REVOLUTION. Publicola CHAUSSARD (1766-1823) lawyer and man of letters, administrator at the Comité de Salut public, inventor of the word nihilist. 3 L.A.S. or P.A.S., 1793-[1794 or 1795]; 3 pages in-4 (repaired tear), 1 page in-4 and 3 pages and a half large in-fol. Antwerp March 8, 1793, to the deputies of the Convention, and its commissioners in Belgium. Having received a letter from his colleagues in Brussels, requesting an important and urgent measure, he immediately went with his colleagues to the general Marassé [commander in chief in Antwerp, he will pass to the enemy with Dumouriez]: "he appeared more than astonished, formed objections, asked for delays, proposed to write to Dumourier; I declared to him, that I summoned him in the name of my powers to execute without delay the requisition which was made to him; he felt sorry for himself, he almost wept; I ended by telling him that he would be responsible for all that would happen, and for the least opposition. This seemed to determine him. [...] The steps were fruitless; shall I blame it on chance or on the connections and weakness of Marassé? Or had your decree and your measures already transpired?"... He claims the power to break the provisional administration and municipality, whose perfidy risks provoking a popular insurrection... Paris 24 brumaire II (November 14, 1793). Certificate testifying to having heard citizen Gail profess "the principles of the republic and the revolution"... [1794 or 1795], to the representatives of the People composing the Committee of General Security. Denounced to the Section of the Museum, he defends himself against the accusations to have been "agent of terrorism in Belgium, and to have contributed there, with Chapy, by the bad conduct, to our reverses", and to have been "accomplice of the conspiracy of Pache", of which he would have been secretary: he invokes the surveillance, in Belgium, of the representatives Treilhard, Camus, Merlin de Douai and Gossuin, accuses the Memoirs of Dumouriez of being the source of the calumny, and indicates the limits of his employment at the town hall: two months of service without report with Pache... Also, "I ask you representans of the people to return to me a freedom which I did not deserve to lose"...