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Carrier and the Water Burials in Nantes

  • Korean Review of French History
  • Abbr : KRFH
  • 2012, (27), pp.59~91
  • Publisher : KOREAN SOCIETY FOR FRENCH HISTORY
  • Research Area : Humanities > History

OH,Kwang-Ho 1

1충북대학교

Accredited

ABSTRACT

Jean Baptiste Carrier had governed Nantes for 120 days from October 1793 to February 1794 as a proconsul(Représentant du peuple en mission) assigned by the National Convention. However, after the Thermidor in 1794, he was sentenced to death for terrorism in Nantes, and executed in December 1794. The accusation against Carrier was started from the trials of 132 Nantes citizens whom he had decided to prosecute in Paris for their counterrevolutionary activities. During their criminalities investigations, the citizens accused Carrier of his atrocities in Nantes. Especially, they condemned him for the water burials beneath the river of Loire. In fact, these burials were conducted not only by Carrier but also by the Revolutionary Committee of Nantes, the Popular Society of Vincent- la-Montagne and the company of Marat. The tragedy that occurred in Nantes has brought some questions. What were the effects of the measures? Why did they plan to eliminate the catholic priests who had refused the Civil Constitution of Clergy? How many prisoners in the Bouffay and the Entrepôt were drowned in the Loire? Who were the victims? How many times and how were they drowned in the river? Were there, in fact, ‘the Republican Marriage’ and the children’s water burials?In addition, this study focuses on finding the relationship between the Terror of the French Revolution in 1789 and the policies of Carrier in Nantes. There continues a debate on the massacres in Nantes, whether Carrier was entirely responsible for this or was just following the policies in general under the Decemvir. Why did G. Babeuf call the revolutionary regime as the system for the depopulation? Carrier also insisted that he had pursued the demands of the National Convention and the Committee of Public Safety. On the contrary, J.-C. Martin, a French contemporary historian, claimed that Carrier had misunderstood the principles of human rights under the French Revolution and had overstepped those policies. In an other point of view, Carrier was executed for his misbehaviors in Nantes according to Martin’s appraisal. Here, the concrete research on the water burials in the Loire was conducted in this article.

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