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Updated: October 3, 2025
During these conferences Pichegru was surrounded by four representatives of the people, at the head of whom was Merlin de Thionville, the most insolent and the most ferocious of inquisitors. These men, having the orders of the Committee, pressed Pichegru to pass the Rhine and go and besiege Manheim, where Merlin had an understanding with the inhabitants.
Many were making off at a rapid pace in the direction of the Rue de Thionville, erstwhile Rue Dauphine; Gamelin joined one of these groups and heard the news that Marat had just been assassinated. Little by little the tidings were confirmed and particulars became known; he had been murdered in his bath by a woman who had come expressly from Caen to commit the crime.
He said that during the panic and retreat toward Thionville he saw the Emperor halt from time to time to scold soldiers who threw away their muskets; that very many German soldiers, during this panic, cast aside everything except the clothes they wore not only their guns, but their helmets; that afterward the highways and fields were strewn thickly with these, and that wagons were sent out to collect them.
Should they give him time he would profit by their negligence, and next morning when they reached Nieuport, the birds would be flown. Especially the leaders of the mutineers of Diest and Thionville were hoarse with indignation at the proposed delay. They had not left their brethren, they shouted, nor rallied to the archduke's banner in order to sit down and dig in the sand like ploughmen.
Thus the Rhinelands presented a pleasant appearance as Charles rode to Lorraine. His first pause was at Thionville in Luxemburg, where he stayed about a fortnight and received ambassadors from Hungary, Poland, Venice, England, Denmark, Brittany, Ferrara, the Palatinate, and Cologne.
Though the cannibals came for murder, I could not but admire the enthusiastic deference that was shown to this symbol of authority, which instantly paralyzed, the daggers uplifted for our extermination. "Merlin de Thionville was the stoic head of this party.
"What are the flags for?" she asked of an old man, pressing back into a safety alcove in the stone wall of the bridge. "We expect Petain here to-day. He is coming to Thionville." "But Thionville is forty miles away " "Still, he might pass here "
But the political tergiversations of Barrere, a man of noble birth, and who was a royalist Feuillant before the 10th of August, did not countenance his assuming this imperious and inflexible tone. "Who is this president of the Feuillants," said Merlin de Thionville, "who assumes to dictate to us the law?" The hall resounded with applause.
Especially he despatched messengers well charged with promises, to confer with the authorities of the "Italian Republic" at Diest and Thionville.
"Fourteen young girls of Verdun, of rare beauty, and almost like young virgins dressed for a public fête, were," says Riouffe, "led in a body to the scaffold. I never saw among us any despair like that which this infamous act excited." I had been wounded during the siege of Thionville, and was suffering badly. While I was asleep, a splinter from a shell struck me on the right thigh.
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