"Noyades."

During the French Revolution the guillotine was found to be insufficient for the wholesale slaughter of human life, so that in different parts of France various other methods were devised to dispose of the prisoners. "Noyades (drownings) were employed at Nantes, by Carrier, a monster of cruelty. Great numbers of victims were crowded into a vessel, which, by means of weights, was submerged until all the unfortunates were dead; then the vessel, with its ghastly cargo, was brought to the surface again. In this manner 1500 people perished at Nantes in one month.

"Fusillades" were employed at Lyons. This method of execution consisted in taking the victims out in crowds, and mowing them down with musket and cannon. Lyons had so stoutly resisted the Revolution, that when the city was conquered, after a two months' siege, the Convention decreed that it should be destroyed, its name changed, and a monument erected on its ruins, with the inscription, "Lyons made war upon liberty; Lyons is no more."