imself and all the
deputies if they do not revoke their recent decrees. A few days after
this, four sections draw up an act before a notary, stating the measures
they had taken towards sending an army of 6,000 men from Marseilles to
Aix, to get rid of the three intruders. The commissioners dare not enter
Marseilles, where "gibbets are ready for them, and a price set on their
heads." It is as much as they can do to rescue from the faction M.
Lieutaud and his friends, who, accused of lese-nation, confined without
a shadow of proof, treated like mad dogs, put in chains,[2410] shut up
in privies and holes, and obliged to drink their own urine for lack of
water, impelled by despair to the brink of suicide, barely escape murder
a dozen times in the courtroom and in prison.[2411] Against the decree
of the National Assembly ordering their release, the municipality makes
reclamations, contrives delays, resists, and finally stirs up its usual
instruments. Just as the prisoners are about to be released a crowd of
"armed persons without uniform or officer," constantly increased "by
vagabonds and foreigners," gathers on the heights overlooking the Palais
de Justice, and makes ready to fire on M. Lieutaud. Summoned to proclaim
martial law, the municipality refuses, declaring that "the general
detestation of the accused is too manifest"; it demands the return of
the Swiss regiment to its barracks, and that the prisoners remain where
they are; the only thing which it grants them is a secret permission
to escape, as if they were guilty; they, accordingly, steal away
clandestinely and in disguise.[2412]--The Swiss regiment, however,
which prevents the magistrates from violating the law, must pay for its
insolence, and, as it is incorruptible, they decide to drive it out of
the town. For four months the municipality multiplies against it every
kind of annoyance,[2413] and, on the 16th of October, 1791, the Jacobins
provoke a row in the theater against its officers. The same night,
outside the theater, four of these are attacked by armed bands; the
post to which they retreat is nearly taken by assault; they are led to
a prison for safety, and there they still remain five days afterwards,
"although their innocence is admitted." Meanwhile, to ensure "public
tranquility," the municipality has required the commander of the post
to immediately replace the Swiss Guard with National Guards on all the
military posts; the latter yields to force, whil