"[166] This is the
extreme perversity of human nature, that of a Domitian who watches the
features of the condemned, to see the effect of suffering, or, better
still, that of the savage who holds his sides with laughter at the
aspect of a man being impaled. And this delight of contemplating
death throes, Carrier finds it in the sufferings of children.
Notwithstanding the remonstrances of the revolutionary Tribunal and
the entreaties of President Ph?lippes-Tronjolly,[167] he signs on the
29th of Frimaire, year II., a positive order to guillotine without
trial twenty-seven persons, of whom seven are women, and, among these,
four sisters, Mesdemoiselles de la Metayrie, one of these twenty-eight
years old, another twenty-seven, the third twenty-six, and the fourth
seventeen. Two days before, notwithstanding the remonstrances of the
same tribunal and the entreaties of the same president, he signed a
positive order to guillotine twenty-six artisans and farm-hands, among
them two boys of fourteen, and two of thirteen years of age. He was
driven " in a cab to the place of execution and he followed it up in
detail. He could hear one of the children of thirteen, already bound
to the board, but too small and having only the top of the head under
the knife, ask the executioner, "Will it hurt me much?" What the
triangular blade fell upon may be imagined! Carrier saw this with his
own eyes, and whilst the executioner, horrified at himself, died a few
days after in consequence of what he had done, Carrier put another in
his place, began again and continued operations.
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