We have a tribunal revolutionnaire here, with its usual attendant the
Guillotine, and executions are now become very frequent. I know not who
are the sufferers, and avoid enquiring through fear of hearing the name
of some acquaintance. As far as I can learn, the trials are but too
summary, and little other evidence is required than the fortune, rank,
and connections of the accused. The Deputy who is Commissioner for this
department is one Le Bon, formerly a priest--and, I understand, of an
immoral and sanguinary character, and that it is he who chiefly directs
the verdicts of the juries according to his personal hatred or his
personal interest.--We have lately had a very melancholy instance of the
terror created by this tribunal, as well as of the notions that prevail
of its justice. A gentleman of Calais, who had an employ under the
government, was accused of some irregularity in his accounts, and, in
consequence, put under arrest. The affair became serious, and he was
ordered to prison, as a preliminary to his trial. When the officers
entered his apartment to take him, regarding the judicial procedure as a
mere form, and concluding it was determined to sacrifice him, he in a
frenzy of despair seized the dogs in the chimney, threw them at the
people, and, while they escaped to call for assistance, destroyed himself
by cutting his arteries.
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