ty of their adversaries, and it is very
possible that if the new Town Council had not shut their eyes to this act
of insubordination, civil war might have burst forth in Nimes that very
day.

The next day, at roll-call, a sergeant of another company, one Allien, a
cooper by trade, taunted one of the men with having carried a pitchfork
the day before, in disobedience to orders. He replied that the mayor had
permitted him to carry it; Allien not believing this, proposed to some of
the men to go with him to the mayor's and ask if it were true. When they
saw M. Marguerite, he said that he had permitted nothing of the kind, and
sent the delinquent to prison. Half an hour later, however, he gave
orders for his release.

As soon as he was free he set off to find his comrades, and told them
what had occurred: they, considering that an insult to one was an insult
to the whole company, determined on having satisfaction at once, so about
eleven o'clock P.M. they went to the cooper's house, carrying with them a
gallows and ropes ready greased. But quietly as they approached, Allien
heard them, for his door being bolted from within had to be forced.
Looking out of the window, he saw a great crowd, and as he suspected that
his life was in danger, he got out of a back window into the yard and so
escaped. The militia being thus disappointed, wreaked their vengeance on
some passing Protestants, whose unlucky stars had led them that way;
these they knocked about, and even stabbed one of them three times with a
knife.

On the 22nd April, 1790, the royalists--that is to say, the
Catholics--assumed the white cockade, although it was no longer the
national emblem, and on the 1st May some of the militia who had planted a
maypole at the mayor's door were invited to lunch with him. On the 2nd,
the company which was on guard at the mayor's official residence shouted
several times during the day, "Long live the king! Up with the Cross and
down with the black throats!" (This was the name which they had given to
the Calvinists.) "Three cheers for the white cockade! Before we are
done, it will be red with the blood of the Protestants!" However, on the
5th of May they ceased to wear it, replacing it by a scarlet tuft, which
in their patois they called the red pouf, which was immediately adopted
as the Catholic emblem.

Each day as it passed brought forth fresh brawls and provocations: libels
were invented by the Capuchins, and spread abroad