"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 Metz3298 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."

"My hair is gray," he responds, "but I am not the less a good republican: you may ask the General and the whole town."

"Be off! Go to the devil, and be quick about it, or I will have you arrested!"—

The same, in the street, where he lays hold of a man passing, on account of his looks; the justice of the peace, Joly, certifies to the civism of this person, and he "eyes" Joly:

"You too, you are an aristocrat! I see it in your eyes! I never make a mistake."

Whereupon, tearing off the Judge's badge, he sends him to prison.—Meanwhile, a fire, soon extinguished, breaks out in the army bakery; officers, townspeople, laborers, peasants and even children form a line (for passing water) and Duquesnoy appears to urge them on in his way: using his fists and his foot, he falls on whoever he meets, on an employee in the commissariat, on a convalescent officer, on two men in the line, and many others. He shouts to one of them, "You are a muscadin!" To another:

"I see by your eyes that you are an aristocrat!"

To another:

"You are a bloody beggar, an aristocrat, a rascal,"

and he strikes him in the stomach; he seizes a fourth by his collar and throws him down on the pavement.3299 In addition to this, all are imprisoned. The fire being extinguished, an indiscreet fellow, who stood by looking on, recommends "the dispenser of blows" to wipe his forehead." "You can't see straight—who are you? Answer me, I am the representative." The other replies mildly: "Representative, nothing could be more respectable." Duquesnoy gives the unlucky courtier a blow under the nose: "You are disputing—go to prison," "which I did at once," adds the docile subject.—That same evening, "whereas, in the conflagration, none of the inhabitants in good circumstances offered their services in extinguishing the fire,32100 and none but sans-culottes came thereto, from the garrison as well as from the commune," Duquesnoy orders "that a tax of 40,000 livres be imposed on the commune of Metz, levied on the fortunes of the rich and distributed among the poor, payable within ten days."32101—"Fais-moi f.... dedans tous ces b... lÀ32102," "quatre j...f... À raccourcir;"32103 At Arras, as at Metz, the lout is ever the ruffian and the butcher.

Others are either jolly fellows, or blackguards. A certain AndrÉ Dumont, an old village attorney, now king of Picardie, or sultan, as occasion offers, "figures as a white Negro," sometimes jovial, but generally as a rude hardened cynic, treating female prisoners and petitioners as in a kermesse.32104—One morning a lady enters his ante-room, and waits amidst about twenty sans-culottes, to solicit the release of her husband. Dumont appears in a morning-gown, seats himself and listens to the petitioner.

"Sit down, citoyenne."

He takes her on his lap, thrusts his hand in her bosom and exclaims:

"Who would suppose that the bust of a marchioness would feel so soft to one of the people's representatives."

The sans-culottes shout with laughter. He sends the poor woman away and keeps her husband locked up. In the evening he may write to the Convention that he investigates things himself, and closely examines aristocrats.—If one is to maintain the revolutionary enthusiasm at a high level it is helpful to have a drop too much in one's head, and most of them take precautions in this direction. At Lyons,32105 "the representatives sent to ensure the people's welfare, Albitte and Collot," call upon the Committee of Sequestrations to deliver at their house two hundred bottles of the best wine to be found, and five hundred bottles more of Bordeaux red wine, first quality, for table use.—In three months, at the table of the representatives who devastate la VendÉe, nineteen hundred and seventy-four bottles of wine are emptied,32106 taken from the houses of the emigrÉs belonging to the town; for, "when one has helped to preserve a commune one has a right to drink to the Republic." Representative Bourbotte presides at this bar; Rossignol touches his glass, an ex-jeweler and then a September massacreur, all his life a debauchee and brigand, and now a major-general; alongside of Rossignol, stand his adjutants, Grammont, an old actor, and Hazard, a former priest; along with them is Vacheron, a good rÉpublican, who ravishes women and shoots them when they refuse to succumb;32107 in addition to these are some "brilliant" young ladies, undoubtedly brought from Paris, "the prettiest of whom share their nights between Rossignol and Bourbotte," whilst the others serve their subordinates: the entire band, male and female, is installed in a Hotel de Fontenay, where they begin by breaking the seals, so as t o confiscate "for their own benefit, furniture, jewelry, dresses, feminine trinkets and even porcelains."32108 Meanwhile, at Chantonney, representative Bourdon de l'Oise drinks with General Tunck, becomes "frantic" when tipsy, and has patriotic administrators seized in their beds at midnight, whom he had embraced the evening before.—Nearly all of them, like the latter, get nasty after a few drinks,—Carrier at Nantes, Petit-Jean at Thiers, Duquesnoy at Arras, Cusset at Thionville, Monestier at Tarbes. At Thionville, Cusset drinks like a "Lapithe" and, when drunk, gives the orders of a "vizier," which orders are executed.32109 At Tarbes, Monestier "after a heavy meal and much excited," warmly harangues the court, personally examines the prisoner, M. de Lasalle, an old officer, whom he has condemned to death, and signs the order to have him guillotined at once. M. de Lasalle is guillotined that very evening, at midnight, by torchlight. The following morning Monestier says to the president of the court: "Well, we gave poor Lasalle a famous fright last night, didn't we?" "How a famous fright? He is executed!" Monestier is astonished—he did not remember having issued the order.32110—With others, wine, besides sanguinary instincts, brings out the foulest instincts. At NÎmes; Borie, in the uniform of a representative, along with Courbis, the mayor, GÉret, the justice and a number of prostitutes, dance the farandole around the guillotine. At Auch, one of the worst tyrants in the South, Dartigoyte, always heated with liquor "vomited every species of obscenity" in the faces of women that came to demand justice; "he compels, under penalty of imprisonment, mothers to take their daughters to the popular club," to listen to his filthy preaching; one evening, at the theatre, probably after an orgy, he shouts at all the women between the acts, lets loose upon them his smutty vocabulary, and, by way of demonstration, or as a practical conclusion, ends by stripping himself naked.32111—This time, the genuine brute appears. All the clothing woven during the past centuries and with which civilization had dressed him, the last drapery of humanity, falls to the ground. Nothing remains but the primitive animal, the ferocious, lewd gorilla supposed to be tamed, but which still subsists indefinitely and which a dictatorship, joined to drunkenness, revives in an uglier guise than in remotest times.

VIII. Delirium.

If intoxication is needed to awaken the brute, a dictatorship suffices to arouse the madman. The mental equilibrium of most of these new sovereigns is disturbed; the distance between what the man once was and what he now is, is too great. Formerly he was a petty lawyer, village doctor, or schoolmaster, an unknown mover of a resolution in a local club, and only yesterday he was one voter in the Convention out of seven hundred and fifty. Look at him now, the arbiter, in one of the departments, of all fortunes and liberties, and master of five thousand lives. Like a pair of scales into which a disproportionate weight has been thrown, his reason totters on the side of pride. Some of them regard their competency unlimited, like their powers, and having just joined the army, claim the right of being appointed major-generals.32112 "Declare officially," writes Fabre to the Committee of Public Safety,32113 "that, in future, generals shall be simply the lieutenants of the delegates to the Convention." Awaiting the required declaration, they claim command and, in reality, exercise it. "I know of neither generals nor privates," says Gaston, a former justice of the peace, to the officers; "as to the Minister, he is like a bull in a china shop; I am in command here and must be obeyed." "What are generals good for?" adds his colleague Guiter; "the old women in our faubourgs know as much as they do. Plans, formal maneuvers, tents, camps, redoubts? All this is of no use! The only war suitable to Frenchmen after this will be a rush with side arms." To turn out of office, guillotine, disorganize, march blindly on, waste lives haphazard, force defeat, sometimes get killed themselves, is all they know, and they would lose all if the effects of their incapacity and arrogance were not redeemed by the devotion of the officers and the enthusiasm of the soldiers.—The same spectacle is visible at Charleroy where, through his absurd orders, Saint-Just does his best to compromise the army, leaving that place with the belief that he is a great man.32114—There is the same spectacle in Alsace, where Lacoste, Baudot, Ruamps, Soubrany, Muhaud, Saint-Just and Lebas, through their excessive rigor, do their best to break up the army and then boast of it. The revolutionary Tribunal is installed at headquarters, soldiers are urged to denounce their officers, the informer is promised money and secrecy, he and the accused are not allowed to confront each other, no investigation, no papers allowed, even to make exception to the verdict—a simple examination without any notes, the accused arrested at eight o'clock, condemned at nine o'clock, and shot at ten o'clock.32115

Naturally, under such a system, no one wants to command; already, before Saint Just's arrival, Meunier had consented to act as Major-General only ad interim; "every hour of the day" he demanded his removal; unable to secure this, he refused to issue any order. The representatives, to procure his successor, are obliged to descend down to a depot captain, Carlin, bold enough or stupid enough to allow himself to take a commission under their lead, which was a commission for the guillotine.—If such is their presumption in military matters, what must it be in civil affairs! On this side there is no external check, no Spanish or German army capable of at once taking them in flagrante delicto, and of profiting by their ambitious incapacity and mischievous interference. Whatever the social instrumentality may be—judiciary, administration, credit, commerce, manufactures, agriculture—they can dislocate and destroy it with impunity.—They never fail to do this, and, moreover, in their dispatches, they take credit to themselves for the ruin they cause. That, indeed, is their mission; otherwise, they would be regarded as bad Jacobins; they would soon become "suspects;" they rule only on condition of being infatuated and destructive; the overthrow of common-sense is with them an act of State grace, a necessity of the office, and, on this common ground of compulsory unreason, every species of physical delirium may be set established.

With those that we can follow closely, not only is their judgment perverted, but the entire nervous apparatus is affected; a permanent over-excitement and a morbid restlessness has begun.—Consider Joseph Lebon, son of a sergeant-at-arms, subsequently, a teacher with the Oratoriens of Beaune, next, curÉ of Neuville-Vitasse, repudiated as an interloper by the Élite of his parishioners, not respected, without house or furniture, and almost without a flock.32116 Two years after this, finding himself sovereign of his province, his head is spinning. Lesser events would have made it turn; his is only a twenty-eight-year-old head, not very solid, without any inside ballast,32117 already disturbed by vanity, ambition, rancor, and apostasy, by the sudden and complete volteface which puts him in conflict with his past educational habits and most cherished affections: it breaks down under the vastness and novelty of this greatness.—In the costume of a representative, a Henry IV hat, tri-color plume, waving scarf, and saber dragging the ground, Lebon orders the bell to be rung and summons the villagers into the church, where, aloft in the pulpit in which he had formerly preached in a threadbare cassock, he displays his metamorphosis.

"Who would believe that I should have returned here with unlimited powers!"32118

And that, before his counterfeit majesty, each person would be humble, bowed down and silent! To a member of the municipality of Cambray who, questioned by him, looked straight at him and answered curtly, and who, to a query twice repeated in the same terms, dared to answer twice in the same terms, he says:

"Shut up! You disrespect me, you do not behave properly to the national representative."

He immediately commits him to prison.32119—One evening, at the theater, he enters a box in which the ladies, seated in front, keep their places. In a rage, he goes out, rushes on the stage and, brandishing his great saber, shouts and threatens the audience, taking immense strides across the boards and acting and looking so much like a wild beast that several of the ladies faint away:

"Look there!" he shouts, at those muscadines who do not condescend to move for a representative of twenty-five millions of men! Everybody used to make way for a prince—they will not budge for me, a representative, who am more than a king!"32120

The word is spoken. But this king is frightened, and he is one who thinks of nothing but conspiracy;32121 in the street, in open daylight, the people who are passing him are plotting against him either by words or signs. Meeting in the main street of Arras a young girl and her mother talking Flemish,—that seems to him "suspect." "Where are you going?" he demands. "What's that to you?" replies the child, who does not know him. The girl, the mother and the father are sent to prison.32122—On the ramparts, another young girl, accompanied by her mother, is taking the air, and reading a book. "Give me that book," says the representative. The mother hands it to him; it is the "History of Clarissa Harlowe." The young girl, extending her hand to receive back the book, adds, undoubtedly with a smile: "That is not 'suspect.'" Lebon deals her a blow with his fist on her stomach which knocks her down; both women are searched and he personally leads them to the guard-room.—The slightest expression, a gesture, puts him beside himself; any motion that he does not comprehend makes him start, as with an electric shock. Just arrived at Cambray, he is informed that a woman who had sold a bottle of wine below the maximum, had been released after a procÈs-verbal. On reaching the Hotel-de-ville, he shouts out: "Let everybody here pass into the Consistory!" The municipal officer on duty opens a door leading into it. Lebon, however, not knowing who he is, takes alarm. "He froths at the mouth," says the municipal officer, "and cries out as if possessed by a demon. 'Stop, stop, scoundrel, you are running off!' He draws his saber and seizes me by the collar; I am dragged and borne along by him and his men. 'I have hold of him, I have hold of him!' he exclaims, and, indeed, he did hold me with his teeth, legs, and arms, like a madman. At last, 'scoundrel, monster, bastard,' says he, 'are you a marquis?' 'No,' I replied, 'I am a sans-culotte.' 'Ah, well people, you hear what he says,' he exclaims, 'he says that he is a sans-culotte, and that is the way he greets a denunciation on the maximum! I remove him. Let him be kicked in prison!'"32123 It is certain that the King of Arras and Cambray is not far from a raging fever; with such symptoms an ordinary individual would be sent to an asylum.

Not so vain, less fond of parading his royalty, but more savage and placed in Nantes amidst greater dangers, Carrier, under the pressure of more somber ideas, is much more furious and constant in his madness. Sometimes his attacks reach hallucination. "I have seen him," says a witness, "so carried away in the tribune, in the heat of his harangue when trying to overrule public opinion, as to cut off the tops of the candles with his saber," as if they were so many aristocrats' heads.32124 Another time, at table, after having declared that France could not feed its too numerous population, and that it was decided to cut down the excess, all nobles, magistrates, priests, merchants, etc., he becomes excited and exclaims, "Kill, kill!" as if he were already engaged in the work and ordering the operation.32125 Even when fasting, and in an ordinary condition, he is scarcely more cooled down. When the administrators of the department come to consult with him,32126 they gather around the door to see if he looks enraged, and is in a condition to hear them. He not only insults petitioners, but likewise the functionaries under him who make reports to him, or take his orders; his foul nature rises to his lips and overflows in the vilest terms:

"Go to hell and be damned. I have no time."32127

They consider themselves lucky if they get off with a volley of obscene oaths, for he generally draws his saber:

"The first bastard that mentions supplies, I will cut his head off."32128

And to the president of the military commission, who demands that verdicts be rendered before ordering executions:

"You, you old rascal, you old bastard, you want verdicts, do you! Go ahead! If the whole pen is not emptied in a couple of hours I will have you and your colleagues shot!"

His gestures, his look have such a powerful effect upon the mind that the other, who is also a "bruiser," dies of the shock a few days after.32129 Not only does he draw his saber, but he uses it; among the petitioners, a boatman, whom he is about to strike, runs off as fast as he can; he draws General Moulins into the recess of a window and gives him a cut.32130—People "tremble" on accosting him, and yet more in contradicting him. The envoy of the Committee of Public Safety, Julien de la DrÔme, on being brought before him, takes care to "stand some distance off, in a corner of the room," wisely trying to avoid the first spring; wiser still, he replies to Carrier's exclamations with the only available argument:

"If you put me out of the way to-day, you yourself will be guillotined within a week!"32131

On coming to a stand before a mad dog one must aim the knife straight at its throat; there is no other way to escape its fangs and slaver. Accordingly, with Carrier, as with a mad dog, the brain is mastered by the steady mechanical reverie, by persistent images of murder and death. He exclaims to President Tronjolly, apropos of the Vendean children:

"The guillotine, always the guillotine!"32132

In relation to the drownings:

"You judges must have verdicts; pitch them into the water, which is much more simple."

Addressing the popular club of Nantes, he says:

"The rich, the merchants, are all monopolizers, all anti-revolutionists; denounce them to me, and I will have all their heads under the national razor. Tell me who the fanatics are that shut their shops on Sunday and I will have them guillotined." "When will the heads of those rascally merchants fall?"—"I see beggars here in rags; you are as big fools at Ancenis as at Nantes. Don't you know that the money, the wealth of these old merchants, belongs to you, and is not the river there?" "My brave bastards, my good sansculottes your time is come! Denounce them to me! The evidence of two good sans-culottes is all I want to make the heads of those old merchants tumble!"—"We will make France a grave-yard rather than not regenerate it in our own way."32133—His steady howl ends in a cry of anguish:

"We shall all be guillotined, one after the other!"32134—

Such is the mental state to which the office of representative on mission leads. Below Carrier, who is on the extreme verge, the others, less advanced, likewise turn pale at the lugubrious vision, which is the inevitable effect of their work and their mandate. Beyond every grave they dig, they catch a glimpse of the grave already dug for them. There is nothing left for the gravedigger but to dig mechanically day after day, and, in the meantime, make what he can out of his place; he can at least render himself insensible by having "a good time."