Jean-Baptiste Carrier (born the March 16th 1756 with Yolet close to Aurillac - guillotine the November 16th 1794 (26 Brumaire year III) with Paris) was a politician French. Wire of Jean Carrier and Marguerite Puex, he is the third child of this family made up of three girls, of which Marie Carrier, and of three boys. He marries the October 4th 1785 Francoise Laquairie. Auvergnat, hard with the labor, rough with the profit, contained and aggressive, drowning its loneliness and its trouble in alcohol. In 1784, Jean-Baptiste Carrier, through work, manages to obtain the place of prosecutor with Aurillac, but its office will be removed in 1789.

Under Convention

Its compatriots of Aurillac are wary a long time of this dark and silent being but of an excitation close to the madness. In 1790, it is to advise for the baillage Aurillac. In 1792, it is elected appointed with the national Convention by the Département of the Cantal thanks to the victory of the extremists. It was already known as speaker and one of the influential members of the clubs of the Cordeliers and the Jacobins. He is opposed violently to Guillaume François Laennec. After the takeover of the Flandres, it is named there police chief by Convention at the end of 1792. The following year, it takes share with the establishment of the revolutionary tribunal. He voted for the execution of the king Louis XVI, was one of the first to ask the arrest of the duke Philippe of Orleans (1747-1793) and played a crucial role in the fall of the Girondins. He is sent on mission in Normandy to repress there, during the summer 1793, the federalists of Gironde. The August 14th 1793, Jean-Baptiste Carrier is sent to Nantes to repress there the Guerre of the Vendée.

Massacres in Nantes

See also: Drownings of Nantes

After its missions in Normandy and still with Rennes, it is sent in Vendémiaire year II to Nantes to put an end to the revolt by the most drastic means. It establishes a revolutionary Tribunal and forms a body of determined men, called the Legion of Marat, and the “hussards American” (of the slaves of Saint-Domingue which will multiply the horrors). Quickly the court was suspended and the victims sent to the Guillotine or killed “masses some” in the prisons: at the end of December 1793 at the end of February 1794, it makes shoot 2600 prisoners. It also made some die of the hundreds by drowning them in the the Loire since boats equipped with trap doors (“boats with valves”), executions which it named the “vertical deportations” itself and which remained famous under the name of “republican Mariages”: condemned were attached by two (preferably a man with a woman, naked) and were thrown naked in the Loire, this “river republican” like it dares to write it in one of its reports/ratios, drowning mutually. More than 4.000 people would have perished thus, but it is also necessary to take account of the epidemics in an over-populated city where the supply was difficult. On the whole, on the 13.000 prisoners held in Nantes, approximately 10.000 were killed (4 000 to 5.000 drowned, approximately 2.000 shot and guillotines and approximately 3.000 died of the Typhus or other diseases). During the course of these assassinations, Jean-Baptiste Carrier organizes night orgies by using the “suspect ones” of the middle-class and the Nantes nobility.

Taxations and the requisitions which it orders ruin the trade of the city. Francastel, Tréhouart, Pierre-Louis Prieur known as of “the Marne” is denounced by Jean-Baptiste Carrier for their moderantism. It exhorts with the wildest repression: “ It to you is ordered , writes it with the general François Nicolas Benoît Haxo, to set fire to all the houses of the rebels, to massacre all the inhabitants of them and to remove all the subsistence from them”. On its order, of the middle-class men are dispatched towards Paris with order them to make disappear and rail: “ I had written in Francastel in Angers, to make them drown in this place, but the foutu rascal did not dare to do it ”. Tréhouart having a brigand, Batteux, which plundered the campaigns in the name of Jean-Baptiste Carrier, this last denounces it with the Comité of public hello as counter-revolutionary and federalist. The Committee of public hello leans in favor of Jean-Baptiste Carrier, but Julien of Paris, wire of the deputy of Drome to Convention, (Marc Antoine Julien) agent of this Committee, having, at the time of its stay in Nantes, noted the fatal madness of Jean-Baptiste Carrier, supports the dires of Tréhouart.

Its fall

This brutality ensured its reputation to him. It is said that its spirit was disturbed by the horrors which he saw during the confrontations with the royalists and by his Alcoolisme. It makes a fatal error however; It makes stop 132 notable Nantes of which it wishes to allocate fortune. Imprisoned, transferred to Paris, they are considered and… discharged there. Feeling the wind to turn, Carrier requests his recall from Paris, which is made the 20 Pluviôse year II. He is then named secretary of Convention. He took share with the attack against Robespierre the 9 Thermidor An II (July 27th 1794). Thermidoriens first of all leave it in peace, but, covered with insults by him and having damning testimonies with its opposition to the revolutionary Comité to Nantes, they issue its arrest the September 3rd 1794. It is brought in front of the revolutionary Tribunal the 21, but Jean-Baptiste Carrier defends himself with awkwardness, rejecting any responsibility, and said to have acted according to instructions coming from Convention. He makes the lawsuit of the assembly while exclaiming: “ All is guilty here, to the bell of the president. You all will be wrapped in an inevitable proscription ”. He is charged by his ex-accomplices on the report/ratio with Charles-Gilbert Rome and guillotine in Place with Strike the 26 Brumaire An III (November 16th 1794) contrary to Jean-Jacques Goullin which succeeds in obtaining its payment.

This “missionary of Terror”, according to Jules Michelet, left a so bloody memory in the town of Nantes and his surroundings which this historian could collect of tens of years later of many testimonys that it retranscribed in his work the Histoire of the French revolution .

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