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Their expeditions into the countryside and the towns. Their exploits in the vicinity of Paris and Lyons. The company of Maratists, the American Hussars and the German Legion at Nantes. General character of the Revolutionary government and of the administrative staff of the Reign of Terror.
By the Jacobins I mean indiscriminately the Brissotins and the Maratists, knowing no sort of difference between them. As to any other party, none exists in that unhappy country. Several attempts have been made to support this chimerical Démocratie Royale: the first was by La Fayette, the last by Dumouriez: they tended only to show that this absurd project had no party to support it.
The necessity of keeping up the exaltation of the people, had exhausted his fortune, great as it was; and want of money daily detached different agents from his party. His plate, his pictures, his furniture, his books, his trinkets, his gems, all went to purchase the favour, and at length the protection, of the Maratists.
After Frimaire 5 "the Maratists" boast of their arms being "tired out" with striking prisoners with the flat of their sabers to make them march to the Loire, and we see that, notwithstanding this fatigue, the business suited them, as their officers tried to influence Carrier to be detailed on the "drowning" service and because it was lucrative.
At Valenciennes, the Jacobin chiefs of the municipality are known under the title of "seal-breakers and patriotic robbers." At Lyons, the Maratists, who dub themselves "the friends of Chalier," are, according to the Jacobins' own admission, "brigands, thieves and rascals."
They come there to the number of three thousand; Freron, on horseback, surrounded by cannon and troops, arrives with about a hundred Maratists, the former accomplices of Lemaille, Sylvestre, and other well-known assassins, who form a body of local auxiliaries and counselors; he tells them to select out of the crowd at pleasure according to their grudge, fancy, or caprice; all who are designated are ranged along a wall and shot.
At Nimes, Toulouse, Bordeaux, Toulon, and Lyons, not only have they interfered with or arrested the blow which Paris struck, but they have put down the aggressors, closed the club, disarmed the fanatical and imprisoned the leading Maratists; and worse still, at Lyons and at Toulon, five or six massacreurs, or promoters of massacre, Chalier and Riard, Jassaud, Sylvestre and Lemaille, brought before the courts, have been condemned and executed after a trial in which all the forms were strictly adhered to.
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