He was afterwards reproached with this familiarity in the
Convention, but defended himself by saying, "A similar act of
Lequinio's was inserted by your orders in the bulletin with
'honourable mention;' and your decrees have invariably consecrated
the principles on which I acted." They all felt for a moment the
dominion of conscience, and were silent.--On another occasion he
suspended an execution, while the savages he kept in pay threw dirt
on the prisoners, and even got on the scaffold and insulted them
previous to their suffering.
When any of his colleagues passed through Arras, he always proposed
their joining with him in a _"partie de Guillotine,"_ and the
executions were perpetrated on a small square at Arras, rather than
the great one, that he, his wife, and relations might more
commodiously enjoy the spectacle from the balcony of the theatre,
where they took their coffee, attended by a band of music, which
played while this human butchery lasted.
The following circumstance, though something less horrid, yet
sufficiently so to excite the indignation of feeling people,
happened to some friends of my own.--They had been brought with many
others from a distant town in open carts to Arras, and, worn out
with fatigue, were going to be deposited in the prison to which they
were destined.
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