[130] - People "tremble" on accosting him, and yet
more in contradicting him. The envoy of the Committee of Public
Safety, Julien de la Dr?me, on being brought before him, takes care to
" stand some distance off, in a corner of the room," wisely trying to
avoid the first spring; wiser still, he replies to Carrier's
exclamations with the only available argument:
"If you put me out of the way to-day, you yourself will be guillotined
within a week!"[131]
On coming to a stand before a mad dog one must aim the knife straight
at its throat; there is no other way to escape its fangs and slaver.
Accordingly, with Carrier, as with a mad dog, the brain is mastered by
the steady mechanical reverie, by persistent images of murder and
death. He exclaims to President Tronjolly, apropos of the Vendean
children:
"The guillotine, always the guillotine!"[132]
In relation to the drownings:
"You judges must have verdicts; pitch them into the water, which is
much more simple."
Addressing the popular club of Nantes, he says:
"The rich, the merchants, are all monopolizers, all anti-
revolutionists; denounce them to me, and I will have all their heads
under the national razor.
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