“But what are we to understand by measures of rigour?  Is there no distinction to be made between rigorous and barbarous measures?  The utmost severity is justified on the plea of the general good, but nothing can justify barbarity.  If the welfare of France necessitated the sacrifice of the four hundred thousand inhabitants of La Vendee, and the countries in rebellion adjoining, they ought to be sacrificed:  but, even in this case, there would be no excuse for those atrocities which revolt nature, which are an outrage to social order, and repugnant equally to feeling (sentiment) and reason; and in cutting off so many entire generations for the good of the country, we ought not to suffer the use of barbarous means in a single instance.

     “Now the most effectual way to arrive at this end (converting the
     people), would be by joyous and fraternal missions, frank and
     familiar harangues, civic repasts, and, above all, dancing.

“I could wish, too, that during their circuits in these countries, the Representatives were always attended by musicians.  The expence would be trifling, compared with the good effect; if, as I am strongly persuaded, we could thus succeed in giving a turn to the public mind, and close the bleeding arteries of these fertile and unhappy provinces.”  Lequinio, Guerre de La Vendee.

And this people, who were either to have their throats cut, or be republicanized by means of singing, dancing, and revolutionary Pans and Silenus’s, already beheld their property devastated by pillage or conflagration, and were in danger of a pestilence from the unburied bodies of their families.—­Let the reader, who has seen Lequinio’s pamphlet, compare his account of the sufferings of the Vendeans, and his project for conciliating them.  They convey a strong idea of the levity of the national character; but, in this instance, I must suppose, that nature would be superior to local influence; and I doubt if Lequinio’s jocund philosophy will ever succeed in attaching the Vendeans to the republic.

—­Camille Desmouins, a republican reformer, nearly as sanguinary, though not more liberal, thought the guillotine disgraced by such ignorant prey, and that it were better to hunt them down like wild beasts; or, if made prisoners, to exchange them against the cattle of their country!—­The eminently informed Herault de Sechelles was the patron and confidant of the exterminating reforms of Carrier; and Carnot, when the mode of reforming by noyades and fusillades was debated at the Committee, pleaded the cause of Carrier, whom he describes as a good, nay, an excellent patriot.—­Merlin de Thionville, whose philosophy is of a more martial cast, was desirous that the natives of La Vendee should be completely annihilated, in