The drownings in Nantes, during the Reign of Terror

The Nantes drownings were an episode of the Reign of Terror that took place between November 1793 and February 1794 in Nantes. During this brief period, thousands of people deemed suspects by the Republic (political prisoners, prisoners of war, common criminals, members of the clergy and their families) were drowned in the Loire on the orders of Jean-Baptiste Carrier, a representative sent on a mission by the National Convention and nicknamed the ‘Executioner of Nantes’ by the Vendée rebels.
Cynically, Carrier described these mass killings with vivid imagery: ‘revolutionary torrent’, ‘national bath’, ‘patriotic baptism’, and even ‘vertical deportation’, as he had the condemned loaded onto flat-bottomed boats which were then sunk in the middle of the River Loire. The executions took place at night for greater discretion, but the bodies subsequently floated to the surface in full view of the people of Nantes, who long retained a horrified memory of the events.