-
The second band, called "the American Hussars," and who operated in
the outskirts, was composed of blacks and mulattos, numerous enough in
this town of privateers. It is their business to shoot women, whom
they first violate; "they are our slaves," they say; "we have won them
by the sweat of our brows." "Those who have the misfortune to be
spared, become in their hands mad in a couple of days; in any event
they are re-arrested shortly afterwards and shot. - The last band,
which is styled "The German Legion," is formed out of German deserters
and mercenaries speaking little or no French. They are employed by
the Military Commission to dispatch the Vendeans picked up along the
highways, and who are usually shot in groups of twenty five. "I
came," says an eye-witness,[169] "to a sort of gorge where there was a
semi-circular quarry; there, I noticed the corpses of seventy-five
women naked and lying on their backs." The victims of that day
consisted of girls from sixteen to eighteen years of age. One of them
says to her conductor, "I am sure you are taking us to die," and the
German replies in his broken jargon, probably with a coarse laugh,"
No, it is for a change of air.
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