A small part of mankind had the courage to try to make man into. . . man. Well, the experiment was not successful.
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The most notorious of all aberrations of the Terror took place at Nantes, in the famous noyades or wholesale drownings conducted by the representative Carrier. Over these affairs much learned controversy has spent itself, Carrier being deicted as a monster by reactionary and humanitarian writers, condemned even by historians most partial to the Revolution, and yet subject to attempts at rehabilitation, on the wholenot very succesfull. Carrier, it may safely be said, was a normal man with average sensibilities, with no unusual intelligence or strength of character, driven wild by opposition, turning ruthless because ruthlessness seemed to be the easiest way of solving a difficult problem/
Our concern is with the relationof the Committtee of Public Safety to the drowings/ On September 29 Herault-Sechelles read aloud to the Committee a letter from Carrier, who, writing from Rennes, declared, after recounting his other operations: "I propose at the same time to make up some cargoes of unsworn priests now piled up in the risons, and to give control of them to a mariner from Saint-Servan known for his patriotism"/ The Committee heard Carrier's letter "with lively satisfaction", according to Herault, who wrote back to Carrier in the name of Committee, observed that "we can be humane when we assured of being victorious", and said that the representatives on mission should leave the responsibility for their acts to the subordinates charged with execution.
Later events made Carrier's reference to cargoes of priests seem very ominous. Whatever may have been in Carrier's mind, the phrase itself, vague at best and lost in a lengthy communication, could convey little to the men in Paris. Possibly Carrier only meant that he intended to transfer riests to prison ships in the river at Nantes, though why he should need a "mariner" for this urpose is not clear. In any case, Herault's advice that responsibility should be transferred to others may have impelled the unsteady Carrier to extremes. Carrier, however, subsequently denied having received Herault dispatch. A few days later Carrier conferred with Saint-Andre and Prieur of the Marne as they passed through Rennes on their way to Brest. They found him a patriotic and reliable reresentative. Moving on to Nantes Carrier met Prieur of the Cote-d'Or, who took back to Paris an account of Carrier's views. Carrier himself reorted to the Committee, on October 7, that the risons at Nantes were full of partisans of the Vendee. "Instead of amusing myself by giving them a trial, I shall send them to their laces of residence to be shot. These terrible examples will intimidate the evil wishers...". The Committee, in reply, urged Carrier to "purge the body politic of the bad humors that circulate in it".
In the following weeks the Vendeans, retreating from Granville, moved back toward the Loire and toward Nantes. The Revolutionists in the city fell a rey to hysteria. Horrible congestion reigned in the prisons, from which it was feared that the enraged inmates would break out. The prisons were full of fever and disease; it seemed that the hated aristocrats would culminate their evil influence by bringing pestilence to the city.
Carrier bethought himself of his idea of dealing with counter-revolutionists in "cargoes". Accepting the proposal of two local Revolutionists, who showed how boats could be equipped with removable hatches, Carrier proceeded to clear the prisons without formalities of trial, by drownings their occupants in the Loire. The number of noyades, or boatloads of prisoners scuttled, was estimated by an overwrought "witness" (there were few witnesses to these nocturnal erformances) at twenty-three; exact historical study can prove the occurrence of only four, but since they were carried on in an atmosphere of secrecy it is entirely possible that their number was greater. The drowing of childrens is well established, and also the sadistic cruelty of one of the men engaged in the work, who hacked off the arms of victims struggling to leave the boats.
The Committee of Public Safety knew before the end of November that ninety priests had been drowned at Nantes.Carrier in his reports to Paris, alluded with brutal sarcasm to the repeated "miracles" in the Loire. He gave no detailes, however, and it was only when the noyades were over, at the end of December, that the authorities in the capital were informed of the ingenuity and deliberate planning by which they were accomplish. No one knew then, and no one knows now, the number of the victims. It may have approached two thousand. Most of them were capptive from the Vendean army.
The Committee at first did nothing. That some of its members were shocked we can well imagine; Couthon, in particular, is known to have raised his voice at the green table in favor of pardoning the rank and file of Vendeans who had been "misled". But the full horror of what had happened in Brittany was not soon realised in Paris; horror, like terror, was pretty much the order of the day; the noyades at Nantes, like the fussillades at Lyons, seemed in the circumstances hardly more than incidental. In any case, at the turn of the year, the Committee was counting on the support of the Revolutionary vanguard; and so, though a few Hebertist representatives were recalled in December, others, including Fouche and Carrier, were left for a while in office.
But the Committee had a special agent in the west, Marc-Antoine Julien, a youngster only eighteen years old. Some have regarded him as a mere spy for Robespierre; actually he represented the Revolutionary Goverment, corresponded not only with Robespierre but with Barere and the Committee as a whole, and in his tour of the war-torn area worked in close cooperation with Prieur of the Marne. He reported on the conduct of the generals and the represantatives on mission, dissolved illicit Revolutionary Armies, gave instructions to local administrators, tried to combine the worshipe of Reason with a measure of decorum and toleration. In short, his assignment was to coordinate revolutionary energies in the west, and to keep them within the bounds prescribed by his superiors.
Young Julien began to complain of Carrier's actions on December 19. Writing from Vannes, fifty miles from Nantes, he either did not know of the noyades or thought them on slight importance.
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The most notorious of all aberrations of the Terror took place at Nantes, in the famous noyades or wholesale drownings conducted by the representative Carrier. Over these affairs much learned controversy has spent itself, Carrier being deicted as a monster by reactionary and humanitarian writers, condemned even by historians most partial to the Revolution, and yet subject to attempts at rehabilitation, on the wholenot very succesfull. Carrier, it may safely be said, was a normal man with average sensibilities, with no unusual intelligence or strength of character, driven wild by opposition, turning ruthless because ruthlessness seemed to be the easiest way of solving a difficult problem/
Our concern is with the relationof the Committtee of Public Safety to the drowings/ On September 29 Herault-Sechelles read aloud to the Committee a letter from Carrier, who, writing from Rennes, declared, after recounting his other operations: "I propose at the same time to make up some cargoes of unsworn priests now piled up in the risons, and to give control of them to a mariner from Saint-Servan known for his patriotism"/ The Committee heard Carrier's letter "with lively satisfaction", according to Herault, who wrote back to Carrier in the name of Committee, observed that "we can be humane when we assured of being victorious", and said that the representatives on mission should leave the responsibility for their acts to the subordinates charged with execution.
Later events made Carrier's reference to cargoes of priests seem very ominous. Whatever may have been in Carrier's mind, the phrase itself, vague at best and lost in a lengthy communication, could convey little to the men in Paris. Possibly Carrier only meant that he intended to transfer riests to prison ships in the river at Nantes, though why he should need a "mariner" for this urpose is not clear. In any case, Herault's advice that responsibility should be transferred to others may have impelled the unsteady Carrier to extremes. Carrier, however, subsequently denied having received Herault dispatch. A few days later Carrier conferred with Saint-Andre and Prieur of the Marne as they passed through Rennes on their way to Brest. They found him a patriotic and reliable reresentative. Moving on to Nantes Carrier met Prieur of the Cote-d'Or, who took back to Paris an account of Carrier's views. Carrier himself reorted to the Committee, on October 7, that the risons at Nantes were full of partisans of the Vendee. "Instead of amusing myself by giving them a trial, I shall send them to their laces of residence to be shot. These terrible examples will intimidate the evil wishers...". The Committee, in reply, urged Carrier to "purge the body politic of the bad humors that circulate in it".
In the following weeks the Vendeans, retreating from Granville, moved back toward the Loire and toward Nantes. The Revolutionists in the city fell a rey to hysteria. Horrible congestion reigned in the prisons, from which it was feared that the enraged inmates would break out. The prisons were full of fever and disease; it seemed that the hated aristocrats would culminate their evil influence by bringing pestilence to the city.
Carrier bethought himself of his idea of dealing with counter-revolutionists in "cargoes". Accepting the proposal of two local Revolutionists, who showed how boats could be equipped with removable hatches, Carrier proceeded to clear the prisons without formalities of trial, by drownings their occupants in the Loire. The number of noyades, or boatloads of prisoners scuttled, was estimated by an overwrought "witness" (there were few witnesses to these nocturnal erformances) at twenty-three; exact historical study can prove the occurrence of only four, but since they were carried on in an atmosphere of secrecy it is entirely possible that their number was greater. The drowing of childrens is well established, and also the sadistic cruelty of one of the men engaged in the work, who hacked off the arms of victims struggling to leave the boats.
The Committee of Public Safety knew before the end of November that ninety priests had been drowned at Nantes.Carrier in his reports to Paris, alluded with brutal sarcasm to the repeated "miracles" in the Loire. He gave no detailes, however, and it was only when the noyades were over, at the end of December, that the authorities in the capital were informed of the ingenuity and deliberate planning by which they were accomplish. No one knew then, and no one knows now, the number of the victims. It may have approached two thousand. Most of them were capptive from the Vendean army.
The Committee at first did nothing. That some of its members were shocked we can well imagine; Couthon, in particular, is known to have raised his voice at the green table in favor of pardoning the rank and file of Vendeans who had been "misled". But the full horror of what had happened in Brittany was not soon realised in Paris; horror, like terror, was pretty much the order of the day; the noyades at Nantes, like the fussillades at Lyons, seemed in the circumstances hardly more than incidental. In any case, at the turn of the year, the Committee was counting on the support of the Revolutionary vanguard; and so, though a few Hebertist representatives were recalled in December, others, including Fouche and Carrier, were left for a while in office.
But the Committee had a special agent in the west, Marc-Antoine Julien, a youngster only eighteen years old. Some have regarded him as a mere spy for Robespierre; actually he represented the Revolutionary Goverment, corresponded not only with Robespierre but with Barere and the Committee as a whole, and in his tour of the war-torn area worked in close cooperation with Prieur of the Marne. He reported on the conduct of the generals and the represantatives on mission, dissolved illicit Revolutionary Armies, gave instructions to local administrators, tried to combine the worshipe of Reason with a measure of decorum and toleration. In short, his assignment was to coordinate revolutionary energies in the west, and to keep them within the bounds prescribed by his superiors.
Young Julien began to complain of Carrier's actions on December 19. Writing from Vannes, fifty miles from Nantes, he either did not know of the noyades or thought them on slight importance.
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