal application of the promises given by the Com- 
 missioners of Agriculture. 
 
 On the 27th July — the 9th Thermidor — Robes- 
 pierre fell, and the policy of comparative moderation 
 which, with much vacillation, had been entered on, re- 
 ceived a fresh and strong impulse. 
 
 Not until the latter half of August, however, did the 
 remodelled Committee of Public Safety get time to take 
 up Vendean affairs. 
 
 It then decreed (on the 18th; that "'justice and dis- 
 interestedness should be made the order of the day " : 
 good manners, the way of persuasion, good faith, should 
 be put in force guises en uigucur). Representatives should 
 exact that the chiefs of the army should set the example 
 of energy and austere principles ; the military staff was 
 to be purified — in a good, and not the revolutionary, sense 
 of the word; and no headquarters were to be fixed in a town. 
 
 And as regarded the Vendeans, the order was reiter- 
 ated that all the chiefs and oiticers should be punished
 
 xxvn AFTEE TUEEEAU'S RECALL 381 
 
 with death, but those who had only been misled, or 
 carried away by violence, should be pardoned. 
 
 A new set of Representatives was sent to the Vendee 
 to give effect to the policy of the new Government in 
 Paris, and they at once proceeded to remove from the 
 public bodies those who were most notorious as " terror- 
 ists," and suspended a lot of generals — among them 
 Huche and Carpentier (who had already been suspended), 
 Dutruy and Grignon, all of " infernal column " fame ; and 
 Guillaume, a hairdresser who under revolutionary regime 
 had developed into a brigade general, and now was sent 
 to prison " on account of the extraordinary and dangerous 
 measures he had employed." 
 
 So long as harvesting operations lasted there was 
 comparative quiet, but those over, it was easy for the 
 Vendean chiefs to collect assemblies to attack the re- 
 publicans. 
 
 It was still only the autumn of the year that Turreau 
 and his "infernal columns" had been devastating their 
 homes and fields with lire and sword, and had inflicted 
 on them or their kith or kin the greatest cruelties and 
 sufferings that one class of humanity can inflict on 
 another. The feelings of infamous wrong and injury 
 still rankled so dee}) that numbers were panting for 
 revenge. The offers of pardon were very naturally dis- 
 trusted : and so, once more, the Vendeans assembled 
 together in small armies, and on the 1 8th September 
 they captured even the fortified camps of the republicans 
 at Eoulliere and at Freligne, inflicting a loss on their 
 enemies of 300 men. 
 
 Beyond that, however, they did little. 
 
 And the republican army was incapable of making 
 any great efforts, for it was going from bad to worse, 
 growing weaker from day to day.
 
 382 THE REAL FRENCH REVOLUTIONIST ch. 
 
 Nor were the efforts to strengthen it of much avail. 
 The new levies arrived destitute of everything, and the 
 military authorities had nothing wherewith to supply 
 their necessities. 
 
 Except by spasmodic efforts every now and then, the 
 republican forces were unable to undertake any important 
 movements. 
 
 A report from the Representatives sums up the state 
 of affairs at this time. 
 
 " You told us/' they wrote to the Committee of Public- 
 Safety, "that this army was at least 70,000 strong. 
 
 " Since the 30th August we informed you it was only 
 45,000, from which had to be deducted at least 15,000 
 (at present 17.000 to 18,000) sick. Of the remaining 
 30,000, 14,000 are scattered in all sorts of places, and 
 scarcely '2 0,0 00 are well armed. . . . 
 
 " The brigands are more numerous than is thought. 
 They are in possession of 400 square leagues of country. 
 . . . We require greater forces. . . . These countries, in 
 spite of the devastations to which they have been sub- 
 jected, still have a population of 250,000 person-, an 
 immense quantity of cattle, and the fields are cow-red 
 with grain and forage sufficient to feed the army of the 
 west for a year." 
 
 A new commander-in-chief, Dumas, a mulatto, who 
 had succeeded Vimeux. added Ins quota of testimony to 
 the information already in possession of the Committee of 
 Public Safety. 
 
 •• The Vendee has been treated as a city taken by 
 assault. Everything has been sacked, pillaged, and 
 burned. II existn pen. dr ghu'wavx copelles dr fairr dc 
 Lien. There reigns in all the arm}' a deplorable confu- 
 sion (jd>a //'/"//) and a spirit of insubordination and 
 liilbmo. . . . How convince the inhabitants of these
 
 xxvii AFTEE TUEEEAU'S RECALL 383 
 
 countries of your justice while the troops violate justice ? 
 — of your respect for persons and property, while they 
 pillage ? " and soon after he resigned. 
 
 The well-informed Savary has summarised the con- 
 dition of things on both sides. 
 
 Of the republicans he wrote : " The army, disorganised, 
 scattered around the Vendee in small posts, with no 
 power of resistance, awaited the arrival of a commander- 
 in-chief and of generals to replace those who had been 
 suspended. It was reduced to inaction." 
 
 And of the Yendeans : " Lassitude has succeeded to 
 the prolonged efforts of the peasants of the Vendee. 
 They sighed only for repose. The chiefs and the strangers 
 surrounding them were alone interested in continuing 
 the war — to preserve their authority and their existence. 
 . . . One heard no further talk of hostilities." 
 
 Thus, as the end of the year approached, both sides 
 were nearly exhausted.
 
 CHAPTEE XXVIII 
 
 RETRIBUTION AND AMNESTY, DEC. 2, 1794 
 
 Events elsewhere than in the Vendee were accentuating 
 the change in general policy of those in authority in 
 Paris. 
 
 To Paris in July had been conveyed the members of 
 the Revolutionary Committee of Xantes, about twenty in 
 all, realising in mild fashion some of the sufferings they 
 had inflicted on others : for ( kiepin, the historian of Xantes, 
 recounts that they were treated " with the greatest in- 
 humanity," being in chains, and each with an iron collar 
 round bis neck. But they were driven while others had 
 walked ; they were fed while the others bad starved — 
 altogether there was no comparison between their journey 
 and that of the Xantais they had sent to Paris in the 
 previous November. 
 
 While on their way they received tidings of the 
 downfall and deatli of Uobespierre. Dismay fell upon 
 l hem. ( loullin exclaimed. " ( rood heavens, is it possible ?" 
 (Irandmaison said, " It' it is true, we are lost." Cliaux 
 wept and tore out bis hair. 
 
 It is quite possible that they might have escaped trial 
 for their crimes bad ii not been for the fact that the 
 survivors of the 1:!2 Nantais whom they had arrested
 
 en. xxviii RETEIBUTION 385 
 
 and sent to Paris wore still lingering in confinement 
 there, and were pressing their request to be brought to 
 trial. 
 
 These Nantais appear to have been forgotten, there 
 having been a long delay in furnishing even the modicum 
 of evidence required by the notorious Fouquier Tinville. 
 Nearly forty had died either on the forty days' journey 
 to Paris or in prison there; and inasmuch as the re- 
 maining ninety-two were acquitted, the practical outcome 
 was that nearly forty innocent men were wrongfully sent 
 to death by the Revolutionary Committee — were, in plain 
 words, murdered. 
 
 Some revenge the survivors had. In September, 
 six weeks after Robespierre's downfall, they were put 
 on their trial before the Revolutionary Tribunal in Paris, 
 together with Phelippes de Tronjolly, who had been also 
 accused by the Committee. The trial, with its fearful 
 disclosures, almost instantaneously seized and absorbed 
 the attention of Paris, and it soon took an unexpected 
 turn. The principal witnesses were the members of 
 the Revolutionary Committee. Brought from prison to 
 give evidence; before the tribunal, they soon had to answer 
 for themselves, the tables were turned, and the accused 
 Nantais, by their replies and questions to the witnesses, 
 took u] > the role of accusers. 
 
 Phelippes de Tronjolly, answering the charges against 
 himself of being a federalist and not a republican, 
 turned on his accusers and said: 
 
 ; ' It is de toute evidence that the Revolutionary Com- 
 mittee has been the origin and motive power of all the 
 miseries which the best republicans have suffered. . . . 
 This Committee is stained with every crime ; and par- 
 ticularly so is Goullin. 1 accuse him to his face. 1 
 undertake to establish beyond denial all the crimes 
 
 •2 c
 
 :;,S6 THE REAL FRENCH REVOLUTIONIST <h. 
 
 (del-its), to show his turpitude, all the chain of misdeeds 
 and atrocities which deserve for him general execration, 
 which call down upon him the vengeance of the 
 law." 
 
 The president, evidently impressed by this language, 
 turned on the witnesses with searching questions. 
 
 Then, as Goullin shielded himself by the plea of only 
 executing Carrier's orders, Carrier was called upon to 
 give evidence. He came, and swore that he " know 
 nothing either of the noyades or fusillades. Had i hah 
 the least notion of these horrors," he said, "of these bar- 
 barities, they would not have been committed." 
 
 And the other witnesses, Joly, Perochot, Durassier, 
 Alainguet, sank themselves and each other deeper into 
 the mire, and exonerated the accused still more. 
 
 "One needs hut a glance at the faces of the accusers," 
 said Tronson Dueoutray, the avocat, "to be fully con- 
 vinced that crime is accusing innocence/' The public 
 prosecutor abandoned the charges against the greater 
 number of the accused. 
 
 The remainder of the ninety - two Xantais and 
 l'helippes were declared to have conspired against the 
 Republic, hut were acquitted of having done so with 
 wicked or counter-revolutionary intent, and all were set 
 at liberty. 
 
 This was nil the loth September 1794. 
 
 lint upon the disclosures made at this trial came the 
 charges made' in the Convention against certain of the 
 republican generals who had served in the Vendee. 
 
 There, on the 29th September, Maignen brought 
 into full publicity details of the infamous conduct of 
 the generals. 
 
 'One lias only kept in the Vendee generals who 
 have committed the greatest number of crime.-. . . .
 
 xxviu RETRIBUTION 387 
 
 After enumerating some of the crimes committed, he 
 continued : " It is time to tell the truth — -the war in 
 the Vendee has only been rekindled by the horrors 
 which have been committed in this country. 
 
 " The state of the Vendee is not alarming' for the 
 Republic — but men covered with blood, men whose 
 crimes have remained unpunished, have organised the 
 war. The principal of these men is Turreau, the 
 commander-in-chief." 
 
 After describing some of the horrors, he said: 
 •• Under the eyes of what Representatives do you think 
 all that passed i One blames Hentz and Francastel. 
 Soldiers were allowed to put on the points of their 
 bayonets children of one or two months old." 
 
 " Turreau," hi' said, " ordered several communes to 
 unite at one spot, and when they were assembled he had 
 them all shot regardless of age or sex." 
 
 (The Convention manifested the greatest indignation.) 
 
 •' I told the Committee of Public Safety, but it would 
 not listen to me" (il ne ma pas 6coute). 
 
 And he read a. letter from Saumur in praise of the 
 new Representatives there, contrasting them with former 
 ones — " those great shearers of heads (ces grands 
 coupcurs <lc lete) who shouted like lunatics and pre- 
 tended to see in every direction crowds of aristocrats." 
 
 The Convention ordered the arrest of Turreau, Huche, 
 and Crignon. 
 
 The disclosures at tin.' trial of the Nantais so deeply 
 implicated the members of the Revolutionary Committee 
 of Nantes that the authorities were compelled to put 
 them on their trial. 
 
 And so, about a month later, ( loullin, Chaux, Bachelier, 
 and the rest of them, appeared in the dock, not a little 
 indignant at being called to account.
 
 388 THE REAL FRENCH REVOLUTIONIST en. 
 
 Goullin and Ohaux declaring: "It is not enough to 
 Wring charges against us in a body (de nous inculpcr < n 
 general), to throw odious suspicions upon the members 
 of the Committee collectively : it is necessary to articulate 
 precise facts, and to bring authentic proofs in support of 
 the wrongs (griefs)." 
 
 And they had their wish. Precise facts were arti- 
 culated, authentic proofs were piled one on the top of 
 another, till a great part of their iniquities was driven 
 home. Witness after witness, whose mouth had been 
 sealed by terror, now came forward, each proving the 
 horrors already described, and day after day the flood 
 flowed, and the horror grew. 
 
 And as the trial went on, and the prisoners' position 
 became more desperate owing to the accumulation of proofs 
 against them, Carrier's presence was demanded by them. 
 Coullin declaring that all the crimes which had been 
 committed were by Carrier's orders, and that the Com- 
 mittee was but a passive instrument of his orders and 
 his fury. 
 
 But it was not as a witness that Carrier had to 
 appear. The evidence which had been given was such 
 that the gradin (or dock), and not the witness-box, was 
 his destination. 
 
 Not, however, until after a long debate in the ('(in- 
 vention as to whether a member of the Convention, and 
 a Representative, should be subjected to legal proceed- 
 ings, and after a commission of twenty-one members had 
 considered and reported on his case, and then further 
 debates upon their report. 
 
 And then this man, who. at Xante- and in the 
 Vendee, had set aside all forms of law. who was so im- 
 patient of them that he condemned people without any 
 form of trial even, did his verv utmost to avail himseli
 
 xxvm RETKIBUTION 389 
 
 of all the tonus of legal procedure, to throw difficulties 
 iu the way of his trial, and claiming among other things 
 "an unbiassed jury." He even urged sickness as a plea 
 for procrastination. 
 
 When at last compelled to defend himself before the 
 tribunal, he denied some of his crimes, pleaded ignorance 
 of some of the others ; or, when the proof was too clear 
 and overwhelming, he admitted them, but threw the 
 responsibility of his acts on the Convention. 
 
 " f informed the Convention that brigands were being- 
 shot by the hundred. it applauded the letter, and 
 ordered its insertion in the Bulletin/' — a statement which 
 was true. 
 
 His main justification, however, was the decree of the 
 1st August 1 793, and that bloodthirsty and merciless 
 proclamation of the Convention of the 1st ( >ctober, which 
 had declared that " it is necessary that the brigands of 
 the Vendee be exterminated before the end of the month 
 of October." 
 
 " For himself, he had only executed the decrees of the 
 National Convention, which put hors la loi all the enemies 
 of the people." 
 
 There was no symptom of madness in his defence, nor 
 in his conduct during the trial ; nothing more than tin 1 
 fury to be expected from any scoundrel who finds the 
 tables at last turned, and he himself in imminent danger 
 of unexpected punishment. 
 
 This defence did not serve him, nor did the plea of 
 " purity of intentions," which so often afforded the means 
 of escape to criminals of his sort. The jury gave its 
 verdict. He was convicted of having given unlimited 
 powers to members of the Marat Company, of having 
 sent to death certain prisoners without trial, and of 
 several other of the charges brought against him: and
 
 :i90 THE REAL FRENCH REVOLUTIONIST « n. 
 
 on the With December was sentenced to death — he 
 and Grandmaison and l'inard — ■ who had massacred 
 men, women, and children, and who based his ferocity 
 on an order lie said he had received " to spare 
 nothing." 
 
 These three were convicted, and no more ; and a few 
 hours afterwards — so far as the death of each could be 
 a penalty for countless murders each had committed- — 
 they each paid it. 
 
 The other members of the Committee — even Goullin. 
 Chaux, Bachelier, and Jolly, the garrottew par excellence 
 des 2>risonnicrs — escaped the guillotine. They were found 
 guilty of most of the crimes charged against them ; bid., 
 " not having done these things with criminal or counter- 
 revolutionary intentions." they were acquitted, and forth- 
 with released. 
 
 How preposterous this result of the trial was, is 
 evidenced by the fact that so much indignation was ox- 
 pressed in Paris, and in the Convention, that they were 
 re-arrested. But there it ended; for though in the 
 following April their trial at Angers was ordered, it 
 never came off, and so they all escaped practically scot- 
 free. 
 
 Revolutionary justice seemed, in fact, to consider that 
 it had fulfilled all its duties in making ('airier and two 
 of his accomplices scapegoats for the crimes of the herd of 
 sans-eulotte brutes who had participated in their crimes, 
 or had perpetrated other similar ones. 
 
 And French historians have; followed very much the 
 load thus given. By making Carrier notorious, and by 
 thrusting him into as conspicuous a position as possible, 
 the inference has been suggested that he was an excep- 
 tional product of the Revolution. 
 
 And the Convention, in putting him on his trial, is
 
 xxvm RETRIBUTION 391 
 
 supposed to have cleared itself from any reproach of 
 sanctioning such atrocities. 
 
 The theory, though plausible, is absolutely untenable. 
 
 Infamous as he was, there was practically nothing to dis- 
 tinguish him from the regular sans-eulotte type, which 
 was as infamous and cruel as himself when it got the 
 chance. 
 
 But though Carrier's plea of obedience to superior 
 orders is an extenuation of some of his acts, it can never 
 lie an exculpation. 
 
 It is true to a great extent that he acted under the 
 general, if not precise, instructions of the Committee of 
 Public Safety, and of the Convention, and that they were 
 fully aware of most of his proceedings at Nantes, and did 
 not stop them till the work they had sent him to do had 
 practically been accomplished. 
 
 "II a, fallu cela a Nantes" ("That had to be done at 
 Nantes "), Robespierre is reported to have remarked 
 when complaint was once made to him of Carrier's 
 iniqui ties. 
 
 As Carrier himself said in the Convention, when 
 addressing it for the last time, " Tout ici est cov.pable, 
 jusqu'd la soanette die President" 
 
 Nor was any effort to punish him made during the 
 many months he was in Paris after his recall, where he 
 lived, as lie himself said, " in the sweet satisfaction of 
 having rendered the greatest services to the patrie." 
 On the contrary, he was well received by the Convention, 
 and was appointed first secretary to it, and performed the 
 functions of that otfice under the presidency of Robespierre. 
 
 And though it is impossible to exonerate or acquit 
 him on such a plea, the main blame for such infamies as 
 he perpetrated must fall on the system of government 
 which used the services of men such as he was, which
 
 392 THE REAL FRENCH REVOLUTIONIST ch. 
 
 connived at their abominations, and which profited by 
 their iniquities. 
 
 It is, in fact, the Republican Government, as then 
 constituted in France, which primarily was stained by 
 the acts of its chosen servant, and which ultimately must 
 bear the responsibility for his crimes, and for the crimes 
 of other of its servants, military and civilian, who fell 
 little if at all short of him in every quality that can 
 disgrace humanity. 
 
 P>ut, at the same time, his career in the Vendee was 
 another illustration of how the Revolution worked out in 
 actual practice, and another proof of the true nature of 
 the brave re'jpublicain, the vrai sans-calotte, when left free, 
 of his true character, when, unchecked and uncontrolled, 
 he was able to give effect to his theories and his ideas, 
 and able to go his own way. 
 
 While the trial of the Revolutionary Committee was 
 proceeding, the popular society of Angers denounced 
 Hentz and Francastel, and Choudieu's name was added 
 to the denunciation — "to the end that the National 
 Convention may be informed of all the evils which the 
 country has suffered, and know those who caused them." 
 
 Thus murder was coming out, not only as to Nantes 
 but also as to Angers. 
 
 The public disclosure in Paris of the horrors com- 
 mitted in Nantes and in the Vendee gave a great impulse 
 towards a milder treatment of the Vendeans. " People 
 in the Convention only spoke of humanity and justice -: : 
 and the Representatives in the west, sensible of this 
 change of feeling, were active in inaugurating and even 
 pressing on the Convention a policy of conciliation. 
 
 And as they moved about their districts they released 
 a large number of unfortunate prisoners. 
 
 Their reports show the classes of people who were
 
 xxvnr AMNESTY 393 
 
 victimised and tyrannised over by the patriots and sans- 
 culottes — show therefore the classes who were dealt with 
 by the Military Commissions and Revolutionary Tribunals, 
 and who afforded the material for the imillotinings and 
 noyades and fusillades by the revolutionists. 
 
 At Anders more than 500 were released — small 
 farmers, day labourers, and artisans. At Saumur 83 
 citizens and citizenesses, all artisans, labourers, and work- 
 men, " who are detained for no reason " (dttenu mas aucwn 
 motif). 
 
 At Fontenay " more than 400 prisoners groaning 
 this long time past in irons have been released. We 
 have given liberty to all those who appeared to be 
 victims of intrigue or passion, and whose infirmities or 
 old age could justify, on the ground of humanity, the 
 mitigation of the severity of measures of safety, to all 
 labourers, artisans, workmen, tradesmen, and fathers of 
 the defenders of the patrie." 
 
 And on the 5th December Bezard wrote : " L have 
 released from the prisons at Nantes all the unfortunates 
 who were there detained sans motifs, the greater part 
 workmen and agriculturists, also about sixty ex-nobles 
 whose only crime was their birth." 
 
 This was nearly ten months after Carrier's recall 
 from Nantes. Truly revolutionary mercy worked but 
 slowly. 
 
 Still slower was it in reaching Eochefort. Here it 
 was on the 12th January 1795 that Blutel, the Eepre- 
 sentative, wrote : " I have just ordered the release of .">00 
 Vendeans who were in irons, who claim the benefit of 
 the amnesty." 
 
 In the latter part of November the idea of an amnesty 
 to the Vendeans gained ground. 
 
 On the 1st December certain deputies of the Vendee
 
 394 THE REAL KlcENOH REVOLUTIONIST m. 
 
 and Deux-Sevres presented to the Committee of Public 
 Safety an expose of the situation, and of the measures 
 which they considered best calculated for terminating the 
 war. 
 
 " There arc two lines to take," they wrote. " One is 
 to exterminate the last inhabitant of the country. . . . 
 The Convention has never wished that." (It would have 
 been truer to state that it had tried it and failed.) " The 
 other is to listen to the voice of humanity, to show 
 indulgence, ami to conquer these Departments by persua- 
 sion rather than by arms. But this course must be 
 accompanied by real and imposing forces. Military 
 order and discipline must be enforced, because the con- 
 duct of the generals and Military Commissions has 
 made more partisans to royalism than fanaticism has 
 done." 
 
 On the 2nd December the Convention approved the 
 conclusions of this expose, and made a decree that all 
 persons known under the name of rebels who surrendered 
 their arms within the period of a month would be 
 neither disturbed nor called to account for the fact of 
 their having taken part in the revolt. 
 
 It was, in fact, an amnesty ; and as it drew no dis- 
 tinction between the chiefs and the soldiers, it was an 
 amnesty to all. 
 
 Simultaneously with making the decree tin 1 Conven- 
 tion issued a proclamation to those who had taken part 
 in the revolts in the west. " There remains for you an 
 asylum in the national generosity. Yes, your brothers, the 
 entire French people, wish to believe you as more misled 
 than culpable. Its arms are extended towards you, and 
 the National Convention pardons you in its name if you 
 deposit your arms, and if repentance and sincere friend- 
 ship lead you back to it. Its word is sacred, and it'
 
 xxvni AMNESTY 395 
 
 faithless delegates have abused its confidence and yours, 
 justice shall he done." 
 
 It is indeed strange how extraordinarily blind the 
 Convention was to the truth of their proclamation in a 
 different sense from that which they meant. 
 
 " For two years," the Convention said, u your countries 
 have been the prey of the horrors of war. These fertile 
 climes, which nature seemed to have destined to be the 
 abode of happiness, have become places of proscription 
 and carnage. . . . Fire has devoured the habitations, and 
 the earth, covered with ruins and cypress, refuses to those 
 who remain the livelihood of which it was so prodigal. 
 Such, Frenchmen ! are the grievous wounds which 
 pride and imposture have inflicted on the country." 
 
 It was true — every word of it ; but the evils 
 described were the handiwork of the republicans them- 
 selves; the pride was the pride of the sans-culotte, who 
 professed to believe that his own gospel was the only 
 true one ; and the imposture was the imposture of the 
 revolutionist, who was the absolute antithesis of all Ids 
 professions of liberty, equality, and fraternity.
 
 CHAPTEE XXIX 
 
 VENDEAN VICTOKY 
 
 The amnesty decreed on the 2nd December 1794. 
 though helping towards a settlement of the difficulties in 
 the Vendee, was not sufficient to induce the Vendean 
 chiefs to end their opposition to the Kepublic, or to give 
 their consent to their troops doing so. Thus to have 
 ended the strife would have been to sacrifice the objects 
 for which the appeal to arms had been made. 
 
 But both the republicans and the Vendean chiefs 
 were feeling the pressure of circumstances which made 
 them anxious to come to some satisfactory settlement: 
 and, first, overtures were made, and then negotiations 
 entered into between them. 
 
 Nantes was almost at starvation point : at times 
 having scarcely a day's food in the city for the people, 
 and scarcely any forage for the horses, winch were dying 
 of starvation; and not only Xantes, but several of the 
 smaller towns in and around the Vendee, and even some 
 of the larger communes were almost without food, and 
 supplies were almost impossible to obtain. And the 
 Vendeans, though they had food enough, had scarcely 
 any Lfnnpowder or other material of war left not
 
 c-h. xxix VEXDEAN VICTORY .".07 
 
 30 lbs., it was said, over and above the few cartridges 
 which some of the men had. 
 
 The impulse towards a settlement came from the 
 Government in Paris; and a Commission of Representa- 
 tives, under the presidency of Ruelle, took up its abode at 
 X antes with the object of arranging matters. 
 
 And then began the revolutionary debacle. Decision 
 after decision, proclamation after proclamation, decree 
 after decree followed each other : all made, endorsed, or 
 approved by the National Convention, which, with its pre- 
 decessors the Constituent and the Legislative Assemblies, 
 had caused the evils which it was now sought to remedy ; 
 all acknowledging out of the mouths of the revolutionists 
 and republicans themselves in the clearest and most 
 precise terms the outrageous despotism — the infamous 
 cruelties — the shameful persecution which under the 
 name of " liberty, equality, and fraternity " they had 
 subjected their countrymen to. 
 
 The negotiations began with Charette — Stofllet, who 
 had quarrelled with him, taking no part in them. 
 
 On the 2nd January (1795) the Representatives 
 issued a proclamation informing the Vendeans of the 
 amnesty, and of the conditions on which the past would 
 be forgotten, and their re-entrance into the great Trench 
 family would be allowed. 
 
 "Tor too long has blood flowed in your unhappy 
 countries. Let the carnage cease — let your country re- 
 take in the Republic the position it never should have 
 quitted. . . . Let us stop the effusion of blood — let 
 brothers no longer massacre each other. Your chiefs are 
 included in the amnesty. 
 
 "What motives except pride and imposture can any 
 one give you to check the execution of this beneficial 
 law ?
 
 -08 TIIK REAL FLEXCH REVOLUTIONIST , ■„. 
 
 '•Your i-otta^ are burned. We will aid yen to 
 rebuild them. Our own hands shall construct them with 
 you. 
 
 •" Yiuir lands are uncultivated. We will give you 
 help: animals, harness, ploughs. 
 
 " The arms are wanting to make your fields valuable. 
 . . . Wo will leave you for the purpose the young men 
 of the requisition: and if your children who for the love 
 of the patrie tlew to the frontiers are necessary to enahle 
 you to repair your misfortunes, they will be restored to 
 you. 
 
 "Your manufactures are destroyed. We will procure 
 you the means of restarting them." 
 
 It was, in a way, an abject appeal, and its contrition 
 would have made it pathetic, but contrition could not 
 obliterate the awful past. 
 
 For there were suine things beyond the power v( the 
 Representatives, or even ^( the Convention. 
 
 They could not give back to the Vendee the un- 
 numbered thousands who had been deliberately butchered 
 by the republicans. They could not call back to life 
 airain the victims oi' republican tyranny and persecution, 
 whose blood still stained the land, and whose graves 
 still formed high, mounds of newly-turned soil. They 
 could not re-create the happy homes which had been 
 broken up and destroyed with every form of atrocity 
 which revolutionary passion could devise. They could 
 not give back to heart-broken men and women their 
 wives, husbands, and children, nor restore the countless 
 families swept from the face of the earth. Those were 
 things beyond remedy or alleviation, irrevocable, which 
 could never be undone, however full an amrndt the 
 (iovernnien! was now willing to make. 
 
 The Representatives in their negotiations and dibits
 
 xxix VKNDKAN VJCTOltY 399 
 
 to win over the Vundeuns had to reiterate over and over 
 again their sincerity ; for previous violations of republican 
 promises were too vivid in Vendean minds and too base 
 to have been forgotten. It was humiliating, but necessary, 
 and those very protestations are proof and admission of 
 their previous deceptions. 
 
 "This law is no make-believe amnesty. . . . I'o not 
 distrust it. Ah, do not doubt French loyalty and 
 generosity. . . . No. Frenchmen do not doubt the 
 sincerity of the amnesty which is offered them/' 
 
 And to give greater effect and emphasis, the proclama- 
 tion was posted up in public places to the sound of 
 drum and trumpet. 
 
 In Nantes a great function gave weight to the 
 declaration. The Representatives, at the head of the 
 constituted authorities, and in presence of the garrison 
 and a great crowd of people, solemnly proclaimed the 
 amnesty, after a salvo of twenty-one guns, and amidst 
 enthusiastic cheering. 
 
 By mutual agreement between the Yendeans and 
 republicans hostilities were suspended for a month, and 
 the time was turned to account in making arrangements 
 for a conference. There was not over much time to 
 spare. " In the country the leaves will come," wrote 
 Lofficial, the Representative, " and you know how very 
 difficult then the war is in this country." 
 
 The preliminaries were at last settled, and on the 1 2th 
 February the conference took place in a large tent, at a 
 place called la Jaunaye, near Nantes on the road to 
 ( 'lisson. 
 
 The ten Representatives came, accompanied by the 
 principal military officers of Nantes and. an escort of 
 cavalry and infantry. Charette also, with a large cavalry 
 escort and many officers.
 
 400 THE REAL FRENCH REVOLUTIONIST ch. 
 
 Lollicial has left a description of these redoubtable 
 
 warriors : — 
 
 "All his officers had large white holts, and plumes of 
 the same colour. Charette, in a flesh-coloured coat 
 (veste) trimmed with red and lacings it fleurs-de-lys. At 
 the end of his belt a large piece of black laeo : on the 
 left side of his coat an embroidered medallion enclosing 
 an embroidered crucifix with this motto, Vous qui plaigncz, 
 considercz Mes s<> off ranees — "You who complain, consider 
 My sufferings. 5 In his hat a plume of green, black, and 
 white feathers, with two rows of gold braid. The other 
 chiefs each wore a small gold cross on their left side." 
 
 The Representatives sat at one side <>\' the table, 
 Charette and his chief officers at the other, and the 
 conference began. 
 
 Ami. as in one's mind's eye one views this scene, 
 what a descent it was from those hilly heights of 
 republicanism which the true revolutionist had paraded 
 before the people as the true revolutionary ideal : what 
 a departure from those standards of revolutionary morality 
 which the vrai sans-culotte had set up. the great Republic 
 no longer dictating to its rebellious children, but through 
 its Representatives humbly treating with their chiefs, 
 entertaining the demands of '■'fanatics'' who were 
 championing an ''abominable and accursed superstition." 
 holding converse with the upholders of a vile and detested 
 royalty, tolerating " their mephitic presence,'"' and making 
 concessions to those for whose iniquities a short time 
 before no punishment was deemed adequate. 
 
 biii' six days the conference continued, the republicans 
 meanwhile entertaining the Yendean chiefs with princely 
 hospitality. 
 
 Finally, on the 17th an agreement was arrived at, 
 1 he terms of peace were settled.
 
 xxrx VENDEAN VICTORY 401 
 
 On the Vendean side the concession made was their 
 submission to and recognition of the Republic — not a 
 very great concession considering how little during the 
 long and costly strife the royalist party had done to aid 
 them ; considering too that they had lived under the 
 Republic for some time before the outbreak took place, 
 and that in reality the free exercise of their religion was 
 the first object of their appeal to arms. 
 
 On the republican side — short of this one thing — 
 everything for which the Vendeans had fought was 
 conceded. The young men of the first requisition were 
 left in their homes. For a certain number of years the 
 Vendeans were to lie exempted from compulsory military 
 service ; but what was even of greater importance was 
 the decision that the churches were to be reopened, and 
 even the refractory priests were to be allowed to officiate 
 in all parishes where the patriots were not in a majority. 
 
 The settlement was embodied in a set of five decrees 
 made by the Representatives at Nantes on the 17th 
 February. But in a way more important even than the 
 settlement arrived at was the avowal made by the 
 revolutionary Representatives as to the responsibility 
 for the war, and for all its attendant horrors. In the 
 preamble of the decrees it was written : — 
 
 ''Considering that the Departments of the west have 
 been devastated for two years by a disastrous war, that 
 the troubles which agitate them have their origin in the 
 closing of the temples and the interruption of the peace- 
 able exeivise of all worship whatever: 
 
 "That the men, the authors of these evils and these 
 disorders, are those who wished to plunge France into 
 anarchy, and who, by persecution, sought to establish a 
 special worship (un < "tdte part kid ier) of which they wished 
 themselves to be the pontiffs; that these anarchists, after 
 
 2 i)
 
 40 2 THE REAL FRENCH REVOLUTIONIST ch. 
 
 having audaciously violated the rights of man, have been 
 reached by the sword of the law ; 
 
 " Considering that the National Convention never 
 intended to prohibit any form of worship (n'a jamais 
 cntendu interdire) ; that by Article 7 of the Declaration 
 of the Rights of Alan and the Act of the Constitution it, 
 on the contrary, authorised the peaceable exercise of 
 worship; the Representatives decree: 
 
 " 1. That every individual, every section whatever of 
 citizens, may exercise freely and peaceably their 
 worship. 
 
 " II. The individuals and ministers of all forms of 
 worship are not to be troubled, disturbed, or proceeded 
 against on account of the free, peaceful, ami indoor 
 exercise of their worship." 
 
 And, by another decree, they directed that the in- 
 surgent chiefs and inhabitants of the Vendee, by virtue 
 of their submission to the Republic, should be free from 
 all recherches for the past, and should enter once more 
 into their property. Indemnity was to be given to the 
 people for their losses, and help to enable them to re- 
 build their houses, re-establish agriculture, and restart 
 trade. 
 
 The young men of the requisition were to remain in 
 the Vendee to re-establish agriculture, and make com- 
 merce flourish. 
 
 On the same day that the Representatives made their 
 decree, a declaration was made by Charette and his 
 principal officers : 
 
 " We have felt that we were Frenchmen, that the 
 general good of our country should alone animate us; 
 and it is under the influence of these sentiments that we 
 declare solemnly to the National Convention, and to the 
 whole of France, that we submit ourselves to the Republic
 
 xxix YEN DEAN VICTORY 403 
 
 one and indivisible, that we acknowledge its laws, and 
 that we undertake the formal engagement not to make 
 any attack against it. . . . 
 
 " We make the solemn engagement never to bear 
 arms against the Republic." 
 
 And a short time later, as some of Charette's officers, 
 discontented with the peace, were endeavouring to excite 
 fresh troubles, he and three others issued an address to 
 the inhabitants of the Vendee explaining to them fully 
 what had been done and won. 
 
 " The peaceable exercise of your religion is accorded 
 to you ; you can use this imprescriptible right with 
 security. . . . You are free from this moment to offer 
 to the Supreme Being, in accordance with your ancient 
 usages, your homage and your gratitude. . . . 
 
 " The National Convention contracts to-day to in- 
 demnify you for your losses, and to repair, if it is pos- 
 sible, all the evils caused by a regime of proscription 
 and injustice." 
 
 To duly, formally, and publicly mark the fact of 
 peace having been established, a great military and 
 official function was again held at Nantes. The Repre- 
 sentatives, the generals of the army of the west, Charette, 
 and the Vendean chiefs, in one great procession, entered 
 Nantes, to the music of military bands, the salvos of 
 artillery, and the cheers of the crowds. The city was 
 filled with joy and resounded to the cries of " Vive la 
 Republic pie ! " "Vive la Convention Nationale ! " "Vive 
 l'union ! " and there was a state dinner given by the 
 Representatives to the Vendean chiefs, and a gala, spec- 
 tacle ; and the next day the city was en fete, and a ball 
 was given, and Charette was greeted with cries of " Vive 
 le heros et le pacificateur de la, Vendee!" 
 
 He and the Vendean chiefs paid a visit also to the
 
 404 THE REAL l-KENCTI REVOLUTIONIST 
 
 popular society, where they wore received with " fraternal 
 acclamations." 
 
 At the same time the Representatives issued a pro- 
 clamation to the inhabitants of the Departments — be- 
 ginning it with familiar words which excited such joy 
 in the Convention in previous years, when that august 
 body thought that the Vendee had been destroyed. Now, 
 however, they bore a different sense. 
 
 ■■'There is no longer a Vendee, the Departments of 
 the west re-enter the bosom of the Republic. Its unit}' 
 and indivisibility have just been recognised by the chiefs 
 of the Vendean army." 
 
 It was a great triumph for the Vendeans to have 
 extracted from the Representatives the admissions as to 
 where the responsibility for the war lay, but it was as 
 nothing to that gained by extracting a similar declara- 
 tion from the National Convention itself. 
 
 About a fortnight later (on the 1 4th March; the 
 National Convention itself, the walls of whose chamber 
 had time after time resounded with awful imprecations 
 and maledictions against the Vendeans and all their 
 works — with cruel and bloodthirsty decrees against 
 these enemies of the country — the National Convention 
 decreed unanimously that it approved these decrees of 
 its Representatives-— a] (proved them with their account 
 of the causes of the war. namely, the closing of the 
 temples, and the interruption of the peaceable exercise 
 of worship. 
 
 Not many weeks later Stofllet, together with his 
 principal officers, gave their adhesion to the terms of the 
 pacification accepted by Charette, and on the 2nd May 
 they signed at St. Florent their formal assent. 
 
 And the decrees consequent thereon were in identi- 
 cally tin.- same terms as those at la daunave. and once
 
 xxix VENDEAN VICTORY 405 
 
 mure the Convention converted into law the decrees of 
 its Representatives, and in so doing once more reiterated 
 its condemnation of its own previous action. 
 
 Thus all sections of the Vendeans had come to terms 
 with the Republic, and the war for a time was over. 
 
 Republicans have claimed the peace of la Jaunaye as 
 a triumph, and from one point of view it was so, for the 
 Vendeans made their submission to the Republic. 
 
 But the triumph was an empty one, for the Vendeans 
 had been republicans till they had been driven out of 
 the Republic by republican tyranny, and to get them 
 back in diminished numbers into the republican fold 
 afforded little ground for boasting. 
 
 The real victory lay with the Vendeans ; for they 
 won back the essentials of religious liberty. That they 
 should pay their own ministers, and that service should 
 he indoors, and that no emblems should be publicly dis- 
 played, were small matters, so long as they could worship 
 and were allowed to have their own ministers. 
 
 Over and above this, however, there was another 
 triumph, and it is this which is of abiding importance. 
 
 They wrung from the Republican Government, through 
 the acts of its Representatives and the decrees of the 
 Convention, the confession, that revolutionary and re- 
 publican legislation and administration were the first 
 cause of the Vendean war. 
 
 In adopting, approving, and giving the force of law 
 to the decrees of the Representatives, it placed on record 
 in the clearest terms a positive refutation of the con- 
 tentions of the revolutionary writers who, both before 
 and since, have lauded the Revolution and all its works 
 in the Vendee, and have cursed the counter-revolutionists 
 and all their works. 
 
 It acknowledged that " the troubles which had
 
 40 G THE REAL FRENCH REVOLUTIONIST ch. 
 
 agitated the Departments of the west had their origin 
 in the closing of the temples and the interruption of the 
 peaceable exercise of all worship whatever." 
 
 It acknowledged that the rights of man had been 
 I; audaciously violated." 
 
 It acknowledged that there had been " persecution." 
 
 Manifestly, therefore, the contention of revolutionary 
 writers from the time of the Revolution down to the 
 present day, namely, that those troubles had their origin 
 in the machinations of the noblesse and the intrigues of 
 a fanatical priesthood, is wholly false and untrue. 
 
 Manifestly, too, as the closing of the temples and 
 other acts of persecution were the acts of the Revolu- 
 tionary Government, the whole onus of responsibility for 
 the Vendean war, with its ruin and bloodshed, and the 
 whole shame and infamy of the revolutionary pro- 
 ceedings and actions in the Vendee, lie on the Republic. 
 
 And precluding any argument as to this acknow- 
 ledgment being only words, there is the decree of the 
 Convention that indemnity was to be given to the 
 people for their losses, and help to enable them to start 
 afresh. 
 
 It was a tremendous avowal for the Convention to 
 make, for it was an absolute exculpation of the Vendeans, 
 and an inculpation of the Revolutionary Government, not 
 merely of Robespierre and his colleagues, but of the 
 National Assembly, of the National Legislative Assembly, 
 and of the National Convention itself. 
 
 And coming from the body which had directed and 
 enacted the vast portion of the measures of revolutionary 
 tyranny, there is no going behind it. 
 
 To have, out of the mouth of the Convention itself, 
 the verdict "guilty" in the charges brought against the 
 revolutionary Republic is decisive.
 
 xxix VEX DEAN VICTORY 407 
 
 Here then we may stop, as the peace made between 
 the Vendeans and the republicans is practically the end 
 of the period in which the true character and unfettered 
 nature of the revolutionist are best studied. Subsequent 
 events throw little or no further light thereon, nor do 
 they alter the ineradicable records of accomplished facts. 
 
 In connection with the A r endeans, however, there are 
 just a few incidents more which are of interest, and 
 bring their history also to the end of a definite period. 
 
 Xot long after the peace of la Jaunaye and the peace 
 of St. Florent, differences once more arose between the 
 Vendean leaders and the Government. Indeed, actual 
 peace and quiet had not been realised even for a brief 
 period, for the country had remained in a disturbed and 
 restless state. The excitement entailed by the war 
 could not quickly be allayed, nor could fierce passions 
 quickly cool ; there were many desperate men left who 
 were so habituated to a life of violence, and so dependent 
 on war for their livelihood, that they could not settle 
 down to peaceful ways. 
 
 And there were robberies, and assassinations, and 
 violence, and small armed bodies of wandering pillagers, 
 and disturbance in many parts of the country : and it 
 soon became apparent that the peace was little more 
 than a mock peace. 
 
 And then some of the Vendean leaders — Charette 
 himself included — -either impelled by royalist pressure, or 
 unable to restrain their more violent followers, violating 
 the oath they had taken not to bear arms again against 
 the Republic, again took to arms : and, on the 25th June, 
 once more raised the standard of revolt, and without 
 giving any notice attacked and captured the republican 
 camp of " des Essarts," and inflicted a loss of some 50 
 to 100 men on the republicans.
 
 408 THE REAL FRENCH REVOLUTIONIST ch. 
 
 Once more there was months of righting, now, 
 however, on a very much smaller scale. 
 
 And while the lighting was going on there occurred 
 one episode which has added deep pathos to this final 
 stage of the struggle. He for whose leadership the 
 Yendeans had been beseeching, he in whose cause they 
 had been so valiantly warring, came, saw, and made the 
 great refusal. 
 
 The Count d'Artois, the brother of the titular King 
 of France, embarked on an English frigate, the Jason, 
 and reached the lie d'Yeu on the 2nd October. 
 
 Four leagues off was the continent where Charette 
 awaited him — Charette who some months previously had 
 received a letter from the Regent (now the titular King;, 
 dated 1st February, which had taken nearly live months 
 reaching him — an effusive letter : 
 
 " At last I can communicate direct with you. I can 
 tell you of my admiration, of my gratitude, of the 
 ardent desire 1 have to join you, to partake your perils 
 and your glory. I shall fulfil my desire, even it' it 
 should cost me all my blood/' 
 
 He had not come, could not come, but his brother 
 had, and was there, within sight and reach of France. 
 Rut "this magnanimous prince," as Charette in his 
 illusionment had called him, unable to gather courage, to 
 risk one drop of his blood, after weeks of hesitation, gave 
 up the idea, and sailed away for England, well deserving 
 the scornful, scathing, contemptuous, condemnation which 
 Charette wrote of him to Louis XVIII. : — 
 
 "'Sire, the cowardice of your brother has lost every- 
 thing. His return to England has decided our fate. In 
 a little while nothing will remain for us but to perish 
 uselessly for your service." 
 
 And perish he soon did. The struggle was disastrous
 
 XXIX 
 
 YKNDKAX VICTORY 409 
 
 for those of the Vendeans who still were in arms ; 
 disastrous for StofHet, who was captured and shot ; 
 disastrous, too, for Charette, the leader of a hundred 
 tights, for lie, too, was captured and condemned, and one 
 afternoon in March 179 6, on the small Place at 
 Nantes now known as the Place Viarme, he, with un- 
 bound eyes, bravely faced the firing party, and gave the 
 signal for the shots winch ended his stormy and 
 courageous career. 
 
 But the new campaign did not last long. The skilful 
 hand of Iloche quelled any further resistance: the 
 essential had, moreover, been already conceded by the 
 Republic — religious liberty — and once more comparative 
 peace resigned. 
 
 It is but right that tribute should be paid to the 
 Yendean people for the splendid struggle they had made, 
 and for their victory. 
 
 Hundreds of the Yendeans during the war performed 
 feats as valorous as any ever recorded in other wars; 
 thousands of them faced and met death in the battle- 
 field as courageously as the most disciplined soldier, or 
 as the most valiant knight ever did; and thousands, 
 women as well as men, were as genuine martyrs for 
 their faith as were those early Christians who fought the 
 wild beasts in the Roman arena. Nor were their trials, 
 their sufferings, their deaths in vain. They were 
 victorious in the cause for which they really fought, 
 that of religious liberty : and against them all the 
 power and tyranny of the Revolutionary Government did 
 not prevail.
 
 GHAPTEK XXX 
 
 CONCLUSION 
 
 The picture which has been presented in the previous 
 pages of the French revolutionist, he who was acclaimed 
 by himself and his associates as "the good/' "the pure," 
 "the brave republican," and "the true sans-eulotte," is 
 the picture of him in the plenitude of his powers, in the 
 full flower of his existence, in the days of his uncon- 
 trolled liberty, when his instincts and his passions had 
 full, free, and unchecked play, and when he showed his 
 real self. And painted as it is by himself and his 
 comrades, the picture is there for a wondering world 
 to contemplate, a sign and portent to the end of time. 
 
 So wrapt up was he in his own glory, so proud was 
 lie of all his sayings and doings, so confident that men 
 would lake him at his own valuation, that tyranny could 
 be passed off as liberty, and fratricide as fraternity, that 
 he was reckless in displaying qualities, and performing 
 ads which the world and posterity might not judge in 
 quite the way he expected. 
 
 A lew touches are still required to complete the 
 picture, for one phase of his character has not yet been 
 touched on, the phase of his adversity. 
 
 In the Vendee he showed himself as what is
 
 cH.xxx CONCLUSION 411 
 
 familiarly known as " a poor creature/' always blaming 
 other people for his own ignorance, blunders, and 
 
 misdeeds. " Xous sommes trains " (we are betrayed), 
 shouted the soldier as he bolted from the held of 
 battle, the only betrayal or treason being his own 
 in running away. " AVe are starved," said the sans- 
 culotte, the starvation being the result of the reck- 
 less destruction of corn and food by himself and his 
 comrades, or his absurd interference with the great laws 
 of supply and demand. " We are stricken with plague," 
 he said, and the infection which laid him low was the 
 result of his own inhumanities, the overcrowding of his 
 prisoners in the republican pest-houses, or the imperfect 
 burial of his victims. 
 
 Some men, however atrocious their lives and acts, 
 succeed in winning a certain measure of admiration by 
 ] (resenting a bold front in their adversity, and by their 
 faithful adherence to their principles when circumstances 
 change and go against them. But not many of the 
 revolutionists were of this metal. The moment the 
 measure they had meted out to thousands was meted out 
 to themselves they whined. 
 
 Chaux, for instance, a prominent member of tin: 
 Revolutionary Committee of Nantes who had actively 
 helped and participated in the perpetration of many of 
 the horrors which have been described, when arrested, 
 howled over his ill-treatment, his imprisonment, his 
 being torn from Ins family, his being put in irons, his 
 being put in a carriage already full, reduced to beg some 
 clothes, having been only allowed five minutes to change 
 his shirt, proscribed, dragged before the tribunal of 
 blood, his being thrown on a handful of straw, devoured 
 by insects, living in a place intended for the enemies of 
 his country, groaning under false accusations which con-
 
 412 THE REAL FRENCH REVOLUTIONIST 
 
 founded him with assassins, which presented him as a 
 cannibal, as a false patriot gorged with gold and crimes, 
 covered with the blood of his fellow-citizens. 
 
 He is so overcome by his reflections that he says : 
 
 " At this thought the pen falls, at the recollections 
 of my sufferings my ideas become troubled and confused." 
 But it was only his own sufferings which he thought of, 
 those of the thousands he had made endure a crueller 
 lot, a worse fate, were ignored. 
 
 Goullin, who, while in power, had violated every 
 form of law, and jeered at the sufferings of his 
 victims, complained indignantly of what he considered 
 the violation of the forms of law in Ids treatment, and of 
 his being confined in a prison intended for the greatest 
 scoundrels, as if it were not an appropriate place for him. 
 
 The gentle Carrier was so aggrieved by being called 
 a tyrant, that he exclaimed. "How harassing it is to me 
 to be called a tyrant ! " 
 
 History has rather generally attributed the responsi- 
 bilities of the horrors of the French Revolution to one 
 individual — Robespierre — but gradually it has been 
 recognised that he was by no means the sole culprit : 
 that the disease was far more widespread, more deep- 
 seated in the French constitution : and that there were 
 countless willing hands in all this horrible work. 
 
 And history, too, has attributed all the horror.- at 
 Xantes and in the west to Carrier, and pinned him 
 down as the culprit. 
 
 It would naturally he consolatory to a great and 
 high-spirited nation thus to limit the number of its 
 infamous sons: but facts do not fit in with the theory. 
 
 hi Xantes, Carrier was by no means the only culprit : 
 nor at Angers was Francastel the only culprit : nor 
 were these two Representatives the only culprits among
 
 xxx CONCLUSION 413 
 
 the Representatives who ruled in the Vendee. Bourbotte, 
 Choudieu, Hentz, Esnau Lavallee, Prieur (de la Marne), 
 in many ways ran them elose. Nantes, Angers, and 
 Saumur, and all the towns in or around the Vendee, 
 were inundated with "apostles of carnage." Revolu- 
 tionary Committees, Revolutionary Tribunals, Military 
 Commissions, popular societies, sans-culotte generals and 
 revolutionary tyrants were everywhere; all of these 
 throwing themselves heart and soul into the most 
 horrible measures of oppression, cruelty, and bloodshed; 
 civilians and military vying with each ether in revolu- 
 tionary energy, in deeds of atrocity, scrambling for 
 plunder, regardless whether it was taken from friend or 
 foe, and revelling in the proceeds. 
 
 And then, when brought to book for their infamies, 
 they all tried to throw the blame and responsibility on 
 some one else than themselves, instead of boldly avowing 
 their handiwork, as really sincere and conscientious men 
 engaged in a great and good cause would have done. 
 
 The military despots defended themselves by the plea 
 of the necessity of military obedience. Turreau, the; 
 commander-in-chief, the chief of them, pleaded the 
 decrees of the Committee of Public Safety and the Con- 
 vention. The Revolutionary Committees pleaded the 
 necessity of obedience to the orders of the Representatives, 
 and the Representatives sheltered themselves under the 
 necessity of carrying out the policy imposed upon them 
 by the Committee of Public Safety and the Convention. 
 
 This left the responsibility altogether on the shoulders 
 of the Convention ; but it evaded most of it by asserting 
 that things had been done without its orders or approval, 
 or even its knowledge. 
 
 And so, as if worked out, no one was to blame. 
 
 As to some of the most notorious cases, the Conven-
 
 414 THE REAL FRENCH REVOLUTIONIST ch. 
 
 tion loudly announcing that ''Justice was to be the 
 order of the day,'"' made a show of energetically pursuing 
 some of those who committed the atrocities, but its 
 energy did not carry it very far. 
 
 Its conscience was appeased by a few small con- 
 cessions. It delivered Carrier up to justice. It ordered 
 the arrest of a few Representatives who had been denounced 
 to it, Hentz and Francastel among the number; and so 
 that there might be material for the proper consideration 
 of the matter, it decreed that the correspondence of the 
 Representatives with the Committee of Public Safety and 
 their reports should lie printed. The reports never were 
 printed, however. 
 
 It ordered the arrest of Turrcau and a very few of 
 the most notorious of his generals of " infernal column " 
 fame; and as the basis of an indictment against them it 
 ordered that a report should be made to it by the Com- 
 mittee of Public Safely as to the conduct of the generals 
 and the acts of the Military Commissions. 
 
 A prolonged inquiry was made as to the horrors 
 which had been committed, the testimony of numerous 
 witnesses was taken in different localities, a great mass 
 of evidence collected, but the result never saw the light 
 of day, and the report never appeared either. 
 
 Evidently, the reputation of the rrai ri'^iulilknin, such 
 as it was. could not have stood the weight of such an 
 rxposi' 1 , A full disclosure would have been too terrible, 
 the iniquities narrated too appalling for ears t<> hear <>r 
 eyes to read, tin' injury to republican government tun 
 overwhelming; and so the 1200 documents which were 
 collected, describing some of the infamies and cruelties 
 which had been committed, were buried in tic secrecy of 
 tic vaults of the hVpiiblic. They would lie thrilling and 
 instructive reading were they now published.
 
 xxx CONCLUSION 415 
 
 And with the exception of Carrier and his gang, the 
 few culprits who had been singled out were not even put 
 on their trial. They were kept in custody — that was 
 all. And then, as the existence of the Convention drew 
 to an end, that august body, frightened at the number 
 of culprits who, if there was any justice under a Republic, 
 ought to be tried, and possibly with misgivings as to its 
 own share in the nefarious business, wishing:, in ending 
 its labours, to throw a veil over all its own transgressions 
 and iniquities, decided on a dying deed of dazzling 
 generosity and forgiveness, and forgave itself. 
 
 On the 2Gth October 1795 (4 Brumaire, An iv.), the 
 last day of its existence, it passed a. law giving amnesty 
 to all those who in their acts relating to the Revolution 
 had overstepped the limits of their duties (etaient sortis 
 iles homes des devoirs) — a form of condemnation — so 
 mild as to amount to approval, and all proceedings against 
 sue) i persons were extinguished and destroyed. 
 
 And so Hentz, and Francastel, and Huche, and 
 Orignon, and the rest of them, men steeped in every 
 iniquity, and saturated with the blood of innocent men, 
 women, and children, were released from prison, and the 
 authoritative revelation of their crimes, which would have 
 brought disgrace and infamy on the Convention itself, 
 was obviated. 
 
 And the sponge of revolutionary oblivion was passed 
 across the slate on which were written in blood the 
 records of the atrocities, the injustices, the crimes of the 
 whole revolutionary crew of Military Commissioners, 
 [{evolutionary Committees, Marat ist Companies, soldiers, 
 generals, and Representatives. 
 
 ^Turreau, with diplomatic effrontery, refused to avail him- 
 self of thi' amnesty, and insisted on being put on his trial. 
 
 On the 10th December 1795 he was tried by the
 
 4 10 THE REAL FRENCH REVOLUTIONIST ch. 
 
 Military Council sitting' at Paris, and whitewashed ; the 
 Council unanimously declaring that '"'all the charges 
 ini-ulpntion$\ against him were unfounded and calum- 
 nious, and that he had worthily performed his duties 
 {rcmpli $>:$ fonctions) in the said command as a soldier 
 and citizen " — a decision which in downright moral 
 obliquity has only a parallel in that passed by Hentz 
 and Francastel upon Coy Martiniere. 
 
 And in later years this vrai sans-cu I 'ottc, the organiser 
 and commander-in-chief of the " infernal columns." passed 
 on into employment under the Emperor, and then under 
 the erstwhile detested Bourbon royalty, against which he 
 had fought, accepting honours and decorations from both: 
 and in the train of royalty, as Lieutenant-* General of the 
 army of the King, and Chevalier of St. Louis, once more 
 revisiting the Vendee, the scene of his infamies. 
 
 And so, out of the vast numbers of evildoers but an 
 infinitesimal few were brought to account for their 
 iniquities. 
 
 One can almost count on one's lingers the number of 
 those who suffered the extreme penalty of the law for 
 their climes. 
 
 Carrier. Grandmaison. I'inard. Lamberty, Fouquet, 
 Maitiniere, and a lew others. Lut what are they among 
 so many who deserved tin- saint.' fate .' 
 
 Some few suffered a short imprisonment, awaiting a 
 trial which never took place, but the great bulk of them 
 escaped all punishment whatever. 
 
 It ha- been the fashion to account lor and palliate 
 the crimes of the revolutionists by saying that they were 
 in d. 
 
 Some excuse would, in charity, be devised to remove 
 from the French character the stain of such fearful 
 cruelrii-s.
 
 xxx CONCLUSION 417 
 
 But then; is little to confirm such a theory, whilst 
 there is much to refute it. ■ 
 
 Violent and extreme they were, but even if they were 
 all mad, that does not exonerate the Republic as a form 
 of Government which permitted madmen seizing possession 
 of it, and governing. 
 
 There is, however, little sign of that motiveless 
 irresponsibility of wickedness which is the mark of 
 insanity. 
 
 For, when one examines the lives of the revolutionists 
 as seen on the Vendean stage, one finds one object con- 
 sistently* running through all their evil deeds — the object 
 of self; one finds their actions prompted by very common 
 and base passions — greed, covetousness, lust ; and by 
 a very common ambition — the love of power, of fame, of 
 position, of wealth : the desire for the means — coute que 
 route — uf gratifying their appetites. These were their 
 motives, these their incentives. Even patriotism, with 
 which it has been sought to cover the multitude of their 
 sins, had no share in their acts and objects, — nothing 
 but self. Their high-flown professions of adoration of 
 the great principles whose names they prostituted were 
 nothing but cant. 
 
 No sooner did the opportunity offer than they did 
 the very things themselves which they decried in others. 
 
 Carrier, Goullin, the whole of the Revolutionary Com- 
 mittees at Nantes and Angers and elsewhere, having 
 pulled down all authorities, placed, or got themselves 
 placed, in authority. 
 
 Having decried wealth as a crime, they appropriated 
 as much as they could lay their hands on — wading 
 through blood to get it. 
 
 Having decried luxury, they revelled in orgies of food 
 and drink and lasciviousness. 
 
 2 E
 
 418 THE REAL FRENCH REVOLUTIONIST ch. 
 
 Not one crime or sin committed lty those whom they 
 destroyed, but they themselves committed when they got 
 the opportunity. 
 
 It was as it' Lazarus had assassinated Dives oil 
 account of his self-indulgence and inhumanity, had seized 
 on his wealth, had clothed himself in his fine robes, 
 fared sumptuously every day, and then spurned the 
 unfortunates who had taken his place at the gate, and 
 posed to them as a redresser of evils, as a regenerator of 
 mankind, as a true patriot. 
 
 But they did not content themselves with pulling 
 down the aristocracy, the noblesse, the clergy, the 
 wealthier section of the bourgeoisie: they fell upon the 
 people, for plunder was to be got out of them too. Of 
 the 200,000 persons destroyed in the Vendee, but an 
 infinitesimal portion belonged to the upper and governing 
 classes against whom the Revolution was made. Of the 
 hundreds and thousands they robbed and plundered, only 
 a small proportion belonged to the wealthier classes of 
 society. 
 
 The people were the victims, the people in whose 
 favour the Revolution was declared to be made. 
 
 The administrators of Iioche-sur-Yon wrote once to 
 Huche protesting against the actions of his soldiers, and 
 urging in support of their protest the statement that 
 '" republicans do not pillage their friends and their 
 brothers." This prevalent superstition could not have 
 been put more tersely. The whole treatment of the 
 Vendee, from the very inception of trouble downwards, 
 proved that this was the one consistent thing the re- 
 publicans did do— that that was in fact and effect the 
 Revolution. The revolutionists could not slop, alter 
 appropriating the property of the noblesse and the 
 Uhurch, but they went on to pillage their friends and
 
 xxx CONCLUSION 419 
 
 their brothers. And what is worse, they did not content 
 themselves therewith, but went on to put them to death 
 with every form of fiendish injustice and brutality they 
 could devise or carry out. Mouthing incessantly about 
 .justice, they were the incarnation of the most outrageous 
 injustice. Indeed from the highest executive authority 
 in France, the Committee of Public Safety, backed by 
 the Convention, down to the lowest private soldier in the 
 ranks, the same spirit of injustice was rampant. 
 
 Here and there there were exceptions. A few of the 
 Representatives had some sense of right and justice, had 
 some feeling. Among the generals of the army also 
 were several against whom no dishonourable charge can 
 be brought — Biron, Marceau, Richer, Savary, for instance. 
 And here and there both officers and men, at the risk 
 of their own lives even, showed that they were human, 
 that they were made of better stuff than the regular 
 revolutionist, but they were the exceptions. 
 
 The bulk, the vast bulk of the revolutionists as seen 
 in the Vendee, were such as have been described. 
 
 A chance phrase often sums up a whole policy. 
 " X'y en a-t-il pas un plus scelerat ? " (" Isn't there a 
 bigger scoundrel?") Goullin is reported to have asked 
 when enlisting the most debased, depraved, and blood- 
 thirsty wretches who could be found for the Maratist 
 corps of revolutionary fiends at Nantes. 
 
 That this was the guiding principle of revolutionists 
 m authority is evidenced throughout the Yendean war. 
 Carrier and Francastel and Hentz could only have been 
 appointed to their important posts of Representative 
 after a " Xo " to the question of the Committee of Public 
 Safety, " Is there no bigger scoundrel ? " Rossignol, " the 
 cherished child of the Revolution," " the eldest son of the 
 Committee of Public Safety," and Turreau could only have
 
 420 THE REAL FRENCH REVOLUTIONIST ch. 
 
 been appointed as commanders-in-chief after the same 
 question and the same answer; whilst as for them, and 
 the generals of divisions or of brigades such as Huche, 
 Grignon, Cordellier, and a host of others, members of 
 Revolutionary Committees such as Goullin, Vaeheron, or 
 of Military Commissions such as Bignon, Felix, — " Xo, no : 
 humanity has readied its lowest, basest, most infamous 
 type ; there are no greater scoundrels." 
 
 It is marvellous that the French Revolution should 
 have imposed on the world so long, but the explanation 
 is that its praises have been so vociferated and dinned into 
 the public ear by those whose work it was, or who had or 
 have an interest in keeping up the delusion, or by those 
 who have seen in it great " realities " and " verities " 
 winch had no existence, that men have accepted what 
 the revolutionists told them as true — have taken the 
 revolutionists, in fact, at their own valuation. They 
 have taken those fellows at their word : they have 
 accepted their professions as genuine ; they have accorded 
 to them all the honours of their being apostles of liberty 
 and equality and fraternity, as if they had been really so. 
 
 Whereas, in reality, the vmi rdpuldieain was the most 
 transparent impostor. 
 
 He filched from the Christianity which he derided 
 and persecuted and did his very utmost to destroy the 
 great principles of liberty and equality and fraternity, 
 and proceeded then to give to each his own seliish and 
 degraded interpretation. 
 
 And in and around the Vendee that interpretation is 
 seen actually at work. 
 
 The revolutionist is ^oen there through no disturbing. 
 distorting medium. He is seen as he really was — the 
 living lie to each of the three great cardinal principles
 
 xxx CONCLUSION 421 
 
 of the political creed which he professed, " Liberty, 
 equality, fraternity." 
 
 His idea of " liberty " was unrestrained licence for 
 himself to pillage, rape, rob, and murder with impunity, 
 and he acted on it. His idea of " equality " was to pull 
 down all authority, and to put himself in the places of 
 those he pulled down, and he acted on it. Whilst his 
 idea of "fraternity" is graven for ever in letters of blood 
 and fire throughout the Vendee. 
 
 •' Justice " had no place in the new political motto, 
 for the French revolutionist had not the remotest idea of 
 what the word meant, or what the thing was. 
 
 The conclusion which emerges with the most absolute 
 clearness from the history of the Revolutionary Govern- 
 ment in the west in those years is that the republican 
 form of government as then organised in France had the 
 very widest capacities for tyranny. 
 
 Every evil in the monarchical form of government 
 which the Revolution aimed at destroying was reproduced 
 in an intensified form under the Revolutionary Govern- 
 ment. 
 
 Personal liberty was invaded in a more wholesale 
 manner and on a far larger scale than under the 
 monarchy. The right of anything even approaching fair 
 trial was completely ignored. 
 
 Freedom of expression could not have been more 
 rigorously suppressed. 
 
 Religious liberty was annihilated, and a republican 
 form of government showed that it was as capable of a 
 religious persecution as infamous as that which directed 
 the Massacre of St. Bartholomew, or as that of the Spanish 
 Inquisition. 
 
 The rights of property were systematically invaded 
 and set at naught.
 
 422 THE REAL FRENCH REVOLUTIONIST ch. 
 
 All the rights of production, of manufactures, of 
 commerce, of business dealing between man and man 
 — everything, in fact, on which the industrial pro- 
 sperity of a country depends — were broken in on and 
 destroyed. 
 
 And over and above all there was no justice, only 
 rampant and brutal injustice. 
 
 Everything that the freedom-loving, intelligent man 
 struggles for, would give his life for — free thought, free 
 speech, free worship, justice, security for life, security for 
 property, these great blessings which are the highest 
 object of true statesmanship to give to a people — were 
 conspicuous by their absence under the revolutionary 
 regime. 
 
 The fact, so plain and evident, so incontrovertible, is 
 a crushing refutation of the laudation which has been so 
 lavishly bestowed on the revolutionary cataclysm in 
 France. 
 
 No rational people would risk a repetition of such 
 sufferings or the occasion for such wrongdoing : no 
 rational nation would wish to lay itself open to a repeti- 
 tion in its own body of the appalling horrors of the 
 Revolution. 
 
 To attain ever nearer the Christian ideals of real 
 liberty, equality, and fraternity will doubtless be the very 
 high desire and ambition of many existing and future 
 nations and races, but for those who wish to attain those 
 ideals the French Revolution is a warning signal of the 
 clearest, most portentous, character. 
 
 And just as ships sailing across the waters of tin' 
 great dee}) see the light which tells them of danger and 
 shipwreck, so in future ages will the great nations of the 
 world in their voyage towards their unknown destinies 
 see in the history of the crimes, and cruelties, and horror,
 
 xxx CONCLUSION 423 
 
 and terror of the French Revolution the warning light 
 that there lie injustice, and tyranny, and inhumanity, 
 and fratricide, and all those dangers and miseries which 
 are the negation of the aims and desires of a civilised 
 and intelligent people.
 
 APPENDIX 
 
 LIST OF THE PRINCIPAL WORKS USED IN THIS BOOK 
 
 Anon. — La Loire vengee (Paris). 
 
 Babeuf, F. N. — Du systeme de depopulation, etc. (Paris, 1795). 
 
 Baclielier, J. M. — Memoire pour les acquittes (Angers, An iii.) 
 
 Baguenier-Desormeaux — Documents sur Noirmouticr (Valines). 
 
 Baralere — Aete d'accusation eontre Carrier (Paris, 1794). 
 
 Barruel, A. — Histoire du clerge pendant la revolution francaise (London, 
 1801). 
 
 Benaben, L. G. — Rapport (Angers, 1795). 
 
 Blordier-Langlois — Angers et le departenient de Maine-et-Loire de 1787- 
 1830 (Angers, 1837). 
 
 Boncliamps, Madame de — Memoires sur la Vendee de (London, 1S23). 
 
 Bourcier, Camille — Essai sur la terreur en Anjou (Angers, 1870). 
 
 Buehez, P.-J.-B., et P.-C. Roux — Histoire parlementaire de la revolu- 
 tion francaise (Paris, 1834-38). 
 
 Busserollc, Carre de — Les Vendeens ;i Thouars (Montsorcau, 1890). 
 Massacre de 200 prisonniers (Tours, 1884). 
 Souvenirs de la revolution, etc. 
 
 Carrier, J. B. — Rapport de la Commission des Vingt-un, etc. (Paris, 
 
 An iii.) 
 Cavoleau, J. A. — Description du departenient de la Vendee (Nantes, 
 
 1818). 
 C***, Comte de — Sejour de dix mois en France (Londres, 1795). 
 Chardon, E. H. — Les Vendeens dans la Sarthe (Le Mans, 1869-72). 
 Charette — Correspondence secrete, etc. (Paris, 1799). 
 Chassin, Ch.-L. — La preparation de la guerre de Vendee (Paris, 1S92). 
 La Vendee patriote (Paris, 1893-95). 
 Les pacifications de l'ouest (Paris, 1896-99). 
 Choudieu, Pierre, et C. J. Richard — Les representants du peuple (Saumur, 
 
 1793). 
 Courtois, E. B. — Rapport de la commission; papiers de Robespierre 
 
 (Paris, 1795). 
 Cretineau-Joly — Histoire de la Vendee militaire (Paris, 1840-42). 
 Croix, Bloequel de — Une page do la terreur a Nantes (Valines, 1894). 
 
 2 E 2
 
 42 THE REAL FRENCH REVOLUTIONIST 
 
 Deniati, F. Abbe — Histoire de la Vendee, etc. (Angers, 1878-79). 
 Dugast-XIatifeux — Carrier a Nantes (Xante?, 1885). 
 
 Fillon, Benjamin — Reclierches historiques sur Fontenay- Vendee (Fon- 
 
 tenay, 1647). 
 Poitou et Vendee (Niort, 1862-87). 
 
 Gensonne, J. A., et A. G. Gallois — Rapport sur la Vendee (Paris, 1791;. 
 Godard-Faultrier, V. — Le champ des martyrs (Angers, 1855). 
 Guepin, A.— Histoire de Nantes (Nantes, 1839). 
 
 Lallie, Alfred— Le district de Macheeoul 'Nantes, 1869). 
 
 Les noyades de Nantes (Nantes, 1879). 
 
 L'eglise constitutionnelle dans la Loire Inferieure (Nantes, 1883). 
 
 Les fusillades de Nantes (Nantes, 1882 . 
 
 Les prisons de Nantes (Nantes, 1883). 
 
 Le sans-culotte J. -J. Goullin (Nantes, 18S0). 
 Lcniarchand, Albeit — Album Vendeen (Angers, 18511-60). 
 Lequinio — Guerre de la Vendee et des Chouans (Paris, An iii.) 
 Leroux-Cesbron, C. — Lotlieial, rcpresentant du [>euple (Paris, 1896). 
 Lockroy, Edouard — Une mission en Vendee (Paris, 1893). 
 
 Mellinet, Camille — La commune et la milice de Nantes (Nantes, 1840-14). 
 Mortimer, Ternaux- Histoire de la terreur (Paris, 1862-81). 
 
 Philippeaux, Pierre — Compte rendu a la convention. 
 
 l'iet. F. — Reclierches sur 1'ile de Noirmoutier. 
 
 Port, C- Dietionnaire historique de Xlaine-et-Loire (Angers, 1874-78 . 
 
 La Vendee angevine (Paris, Angers, 1868). 
 
 La legende de Cathelineau (Pans, 1893). 
 Portais, Chauoine— L'Abbe Gruget ; sa paroisse, etc. (Angers, Paris. 
 
 1896). 
 Pressense, E. de — L'eglise et la revolution francaise. 
 Prix. Berriat St La justice revolutionnaire (Paris, 1870 . 
 
 Des tribuneaux et de la procedure, etc. (Paris, 1S59). 
 Proust, A. — La justice revolutionnaire a Niort (Niort, 1869 . 
 Prudhonnne, L. XL — Histoire geiierale des erreurs commis, etc. (Pan-. 
 1797). 
 
 yueruau-Lamerie — Les eonventionnels tin departement de la XIayenne 
 (Laval, 1885). 
 Notice sin' le theatre d'Angers (Angers. 1SS9). 
 
 Ruchejaquelein, Madame de la — Xleinoires de (Paris, 1816). 
 Kossignol, J.- La vie veritable du citoven (Paris, 1S96). 
 Kousset, C— Les volontaires 1791-1794" (Paris, 1870). 
 
 Savary, J. .1. XL, Adjt.-Gen. — Guerres des Vendeens et des Chouans centre 
 la republique francaise (Paris, 1^2 4). 
 
 Tronjolly, Phelippes C— Noyades, fusillades, etc. (Paris, 1794). 
 Turreau, L. XL, General — Xleinoires, etc. (London, 171"'' . 
 
 Vial, L A.— Causes de la guerre de la Vendee 'Angers. 1795 . 
 Ligue de ramni.-tieii Delaunay (Anger.-, 1795 .
 
 APPENDIX 427 
 
 Verger, F. .J. — Archives curieusesde la ville de Nantes (Nantes, 1837-41). 
 Valette. R. — La commission militaire de Fontenay (Fontenay, 1894). 
 
 Wallon, Henri A. — Histoire du tribunal revolutionnaire de Paris (Paris, 
 1SS0). 
 La terreur (Paris, 1881). 
 
 Les representants du peuple en mission et la justice revolutionnaire 
 (Paris, 1889). 
 Westermann, F. J., General — Canipagne de la Vendee (Paris, An ii.) 
 
 Proces verbal de l'Assemblec Nationale. 
 
 Do. de l'Assemblee Nationale Legislath 
 
 Do. de la Convention Nationale. 
 
 REVIEWS 
 
 Revue de l'Anjou, 1852, etc. (Angers). 
 
 Do. de Bretagne et de Vendee, 1857, etc. (Nantes). 
 
 Do. historique de l'oiiest, l sv ~>. etc. Pari- . 
 
 Do. du Bas-Poitou, 1888, etc. Fontenay).' 
 
 Do. de la revolution, 1883, etc. Paris). 
 La revolution francaise, 1881, etc. (Paris). 
 
 (The articles in these mayazines on subjects connected with the Revolution 
 are too numerous to mention separately.) 
 
 'A .Ml 'I I LETS 
 
 To enumerate separately the pamphlets would require much space. 
 Those utilised are mostly contained in the following list of volumes 
 described in the special catalogue recently compiled by Mr. G. K. 
 Fortescue oi' works relating to the Revolution which are in the library 
 of the British Museum. 
 
 F.R.— 61 (3) | 85-88 221-222 220 229-230 207 | 
 
 R.- 105 | 147-148 235-237 238-239 568-569 578 | 
 P.— S58 (1) j 959-961 ' 968-970 | 1046-1048 , 1019-1051 | 1082 | 
 1550-1552 ! 1568-1570 I F. 31*5* I F. 67"*
 
 INDEX 
 
 Agriculture, Commission of, 374, etc. 
 Amnesty, 376-378, 394. 395, 415 
 Ancenis, 180, 196 
 Ancien regime, 72, 126, 133, 273. 
 
 276, 328, 329 
 Andre, J. B. St. (Representative), 172 
 Augers, 5. 6, 33, 51, 67, 89, 90, 131, 
 
 132. 161, 176, 194, 199, 200. 
 
 209, 210-228, 319, 367, 36S, 393 
 Army, see Military 
 Artois, Comte d', 42, 408 
 Assembly, National Constituent. 11. 
 
 16, 17, 19. 24-26, 71, 142. 397, 
 
 406 
 National Legislative, 26, 27, 30, 
 
 32. 34, 142, 397, 406 
 Aubiers, 60 
 August 4th, 1789, 11 
 
 1st, 1793. decree of, 99 
 Austrians, 64 
 Aiitichamp, Marquis d', 170 
 
 Babeuf, 203 
 
 Bachelier, 136-138, 160, 248. 272,387 
 Barere, 99, 100. 107, 10S. 112, 122, 
 
 173, 323. 328 
 Bastille, the. 10 
 Beaupreau, 60, 11 (i 
 Beaupuv. General, 182 
 Benaben, 181, 1 S3. 315 
 Berruyer, General, 57. 110 
 Bertier, General, 97 
 Bignou, 195. 197. 214. 313. 362-364, 
 
 420 
 Biron, Due de, General, 62. 83-85, 
 
 96, 124, 185, 419 
 Blues, the. 55. 60. 117 
 
 Bo (Representative), 336, 378 
 
 Bocage, the, 5, 340 
 
 Boivin, General, 160 
 
 Bonchamps, de. 46, 116-119 
 
 Bonnaire, General, 297 
 
 Bouchotte, 59 
 
 Boueret, General, 297, 303 
 
 Bouft'ay, le, 79, 149, 162. 242 
 
 Bougenay, 343 
 
 Bourbotte (Representative), 111, 112. 
 
 178. 230, 234. 297, 336, 357- 
 
 359, 413 
 Bourdon (de l'Oise) (Representative), 
 
 112 
 Bourgneuf, 361 
 Bressuire, 6, 43 
 Brittany, 4, 166. 188, 191 
 
 Calendar, revolutionary, 148 
 
 Carnot, 371 
 
 Carpentier, General, 318 
 
 Carrier (Representative), 135 - 139, 
 143, 148, 153-159, 161, 162, 
 190, 201. 220, 231. 239-241, 
 2 17. 252. 254, 255, 259, 260- 
 26s, 293-295, 324-332, 354, 355, 
 362, 386. 3S8, 389, 390-392. 
 412, 415, 417, 419 
 
 Cathelineau, 46, 68 
 
 Cavaignac (Representative), 110 
 
 Challans, 318 
 
 Champenois, 321 
 
 Channel Islands, 187 
 
 Chantonav, 104 
 
 Charette, * 46, 116, 229. 296, 310, 
 311, 324, 341, 375. 397, 399, 
 400. 402, 407-409
 
 430 THE [{EAT, FEEXCH REVOLUTIONIST 
 
 rhatillf.il, I), 31, 95 
 
 Clianx, 136, 15S, 270. 272. 361, 363. 
 
 384, 387, HI 
 Children. ">7. 100. 108, 195, 20-1. 
 
 212, 249. 252 254, 264, 299, 
 
 329, 347. 375 
 Cholet, 6, 45, 115. 116, 120, 129, 
 
 141, 166, 309, 317, 321 
 Choiulieu (Representative). 56, 99, 
 
 119, 132. 211. 214. 413 
 Churches. 21, 147 
 Clergy, the. 13, IS, 22, 26-28, 33. 
 
 34. 73. S3. 145. 146. 155, 156. 
 
 161, 162. 214, 220. 232, 294, 
 
 362 
 civil constitution of, 14, 17, 20, 21 
 Clisson, 6, 95 
 Club <le la Halle, 88, 138 
 ( 'lub St. Vincent, 8S.136 ; see Vincent 
 
 la Montague 
 Commaire, General, 200 
 Commissioners, 5 s . 71, 84 
 Commissions, Military, see Military 
 Committee of Public Safety, 51, 58. 
 
 59, 84, $5, 99. 102. 114, 115. 
 
 US, 121, 122, 135, 1-14. 151, 
 
 172. 1S3, 187, 192, 211, 228. 
 
 230. 232. 239. 256. 259, 294. 
 
 295. 298, 304. 307. 314, 3D1 
 
 320-323. 325. 326, 330, 347. 
 
 352. 353. 363. ^i~>. 371, 373- 
 
 375. 378, 3-0, 3-2. 3-7 
 Committees. Revolutionary — 
 
 Aiders. 90. 129. 213. 220-222. 
 
 368. 369 
 Nantes. 129, 136. 13S. 154, 158, 
 
 159. 239. 210. 245. 249. 253, 
 
 26S-279, 321, 330,' 361, 363- 
 
 365. 3S4, 3S5 
 elsewhere, 127. 134, 142, 203. 
 
 20-, 201', 257, 317. 348, 350 
 Conscription (military . 30, 36-3-. 40, 
 
 41 
 Constituent Assembly, see Assembly 
 Constitution, the. 25-27, 49, 115. 1 } 1 
 Convention, National, the, 34-36, 50. 
 
 51. 59, 67, 70-72. >2. 99. 101, 
 
 102. 112. 113. 115, '123, 128, 
 
 1 12, 1 I 1. 1 15. 162. 178, L-1, 
 
 1-7, 192, 206, 21 1. 228, 2-11. 
 
 3 S 6 ■ 390. 
 413-115 
 
 102- I'M. 406. 
 
 Cordellier (General). 199. 297, 302. 
 120 
 
 Danton, 59 
 
 Decadis, 14S, 226 
 
 Declaration of Rights of Man. see 
 
 Rights 
 Department-, 13, 14, 49 
 Dol, 171. 174 
 
 Don/-, 63. 194, 195. 298, 351 
 Dubois-Crancy [Representative), 311 
 Dumonriez, General, 29 
 Duquesnoy, General, 340 
 Dusirat, General, 351, 375 
 Dutruy, General, 97, 230 
 Duval, General, 297, 305 
 
 Elb.'e, d', 18, 46, 116, 117, 188, 230- 
 
 236 
 Euurjris, 12. 31, 35, 52, 62-74. 85, 
 
 132, 170, 173. 187, 232 
 England. 36, 62. S3, 93, 109, 166, 
 
 170, 173,187-189, 228, 229,318 
 Entrepot, the. 111. 242. 243, 216 
 Equality, 12. 39. 64, 134. 1 12, 211, 
 
 213. 231'. 24 1, 276. 319, 323. 
 329, 342, 346 
 
 Felix, 86, 192. 216. 217. 369. 420 
 
 Fleche, la. 177 
 
 Fontenav. 6. 62. 63. 79, 205. 206. 
 
 344'. 393 
 Foncanlt, 156, 161. 21S, 361 
 Fougi-res, 171. 175 
 Fouqnet, 157, 161, 275, 362 
 Francastel (Representative), US. 
 
 13 1, 13-, 191. 199, 200. 211, 
 
 214. 216-21S. 222, 22S. 259, 
 261, 306, 339. 342. 3 17. 352. 
 353, 369, 412. 114, 415. 419 
 
 Fraternity. 39, 117, 13-1, 142. 20'.', 
 
 211, '213. 231, 239. 212, 244. 
 
 217. 276, 319, 323. 329. 3 12. 
 
 316. 319. 366 
 Fusillades. 209. 222-225. 241, 245. 
 
 251. 2-0, 32^. 343, 369 
 
 Gallois, 26 
 
 Gamier de Saintes) Representative), 
 
 102. 180, 2ii2 
 Garran (Representative . 322. 342, 3-17 
 Generals, - ■ Military 
 Gensonm'-, 26
 
 1XDF.X 
 
 431 
 
 Germans, 64, 109 
 
 Geste, 311 
 
 Gillet (Representative). 136 
 
 Girondists, S6, 284 
 
 Goullin, J. J., 136, 141, 153, 158, 
 
 160, 164, 165, 265, 267, 270, 
 
 273, 361, 363. 3S4-388, 412. 
 
 417, 419 
 Goivpilleau (Representative), 112 
 Gourdon, Jeanne, 316 
 Government, local, new scheme of, 
 
 13 
 municipal, new scheme of, 13 
 Revolutionary, the, 3, 19, 21, 51, 
 
 60, 80,81, 93, 100, 107, 113, 123, 
 
 1-27, 142, 149, 151, 186, 187.189. 
 
 232. 249. 256. 257. 284,319. '332. 
 
 346, 355, 365, 406. 409, 421 
 Grammont, 97, 113 
 Grandmaison, 136, 160, 164, 165, 
 
 384, 390 
 Granville. 171, 173, 192. 209 
 Grignon, General, 297, 302, 303, 
 
 305, 311. 337. 377, 115. 420 
 Gruget, Abbe, 199, 219 
 Guards, National, 23, 31, 36, 53, 55, 
 
 56, 62, 306 
 Guillotine. 77, 80, 87, 143, 191, 
 
 209, 219, 241, 250, 286 
 
 Haxo, General, 230, 233, 294, 295 
 
 Hazard (Representative), 98 
 
 Hentz (Representative), lis. 131, 
 
 211, 322, 339, 312, 347, 349- 
 
 353, 369. 414, 415 
 Hoclie. General, 409 
 Hospitals. 175, 192, 196, 229 
 Huche, General, 337-341. 344-347, 
 
 349, 379, 380, 415, 420 
 
 ■'Infernal Columns." the, chaps. 
 
 xxi. xxii. xxiv. 
 Ingrandes, 200 
 
 Inquisition, the, 236, 277-279 
 Intrus, the, 20,' 24 
 
 Jacobins. 84, 325 
 
 Jannaye, la, 399 
 
 Jersey, 170 
 
 Jullien, M. A.. 307. 326-329, 334- 
 
 336 
 Justice, revolutionary, 71, 75, 76, 
 
 101. 191, '202. 217, 221, 228, 
 
 236.243, 244, 285. 291. 292. 327, 
 329, 315, 346. 367, 390. 121, 422 
 
 King, the. 11, 16. 18. 27, 3". 31, 35, 78 
 Kh'ber, 6, 113, 114, 116, 118, 168, 
 169, 177. 181, 419 
 
 Laignelot, 150 
 
 Lamberty, 156, 157, 161, 245, 274. 
 
 278, 362 
 Lanjuinais, 52 
 
 Laplanche (Representative 1 , 192 
 La Roehelle, see Rochelle 
 Laval, 168, 179. 196 
 Lavallee, Esnau (Representative), 193. 
 
 413 
 Lubatteux, 140. 274 
 L'Echelle, General, 113. 121, 168 
 
 | Lege, 116 
 
 Le Mans, 177-179, 195-196, 202 
 Lenoir. General, 1 72 
 Le Petit, 134, 207, 217 
 ! Lequinio (Representative), 130, 149- 
 
 151, 205, 206, 307, 333 
 Lescure, de, 16, 60. 104, 119 
 j Letourneur (Representative), 202 
 i Levasseur (de la Sarthe) (Representa- 
 tive). 207 
 /, etc en masse. 100. 107, 103 
 ! Liberty, 29, 39. 64, 82, 91, 93, 126, 
 
 134, 142, 209. 211, 213. 234. 
 
 239. 240. 212, 214. 251. 261. 
 
 276, 279. 281, 289, 319. -".23. 
 
 329. 342. 316. 355. 421 
 Loflicial, 322, 399 
 Loire, the, 1. 4, 5. 119, 166, 167. 
 
 176, 177, 180, 182, 290, 292 
 Louis XVI., see King 
 Louis XVIII.. 108 
 Lucon, 344, 345, 350 
 Lyons, 99, 115 
 
 Machecoul, 42, 43, 45 
 Maignan, 179 
 Maignen, 386 
 Maine-et- Loire, 28 
 Malo, St.. 192 
 Man. Rights of. see Rights 
 Mans, le, <ee Le Mans 
 Marais, the, 5 
 Marat.' 52 
 
 .Marat Company, 138, 154, 161-165. 
 24 7, 253. 270, 287. 389
 
 43 2 THE REAL FREXCH REVOLUTIONIST 
 
 Marce, General. 59 
 
 Marceau, General, 168, 177, 181, 
 
 185, 419 
 March 19th, 1793, law of. 52, 73, 76. 
 
 18S, 201, 334 
 Martiniere, Gov, 346, 347 
 May 11th, 1793, decree of, 59, 201 
 Maveneais, the, 99, 102, 104, 105, 
 
 " 116, 168, 169, 233, 297 
 Mavenne, la, 133 
 Maximum, law of, 129, 136 
 Merrier du Rocher, 36, 99, 111 
 Merlin (de Douai), 88 
 
 (de Thionville) (Representative), 
 118, 190. 197 
 Military Commissions. 52, 09, 72. 
 73, 80, 90, 131, 133. 135, 141. 
 191, 192. 195, 201-204. 207. 
 209, 213. 216. 217, 219, 232, 
 244. 258, 264, 314, 317, 343. 
 347. 348, 350, 362-364, 368, 
 371. 394, 414 
 conscription, 30, 36-3S. 40, 41 
 republican armies, 52, 00, 114 
 generals, 58. 63. 64. 98. 103. 
 109, 110, 111, 301, 306, 308, 
 315, 316, 318. 334-338, 342. 
 349, 350. 375. 377, 413, 415' 
 officers. 62, 63, 301. 335, 337. 
 
 338 
 troops, 55, 57. 62. 97, 106, 307. 
 309. 335, 350. 351, 374. 415 
 volunteers, 65 
 Momoro (Representative), 97 
 Montagnards, 52. 136, 153, 234. 259 
 Montaigu, 104 
 Moulin aux Chcvres, 114 
 Moulin. General. 200. 297. 305. 311. 
 
 321 
 '• Mountain, the," 52. 57. 60. 88. 89 
 Municipal Lrovernnieiit, 13 
 Muscadins,' 139 
 
 Xantais, the, 132, 158, 385. 386 
 Nantes. 5. 6. 33. 11. 51. 67-09. 73, 
 
 71. 7:'. 87-90. 120, 135. 136. 
 
 110. 148, 152-165. 210. 239- 
 
 290. 319. 328. 342. 360-367. 
 
 374, 393, lo:;. 401 
 National A-m-iu1.1v. .-»■,- Assembly 
 Xational Guards f/p, (JuanP 
 Xiort, 62. 00, 7-, >6. 2u6. 35u. 371 
 Xiou (Representative). 59 
 
 Xoblesse, 12 
 
 Xoirmoutier, 229-238. 369-372 
 Xort, 201 
 
 Noyades, 155, 161-165, 220, 239, 
 241. '250, 253, 286, 328. 361 
 
 O'Sullivan. 268, 276 
 
 64, 
 
 Paris, 2, 10-12, 31-33, 35. 
 
 166, 250, 374, 384 
 Commune of, 58, 65 
 Revolutionary- Tribunal in, 49. 72, 
 
 76, 370. 385 
 volunteers, 65. 97. 98 
 Parthenay, 94 
 
 Phelippes de Tronjolly, see Tronjolly 
 Philippeaux (Representative), 110-112 
 Piet, F.. 232-234 
 Pitt, W., 19 
 
 Ponts-de-CV-, 194, 200, 222 
 Pope, the, 15, 20, 28 
 Pornic, 44 
 Prieur (de la Marne) (Representative). 
 
 119. 172, 17e. 194. 230. 232. 
 
 234, 259. 330, 331, 336, 361. 
 
 364, 413 
 Prisoners, 61-06, 117. 118, 184, 194. 
 
 206-208. 216-218, 287, 365-36;. 
 
 392 
 Prisons, 66-80, 141, 204. 208, 216. 
 
 242, 289 
 Prussia, 30, 64 
 
 Public Safety, Committee of. see Com- 
 mittee 
 
 Quetineau, General, 60, 61 
 
 Religious liberty, 11, 28, 29, 14 1, 
 
 etc., 214. 2*83, 402, 409. 421 
 Reimes, 192, 209 
 
 Representatives of the people, 49. 50, 
 59, 64. 71, 71, 75, 84, 86. 89. 
 90, 102. 103. 106. 121, 124- 
 126, 138, 142-144, 146. 149, 
 172, 192. 197-199. 208, 211, 
 217! 228, 230, 257, 259, 279. 
 281, 322. 331, 333. 342, 352, 
 353, 357-359. 377. 381. 3^2. 
 387. 397-399. 414 
 Revolutionary calendar, 14<\ etc. 
 Committees, ,*< • • < 'ommittees 
 ( lovernnieiit. .* • ( iovernmeiit 
 justice, ."rr .1 ustiee 
 Tribunals. ,*_•- Tribunals
 
 INDEX 
 
 433 
 
 [lights of Man, Declaration of, 11, 
 
 126, 144, 150, ISO 
 Robert, General, 191, 200 
 Robespierre, 10(3, 131, 326, 328, 365, 
 
 371, 371, 380, -112 
 Robin, 157, 159, 161, 2 15 
 Rochefort, 129 
 Rochejaquelein, 11. de la, 16, 60, 
 
 168, 180 
 Roohelle, la, 129, 141, 209 
 Ronsin, 84-86, 97, 101 
 llossignol, General, 96, 97, 104, 111 
 
 113, 241, 419 
 Ruelle (Representative), 136 
 
 Sables-d'Olonne, 6, 29, 62, 70, 77, 
 
 79, 209 
 Kabrades, 219 
 
 SI. Florent, 46, 117. 119, 
 St. Fulgent, 104, 311 
 St. Laurent, 23 
 Hans-culottes, 30, 96, 101. 
 
 209, 211, 228, 2 11. 
 
 274, 280, 291, 291, 
 
 334, 314, 366, 392 
 Santerre, General, 99, 100, 110, 113 
 Sapincau, 312 
 Saumur, 4, 6, 51, 63, 65, 6/ 
 
 98, 131,' 135, 199, 203 
 Savarv, 53, 255 
 Save nay, 181-183, 197, 210 
 Spain, 62, 229 
 States-General, the, 10, 11 
 Stofflet, 46. 170, 180, 310, 312, 341, 
 
 375, 397, 404, 409 
 Suspects, 76, 128, 299 
 
 104 
 
 204, 
 , 217 
 320, 
 
 205 
 
 328 
 
 . 85, 90, 
 206 
 
 Talmont, Prince de, 1 ', 
 
 'taxation, 11, 35, 36 
 Theatre at Angers, 21 i 
 
 
 
 Theatre Rouge, 245 
 
 Thoinnet, 270 
 
 Thouars, 60 
 
 Tours, 64-91 
 
 Trade, 282, 422 
 
 Tribunals, Revolutionary, 49, 71, 130, 
 
 140, 195, 2(12, 258, 277, 278 
 criminal, 13, 73, 221 
 Tronjolly, Phelippes de, 88, 137, 160, 
 
 274, 363, 364, 385, 386 
 Turreau, General, 230, 293-299, 302- 
 
 304, 306. 308, 309, 311, 313, 
 
 314, 316-318, 320-323, 333, 337. 
 
 338, 341, 344, 345, 351, 353- 
 
 355, 387, 413, 415, 416, 419 
 Turreau (Representative), 178, 193, 
 
 230, 234, 297 
 
 Vacheron, 217, 222, 278 
 Vendean noblesse, 12, 18, 12, 46 
 
 Council, 67, 1 1 (5, 176 
 Vendeans, the, character of, 7, 8 ; 
 
 objects of, 9-11, 37, 42, 43, 46 
 Vendee, la, description of, 1-8 ; 
 
 population of. 7 
 Versailles, 10. 12 
 Vihiers, 98, 99, 111 
 Vilnau, 134 
 Vimeux, General, 327, 373, 375, 376, 
 
 382 
 Vincent la Montague, Society of, 147. 
 
 153, 240, 250, 325, 327 
 
 Westermann, General, 94, 95, 97, 
 168, 177, 179, 181, 183 
 
 Wieland, 236-238 
 
 Women, 57, 98, 100-102, 108, 192, 
 195, 217, 226, 227, 246, 248, 
 252, 253, 273-275, 294, 299 
 329, 349, 370, 375 
 
 I'HK END 
 
 Printed by K. & R. Clark, Limited, Edinburgh.
 
 MAC MIL LAN AND CO.'S 
 
 WORKS ON FRENCH HISTORY. 
 
 FRANCE SINCE THE REVOLUTION. By J. 
 
 E. C. Bobley, M.A. Iii 1 vol. Extra Crown Svo. 10s. net. 
 
 TIMES. " A work to I"' consulted by all who would understand the forces and move- 
 ments in French life. . . . A work which is the worthy outcome of well-spent years, and 
 
 which will take rank among the few hooks which enable nations to understand nations." 
 IATKUA TURK. — " Much the most' Important work of the year in political philosophy 
 is Mr. .1. [■',. C. Bi alley's admirable Franre, which aims successfully at the same kind of 
 work that Tocqueville did for the United States. Mr. liodloy's learned, accurate, and 
 unbiassed study of France is one of the best things of the kind that has ever been done." 
 
 THE HISTORY OF THE FRENCH REVOLU- 
 
 TION. By Adolpiie Thiers. Translated by Frederick 
 Shoberl. With 50 Engravings and Portraits, on steel, of the most 
 eminent Personages engaged in the Revolution, many engraved by 
 W. Greatbatch. A New and Revised Edition in 5 vols. Demy 
 Svo. 15s. 
 
 List of Plates in each Volume. 
 
 Von. i Vol. 
 
 III. Portrait of Danton. 
 Port-rait of Madame Elizabeth. 
 Carrier at Nantes. 
 Portrait of Robespierre. 
 
 IV. Last Victims of the Reign of Terror. 
 Portrait of Charette. 
 Death of the Deputy Feraud. 
 Death of Homme, Goujon, Diujuesno 
 
 The A1 tack on the Bastille. 
 Portrait of the Due. d'Orleans. 
 Portrait of Mirabeau. 
 Portrait of Lafayette. 
 Orgies of the Gardes du Corps. 
 Portrait of .Marie Antoinette. 
 The King's Return from Varennos. 
 Portrait of Marat. 
 The Mob at the Tuileries. 
 Attack on the Tuileries. 
 Murder of the Prineesse de Lamballe. 
 Portrait of the Prineesse de Lamballe. 
 Portrait of Madame Roland. 
 Louis XVI. at the Convention. 
 Farewell of Louis XVI. to his Family. 
 Portrait of Louis XVI. 
 Portrait of Dumouriez. 
 Triumph of Marat. 
 Portrait of Larochejaquelin. 
 Assassination of Marat. 
 Portrait of Charlotte Corday. 
 Portrait of Camillo Desmoulins. 
 Condemnation of Marie Antoinette. 
 Portrait of Iiailly (Mayor of Paris). 
 Trial of Danton, Camille Desmoulins, 
 etc. 
 
 etc. 
 
 Portrait of Louis XVII. 
 The Kith Vendemiaire (Oct. ;"., 1795). 
 Portrait of Lazare Carnot. 
 Portrait of Junot. 
 Portrait of Bernadotte. 
 Portrait of Massena. 
 V. Summoning to Execution. 
 Portrait of Pichegru. 
 Portrait of Moreau. 
 Portrait of Hoche. 
 Portrait of Napoleon Bonaparte. 
 The ISth Brumaire (Nov. lo, lV'.x.i). 
 Portrait oi Sieyes. 
 Portrait of Barras. 
 Portrait of Fouche. 
 Portrait of Murat. 
 Portrait of Adolphe Thiers. 
 
 HENRY OF GUISE AND OTHER PORTRAITS. 
 
 By 11. C Macdowall. Extra Crown Svo. 8s. 6d. net. 
 
 I'M. I. MALI, GAZETTE.—"- Written instirring, effective style, the author is careful 
 to verify his every statement by contemporary evidence, and the result is a narrative 
 which tor intense human interest can challenge comparison with the best efforts of the 
 novelist's pen." 
 
 MACMILLAN AND CO., Ltd., LONDON.
 
 MACMILLAN AND CO.'S 
 
 WORKS ON FRENCH HISTORY 
 
 GROWTH OF THE FRENCH NATION. 
 
 By George 1!. Adams, Professor of History in Yale University. 
 Extra Crown 8vo. Gs. 
 
 PERSONAL CHARACTERISTICS FROM 
 FRENCH HISTORY. 
 
 By Baron Ferdinand Rothschild, M.P. 8vo. 10s. 6'd. net. 
 
 PHILIP AUGUSTUS. 
 
 By the Rev. W. II. Hutton, M.A., Fellow of St. John's 
 College, Oxford. Crown 8vo. 2s. 6d. 
 
 RICHELIEU. 
 
 By Professor Richard Lodge, M.A., formerly Fellow and 
 Tutor of Brasenose College, Oxford, Professor of History 
 in the University of Glasgow. Crown 8vo. 2s. Gd. 
 
 MIRABEAU. By P. P. Willert. Crown 8vo. 2s. Gd. 
 
 THE PRINCESSE DE LAMBALLE. 
 
 A Memoir by Sir Francis Monteeiori;. With numerous 
 Portraits and other Illustrations. Crown 4 to. 12s. Gd. 
 
 THE LIFE OF MARIE ANTOINETTE. 
 
 By Jeanne Louise Henriette Campan, First Lady in Waiting. 
 With Memoir of Madame Campan, by MM. Barriere and 
 
 MaiGNE. New and Revised Edition, with additional Notes, 
 and Portrait. Crown 8vo. 3s. Gd. 
 
 LIFE OF NAPOLEON BONAPARTE. 
 
 By W. M. Sloan k. In 4 volumes. Imperial 4to. !Kis. net. 
 
 MEMOIRS OF NAPOLEON BONAPARTE. 
 
 By Louis Antoine Fauvelet de Bourkiexne, his Private 
 Secretary. Fdited, with Preface 1 , Supplementary Chapters, 
 and Notes, by Colonel P. W. PHIITS, late Royal Artillery. 
 With Illustrations. In 4 vols. Crown 8vo. 36>. 
 
 THE COURT AND FAMILY OF NAPOLEON. 
 
 By the Duchcsse D'Aijrantks (Laure Junot). A New and 
 Revised Edition, with Additional Notes, and an Explanatory 
 List of the Titles of the Persons mentioned in the Work. 
 In 4 vols. Crown 8v<>. 36s. 
 
 MAC.M1LLAN AND CO., Ltd., LONDON.
 
 THE LIBRARY 
 UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA 
 
 Santa Barbara 
 
 THIS BOOK IS DUE ON THE LAST DATE 
 STAMPED BELOW. 
 
 Series 94H2