Gazette Of The United States

N A N T Z, April 24.

Confirmation of the taking of the Capital of Brittany by the Royalists.

The Patriots, finding themselves defeated, ran to the prisons of Bouffay and Chateau, (prisons at Nantes) in which they had shut up a number of victims, males and females. We do not know the number of those in the Chateau, but we know that in the prison of Bouffay 22 were confined. Of this number were Messrs. de Menou, the father and eldest son; M. de Vue, and his two sons in law; two Messieurs de Brue du Cleray; Villeaduc, an advocate; M. Grandmaison; Arnould de la Noe; Cornilleau; Richard de la Rouilliere, brother of our late legitimate mayor; and Laurencin, and his four companions, whose names we are unacquainted.

The monsters had just time to butcher all their victims in these two prisons. But the divine vengeance did not long delay the punishment due to their barbarity. The first care of the Royalists, on entering victoriously into Nantes (an event which took place the day before yesterday, after the battle of Sorniere, fought on the 29th, on the Rochelle road, at two leagues distance from this capital) was to set free the prisoners. But they were, alas! too late—they found them all butchered, and floating in their blood, which was still warm! Then it was that, listening to the impulse of their rage only, they slew every man they found in arms; not one of whom escaped their just resentment; the butchery was such, that the blood ran in rivulets through the streets.

Thus has this justifiable severity expiated the high enormities of the Guillotine these wretches kept in constant readiness on the square of Bouffay, and which, like the Idol of Bel, daily devoured several victims. So numerous were these that, to avoid terrifying the people, they had been under the necessity of surrounding it by a number of planks of a certain height, and of covering the floor of the enclosure with a deep layer of sand, to the end that the blood might be thus absorbed, and prevented from overflowing the square.