Pets of some of the Revolutionary Butchers. A Squirrel.
Sir Edward Bulwer Lytton, Bart., in his novel, "Zanoni,"[160] pictures Citizen Couthon fondling a little spaniel "that he invariably carried in his bosom, even to the Convention, as a vent for the exuberant sensibilities which overflowed his affectionate heart."
In a note the novelist remarks—
"This tenderness for some pet animal was by no means peculiar to Couthon; it seems rather a common fashion with the gentle butchers of the Revolution. M. George Duval informs us ('Souvenirs de la Terreur,' iii. p. 183), that Chaumette had an aviary, to which he devoted his harmless leisure; the murderous Fournier carried, on his shoulders, a pretty little squirrel attached by a silver chain; Panis bestowed the superfluity of his affections upon two gold pheasants; and Marat, who would not abate one of the three hundred thousand heads he demanded, reared doves! Apropos of the spaniel of Couthon, Duval gives us a characteristic anecdote of Sergent, not one of the least relentless agents of the massacre of September. A lady came to implore his protection for one of her relations confined in the Abbaye. He scarcely deigned to speak to her. As she retired in despair, she trod by accident on the paw of his favourite spaniel. Sergent, turning round, enraged and furious, exclaimed, 'Madam, have you no humanity?'"