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Representative Bourbotte presides at this bar; Rossignol touches his glass, an ex-jeweler and then a September massacreur, all his life a debauchee and brigand, and now a major-general; alongside of Rossignol, stand his adjutants, Grammont, an old actor, and Hazard, a former priest; along with them is Vacheron, a good republican, who ravishes women and shoots them when they refuse to succumb; in addition to these are some "brilliant" young ladies, undoubtedly brought from Paris, "the prettiest of whom share their nights between Rossignol and Bourbotte," whilst the others serve their subordinates: the entire band, male and female, is installed in a Hotel de Fontenay, where they begin by breaking the seals, so as t o confiscate "for their own benefit, furniture, jewelry, dresses, feminine trinkets and even porcelains."
In the Convention his return made little stir, and even when early in the following July he learnt that Bourbotte, his successor at Nantes, had ordered the arrest of Goullin, Bachelier, Grandmaison, and his other friends of the committee, on the score of the drownings and the appropriation of national property confiscated from emigres, he remained calm, satisfied that his own position was unassailable.
You shall, at any rate, have to deal with one German, whether he be a cut-throat or not." "In any way you please," said Bourbotte, "that is, in any open or honest way." And as he spoke, he stepped back one step, and took his sword out of the scabbard.
After the evacuation of Mans by the insurgents, women were brought by twenties and thirties, and shot before the house where the deputies Tureau and Bourbotte had taken up their residence; and it appears to have been considered as a compliment to these republican Molochs, to surround their habitation with mountains of the dead.
Like the Girondists, they resorted to insurrection, in order to regain the power which they had lost; and like them, they fell. Vergniaud, Brissot, Guadet, etc., were tried by a revolutionary tribunal; Bourbotte, Duroy, Soubrany, Romme, Goujon, Duquesnoy, by a military commission.
Even Santerre was silenced; despite his popularity, his well-known devotion to the cause, his hatred of the aristocrats, and his aversion to royalty, so horridly displayed at the execution of the King, even he felt that it might not be safe for him to urge that the memory of Cathelineau was not despicable. "His death must have much weakened them," said Bourbotte. "I know them well, the miscreants!
"If your anger can wait till the revolt in La Vendee has been quelled," said Chouardin, "my friend Bourbotte will be ready enough to satisfy your wishes as a citizen. Barrere truly says, this is no time for private quarrels." "So be it," said Westerman. "Let General Bourbotte remember that he owes me an apology or redress."
"I grant you," said Bourbotte, "that my soldiers are men and not monsters. They are, as yet, French peasants, not German cut-throats." "Now, by Heaven, Bourbotte," said the Prussian, "you shall swallow that word," and he seized a pistol from off the table. "German cut-throat! and that from you who have no other qualities of a soldier than what are to be found in a light pair of heels.
"Put up your sword, Bourbotte," whispered he, leading him off to the further window of the room; "you are no match for him here: if Barrere chooses he will have you recalled to Paris, and your neck will then not be worth a month's purchase." "Gentlemen," said Barrere, "this will never do. You can neither of you serve the nation well if you persist in quarrelling between yourselves.
"You shall have any redress, which any arms you may be pleased to name can give you," said Bourbotte. "By my honour then, you are two fools," said Santerre; "two egregious fools, if you cannot at once forget the angry words which you each have used. Have your own way, however, so long as you do not fight here."
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