But more was wanted: an armed force was necessary. The regular troops were faithful to the government that had issued from the Revolution. In the national guard, many Protestants had obtained high rank, because they generally possessed more intelligence and ampler fortunes than the (Roman) Catholics. How were soldiers to be obtained? Companies of volunteers were organized, who obeyed concealed leaders. Recruited for the most part from among the dregs of the people, or agricultural labourers, their ignorance was a guarantee for their docility, and the contest might be ventured upon with no mean prospect of success.
These miserable partisans not only raised the cry of “Long live the King, and the Cross!” but they shouted also: “Down with the Nation!” as if they did not belong to a nation that had just resumed its rights and its liberties. Many wore, instead of the national cockade, a white cross, in imitation of the old Leaguers. The brotherhoods of penitents, who dated so far back as the religious wars of the sixteenth century, furnished their contingent of devotees. The League in fine was resuscitated, the League without the Guises; the League without Philip II. and Sixtus V., the League after Voltaire—an empty phantom summoned in vain from its bloody tombs!
On the 10th of May, 1790, the day of the Rogations, which had been chosen by the municipal council to visit the convents about to be suppressed, the people rose at Montauban. Six dragoons, or picked national guards, of whom five were Protestants and one a (Roman) Catholic, were killed at the Hôtel de Ville, before they could defend themselves. Many others were shamefully maltreated and thrown into prison, where, however, they found a refuge from the bloodthirstiness of the assassins. We forbear from relating the details.
On the 13th of June in the same year, the struggle known under the name of bagarre began at Nismes, and lasted four days. The official report laid before the Constituent Assembly after a most searching inquiry, shows who were the provokers and aggressors in this ill-fated collision. The conspiracy is evident; and it is easy to discover its origin, to follow its windings, and to convince oneself that religion was only used as a pretext for bringing about a counter-revolution.
The (Roman) Catholics of the lowest order, whom the leaders of the faction had armed and collected, committed the most atrocious acts. We will only cite one instance, that happened on the 14th.
The youth Peyre, fifteen years of age, was carrying victuals to his brother, and on his way passed before a company posted on the bridge of the Isles: a man asked him if he were a (Roman) Catholic or a Protestant. The lad answered: “I am a Protestant.” Whereupon the man shot the child dead. A companion of the assassin exclaimed: “You might as well have slain a lamb.” “I have promised,” rejoined the ruffian, “to kill four Protestants as my share, and this youngster will count as one.”[136]
Negotiations were opened; but the reports of some guns fired from a convent, interrupted them. The (Roman) Catholics, attached to the cause of the Revolution, joined the Protestants, and fearful reprisals were exacted. On one side and the other, a hundred and thirty-four individuals were deprived of life during these fatal days; for which let those who prepared, organized, and excited these insurrections be responsible to posterity! It is gratifying and consoling to add, that several curates of the neighbourhood of Nismes, hearkening only to the voice of their consciences, hastened, at the head of the national guards of their communes, to aid in restoring order and peace between the two communions.
In the report read to the Constituent Assembly, M. Alquier attests in the most formal terms that it was not the Protestants, who had provoked these conflicts.
“They became,” said he, “the objects of the hatred of a party, as soon as a party was formed against the Constitution, at the period of your first decrees respecting the property of the clergy; and loaded with the vile outpourings of calumnies, fabricated against them in order to excite disturbances, and the outbreak of a counter-revolution, their only enemies have been the enemies of the Revolution itself.”