Green-Mountain freeman. [volume] (Montpelier, Vt.) 1844-1884, 1854-01-05
THE REIGN OF TERROR,

Thus writes the editor of the New Yorl
Evangelist, while jOurneying through South
ern France
The city Of Tours is environcd by extensive
and fertile plains 1t stands upon point or
tongue of land formed by the Loire and the
Cher, where they meet to marry their limpit
and placid waters. Here at the city of Tour
] the noble Loire takes to his bosom the modest
and gentle Cher, mountain nymph just arriv
ed from her passage across green fields end mead
ows, and, like two congcnial spirits, they trave
on lovingly together down the valley, all the
way to the ocean. At least we have never
heard of their falling out by the way, as il
sometimes the case in other terrestrial journey.
ings down the vale of life. The pretty Chez
here drops her name at the point of union, as
in other eases, and adopts the manly Loire
Their union at Tours is harmonious and perpet-
ual. There is no divorce afterward. They
have journeyod together for centuries
But sad and melancholy are the scenes through
which they have passed in by-gone days on their
way to the ocean. Some of the darkest, blood.
lest tragedies of the French Revolution were en-
acted along the banks and in the very waters ol
the Loire, below Tours. Who has not read the
dircful story Of the Noyades ever memorable in
the annals Of modern savage cruelty! 1t was
the invention of Carrier, one of the most detes-
table monsters of the Revolution and " the reign
of terror" Insatiato by the single executions
Of the murderous guillotine, those inhuman
monsters thirsted for blood and the terrible OK
citcmont Of demoniac passions on larger scale.
A temporary prison was prepared on the banks
of the Loire. Numerous victims were arrested
and gathered into it. Boats or barges were furn-
ished and fitted with sliding valve or trap-door
in the bottom. A hundred or moro of the vic
tim prisoners were dragged on board the boats,
which were then towed ont into deep water in
the middle Of the river. The valves were then
drawn out by a cord from the shore The boats
Immediately filled with water and sank, and
those who could not swim struggled and found
a watery grave. Along the shore were station
ed company of armed men, called the g bloody
band of Compagnie de Marat," composed of the
most abandoned wrctchcs, ready to FIRE upon
those who rosc to the surface of the water OF
attempted to gain the shore by swimming -
Others were armed with swords, to cut off the
hands Of those who struggled to reach the boat
1t is corded that six hundred persons thus per.
ished in this fearful manner in single day
Twenty-Five of these terrible Noyades, or execu-
tions by water, were asccrtained to have occur
red, and from six to nine thousand thus suffer
ed death. What added much to these atrocities
was, that very many of the victims were womcr
and children who could not have committee
crimes deserving a fate so fearful The frs
Noyadc consisted of twcnty-four priests whc
had been condemned to transportation. Thes
horrid orgies were first performed in the night
Afterwards, when the actors grew cmboldeno,
with impunity, they were enacted in the day
time. Such were the men and the monsters whit
held sway in France, and ruled the people in
those days of blood and outrage.
Nor were thso Noyades even quite so refined
in cruelty as the republican marriages, as the,
were called These consisted in binding tw
persons together, man and a women, and thcl
hurling them into the current to struggle, anC
sink, and perish. The Loire, asif indignant a
crimes scarcely parallcled in the history of tn
world, threw back upon its banks, at each re
turning tide, so many bodies of these murders
thousands, that the air became pcstilential, an
it's water and fish poisonous. We looked upo
the flowing waters of the Loire, as their mina
turc waves danced along ioyously in the sun
beams, and found it difficult to believe in tn
historic truth that such tragedies were ever cr
acted or Its banks or in its waters. And ye
thev have occurred thus within the rccollcctio
of many persons now living in this very region
They occurred too, within hearing of the bel
that tolled its ominous sounds at the RevOcatiQ
of the Edict of Nantz. But enough of thes
sombrc historic "reminiscences along the bank
of the Loire. They are dark shadings in til
great portrait-painting of onr fallen and guilt
humanity They crowd into the mind of tn
traveller who wanders across the great theatr
of their occurrence 1t is deeply suggestive {
sad and solemn reflections The momorab
theatre is here in sunny and beautiful region
where some thirty thousand human beings pc
ished by violence in various forms, amid tt
bloody and terrible drama of the French Rev,
luton. The tragedy is ended. The actors al
gone. The curtain has dropped. But ere lon
and the curtain will again rise, and the seen
reopen for review amid the tremendous exh
bitions of the final Judgment. ~