书城公版The Origins of Contemporary France
19097600000766

第766章

[159] Hua, 197. I do not find in any printed or manuscript document but one case of resistance, that of the brothers Chaperon, in the hamlet of Leges, near Sens, who declare that they have no wheat except for their own use, and who defend themselves by the use of a gun. The gendarmerie not being strong enough to overcome them, the tocsin is sounded and the National Guard of Sens and the neighborhood is summoned; bringing cannon, the affair ends with the burning of the house. The two brothers are killed. Before being overcome, however, they had struck down the captain of the National Guard of Sens and killed or wounded nearly forty of their assailants. A surviving brother and a sister are guillotined. (June, 1794. Wallon, IV., 352.)[160] Moniteur, XVIII., 663. (Session of Frimaire 24, report by Lecointre.) "The communes of Thieux, Jully and many others were victims to their brigandage." - "The stupor in the country is such that the poor sufferers dare not complain of these vexations because, they say, they are only too lucky to have escaped with their lives." -This time, however, these public brigands made a mistake. Gibbon's son happens to be Lecointre's tenant farmer. Moreover, it is only accidentally that he mentions the circumstance to his landlord; "he came to see him for another purpose." - Cf. "The Revolution," vol.

II., 302. (There is a similar scene in the house of one Ruelle, a farmer, in the commune of Lisse.)[161] Passim Alfred Lallier, "Le sans-culotte Goullin." - Wallon, "Histoire du Tribunal révolutionnaire de Paris," V., 368. (Deposition of Lacaille.) - In addition to this, the most extraordinary monsters are met with in other administrative bodies, for example, in Nantes, a Jean d'Héron, tailor, who becomes inspector of military stores.

"After the rout at Clisson, says the woman Laillet, he appeared in the popular club with a brigand's ear attached to his hat by way of cockade. His pockets were full of ears, which he took delight in making the women kiss. He exposed other things which he made them kiss and the woman Laillet adds certain details which I dare not transcribe." (" Le patriote d'Héron," by L. de la Sicotière, pp.9 and 10. Deposition of the woman Laillet, fish-dealer, also the testimony of Mellinet, vol. VIII., p.256.)[162] Wallon, V., 368. (Deposition of de Laillet.)[163] Ibid., V., 37'. (Deposition of Tabouret.)[164] Ibid., V., 373. (Deposition of Mariotte.)[165] Monieur, XXII., 321. (Deposition of Philippe Troncjolly.) -Berryat Saint-Prix, "La Justice Révolutionnaire," 39.

[166] Campardon, "Histoire du Tribunal Révolutionnaire," II., 30.

They have ten francs a day, and full powers conferred on them.

(Orders of Carrier and Francastel, October 28, 1793.) "The representatives. . . . confer collectively and individually, on each member of the revolutionary company, the right of surveillance over all 'suspect' citizens in Nantes, over strangers who come to or reside there, over monopolists of every sort. . . . The right to make domiciliary visits wherever they may deem it advisable. . . .

The armed force will everywhere respond to the demands made upon it in the name of the company, or of any individual member composing it." -Berryat Saint-Prix, p. 42. - Alfred Lallier, " Les Noyades de Nantes," p.20. (Deposition of Gauthier.) Ibid., p.22. "Damn,"exclaims Carrier, "I kept that execution for Lamberty. I'm sorry that it was done by others."[167] Alfred Lallier, ibid., pp.21 and 90. - Cf. Moniteur, XXII., 331. (Deposition of Victoire Abraham.) "The drowners made quite free with the women, even using them for their own purposes when pleased with them, which women, in token of their kindness, enjoyed the precious advantage of not being drowned."[168] Campardon, II., 8. (Deposition of Commeret.) - Berryat Saint-Prix, p. 42.-Ibid., p.28. Other agents of Carrier, Fouquet and Lamberty, were condemned specially, "for having saved from national vengeance Madame de Martilly and her maid . . . They shared the woman Martilly and the maid between them." In connection with the "dainty taste" of Jacobins for silk dresses M. Berryat Saint-Prix cites the following answer of a Jacobin of 1851 to the judge d'instruction of Rheims; on the objection being made to him that the Republic, as he understood it, could not last long, he replied:

"Possibly, but say it lasts three months. That's long enough to fill one's pocket and belly and rumple silk dresses?" Another of the same species said in 1871: "We shall anyhow have a week's use of it."Observers of human nature will find analogous details in the history of the Sepoy rebellion in India against the English in 1803, also in the history of the Indians in the United States. The September massacres in Paris and the history of the combat of 1791 and 1792 have already provided us with the same characteristic documents.

[169] Alfred Lallier, "Les Fusillades de Nantes," P.23. (Depositions of Picard, commander of the National Guards of the escort. - Cf. the depositions of Jean Jounet, paver, and of Henri Ferdinand, joiner.)[170] Sauzay, "Histoire de la Persécution Révolutionnaire dans le Département du Doubs," VII., 687. (Letter of Grégoire, December 24, 1796.) "An approximative calculation makes the number of the authors of so many crimes three hundred thousand, for in each commune there were about five or six of these ferocious brutes who, named Brutus, perfected the art of removing seals, drowning and cutting throats.

They consumed immense amounts in constructing 'Mountains,' in reveling, and in fetes every three months which, after the first parade, became parodies, represented by three or four actors in them, and with no audience. These consisted, finally, of a drum-beater and the musical officer; and the latter, ashamed of himself, often concealed his scarf in his pocket, on his way to the Temple of Reason.

. . . But these 300 000 brigands had 2 or 300 directors, members of the National convention, who cannot be called anything but scoundrels, since the language provides no other epithet so forcible."