ndishing his
sword, "will finish you." No reply could be made to these arguments. M.
Feline, a silk manufacturer, was robbed of 32,000 francs in gold, 3000
francs in silver, and several bales of silk.

The small shopkeepers were continually exposed to visits and demands of
provisions, drapery, or whatever they sold; and the same hands that set
fire to the houses of the rich, and tore up the vines of the cultivator,
broke the looms of the weaver, and stole the tools of the artizan.
Desolation reigned in the sanctuary and in the city. The armed bands,
instead of being reduced, were increased; the fugitives, instead of
returning received constant accessions, and their friends who sheltered
them were deemed rebellious. Those protestants who remained, were
deprived of all their civil and religious rights, and even the advocates
and huissiers entered into a resolution to exclude all of "the pretended
reformed religion" from their bodies. Those who were employed in
selling tobacco were deprived of their licenses. The protestant deacons
who had the charge of the poor were all scattered. Of five pastors only
two remained; one of these was obliged to change his residence, and
could only venture to administer the consolations of religion, or
perform the functions of his ministry, under cover of the night.

Not content with these modes of torment, calumnious and inflamatory
publications charged the protestants with raising the proscribed
standard in the communes, and invoking the fallen Napoleon; and, of
course, as unworthy the protection of the laws and the favour of the
monarch.

Hundreds after this were dragged to prison without even so much as a
_written order_; and though an official newspaper, bearing the title of
the _Journal du Gard_, was set up for five months, while it was
influenced by the prefect, the mayor, and other functionaries, the word
_charter_ was never once used in it. One of the first numbers, on the
contrary, represented the suffering protestants as "Crocodiles only
weeping from rage and regret that they had no more victims to devour; as
persons who had surpassed Danton, Marat, and Robespierre, in doing
mischief: and as having prostituted their daughters to the garrison to
gain it over to Napoleon." An extract from this article, stamped with
the crown and the arms of the Bourbons, was hawked about the streets,
and the vender was adorned with the medal of the police.

_Petition of the Protestant Refugees