he
Convention, Ventose 21, year III.) These documents authenticate an
ulterior drowning. Ventose 9, year II., by order of Lefevre, adjutant
general, forty-one persons were drowned, among whom were two men
seventy-eight years of age and blind, twelve women, twelve young girls,
fifteen children, of which ten were between six and ten years old,
and five at the breast. The drowning took place in the Bourgneuf
bay.-Carrier says in the Convention, (Moniteur, XXII., p.578), in
relation to the drowning of pregnant women: "At Laval, Angers, Saumur,
Chaban-Gontier, everywhere the same things took place as at Nantes."]

[Footnote 4137: Camille Boursier, p.159.]

[Footnote 4138: Ibid., 203. Representative Francastel announces "the
firm determination to purge, to bleed freely this Vendean question."
This same Francastel wrote to General Grignon: "Make those brigands
tremble! Give them no quarter! The prisons in Vendee are overflowing
with prisoners!... The conversion of this country into a desert must be
completed. Show no weakness and no mercy... These are the views of the
Convention.... I swear that Vendee shall be depopulated."]

[Footnote 4139: Granier de Cassagnac, "His. du Directoire," II.,
241.--(Letter of General Hoche to the Minister of the Interior, Feb. 2,
1796.) "Only one out of five remains of the population of 1789."]

[Footnote 4140: Campardon, II., 247, 249, 251, 261, 321. (Examination of
Fouquier-Tinville, Cambon's words.)]

[Footnote 4141: Article by Guffroy, in his journal Le Rougiff: "Down
with the nobles, and so much the worse for the good ones, if there are
any! Let the guillotine stand permanently throughout the Republic. Five
millions of inhabitants are enough for France!"--Berryat Saint-Prix,
445. (Letter of Fauvety, Orange, Prairial 14, year II.) "We have but two
confined in our arrondissement. What a trifle!"--Ibid., 447. (Letter of
the Orange Committee to the Committee of Public Safety, Messidor 3.) "As
soon as the Committee gets fully agoing it is to try all the priests,
rich merchants and ex-nobles."--(Letter of Juge, Messidor 2.) "Judging
by appearances more than three thousand heads will fall in the
department."--Ibid., 311. At Bordeaux, a huge scaffold is put up,
authorized by the Military Committee, with seven doors, two of which
are large and like barn-doors, called a four-bladed guillotine, so as
to work faster and do more. The warrant and orders for its construction
bear date Thermidor 3 and