y officers and my corps to Saint-Jean-des-Anels. We marched
towards Uzes, but when we were in the middle of a forest, near a village
the name of which I have forgotten, our general, M. de Vogue, told us
that we were to go to our own homes as soon as we liked. We saw
Commandant Magne loose the flag from its staff, roll it up and put it in
his pocket. We asked the general what we were to do with our arms; he
replied that we were to keep both them and our ammunition, as we should
find them of use. Upon this, our chiefs left us, and we all got away as
best we could."

"After the capitulation of the Duc d'Angouleme I found myself," deposes
Paul Lambert, lace-maker of Nimes, "in one of several detachments under
the orders of Commandant Magne and General Vogue. In the middle of a
forest near a village, the name of which I do not know, M. de Vogue and
the other officer, told us we might go home. The flag was folded up, and
M. Magne put it in his pocket. We asked our chiefs what we were to do
with our arms. M. de Vogue told us that we had better keep them, as we
should need them before very long; and in any case it would be well to
have them with us on the road, lest anything should happen to us."

The three depositions are too much alike to leave room for any doubt. The
royal volunteers contravened Article I of the convention.

Being thus abandoned by their chiefs, without general and without flag,
M. de Vogue's soldiers asked no further counsel of anyone but themselves,
and, as one of them has already told us, sixty-four of them joined
together to hire a guide who was to show them how to get by Uzes without
going through it, for they were afraid of meeting with insult there. The
guide brought them as far as Montarem without anyone opposing their
passage or taking notice of their arms.

Suddenly a coachman named Bertrand, a confidential servant of Abbe Rafin,
former Grand-Vicar of Alais, and of Baroness Arnaud-Wurmeser (for the
abbe administered the estate of Aureillac in his own name and that of the
baroness), galloped into the village of Arpaillargues, which was almost
entirely Protestant and consequently Napoleonist, announcing that the
miquelets (for after one hundred and ten years the old name given to the
royal troops was revived) were on the way from Montarem, pillaging
houses, murdering magistrates, outraging women, and then throwing them
out of the windows. It is easy to understand the effect of such a story.