Curse of Cannan - The New Ensign

September, more than one hundred and fifty being slaughtered at the Carmelite Convent. The
murderers foreswore the convenience of guns, perhaps because these weapons did not exist at
the time of their preceptor, Baal. The killers preferred the greater satisfaction of finishing off
their victims with axes, shovels, and knives. A chronicler of the time, Philippe Morice, wrote,
"The gutter ran red with the blood of the poor creatures whom they were butchering there in the
Abbaye. Their cries were mingled with the yells of their executioners, and the light which I had
caught a glimpse of from the rue de la Seine was the light of bonfires which the murderers had
lit to illuminate their exploits .... " The prisons at Chatelet and the Conciergerie were
simultaneously invaded by two trained bands of assassins, who proceeded to kill two hundred
and twenty-five victims at Chatelet and three hundred and twenty-eight at the Conciergerie.
An English observer, Dr. Moore, reported that the massacres were the result of cold-blooded
planning by certain politicians. "Cannon were fired repeatedly, as a toxin to arouse the populace
to their bloody work. Thirty-three boys between the ages of twelve and fourteen were killed at
Bicetre." At Salpetriere, girls only ten years old were put to the sword, according to Mme. Roland,
who said, "Women were brutally violated before being torn to pieces by these tigers."
In the provinces, the massacres were carried out by lunatics, who seem to have been specially
recruited for this purpose. The most notorious of the mass murderers was one Carrier, who was
said to be the subject of frequent fainting fits, falling to the floor, foaming at the mouth, and
howling and snapping at everyone like an animal. He had an obsessive desire to torture and kill
small children, as did his assistant, the hunchback DuRel, a homicidal maniac who delighted in
killing children by repeatedly puncturing their bodies with sharpened sticks. These two madmen
herded more than five hundred peasant boys and girls into a field outside of Nantes, where I hey
clubbed them to death, with the aid of misfits like themselves who eagerly joined in the slaughter.
Carrier was famed for having invented the infamous Noyades in the Loire. Large rafts of victims
were floated onto the river, plugs were then removed, and all on board were drowned. Some six
thousand people were killed in this manner. Carrier also observed the rites of what came to be
known as "Republican marriages." Men and women were stripped, bound together as couples,
and thrown into the river. On attachait deux a deux les personnes de l'un et l'autre sexe, toutes
nues y tournees comme pour s'accoupler.
Another notorious madman, Lebas at Arras, first executed III of the rich who fell into his hands,
so that he could seize their wine cellars and their jewels. He then set himself up II a requisitioned
mansion which overlooked the town square. When there were no more rich to be had, he began
to murder the poor, of whom there were many. He had them beaten to death in the square, while
he and his friends looked on from overhead, celebrating with orgiastic frenzies. At Lyons, on
December 4, 1792, Fouche ordered some two hundred men tied together and shot down with
grapeshot just outside the city walls. Robespierre's agent, Achard, was an invited guest at this
entertainment; he reported back to his superior, "What delights you would have tasted could you
have seen natural justice wrought on two hundred and nine scoundrels! Oh, what majesty! What
a lofty tone! It was thrilling to see all those wretches chew the dust. What a cement this will be
for our Republic-Held out of doors in Nature's vault!"
The Place Bellcourt contained some of the most splendid mansions in France. They had been
designed by Mansart. Fouche had them blown up, one by one.
A visiting English liberal, Helen Williams, described the guillotining of twenty peasant girls
from Poitou after they had been taken from the Conciergerie. Soon afterward, Williams herself
was thrown into prison. The Terror was genuine, there was no doubt of that. Nor was there any
doubt, as Dr. Moore had observed, that it was being carefully engineered by politicians and
financiers who intended to profit by it. Speculators poured in from Switzerland and the Rhineland
to profit from the ever-changing regulations issued by the Assembly. Having foreknowledge of
these measures by the judicious distribution of bribes, the speculators made enormous profits.
The climate of terror was increased by the presence of spies everywhere;
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