officer, turned out of his place for infidelity; but the department of
Lot electing him, in 1792, a representative of the people to the National
Convention, he there voted for the death of Louis XVI. and remained a
faithful associate of Marat and Robespierre. After the evacuation of
Verdun by the Prussians, in October, 1792, he made a report to the
Convention, according to which eighty-four citizens of that town were
arrested and executed. Among these were twenty-two young girls, under
twenty years of age, whose crime was the having presented nosegays to the
late King of Prussia on his entry after the surrender of Verdun. He was
afterwards a national commissary with the armies on the coast near Brest,
on the Rhine, and in Western Pyrenees, and everywhere he signalized
himself by unheard of ferocities and sanguinary deeds. The following
anecdote, printed and published by our revolutionary annalist, Prudhomme,
will give you some idea of the morality of this our regenerator and
Imperial Solon: "Cavaignac and another deputy, Pinet," writes Prudhomme,
"had ordered a box to be kept for them at the play-house at Bayonne on
the evening they expected to arrive in that town. Entering very late,
they found two soldiers, who had seen the box empty, placed in its front.
These they ordered immediately to be arrested, and condemned them, for
having outraged the national representation, to be guillotined on the
next day, when they both were accordingly executed!" Labarrere, a
provost of the Marechaussee at Dax, was in prison as a suspected person.
His daughter, a very handsome girl of seventeen, lived with an aunt at
Severe. The two pro-consuls passing through that place, she threw
herself at their feet, imploring mercy for her parent. This they not
only promised, but offered her a place in their carriage to Dax, that she
might see him restored to liberty. On the road the monsters insisted on
a ransom for the blood of her father. Waiting, afflicted and ashamed, at
a friend's house at Dag, the accomplishment of a promise so dearly
purchased, she heard the beating of the alarm drum, and looked, from