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Taine, Hippolyte, 1828-1893

"The French Revolution - Volume 3"

Javogues writes an
insulting letter to the commission of Feurs which has dared acquit two
former nobles. Laignelot, Lecarpentier, Michaud, Monestier, Lebon,
dismiss, recompose, or replace the commissions of Fontenoy, Saint-
Malo, and Perpignan, and the tribunals of Pau, N?mes, and Arras, whose
judgments did not please them.[154] Lebon, Bernard de Saintes,
Dartigoyte and Fouch? re-arrest prisoners on the same charge, solemnly
acquitted by their own tribunals. B?, Prieur de la Marne, and Lebon,
send judges and juries to prison that do not always vote death.[155]
Barras and Fr?ron dispatch, from brigade to brigade, to the
revolutionary Tribunal in Paris, the public prosecutor and president
of the revolutionary Tribunal of Marseilles, for being indulgent to
anti-revolutionaries, because, out of five hundred and twenty-eight
prisoners, they guillotined only one hundred and sixty-two.[156] - To
contradict the infallible Representative! That of itself is an
offense. He owes it to himself to punish those who are not docile, to
re-arrest absolved delinquents, and to support cruelty with cruelty.
When for a long time someone has been imbibing a strong and nauseating
drink, not only does the palate get accustomed, but it often acquires
a taste for it; it soon wants to have it stronger; finally, it
swallows it pure, completely raw, with no admixture or condiment to
disguise its repulsiveness - Such, to certain imaginations, is the
spectacle of human gore; after getting accustomed to it they take
delight in seeing it.


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