for the good of the nation.
I tell you that you are slaying the commonweal by your slowness and
circumspection. Let all the scoundrels perish!"

A handsome, vicious youngster named Robin made chorus.

"Patriots are without bread! It is fitting that the scoundrels should
die, and not eat the bread of starving patriots."

Carrier shook his fist at the assembly.

"You hear, you--! I cannot pardon whom the law condemns."

It was an unfortunate word, and Phelippes fastened on it.

"That is the truth, Citizen Representative," said Phelippes. "And as for
the prisoners in Le Bouffay, you will wait until the law condemns them."

And without staying to hear more, he departed as firmly as he had come,
indifferent to the sudden uproar.

When he had gone, the Representative flung himself into his chair again,
biting his lip.

"There goes a fellow who will find his way to the guillotine in time,"
he growled.

But he was glad to be rid of him, and would not have him brought
back. He saw how the opposition of Phelippes had stiffened the weaker
opposition of some of those in the assembly. If he was to have his
way he would contrive better without the legal-minded President of the
Revolutionary Tribunal. And his way he had in the end, though not
until he had stormed and cursed and reviled the few who dared to offer
remonstrances to his plan of wholesale slaughter.

When at last he took his departure, it was agreed that the assembly
should proceed to elect a jury which was to undertake the duty of
drawing up immediately a list of those confined in the prisons of
Nantes. This list they were to deliver when ready to the committee,
which would know how to proceed, for Carrier had made his meaning
perfectly clear. The first salutary measure necessary to combat the
evils besetting the city was to wipe out at once the inmates of all the
prisons in Nantes.

In the chill December dawn of the next day the committee--which had sat
all night under the presidency of Goullin forwarded a list of some
five hundred prisoners to General Boivin, the commandant of the city of
Nantes, together with an order to collect them without a moment's delay,
take them to L'Eperonniere, and there have them shot.

But Boivin was a soldier, and a soldier is not a sans-culotte. He took
the order to Phelippes, with the announcement that he had no intention
of obeying it. Phelippes, to Boivin's amazement, agreed with him.
He sent the order back to the commit