At sight of the manikin with the national colors dangling at the end of a cord, the French city rose upon its very foundations with shrieks of rage. The Comte de Fargas, who knew his Avignonese, retired, on the night of this clever expedition which he had led, to the house of one of his friends in the valley of the Vaucluse. Four of his retainers, who were rightly suspected of having taken part in this expedition, were torn from his home and strung up in the manikin's stead. In order to accomplish this they seized ropes forcibly from a worthy man named Lescuyer, who was afterward falsely accused by the royalists of having volunteered to furnish them. This occurred on the 11th of June, 1790.
The French city as a unit wrote to the National Assembly and gave itself to France, and with itself its Rhone, its commerce, the Midi, and the half of Provence. The National Assembly, was in one of its reactionary moods; it did not wish to quarrel with the pope, and it temporized with the king; the matter was therefore postponed.
From that moment the patriotic movement in Avignon became a revolt, and the pope was empowered to punish and repress. Pope Pius VI. ordered the annulment of all that had been done in the Comtat-Venaissin, and the reestablishment of the privileges of the nobles and the clergy, and also that of the Inquisition in all its rigor. The Comte de Fargas returned triumphantly to Avignon, and not only no longer concealed the fact that he had strung up the manikin with the tri-colored cockade, but even boasted of it. No one dared to say anything. The pontifical decrees were posted.
One man, one only, dared, in open day, in the sight of all, to go straight to the wall on which the decree was affixed and tear it down. His name was Lescuyer. He was the man who had already been accused of furnishing ropes to hang the royalists. It will be remembered that he had been wrongfully accused. He was not a young man, and he therefore had not been swayed by the passions of youth. No, he was almost an old man, and not even a native of the country. He was a Frenchman of Picardy, impulsive and reflective at the same time. He was a notary, who had long been established at Avignon. This act of his was a crime at which all Roman Avignon trembled—a crime so great that the Virgin wept over it.
You see, Avignon is already Italy; it must have its miracles at any cost, and if Heaven would not provide them, some one would be found to invent them. This particular miracle occurred in the church of the Cordeliers. The crowd flocked thither.
A report was started at the same time which brought the excitement to a climax. A large chest, tightly sealed, had been carried through the city. This chest had excited the curiosity of the people of Avignon. What did it contain? Two hours later it was no longer one chest, but eighteen, which had been seen going in the direction of the Rhone. As for their contents, a porter had revealed that they were the treasures of the Mont-de-Piété which the French party were carrying with them in their departure from Avignon. The treasures of the Mont-de-Piété—that is to say, the possessions of the poor! The more wretched a city the richer its pawnshops. Few cities could boast such wealth in their pawnshops as could Avignon. This was no longer a matter of political opinion, it was a theft, an infamous theft. Whites and Blues, or, in other words, royalists and patriots, rushed to the church of the Cordeliers, not to see the miracle, but to shout that the municipality should answer to them for this crime.
Monsieur de Fargas was naturally at the head of those who shouted the loudest.