nto a heated brazier." He shouts with pain,
and indicates another chest which they break open and then carry off
what they find there, "seventy-two francs in coin and five or six
thousand livres in assignats, which Gibbon had just received for the
requisitions made on him for corn." Next, they break open the cellar
doors, set a cask of vinegar running, carry wine upstairs, eat the
family meal, get drunk and, at last, clear out, leaving Gibbon with his
feet burnt, and garroted, as well as the other eleven members of his
household, quite certain that there will be no pursuit.[33160]--In the
towns, especially in federalist districts, however, these robberies are
complicated with other assaults. At Lyons, whilst the regular troops
are lodged in barracks, the revolutionary army is billeted on the
householders, two thousand vile, sanguinary blackguards from Paris, and
whom their general, Ronsin himself, calls "scoundrels and brigands,"
alleging, in excuse for this, that "honest folks cannot be found for
such business." How they treat their host, his wife and his daughters
may be imagined; contemporaries glide over these occurrences and,
through decency or disgust, avoid giving details.[33161] Some simply use
brutal force; others get rid of a troublesome husband by the guillotine;
in the most exceptional cases they bring their wenches along with them,
while the housekeeper has to arouse herself at one o'clock at night and
light a fire for the officer who comes in with the jolly company.--And
yet, there are others still worse, for the worst attract each other. We
have seen the revolutionary committee at Nantes, also the representative
on mission in the same city; nowhere did the revolutionary Sabbat rage
so furiously, and nowhere was there such a traffic in human lives. With
such band-leaders as Carrier and his tools on the Committee, one may be
sure that the instrumentalists will be worthy.

Accordingly, several members of the Committee themselves oversee
executions and lend a hand in the massacres.--One of these, Goullin, a
creole from St. Domingo, sensual and nervous, accustomed to treating a
Negro as an animal and a Frenchman as a white Negro, a Septembriseur
on principle, chief instigator and director of the "drownings," goes in
person to empty the prison of Bouffay, and, verifying that death, the
hospital or releases, had removed the imprisoned for him, adds, of
his own authority, fifteen names, taken haphazard, to reach h