654

HORRIBLE EXECUTIONS AT NANTES

heureuse enfant tomba sur des cadavres, et n'enfonça point. Elle criait Poussez-moi, je n'ai pas assez d'eau! et elle périt.

"Mademoiselle de Cuissard, âgée de seize ans, qui était plus belle encore, s'attira aussi le même intérêt d'un officer qui passa trois heures à ses pieds, la suppliant de se laisser sauver. Elle était avec une vieille parente que cet homme ne voulait pas se risquer à dérober au supplice. Mademoiselle de Cuissard se précipita dans la Loire avec elle.

"Une mort affreuse fut celle de Mademoiselle de la Roche St. André. Elle était grosse: on l'épargna. On lui laissa nourrir son enfant ; mais il mourut, et on la fit périr le lendemain ! Au reste, il ne faut pas croire que toutes les femmes enceintes fussent respectées. Cela était même fort rare: plus communément les soldats massacraient femmes et enfants. Il n'y avait que devant les tribunaux, où l'on observait ces exceptions; et on y laissait aux femmes le temps de nourrir leurs enfants, comme étant une obligation républicaine. C'est en quoi consistait l'humanité des gens d'alors.

"Ma pauvre Agathe avait couru de bien grands dangers. Elle m'avait quitté à Nort, pour profiter de cette amnistie prétendue, dont on avait parlé dans ce moment. Elle vint à Nantes, et fut conduite devant le général Lamberty, le plus féroce des amis de Carrier. La figure d'Agathe lui plait: As-tu peur, brigande?' lui dit-il. 'Non, général,' répondit-elle. 'Hé bien! quand tu auras peur, souviens-toi de Lamberty,' ajouta-t-il. Elle fut conduite à l'entrepôt. C'est la trop fameuse prison où l'on entassoit les victimes destinées à être noyées. Chaque nuit on venait en prendre par centaines, pour les mettre sur les bateaux. Là, on liait les malheureux deux à deux, et on les poussait dans l'eau, à coups de baïonnette. On saisissait indistinctement tout ce qui se trouvait à l'entrepôt ; tellement qu'on noya un jour l'état major d'une corvette Anglaise, qui était prisonnier de guerre. Une autre fois, Carrier, voulant donner un exemple de l'austérité des mœurs républicaines, fit enfermer trois cents filles publiques de la ville, et les malheureuses créatures furent noyées! Enfin, l'on estime qu'il a péri à l'entrepôt quinze mille personnes dans un mois. Il est vrai qu'outre les supplices, la misère et la maladie ravageaient les prisonniers, qui étaient pressés sur la paille, et qui ne recevaient aucun soin. A peine les connaissait-on. Les cadavres restaient quelquefois plus d'un jour sans qu'on vint les emporter.

"Agathe ne doutant plus d'une mort prochaine, envoya chercher Lamberty. I la conduisit dans un petit bâtiment à soupape, dans lequel on avait noyé les prêtres, et que Carrier lui avait donné. Il était seul avec elle, et voulut en profiter: elle résista. Lamberty la menaça de la noyer: elle courut pour se jeter elle-même à l'eau. Alors cet homme lui dit: Allons! tu es une brave fille, je te sauverai. Il la laissa huit jours seule dans le bâtiment, où elle entendait les noyades qui se faisaient la nuit; ensuite il la cacha chez un nommé S***, qui était, comme lui, un fidèle exécuteur des ordres de Carrier.

"Quelque temps après, la discorde divisa les republicains de Nantes. On prit le prétexte d'accuser Lamberty d'avoir dérobé des femmes aux noyades, et d'en avoir noyé qui ne devaient pas l'être. Un jeune

AND ELSEWHERE - FATE OF THE BRAVE HENRI.

655

homme, nommé Robin, qui était fort dévoué à Lamberty, vint saisir Agathe, chez Madame S***, la traîna dans le bateau, et voulut la poignarder, pour faire disparaître une preuve du crime qu'on reprochait à son patron. Agathe se jeta à ses pieds; parvint à l'attendrir, et il la cacha chez un de ses amis, nommé Lavaux, qui était honnête homme, et qui avait déjà recueilli Madame de l'Epinay: mais on sut dès le lendemain l'asile d'Agathe, et on vint l'arrêter.

"Cependant le parti ennemi de Lamberty continuait à vouloir le détruire. Il résulta de cette circonstance, qu'on jeta de l'intérêt sur Agathe. On loua S*** et Lavaux de leur humanité, et l'on parvint à faire périr Lamberty! Peu après arriva la mort de Robespierre. Agathe resta encore quelques mois en prison, puis obtint sa liberté."— vol. ii. p. 171-175.

When the means of hearing of her friends were thus suddenly restored, there was little to hear but what was mournful. Her father had taken refuge in a wood with a small party of horsemen, after the rout of Savenay, and afterwards collected a little force, with which they seized on the town of Ancenis, and had nearly forced the passage of the Loire; but they were surrounded, and made prisoners, and all shot in the market-place! The brave Henri de Larochejaquelein had gained the north bank with about twenty followers, and wandered many days over the burnt and bloody solitudes of the once happy La Vendée. Overcome with fatigue and hunger, they at last reached an inhabited farm-house, and fell fast asleep in the barn. They were soon roused, however, by the news that a party of the republicans were approaching the same house; but were so worn out, that they would not rise, even to provide against that extreme hazard. The party accordingly entered; and being almost as much exhausted as the others, threw themselves down, without asking any questions, at the other end of the barn, and slept quietly beside them. Henri afterwards found out M. de la Charrette, by whom he was coldly, and even rudely received; but he soon raised a little army of his own, and became again formidable in the scenes of his first successes:-till one day, riding a little in front of his party, he fell in with two republican soldiers, upon whom his followers were about to fire, when he said, "No, no, they shall have quarter;" and pushing up to them, called upon them to surrender.

656

FATE OF MARIGNY-FINAL AMNESTY.

Without saying a word, one of them raised his piece, and shot him right through the forehead. He fell at once dead before them, and was buried where he fell.

"Ainsi périt, à vingt et un ans, Henri de la Rochejaquelein. Encore à présent, quand les paysans se rappellent l'ardeur et l'éclat de son courage, sa modestie, sa facilité, et ce caractère de guerrier, et de bon enfant, ils parlent de lui avec fierté et avec amour. Il n'est pas un Vendéen dont on ne voie le regard s'animer, quand il raconte comment il a servi sous M. Henri."-vol. ii. p. 187, 188.

The fate of the gallant Marigny was still more deplorable. He joined Charrette and Stofflet; but some misunderstanding having arisen among them upon a point of discipline, they took the rash and violent step of bringing him to a court-martial, and sentencing him to death for disobedience. To the horror of all the Vendeans, and the great joy of the republicans, this unjust and imprudent sentence was carried into execution; and the cause deprived of the ablest of its surviving champions.

When they had gratified their curiosity with these melancholy details, Madame de L. and her mother set out for Bourdeaux, and from thence to Spain, where they remained for nearly two years-but were at last permitted to return;-and, upon Bonaparte's accession to the sovereignty, were even restored to a great part of their possessions. On the earnest entreaty of her mother, she was induced at last to give her hand to Louis de Larochejaquelein, brother to the gallant Henri-and the inheritor of his principles and character. This match took place in 1802, and they lived in peaceful retirement till the late movements for the restoration of the house of Bourbon. The notice of this new alliance terminates the original Memoirs; but there is a supplement, containing rather a curious account of the intrigues and communications of the royalist party in Bourdeaux and the South, through the whole course of the Revolution,- and of the proceedings by which they conceive that they accelerated the restoration of the King in 1814. It may not be uninteresting to add, that since the book was published, the second husband of the unfortunate writer fell in battle in the same cause

which proved fatal to the first, during the short period of Bonaparte's last reign, and but a few days before the decisive battle of Waterloo.

We have not left room now for any general observations and there is no need of them. The book is, beyond all question, extremely curious and interestingand we really have no idea that any reflections of ours could appear half so much so as the abstract we have now given in their stead. One remark, however, we shall venture to make, now that our abstract is done. If all France were like La Vendée in 1793, we should anticipate nothing but happiness from the restoration of the Bourbons and of the old government. But the very fact that the Vendeans were crushed by the rest of the country proves that this is not the case: And indeed it requires but a moment's reflection to perceive, that the rest of France could not well resemble La Vendée in its royalism, unless it had resembled it in the other peculiarities upon which that royalism was founded-unless it had all its noblesse resident on their estates; and living in their old feudal relations with a simple and agricultural vassalage. The book indeed shows two things very plainly and both of them well worth remembering. In the first place, that there may be a great deal of kindness and good affection among a people of insurgents against an established government; and, secondly, that where there is such an aversion to a government, as to break out in spontaneous insurrection, it is impossible entirely to subdue that aversion, either by severity or forbearance—although the difference of the two courses of policy is, that severity, even when carried to the savage extremity of devastation and indiscriminate slaughter, leads only to the adoption of similar atrocities in return-while forbearance is at least rewarded by the acquiescence of those who are conscious of weakness, and gives time and opportunity for those mutual concessions by which alone contending factions or principles can ever be permanently reconciled.

658

MEMOIRS OF MARGRAVINE OF BAREITH.

(NOVEMBER, 1812.)

Mémoires de FREDERIQUE SOPHIE WILHELMINE DE PRUSSE, Margrave de Bareith, Sœur de Fréderic le Grand. Ecrits de sa Main. 8vo. 2 tomes. Brunswick, Paris, et Londres: 1812.

PHILOSOPHERS have long considered it as probable, that the private manners of absolute sovereigns are vulgar, their pleasures low, and their dispositions selfish ;—that the two extremes of life, in short, approach pretty closely to each other; and that the Masters of mankind, when stripped of the artificial pomp and magnificence which invests them in public, resemble nothing so nearly as the meanest of the multitude. The ground of this opinion is, that the very highest and the very lowest of mankind are equally beyond the influence of that wholesome control, to which all the intermediate classes are subjected, by their mutual dependence, and the need they have for the good will and esteem of their fellows. Those who are at the very bottom of the scale are below the sphere of this influence; and those at the very top are above it. The one have no chance of distinction by any effort they are capable of making; and the other are secure of the highest degree of it, without any. Both therefore are indifferent, or very nearly so, to the opinion of mankind: the former, because the naked subsistence which they earn by their labour will not be affected by that opinion; and the latter, because their legal power and preeminence are equally independent of it. Those who have nothing to lose, in short, are not very far from the condition of those who have nothing more to gain; and the maxim of reckoning one's self last, which is the basis of all politeness, and leads, insensibly, from the mere practice of dissimulation, to habits of kindness and sentiments of generous indepen