VII. Brutal Instincts.
Eruption of brutal instincts.—Duquesnoy at Metz.—Dumont at
Amiens.—Drunkards.—Cusset, Bourbotte, Moustier, Bourdon de
l'Oise, Dartigoyte.
"It seems," says a witness who was long acquainted with Maignet, "that all he did for these five or six years was simply the delirious phase of an illness, after which he recovered, and lived on as if nothing had happened."[3297] And Maignet himself writes "I was not made for these tempests." That goes for everyone but especially for the coarser natures; subordination would have restrained them while dictatorial power make the instincts of the brute and the mob appear.
Contemplate Duquesnoy, a sort of mastiff, always barking and biting, when gorged he is even more furious. Delegate to the army of the Moselle, and passing by Metz[3298] he summoned before him Altmayer, the public prosecutor, although he had sat down to dinner. The latter waits three hours and a half in the ante-chamber, is not admitted, returns, and, at length received, is greeted with a thundering exclamation:
"Who are you?"
"The public prosecutor," he replies.
"You look like a bishop—you were once a curé or monk—you can't be a revolutionary.... I have come to Metz with unlimited powers. Public opinion here is not satisfactory. I am going to drill it. I am going to set folks straight here. I mean to shoot, here in Metz, as well as in Nancy, five or six hundred every fortnight."
The same at the house of General Bessières, commandant of the town encountering there M. Cledat, an old officer, the second in command, he measures him from head to foot:
"You look like a muscadin. Where did you come from? You must be a bad republican—you look as if you belonged to the ancient régime."