on the
contrary, the Comtat, before the Revolution, was a land of plenty.
There was no taxation by the Pope; the taxes were very light, and were
expended on the spot. "For one or two pennies, one here could have meat,
bread, and wine."[2437] But, under the mild and corrupt administration
of the Italian legates, the country had become "the safe asylum of all
the rogues in France, Italy, and Genoa, who by means of a trifling sum
paid to the Pope's agents, obtained protection and immunity." Smugglers
and receivers of stolen goods abounded here in order to break through
the lines of the French customs. "Bands of robbers and assassins were
formed, which the vigorous measures of the parliaments of Aix and
Grenoble could not wholly extirpate. Idlers, libertines, professional
gamblers,"[2438] kept-cicisbeos, schemers, parasites, and adventurers,
mingle with men with branded shoulders, the veterans "of vice and crime,
"the scapegraces of the Toulon and Marseilles galleys." Ferocity here is
hidden in debauchery, like a serpent hidden in its own slime, here
all that is required is some chance event and this bad place will be
transformed into a death trap.

The Jacobin leaders, Tournal, Rovere, the two Duprats, the two
Mainvielles, and Lecuyer, readily obtain recruits in this sink.--They
begin, aided by the rabble of the town and of its suburbs, peasants
enemies of the octroi, vagabonds opposed to order of any kind, porters
and watermen armed with scythes, turnspits and clubs, by exciting seven
or eight riots. Then they drive off the legate, force the Councils to
resign, hang the chiefs of the National Guard and of the conservative
party,[2439] and take possession of the municipal offices.--After this
their band increases to the dimensions of an army, which, with license
for its countersign and pillage for its pay, is the same as that of
Tilly and Wallenstein, "a veritable roving Sodom, at which the ancient
city would have stood aghast." Out of 3,000 men, only 200 belong in
Avignon; the rest are composed of French deserters, smugglers, fugitives
from justice, vagrant foreigners, marauders and criminals, who, scenting
a prey, come from afar, and even from Paris;[2440] along with them march
the women belonging to them, still more base and bloodthirsty. In order
to make it perfectly plain that with them murder and robbery are the
order of the day, they massacred their first general, Patrix, guilty
of having released a prisoner, and e