October 6, 1794.
The sufferings of individuals have often been the means of destroying or reforming the most powerful tyrannies; reason has been convinced by argument, and passion appealed to by declamation in vain—when some unvarnished tale, or simple exposure of facts, has at once rouzed the feelings, and conquered the supineness of an oppressed people.
The revolutionary government, in spite of the clamorous and weekly swearings of the Convention to perpetuate it, has received a check from an event of this nature, which I trust it will never recover.—By an order of the Revolutionary Committee of Nantes, in November 1793, all prisoners accused of political crimes were to be transferred to Paris, where the tribunal being more immediately under the direction of government, there would be no chance of their acquittal. In consequence of this order, an hundred and thirty-two inhabitants of Nantes, arrested on the usual pretexts of foederalism, or as suspected, or being Muscadins, were, some months after, conducted to Paris. Forty of the number died through the hardships and ill treatment they encountered on the way, the rest remained in prison until after the death of Robespierre.
The evidence produced on their trial, which lately took place, has revealed but too circumstantially all the horrors of the revolutionary system. Destruction in every form, most shocking to morals or humanity, has depopulated the countries of the Loire; and republican Pizarro's and Almagro's seem to have rivalled each other in the invention and perpetration of crimes.
When the prisons of Nantes overflowed, many hundreds of their miserable inhabitants had been conducted by night, and chained together, to the river side; where, being first stripped of their clothes, they were crouded into vessels with false bottoms, constructed for the purpose, and sunk.*—
* Though the horror excited by such atrocious details must be serviceable to humanity, I am constrained by decency to spare the reader a part of them. Let the imagination, however repugnant, pause for a moment over these scenes—Five, eight hundred people of different sexes, ages, and conditions, are taken from their prisons, in the dreary months of December and January, and conducted, during the silence of the night, to the banks of the Loire. The agents of the Republic there despoil them of their clothes, and force them, shivering and defenceless, to enter the machines prepared for their destruction—they are chained down, to prevent their escape by swimming, and then the bottom is detached for the upper part, and sunk.—On some occasions the miserable victims contrived to loose themselves, and clinging to the boards near them, shrieked in the agonies of despair and death, "O save us! it is not even now too late: in mercy save us!" But they appealed to wretches to whom mercy was a stranger; and, being cut away from their hold by strokes of the sabre, perished with their companions. That nothing might be wanting to these outrages against nature, they were escribed as jests, and called "Noyades, water parties," and "civic baptisms"! Carrier, a Deputy of the Convention, used to dine and make parties of pleasure, accompanied by music and every species of gross luxury, on board the barges appropriated to these execrable purposes.
—At one time, six hundred children appear to have been destroyed in this manner;—young people of different sexes were tied in pairs and thrown into the river;—thousands were shot in the high roads and in the fields; and vast numbers were guillotined, without a trial!*
* Six young women, (the Mesdemoiselles la Meterie,) in particular, sisters, and all under four-and-twenty, were ordered to the Guillotine together: the youngest died instantly of fear, the rest were executed successively.—A child eleven years old, who had previously told the executioner, with affecting simplicity, that he hoped he would not hurt him much, received three strokes of the Guillotine before his head was severed from his body.
—Two thousand died, in less than two months, of a pestilence, occasioned by this carnage: the air became infected, and the waters of the Loire empoisoned, by dead bodies; and those whom tyranny yet spared, perished by the elements which nature intended for their support.*
* Vast sums were exacted from the Nantais for purifying the air, and taking precautions against epidemical disorders.
But I will not dwell on horrors, which, if not already known to all Europe, I should be unequal to describe: suffice it to say, that whatever could disgrace or afflict mankind, whatever could add disgust to detestation, and render cruelty, if possible, less odious than the circumstances by which it was accompanied, has been exhibited in this unfortunate city.—Both the accused and their witnesses were at first timid through apprehension, but by degrees the monstrous mysteries of the government were laid open, and it appeared, beyond denial or palliation, that these enormities were either devised, assisted, or connived at, by Deputies of the Convention, celebrated for their ardent republicanism and revolutionary zeal.—The danger of confiding unlimited power to such men as composed the majority of the Assembly, was now displayed in a manner that penetrated the dullest imagination, and the coldest heart; and it was found, that, armed with decrees, aided by revolutionary committees, revolutionary troops, and revolutionary vehicles of destruction,* missionaries selected by choice from the whole representation, had, in the city of Nantes alone, and under the mask of enthusiastic patriotism, sacrificed thirty thousand people!
* A company was formed of all the ruffians that could be collected together. They were styled the Company of Marat, and were specially empowered to arrest whomsoever they chose, and to enter houses by night or day—in fine, to proscribe and pillage at their pleasure.
Facts like these require no comment. The nation may be intimidated, and habits of obedience, or despair of redress, prolong its submission; but it can no longer be deceived: and patriotism, revolutionary liberty, and philosophy, are for ever associated with the drowning machines of Carrier, and the precepts and calculations of a Herault de Sechelles,* or a Lequinio.**—
* Herault de Sechelles was distinguished by birth, talents, and fortune, above most of his colleagues in the Convention; yet we find him in correspondence with Carrier, applauding his enormities, and advising him how to continue them with effect.—Herault was of a noble family, and had been a president in the Parliament of Paris. He was one of Robespierre's Committee of Public Welfare, and being in some way implicated in a charge of treachery brought against Simon, another Deputy, was guillotined at the same time with Danton. ** Lequinio is a philosopher by profession, who has endeavoured to enlighten his countrymen by a publication entitled "Les Prejuges Detruits," and since by proving it advantageous to make no prisoners of war.
—The ninety Nantais, against whom there existed no serious charge, and who had already suffered more than death, were acquitted. Yet, though the people were gratified by this verdict, and the general indignation appeased by an immediate arrest of those who had been most notoriously active in these dreadful operations, a deep and salutary impression remains, and we may hope it will be found impracticable either to renew the same scenes, or for the Convention to shelter (as they seemed disposed to do) the principal criminals, who are members of their own body. Yet, how are these delinquents to be brought to condemnation? They all acted under competent authority, and their dispatches to the Convention, which sufficiently indicated their proceedings, were always sanctioned by circulation, and applauded, according to the excess of their flagitiousness.
It is worthy of remark, that Nantes, the principal theatre of these persecutions and murders, had been early distinguished by the attachment of its inhabitants to the revolution; insomuch, that, at the memorable epoch when the short-sighted policy of the Court excluded the Constituent Assembly from their Hall at Versailles, and they took refuge in the Jeu de Paume, with a resolution fatal to their country, never to separate until they had obtained their purposes, an express was sent to Nantes, as the place they should make choice of, if any violence obliged them to quit the neighbourhood of Paris.
But it was not only by its principles that Nantes had signalized itself; at every period of the war, it had contributed largely both in men and money, and its riches and commerce still rendered it one of the most important towns of the republic.—What has been its reward?—Barbarous envoys from the Convention, sent expressly to level the aristocracy of wealth, to crush its mercantile spirit, and decimate its inhabitants.*—
* When Nantes was reduced almost to a state of famine by the destruction of commerce, and the supplies drawn for the maintenance of the armies, Commissioners were sent to Paris, to solicit a supply of provisions. They applied to Carrier, as being best acquainted with their distress, and were answered in this language:—"Demandez, pour Nantes! je solliciterai qu'on porte le fer et la flamme dans cette abominable ville. Vous etes tous des coquins, des contre- revolutionnaires, des brigands, des scelerats, je ferai nommer une commission par la Convention Nationale.—J'irai moi meme a la tete de cette commission.—Scelerats, je serai rouler les tetes dans Nantes—je regenererai Nantes."—"Is it for Nantes that you petition? I'll exert my influence to have fire and sword carried into that abominable city. You are all scoundrels, counter- revolutionists, thieves, miscreants.—I'll have a commission appointed by the Convention, and go myself at the head of it.— Villains, I'll set your heads a rolling about Nantes—I'll regenerate Nantes." Report of the Commission of Twenty-one, on the conduct of Carrier.
—Terrible lesson for those discontented and mistaken people, who, enriched by commerce, are not content with freedom and independence, but seek for visionary benefits, by becoming the partizans of innovation, or the tools of faction!*
* The disasters of Nantes ought not to be lost to the republicans of Birmingham, Manchester, and other great commercial towns, where "men fall out they know not why;" and where their increasing wealth and prosperity are the best eulogiums on the constitution they attempt to undermine.
I have hitherto said little of La Vendee; but the fate of Nantes is so nearly connected with it, that I shall make it the subject of my next letter.