The Marquess de Pilles, and the other Sheriffs are as active in the mean time to put in Execution all the other Things resolved on.
They appoint the most trusty Persons they can find, to go on Horseback with Guards at the Head of the Carts, and of each Brigade of Slaves; but those Persons do not hold out long in so perilous an Employment, and they are soon obliged to act themselves in that Station.
They have no Occasion to go to desire the Bishop to cause Divine Service to cease in the Churches, they are generally shut up already: There are hardly any Masses now said any where, no Administration of the Sacraments, not so much as the tolling of Bells, all the Ecclesiasticks are fled, and even some of the Parish-Priests.
As for Monks, they cannot possibly find any to act as Commissaries in the Quarters where they are wanted; some have deserted, others are dead, and not a sufficient Number of them are left, to confess the Sick; Father Milay, a Jesuit, is the only Man of them all, who to satisfy that Holy Zeal, and fervent Charity, by which he has been always actuated, comes voluntarily and offers to be Commissary in the Street of Lescale, and thereabouts; an Employment which none else durst take, because it is the Part of the Town where the Plague makes the greatest Havock, and which is barricaded with Corps de Garde at the Avenues, that no Person may enter, or stir out of it; the Sheriffs make him Commissary there, where from the Beginning of the Contagion he has confessed the infected. He performs Acts of Piety surpassing any thing called Heroick; but the Plague does not spare him long, it snatches from the Faithful this new Apostle.
They go to take a View of the Pits and Churchyards; a horrid Spectacle, dangerous to approach, the vast Number of infected Bodies but lately thrown into them, lying all uncovered, heaped by Thousands on one another.
Formerly Governors and Consuls during all the Time of Contagion, used to keep shut up in the Town-House with very great Precaution; all who have formed Rules for Towns visited with the Plague, have prescribed that Conduct, judging that the Magistrates ought to be more careful than all others, to preserve their Life and Health.
Here, the Marquess de Pilles, and the Sheriffs, think only of preserving the Life and Health of others, exposing their own without any Concern; and are Night and Day in the open Street, wherever they see Danger deter others.
The Marquess de Pilles has so little Regard for himself, that at the first he lets the principal Pest-House (which is that des Convalescens) be settled within 4 Paces of his own House. M. Estelle goes all Night long, so void of fear, to see the dead Bodies carried off the Street Lescale, that slipping on the Pavement he was within a Finger's Breadth of falling full upon a dead Body that lay on the Ground before him: M. Moustier sets so light by Dangers that make others tremble, that a Plaister reeking with the Corruption of the Bubo of an infected Person thrown out of the Window, lighting on his Cheek, and sticking there, he takes it off perfectly unconcerned, and only wiping his Cheek clean with his Spunge dipped in Vinegar, proceeds on the Business he is about. The others behaved much in the same manner.