At Lyons, whilst the regular troops are lodged in barracks, the revolutionary army is billeted on the householders, two thousand vile, sanguinary blackguards from Paris, and whom their general, Ronsin himself, calls "scoundrels and brigands," alleging, in excuse for this, that "honest folks cannot be found for such business." How they treat their host, his wife and his daughters may be imagined; contemporaries glide over these occurrences and, through decency or disgust, avoid giving details.[33161] Some simply use brutal force; others get rid of a troublesome husband by the guillotine; in the most exceptional cases they bring their wenches along with them, while the housekeeper has to arouse herself at one o'clock at night and light a fire for the officer who comes in with the jolly company .-- And yet, there are others still worse, for the worst attract each other.

We have seen the revolutionary committee at Nantes, also the representative on mission in the same city; nowhere did the revolutionary Sabbat rage so furiously, and nowhere was there such a traffic in human lives.

With such band-leaders as Carrier and his tools on the Committee, one may be sure that the instrumentalists will be worthy.
Accordingly, several members of the Committee themselves oversee executions and lend a hand in the massacres .-- One of these, Goullin, a creole from St.Domingo, sensual and nervous, accustomed to treating a Negro as an animal and a Frenchman as a white Negro, a Septembriseur on principle, chief instigator and director of the "drownings," goes in person to empty the prison of Bouffay, and, verifying that death, the hospital or releases, had removed the imprisoned for him, adds, of his own authority, fifteen names, taken haphazard, to reach his figures .-- Joly, a commissioner on the Committee, very expert in the art of garroting, ties the hands of prisoners together two and two and conducts them to the river.[33162]--Grand-maison, another member of the Committee, a former dancing-master, convicted of two murders and pardoned before the Revolution, strikes down with his saber the imploring hands stretched out to him over the planks of the lighter.[33163]--Pinard, another Committee-commissioner, ransoms, steals off into the country and himself kills, through preference, women and children.[33164] Naturally, the three bands which operate along with them, or under their orders, comprise only men of their species.

In the first one, called the Marat company, each of the sixty members swears, on joining it, to adopt Marat's principles and carry out Marat's doctrine.

Goullin,[33165] one of the founders, demands in relation to each member, "Isn't there some one still more rascally?
For we must have that sort to bring the aristocrats to reason!"[33166] After Frimaire 5 "the Maratists" boast of their arms being "tired out" with striking prisoners with the flat of their sabers to make them march to the Loire,[33167] and we see that, notwithstanding this fatigue, the business suited them, as their officers tried to influence Carrier to be detailed on the "drowning" service and because it was lucrative.