Carrier

Carrier, JEAN BAPTISTE, an infamous member of the French National Convention, was born at the village of Yolai, near Aurillac, in Auvergne, in 1756. Entering the National Convention in 1792, he took an active part in the formation of the Revolutionary Tribunal, voted for the death of the king, demanded the arrest of the Duke of Orleans, and assisted in the overthrow of the Girondists. At Nantes, whither he was sent on a mission against the moderates in 1793, he found ample means for indulging his insatiable thirst for human blood. The utter defeat of the Vendéans had filled the prisons with captives, and Carrier proposed and carried a resolution for murdering the unhappy prisoners en masse. Accordingly, he compelled ninety-four priests to embark in a vessel, under pretence of deportation, and during the night drowned the whole of them, by having the ship scuttled. Such summary executions, called noyades, also 'vertical deportations,' were repeated to the number of twenty-five. Men and women also were tied together feet and hands, and thrown into the Loire; and this was called mariage républicain (republican marriage). The water of the Loire was so poisoned by corpses, that its use for drinking and cooking was prohibited. Five hundred political prisoners were shot, as in a battue, on the bridge near Nantes. In those massacres the form of trial was discontinued; and in four months 16,000 persons perished. Even Robespierre was offended by the enormities committed, and recalled Carrier, who boldly justified his own conduct before the Convention. The fall of Robespierre was, however, soon followed by outcries against Carrier; judgment was decreed against him, and he perished under the guillotine, 16th December 1794.