Naturally timid, Fréron could not restrain his cruelty, being too weak and fearful. When sent to Marseilles he became the terror of the city. While Carlier drowned his prisoners at Nantes, and Collot d'Herbois shot his at Lyons with musketry, at Marseilles Fréron did better—he used grape-shot.
One day, after a discharge of artillery, suspecting that some had fallen unharmed with those who were struck, and were counterfeiting death, he called out, in order to save the time necessary to search for them: "Let those who are not harmed stand up, and they will be pardoned."
The unfortunates who were not hurt trusted in his word, and stood up.
"Fire!" said Fréron.
And the gunners began again, doing their work with more accuracy, for this time no one stood up.
When he returned to Paris, Paris had made a step on the road to mercy. The friend of Robespierre became his enemy. The Jacobin took a step backward and became a Cordelier. He scented the 9th Thermidor. He made himself a Thermidorian with Barras and Tallien, he denounced Fouquier-Tinville, and, like Cadmus, he sowed the teeth of the dragon which was called the Revolution, and they sprang up at once amid the blood of the old régime and the filth of the new, in the shape of that jeunesse dorée which took his name, and whose chief he was.
The jeunesse dorée, as distinguished from the sans-culottes, who wore short hair, round jackets, trousers, and the red cap, either wore long tresses of hair, revived from the time of Louis XIII., and called "cadenettes" (from the name of its inventor, Cadenet, a younger son of Luynes), or hair falling over their shoulders, in what was styled "dog's-ears." They also revived the use of powder, and wore it plentifully upon their hair, which was turned back with a comb. Their morning costume consisted of a very short frock-coat and small-clothes of black or green velvet. When in full-dress they wore, instead of this frock-coat, a coat of light color cut square, buttoned over the stomach, with tails coming down to the calves of their legs. Their muslin cravat was high and had enormous ends. The waistcoat was of piqué or white dimity, with broad facings and trimmings; two watch-chains hung over small-clothes of gray or apple-green satin, which came down half-way over the calves of the legs, where they buttoned with three buttons, and were finished off with a knot of ribbon. Silk stockings, striped either red, yellow, or blue, and pumps, which were the more elegant in proportion to their lightness, an opera-hat under the arm, and an enormous cane in the hand, completed the costume of an Incroyable.
Now why did those scoffers, who seize upon everything, call the individuals who compose the gilded youth of Paris the incroyables? We are about to tell you.
Change of dress did not suffice to distinguish a man from the revolutionists, he must also change his pronunciation. A honeyed dialect was substituted for the rude speech of 1793 and the democratic thou; consequently, instead of rolling their r's as the pupils of the conservatory do to-day, they suppressed them altogether, and the letter became very near being entirely lost, like the Greek dative. Its bones were taken out of the language, together with its strength, and instead, as formerly, of giving one another their Parrole d'honneur, with a strong emphasis on the consonant, they contented themselves with giving their Paole d'honneu.
According to circumstances, they had a gande paole d'honneu, or a petite paole d'honneu; but whichever of these two was used to support something either difficult or impossible to believe, the listener, too polite to contradict the person with whom he was conversing, contented himself with saying: "It is incoyable" (incredible), suppressing the r in incroyable.