lected in his place an old highway
tramp named Jourdan, condemned to death by the court at Valence, but who
had escaped on the eve of his execution, and who bore the nickname of
Coupe-tete, because he is said to have cut off the heads at Versailles
of two of the King's guards.[2441]--Under such a commander the troop
increases until it forms a body of five or six thousand men, which
stops people in the streets and forcibly enrolls them; they are called
Mandrins, which is severe for Mandrin,[2442] because their war is
not merely on public persons and property, as his was, but on the
possessions, the proprieties, and the lives of private individuals. One
detachment alone, at one time, extorts in Cavaillon 25,000 francs, in
Baume 12,000, in Aubignon 15,000, in Pioline 4,800, while Caumont is
taxed 2,000 francs a week. At Sarrians, where the mayor gives them the
keys, they pillage houses from top to bottom, carry off their plunder in
carts, set fire, violate and slay with all the refinements of torture of
so many Hurons. An old lady of eighty, and a paralytic, is shot at arms
length, and left weltering in her blood in the midst of the flames. A
child five years of age is cut in two, its mother decapitated, and its
sister mutilated; they cut off the ears of the cure, set them on his
brow like a cockade, and then cut his throat, along with that of a pig,
and tear out the two hearts and dance around them.[2443] After this,
for fifty days around Carpentras, to which they lay siege in vain, the
unprovoked, cruel instincts of the chauffeurs manifested at a later
date, the ancient cannibalistic desires which sometimes reappear in
convicts, and the perverted and over-strained sensuality found in
maniacs, have full play.

On beholding the monster it has nourished, Avignon, in alarm, utters
cries of distress.[2444] But the brute, which feels its strength, turns
against its former abettors, shows its teeth, and exacts its daily
food. Ruined or not, Avignon must furnish its quota. "In the electoral
assembly, Mainvielle the younger, elected elector, although he is only
twenty-two, draws two pistols from his belt and struts around with a
threatening air."[2445] Duprat, the president, the better to master his
colleagues, proposes to them to leave Avignon and go to Sorgues, which
they refuse to do; upon this he orders cannon to be brought, promises to
pay those who will accompany him, drags along the timid, and denounces
the rest before an