ick, continual;
followed by death. Ex-Minister Claviere has killed himself in Prison.
Ex-Minister Lebrun, seized in a hayloft, under the disguise of a
working man, is instantly conducted to death. (Moniteur, 11 Decembre,
30 Decembre, 1793; Louvet, p. 287.) Nay, withal, is it not what Barrere
calls 'coining money on the Place de la Revolution?' For always the
'property of the guilty, if property he have,' is confiscated. To avoid
accidents, we even make a Law that suicide shall not defraud us; that a
criminal who kills himself does not the less incur forfeiture of goods.
Let the guilty tremble, therefore, and the suspect, and the rich, and in
a word all manner of culottic men! Luxembourg Palace, once Monsieur's,
has become a huge loathsome Prison; Chantilly Palace too, once
Conde's:--and their Landlords are at Blankenberg, on the wrong side
of the Rhine. In Paris are now some Twelve Prisons; in France some
Forty-four Thousand: thitherward, thick as brown leaves in Autumn,
rustle and travel the suspect; shaken down by Revolutionary Committees,
they are swept thitherward, as into their storehouse,--to be consumed by
Samson and Tinville. 'The Guillotine goes not ill, ne va pas mal.'

Chapter 3.5.III.

Destruction.

The suspect may well tremble; but how much more the open rebels;--the
Girondin Cities of the South! Revolutionary Army is gone forth, under
Ronsin the Playwright; six thousand strong; in 'red nightcap, in
tricolor waistcoat, in black-shag trousers, black-shag spencer, with
enormous moustachioes, enormous sabre,--in carmagnole complete;' (See
Louvet, p. 301.) and has portable guillotines. Representative Carrier
has got to Nantes, by the edge of blazing La Vendee, which Rossignol
has literally set on fire: Carrier will try what captives you make, what
accomplices they have, Royalist or Girondin: his guillotine goes always,
va toujours; and his wool-capped 'Company of Marat.' Little children are
guillotined, and aged men. Swift as the machine is, it will not serve;
the Headsman and all his valets sink, worn down with work; declare that
the human muscles can no more. (Deux Amis, xii. 249-51.) Whereupon you
must try fusillading; to which perhaps still frightfuller methods may
succeed.

In Brest, to like purpose, rules Jean-Bon Saint-Andre; with an Army
of Red Nightcaps. In Bourdeaux rules Tallien, with his Isabeau and
henchmen: Guadets, Cussys, Salleses, may fall; the bloody Pike and
Nightcap bearing supreme