shore, and when the man turned his head stuck a knife into his throat. This he denied, but he admitted that he might have said in a moment of indignation that if the "brigands" (royalists) were in his hands he would knife them. In a conversation on muscular strength he was alleged to have said that his brother was stronger than himself, so that the guillotine had to strike twice before his head fell. It was also said that he had boasted of having slaughtered men like sheep with his pocket-knife. Yet he is described as a handsome man, adored by women, and wonderfully dexterous with his sword. One of the forty survivors of a gallant band of 400 men who in June 1792 frustrated a night attack on Nantes, he was acquitted at Paris, like twenty-seven others, as not having acted with counter-revolutionary designs. They were not, however, released, were threatened with a second trial, and were transferred to Angers prison, but were ultimately liberated. O'Sullivan settled as schoolmaster at Buchesne, was highly esteemed there, was a republican to the last, and survived till 1841. A letter from him, but without his signature, appears in Guépin's "Histoire de Nantes." He left two daughters, one of whom, a widow, kept a china shop at Nantes, retired on a competency, and died in 1875, at the age of ninety-one. Her father spent his latter years with her.[1]
- ↑ Information from M. Dugast Matifex.
