as to be put in a state of defense
against 15,000 bandits who are approaching, and from the walls a cloud
of dust on the road is discovered with terror. It proves to be the
post-wagon on its way to Bordeaux. After this the number of brigands
is reduced to 1,500, but there is no doubt that they are ravaging the
country. At nine o'clock in the evening 20,000 men are under arms, and
thus they pass the night, always listening without hearing anything.
Towards three o'clock in the morning there is another alarm, the church
bells ringing and the people forming a battle array. They are convinced
that the brigands have burned Ruffec, Vernenil, La Rochefoucauld, and
other places. The next day countrymen flock in to give their aid against
bandits who are still absent. "At nine o'clock," says a witness, "we had
40,000 men in the town, to whom we showed our gratitude." As the bandits
do not show themselves, it must be because they are concealed; a hundred
horsemen, a large number of men on foot, start out to search the forest
of Braconne, and to their great surprise they find nothing. But the
terror is not allayed; "during the following days a guard is kept
mounted, and companies are enrolled among the townsmen," while Bordeaux,
duly informed, dispatches a courier to offer the support of 20,000 men
and even 30,000. "What is surprising," adds the narrator, is that at ten
leagues off in the neighborhood, in each parish, a similar disturbance
took place, and at about the same hour."--All that is required is that a
girl, returning to the village at night, should meet two men who do
not belong to the neighborhood. The case is the same in Auvergne. Whole
parishes, on the strength of this, betake themselves at night to the
woods, abandoning their houses, and carrying away their furniture; "the
fugitives trod down and destroyed their own crops; pregnant women were
injured in the forests, and others lost their wits." Fear lends them
wings. Two years after this, Madame Campan was shown a rocky peak on
which a woman had taken refuge, and from which she was obliged to be let
down with ropes.--The people at last return to their homes, and resume
their usual routines. But such large masses are not unsettled with
impunity; a tumult like this is, in itself, a lively source of alarm. As
the country did rise, it must have been on account of threatened danger
and if the peril was not due to brigands, it must have come from some
other quarter. Arthur Yo