CHAPTER I
THE TIGER'S LAIR
I
Nantes is in the grip of the tiger.
Representative Carrier—with powers as of a proconsul—has been sent down to stamp out the lingering remnants of the counter-revolution. La Vendée is temporarily subdued; the army of the royalists driven back across the Loire; but traitors still abound—this the National Convention in Paris hath decreed—there are traitors everywhere. They were not all massacred at Cholet and Savenay. Disbanded, yes! but not exterminated, and wolves must not be allowed to run loose, lest they band again, and try to devour the flocks.
Therefore extermination is the order of the day. Every traitor or would-be traitor—every son and daughter and father and mother of traitors must be destroyed ere they do more mischief. And Carrier—Carrier the coward who turned tail and bolted at Cholet—is sent to Nantes to carry on the work of destruction. Wolves and wolflings all! Let none survive. Give them fair trial, of course. As traitors they have deserved death—have they not taken up arms against the Republic and against the Will and the Reign of the People? But let a court of justice sit in Nantes town; let the whole nation know how traitors are dealt with: let the nation see that her rulers are both wise and just. Let wolves and wolflings be brought up for trial, and set up the guillotine on Place du Bouffay with four executioners appointed to do her work. There would be too much work for two, or even three. Let there be four—and let the work of extermination be complete.
And Carrier—with powers as of a proconsul—arrives in Nantes town and sets to work to organise his household. Civil and military—with pomp and circumstance—for the son of a small farmer, destined originally for the Church and for obscurity is now virtual autocrat in one of the great cities of France. He has power of life and death over thousands of citizens—under the direction of justice, of course! So now he has citizens of the bedchamber, and citizens of the household, he has a guard of honour and a company of citizens of the guard. And above all he has a crowd of spies around him—servants of the Committee of Public Safety so they are called—they style themselves "La Compagnie Marat" in honour of the great patriot who was foully murdered by a female wolfling.
So la Compagnie Marat is formed—they wear red bonnets on their heads—no stockings on their feet—short breeches to display their bare shins: their captain, Fleury, has access at all times to the person of the proconsul, to make report on the raids which his company effect at all hours of the day or night. Their powers are supreme too. In and out of houses—however private—up and down the streets—through shops, taverns and warehouses, along the quays and the yards—everywhere they go. Everywhere they have the right to go! to ferret and to spy, to listen, to search, to interrogate—the red-capped Company is paid for what it can find. Piece-work, what? Work for the guillotine!
And they it is who keep the guillotine busy. Too busy in fact. And the court of justice sitting in the Hôtel du Département is overworked too. Carrier gets impatient. Why waste the time of patriots by so much paraphernalia of justice? Wolves and wolflings can be exterminated so much more quickly, more easily than that. It only needs a stroke of genius, one stroke, and Carrier has it.
He invents the Noyades!