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Ventose 9, year II., by order of Lefevre, adjutant general, forty-one persons were drowned, among whom were two men seventy-eight years of age and blind, twelve women, twelve young girls, fifteen children, of which ten were between six and ten years old, and five at the breast. Representative Francastel announces "the firm determination to purge, to bleed freely this Vendean question."
Fourteen hundred prisoners, who had surrendered at Savenay, among whom were many women and children, were shot, by order of the deputy Francastel, who, together with Hentz, Richard, Choudieu, Carpentier, and others of their colleagues, set an example of rapine and cruelty, but too zealously imitated by their subordinate agents.
Even excepting those who had died fighting or who, taken with arms in their hands, were shot down or sabered on the spot, there were 10,000 persons slaughtered without trial in the province of Anjou alone: accordingly, the instructions of the Committee of Public Safety, also the written orders of Carrier and Francastel, direct generals to "bleed freely" the insurgent districts, and spare not a life: it is estimated that, in the eleven western departments, the dead of both sexes and of all ages exceeded 400,000.
This same Francastel wrote to General Grignon: "Make those brigands tremble! Give them no quarter! The prisons in Vendee are overflowing with prisoners!... The conversion of this country into a desert must be completed. Let the guillotine stand permanently throughout the Republic. Five millions of inhabitants are enough for France!" Berryat Saint-Prix, 445. What a trifle!" Ibid., 447. Ibid., 311.
Fourteen hundred prisoners, who had surrendered at Savenay, among whom were many women and children, were shot, by order of the deputy Francastel, who, together with Hentz, Richard, Choudieu, Carpentier, and others of their colleagues, set an example of rapine and cruelty, but too zealously imitated by their subordinate agents.
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