"Chabot," he said, "the Committee of Public Safety meets at Robespierre's house; I do not visit Robespierre."
"Then I will go myself," said Montaut.
"Very well," replied Marat.
The next day a mandate from the Committee of Public Safety was sent in all directions, ordering the authorities of the cities and villages of the Vendée not only to publish, but also strictly to execute, a decree awarding the penalty of death to all who were known to aid and abet the escape of brigands and rebel prisoners.
This decree was but the first step. The Convention was to go still farther than that. Several months later, on the 11th Brumaire, in the year II. (November, 1793), when Laval opened its gates to the Vendean fugitives, it decreed that every city that sheltered rebels should be demolished and destroyed.
The princes of Europe, on their side, in the manifesto of the Duke of Brunswick, suggested by the Émigrés and drawn up by the Marquis of Linnon, steward to the Duke of Orleans, declared that every Frenchman taken with arms in his hand should be shot, and if but a hair fell from the head of the king, Paris should be razed to the ground.
Cruelty against barbarity.
[1] Moniteur, vol. xix. p. 81.