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[ The Revolution," III., 458, 417.—"Mercure britannique," nos. for November 1798 and January 1799. (Letters from Belgium.)—"More than 300 millions have been seized by force in these desolated provinces; there is not a landowner whose fortune has not been ruined, or sequestrated, or fatally sapped by forced levies and the flood of taxes which followed these, by robberies of movable property and the bankruptcy due to France having discredited claims on the emperor and on the governments, in short through confiscation."—The insurrection breaks out, as in Vendée, on account of the conscription; the war-cry of the insurgents is, "Better die here than elsewhere.">[
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[ De Martel, "Les Historiens fantaisistes," part 2 (on the Pacification of the West, according to reports of the royalist leaders and of the republican generals).]
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[ Archives nationales, F7, 3218. (Summary of dispatches arranged according to dates.-Letters of Adjutant-General Vicose, Fructidor 3, year VII.—Letters of Lamagdelaine, commissioner of the executive Directory, Thermidor 26 and Fructidor 3, year VII.)—"The rascals who led the people astray had promised them, in the King's name, that they should not be called on for further taxes, that the conscripts and requisitionnaires should not leave, and, finally, that they should have the priests they wanted."—Near Montréjean "the carnage was frightful, nearly 2000 men slain or drowned and 1000 prisoners."—(Letter of M. Alquier to the first consul, Pluviôse 18, year VIII.) "The insurrection of Thermidor caused the loss of 3000 cultivators.—(Letters of the department administrators and of the government commissioners, Nivôse 25 and 27, Pluviôse 13, 15, 25, 27, and 30, year VIII.)—The insurrection is prolonged through a vast number of isolated outrages, with sabers or guns, against republican functionaries and partisans, justices of the peace, mayors, etc. In the commune of Balbèze, fifty conscripts, armed deserters with their knapsacks, impose requisitions,give balls on Sunday, and make patriots give up their arms. Elsewhere, this or that known patriot is assaulted in his house by a band of ten or a dozen young folks who make him pay a ransom, shout "Vive le Roi!" etc.—Cf. "Histoire de I' insurrection royaliste de l'an VII," by B. Lavigne, 1887.]
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[ Archives nationales, F7, 3273 (Letter of the commissioner of the executive Directory, Vaucluse, Fructidor 6, year VII.): "Eighty armed royalists have carried off, near the forest of Suze, the cash-box of the collector, Bouchet, in the name of Louis XVIII. These rascals, it must be noted, did not take any of the money belonging to the collector himself."—(Ibid., Thermidor 3, year VII.) "On looking around among our communes I find all of them under the control of royalist or town-councillors. That is the spirit of the peasants generally.... Public spirit it so perverted, so opposed to the constitutional regime, that a miracle only will bring them within the pale of freedom."—Ibid., F7, 3199. (Similar documents on the department of Bouches-du-Rhône.) Outrages continue here far down into the consulate, in spite of the vigor and multitude of military executions.—(Letter of the sub-prefect of Tarascon, Germinal 15, year IX.) "In the commune of Eyragues, yesterday, at eight o'clock, a band of masked brigands surrounded the mayor's house, while some of them entered it and shot this public functionary without anybody daring to render him any assistance.... Three-quarters of the inhabitants of Eyragues are royalists."—In series F7, 7152 and those following may be found an enumeration of political crimes classified by department and by the month, especially for Messidor, year VII.]
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[ Barère, representative of Hautes Pyrénées, had preserved a good deal of credit in this remote department, especially in the district of Argeles, with populations which knew nothing about the "Mountain." In 1805, the electors presented him as a candidate for the legislative body and the senate; in 1815, they elected him deputy.]