CARRIER, JEAN BAPTISTE, one of the most infamous and blood-thirsty members of the French national convention, was b. at the village of Yolai, near Aurillac, in Haut Auvergne, in 1756. Entering the national convention in 1792, he took an active part in the formation of the revolutionary tribunal, voted for the death of the king, demanded the arrest of the duke of Orleans. and assisted in the overthrow of the Girondists. At ,Nantes, whither he was sent on a mission against the moderates, in Oct., 1793, he found ample means for indulging his insatiable thirst for human blood. The utter defeat of the Vendeans had filled the prisons with captives, and C. proposed and carried a reso lution for murdering the unhappy prisoners en masse. Accordingly, on Nov. 15, lie compelled 94 priests to embark in a vessel, under pretense of deportation, and (luring the night drowned the whole of them, by having the ship scuttled. Another of these -noyades, as they were called, in which 138 persons were sacrificed, took place soon after, and they were repeated to the number of 25, their perpetrators facetiously terming them "vertical deportations." Other cruelties C. committed here. Men and women were
tied together feet and hands, and thrown into the Loire; and this was called mariage republicain (republican marriage). With such recklessness were these murders com mitted, that, in one instance, a number of foreign war-prisoners were drowned by mis take. The water of the Loire was so poisoned by corpses, that its use for drinking and cooking was prohibited. Five hundred political prisoners were shot, as in a hattue, on the bridge near Nantes. Even Robespierre was offended by these enormities, and recalled C.. who boldly justified his own conduct before the convention. The fall of Robespierre was, however, soon followed by outcries against Carrier; judgment was decreed against him, and he perished under the guillotine, Dec. 16. 1794—dying with the protestation that, in all his cruelties, lie had acted according to orders, and as a true republican patriot.