A grim silence reigned in this thickly-peopled camp; only the crackling of the torches broke that silence now and then, or the flapping of canvas in the wintry gale.

They worked on sullen, desperate, and starving, with no hope of payment save the miserable rations wrung from poor tradespeople or miserable farmers, as wretched, as oppressed as themselves; no hope of payment, only fear of punishment, for that was ever present.
The people of France in arms against tyranny were not allowed to forget that grim taskmaster with the two great hands stretched upwards, holding the knife which descended mercilessly, indiscriminately on necks that did not bend willingly to the task.
A grim look of gratified desire had spread over de Batz' face as he skirted the open-air camp.

Let them toil, let them groan, let them starve! The more these clouts suffer, the more brutal the heel that grinds them down, the sooner will the Emperor's money accomplish its work, the sooner will these wretches be clamoring for the monarchy, which would mean a rich reward in de Batz' pockets.
To him everything now was for the best: the tyranny, the brutality, the massacres.

He gloated in the holocausts with as much satisfaction as did the most bloodthirsty Jacobin in the Convention.

He would with his own hands have wielded the guillotine that worked too slowly for his ends.
Let that end justify the means, was his motto.