When the administrators of the department come to consult with him,[32126] they gather around the door to see if he looks enraged, and is in a condition to hear them.

He not only insults petitioners, but likewise the functionaries under him who make reports to him, or take his orders; his foul nature rises to his lips and overflows in the vilest terms: "Go to hell and be damned.

I have no time."[32127] They consider themselves lucky if they get off with a volley of obscene oaths, for he generally draws his saber: "The first bastard that mentions supplies, I will cut his head off."[32128] And to the president of the military commission, who demands that verdicts be rendered before ordering executions: "You, you old rascal, you old bastard, you want verdicts, do you! Go ahead! If the whole pen is not emptied in a couple of hours I will have you and your colleagues shot!" His gestures, his look have such a powerful effect upon the mind that the other, who is also a "bruiser," dies of the shock a few days after.[32129] Not only does he draw his saber, but he uses it; among the petitioners, a boatman, whom he is about to strike, runs off as fast as he can; he draws General Moulins into the recess of a window and gives him a cut.[32130]--People "tremble" on accosting him, and yet more in contradicting him.

The envoy of the Committee of Public Safety, Julien de la Drome, on being brought before him, takes care to "stand some distance off, in a corner of the room," wisely trying to avoid the first spring; wiser still, he replies to Carrier's exclamations with the only available argument: "If you put me out of the way to-day, you yourself will be guillotined within a week!"[32131] On coming to a stand before a mad dog one must aim the knife straight at its throat; there is no other way to escape its fangs and slaver.
Accordingly, with Carrier, as with a mad dog, the brain is mastered by the steady mechanical reverie, by persistent images of murder and death.
He exclaims to President Tronjolly, apropos of the Vendean children: "The guillotine, always the guillotine!"[32132] In relation to the drownings: "You judges must have verdicts; pitch them into the water, which is much more simple." Addressing the popular club of Nantes, he says: "The rich, the merchants, are all monopolizers, all anti-revolutionists; denounce them to me, and I will have all their heads under the national razor.

Tell me who the fanatics are that shut their shops on Sunday and I will have them guillotined." "When will the heads of those rascally merchants fall ?"--"I see beggars here in rags; you are as big fools at Ancenis as at Nantes.