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Taine, Hippolyte, 1828-1893

"The French Revolution - Volume 3"

" There is the same haul of the net at Paris. By
order of Lhuillier, procureur of the department, "seals are placed in
the offices of all the bankers, stock-brokers, silversmiths, etc.,"
and they themselves are shut up in the Madelonettes; a few days after,
that they may pay their drafts, they are let out as a favor, but on
condition that they remain under arrest in their homes, at their own
expense, under guard of two good sans-culottes.[131] In like manner,
at Nantes,[132] Lyons, Marseilles and Bordeaux, the prisons are filled
and the guillotine works according to the categories. At one time
they are "all of the Grand Th?atre," or the principal merchants, "to
the number of more than 200," are incarcerated at Bordeaux in one
night.[133] At another time, Paris provides a haul of farmer-generals
or parliamentarians. Carts leave Toulouse conveying its
parliamentarians to Paris to undergo capital punishment. At Aix,
writes an agent,[134]
"the guillotine is going to work on former lawyers a few hundred heads
legally taken off will do the greatest good."
And, as new crimes require new terms to designate them, they add to
"incivisme" and "moderantisme," the term "negociantisme," all of which
are easily stated and widespread crimes.


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