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nants at Savenay. Although fighting continued long afterwards this proved the end of the Vendean grand army. These victories were immediately followed by judicial repression. The _conventionnel_ Carrier organized a Revolutionary Tribunal at Nantes, and committed worse horrors than Fouche had at Lyons. Finding a rate of 200 executions a day insufficient he invented the noyade. River barges were taken, their bottoms were hinged so as to open conveniently, and prisoners, tied in pairs, naked and regardless of sex, were taken out in them, and released into the water. At Nantes, like at Arras and several other points, the proceedings of the Revolutionary Tribunals and of the gangs who worked the prisons, were marked by gross immorality in dealing with the women prisoners. At Nantes, Carrier, {200} most thorough and most infamous of the Terrorists, is said to have caused the death of 15,000 persons in four months. The fury of the Revolution, which turned to frenzy and dementia at Nantes, blazed into a marvellous flame of patriotic energy on the frontiers. Nearly half a million men were enrolled in the course of 1793. A new volunteer battalion was added to each battalion of the old army, the new unit being named a _demi-brigade_. Rankers were pushed up to high command, partly by political influence, partly for merit. Jourdan, an old soldier, a shop-keeper, became general of the army of the north, and on the 15th of October defeated Coburg at Wattignies. The brilliant Hoche, ex-corporal of the French guards, was placed at the head of the army of the Moselle. Pichegru, the son of a peasant, took over the army of the Rhine. Under these citizen generals new tactics replaced the old. Pipe-clay and method gave way to Sans-culottism and dash. The greatest of the generals of the Revolution said: "I had sooner see a soldier without his breeches than without his bayonet." Rapidity, surprise, the charging column, the helter-skelter pursuit, were the innovations of {201} the new French generals. They translated into terms of tactics and strategy, Danton's famous apostrophe, "Audacity, more audacity, yet more audacity!" [1] See Chap. XVII. {202} CHAPTER XIV THERMIDOR Danton had fallen fast in popularity and influence since the moment when, after the fall of the Gironde, he had appeared to dominate the situation. On the 12th of October, weary, sick at heart, disgusted at the triumph of the Heberti
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