Le Cap. Fédon shot; the town in consternation.

Meanwhile Rochambeau, indignant that anyone should have dared resist his will, and wishing by Fédon’s death to terrify those he called Anglomen, ordered the execution hastened. Fédon had always spoken out energetically against the captain-general’s system. Rochambeau suspected him, without reason, of having incited Clausel, Thouvenot and Magnytot to conspire against him the previous November. Squadron-leader Colbert, commander of the gendarmerie of Le Cap, led him off to a distance of two musket shots from the national palace, and the unfortunate man met his death on 3 brumaire, Year 12, at nine in the morning. When the citizens Renouard and Stransant presented themselves at the office of the town command with the 6,000 gourdes, adjutant-general Néraud informed them of Fédon’s death. This execution plunged the town of Le Cap into deep consternation. Fédon, a man of probity, was generally esteemed. The army nevertheless remained convinced that he had been a conspirator. Such are the crimes born of arbitrary rule. Rochambeau, forgetting that force without right is in the end powerless, gave himself up to every kind of violence, inciting the soldiers he had led astray against honest citizens.