The present insurrection
must be kept up . . . . The insurrection should gradually continue
to spread out . . . The sans-culottes should be paid and remain in
the towns. They ought to be armed, worked up, taught."
[140] The committee of Public Safety, and Robespierre especially, knew
of and commanded the drownings of Nantes, as well as the principal
massacres by Carrier, Turreau, etc. (De Martel, "Etude sur Fouch?,"
257-265.) - Ibid., ("Types revolutionnaires," 41-49.) - Buchez et
Roux, XXXIII., 101 (May 26, 1794.) Report by Bar?re and decree of the
convention ordering that "No English prisoners should be taken."
Robespierre afterwards speaks in the same sense. Ibid., 458. After
the capture of Newport, where they took five thousand English
prisoners, the French soldiers were unwilling to execute the
convention's decree, on which Robespierre (speech of Thermidor 8)
said: "I warn you that your decree against the English has constantly
been violated; England, so ill-treated in our speeches, is spared by
our arms."
[141] On the Girondists, Cf. "The Revolution," II., 216.
[142] Buchez et Roux, XXX., 157. Sketch of a speech on the Fabre
d'Eglantine factim.
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