inated. It was the direct, the
radical, the heroic method.

That very day six prisoners in Le Bouffay had been sentenced to death
for attempting to escape.

"How do we know," he asked, "that those six include all the guilty? How
do we know that all in Le Bouffay do not share the guilt? The prisoners
are riddled with disease, which spreads to the good patriots of Nantes;
they eat bread, which is scarce, whilst good patriots starve. We must
have the heads off all those blasted swine!" He took fire at his own
suggestion. "Aye, that would be a useful measure. We'll deal with it at
once. Let some one fetch the President of the Revolutionary Tribunal."

He was fetched--a man of good family and a lawyer, named Francois
Phelippes.

"Citizen President," Carrier greeted him, "the administration of Nantes
has been considering an important measure. To-day you sentenced to
death six prisoners in Le Bouffay for attempting to escape. You are to
postpone execution so as to include all the Bouffay prisoners in the
sentence."

Although an ardent revolutionary, Phelippes was a logically minded
man with a lawyer's reverence for the sacredness of legal form. This
command, issued with such cynical coldness, and repudiated by none
of those present, seemed to him as grotesque and ridiculous as it was
horrible.

"But that is impossible, Citizen Representative," said he.

"Impossible!" snarled Carrier. "A fool's word. The administration
desires you to understand that it is not impossible. The sacred will of
the august people--"

Phelippes interrupted him without ceremony.

"There is no power in France that can countermand the execution of a
sentence of the law."

"No--no power!"

Carrier's loose mouth fell open. He was too amazed to be angry.

"Moreover," Phelippes pursued calmly, "there is the fact that all the
other prisoners in Le Bouffay are innocent of the offence for which the
six are to die."

"What has that to do with it?" roared Carrier. "Last year I rode a
she-ass that could argue better than you! In the name of--, what has
that to do with it?"

But there were members of the assembly who thought with Phelippes, and
who, whilst lacking the courage to express themselves, yet found courage
to support another who so boldly expressed them.

Carrier sprang up quivering with rage before that opposition. "It seems
to me," he snarled, "that there are more than the scoundrels in Le
Bouffay who need to be shortened by a head