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Taine, Hippolyte, 1828-1893

"The French Revolution - Volume 3"

With such band-leaders as Carrier and his
tools on the Committee, one may be sure that the instrumentalists will
be worthy.
Accordingly, several members of the Committee themselves oversee
executions and lend a hand in the massacres. - One of these, Goullin,
a creole from St. Domingo, sensual and nervous, accustomed to
treating a Negro as an animal and a Frenchman as a white Negro, a
Septembriseur on principle, chief instigator and director of the
"drownings," goes in person to empty the prison of Bouffay, and,
verifying that death, the hospital or releases, had removed the
imprisoned for him, adds, of his own authority, fifteen names, taken
haphazard, to reach his figures. - Joly, a commissioner on the
Committee, very expert in the art of garroting, ties the hands of
prisoners together two and two and conducts them to the river.[162] -
Grand-maison, another member of the Committee, a former dancing-
master, convicted of two murders and pardoned before the Revolution,
strikes down with his saber the imploring hands stretched out to him
over the planks of the lighter.[163] - Pinard, another Committee-
commissioner, ransoms, steals off into the country and himself kills,
through preference, women and children.


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