refused them what they asked. We have seen
infuriate motionnaires, nearly all belonging to Avignon, mount the desks
of the Directory, harangue their comrades and excite them to rioting and
crime. "You must decide between life or death," they exclaimed to us,
"you have only a quarter of an hour to choose." "National guards have
offered their sabers through the windows, left open on account of the
extreme heat, to those around us and made signs to them to cut our
throats."--Thus fashioned, reduced and drilled, the Directory is simply
an instrument in the hands of the Marseilles demagogues. Camoin, Bertin
and Rebecqui, the worst agitators and usurpers, rule there without
control. Rebecqui and Bertin, appointed delegates in connection with
matters in Arles, have themselves empowered to call for defensive
troops; they immediately demand them for attack, to which the Directory
vainly remonstrates; they declare to it that "not being under its
inspection, it has no authority over them; being independent of it, they
have no orders to receive from it nor to render to it any account of
their conduct." So much the worse for the Directory on attempting to
revoke their powers. Bertin informs its vice-president that, if it
dares do this he will cut off his head. They reply to the Minister's
observations with the utmost insolence.[2420] They glory in the boldness
of the stroke and prepare another, their march on Aix being only the
first halt in the long-meditated campaign which involves the possession
of Arles.

III.--The Constitutionalists of Arles.

The Marseilles expedition against Arles.--Excesses committed
by them in the town and its vicinity.--Invasion of "Apt,"
the club and its volunteers.

No city, indeed, is more odious to them.--For two years, led or pushed
on by its mayor, M. d'Antonelle, it has marched along with them or
been dragged along in their wake. D'Antonelle, an ultra-revolutionary,
repeatedly visited and personally encouraged the bandits of Avignon. To
supply them with cannon and ammunition he stripped the Tour St. Louis of
its artillery, at the risk of abandoning the mouths of the Rhone to the
Barbary pirates.[2421] In concert with his allies of the Comtat, the
Marseilles club, and his henchmen from the neighboring boroughs, he
rules in Arles "by terror." Three hundred men recruited in the vicinity
of the Mint, artisans or sailors with strong arms and rough hands, serve
him as satellites. O