d by the
Swiss regiment; consequently four hundred men from Aubagne arrive in
haste, while from hour to hour the National Guards from the surrounding
villages likewise rush in. The streets are full of armed men; shouts
arise and the tumult increases; the municipal body, in the universal
panic, loses its wits. This body is afraid of a nocturnal fight "between
troops of the line, citizens, National Guards and armed strangers, no
one being able to recognize one another or know who is an enemy." It
sends back a detachment of three hundred and fifty Swiss Guards, which
the Directory had ordered to its support, and consigns the regiment to
its quarters.--At this the Directory takes to flight. Military sentinels
of all kinds are disarmed while the Marseilles throng, turning its
advantages to account, announces to the municipality at two o'clock in
the morning that, "allow it or not" it is going to attack the barracks
immediately; in fact, cannon are planted, a few shots are fired, a
sentinel killed, and the hemmed-in regiment is compelled to evacuate the
town, the men without their guns and the officers without their swords.
Their arms are stolen, the people seize the suspected, the street-lamp
is hauled down and the noose is made ready. Cayol, the flower-girl,
is hung. The municipality, with great difficulty, saves one man who is
already lifted by the rope two feet from the ground, and obtains for
three others "a temporary refuge" in prison.

Henceforth there is no authority at the department headquarters,
or rather it has changed hands. Another Directory, more pliable, is
installed in the place of the fugitive Directory. Of the thirty-six
administrators who form the Council only twelve are present at the
election. Of the nine elected only six consent to sit, while often
only three are found at its sessions, which three, to recruit their
colleagues, are obliged to pay them.[2418] Hence, notwithstanding their
position is the best in the department, they are worse treated and more
unfortunate than their servants outside. The delegates of the club, with
the municipal officers of Marseilles seated alongside of them, oblige
them either to keep silent, or to utter what they dictate to them.[2419]
"Our arms are tied," writes one of them, "we are wholly under the yoke"
of these intruders. "We have twice in succession seen more than three
hundred men, many of them with guns and pistols, enter the hall and
threaten us with death if we