risk of an uproar."--On the strength of
this, the old chiefs of the National Guard resign, and the Jacobins turn
the opportunity to account. In contempt of the law the whole body of
officers is renewed, and, as peaceable folks dare not deposit their
votes, the new staff "is composed of maniacs, taken for the most part,
from the lowest class." With this purged militia the club expels nuns,
drives off unsworn priests, organizes expeditions in the neighborhood,
and goes so far as to purify suspected municipalities.[2128]--So many
acts of violence committed in town and country, render town and country
uninhabitable, and for the elite of the propriety owners, or for
well-bred persons, there is no longer any asylum but Paris. After the
first disarmament seven or eight families take refuge there, and a dozen
or fifteen more join them after a threat of having their throats cut;
after the religious persecution, unsworn ecclesiastics, the rest of
the nobles, and countless other townspeople, "even with little means,"
betake themselves there in a mass. There, at least, one is lost in the
crowd; one is protected by an incognito against the outrages of the
commonalty; one can live there as a private individual. In the provinces
even civil rights do not exist; how could any one there exercise
political rights? "All honest citizens are kept away from the primary
meetings by threats or maltreatment.. . The electoral battlefield is
left for those who pay forty-five sous of taxes, more than one-half of
them being registered on the poor list."--Thus the elections are
decided beforehand! The former cook is the one who authorizes or creates
candidatures, and on the election of the department deputies at
the county town, the electors elected are, like himself, true
Jacobins.[2129]

V.--Intimidation and withdrawal of the Conservatives.

Popular outbreaks in Burgundy, Lyonnais, Provence, and the
large cities.--Electoral proceedings of the Jacobins;
examples at Aix, Dax, and Montpellier.--Agitators go
unpunished--Denunciations by name.--Manoeuvres with the
peasantry.--General tactics of the Jacobins.

Such is the pressure under which voting takes place in France during
the summer and fall of 1791. Domiciliary visits[2130] and disarmament
everywhere force nobles and ecclesiastics, landed proprietors and people
of culture, to abandon their homes, to seek refuge in the large towns
and to emigrate,[2131] or, at leas