y of their manners, and the frequent unions of their families,
did not entertain towards each other that intestine envy, hatred, and
malice, which was favourable to the Revolution. There was neither pride
in the one nor jealousy in the other: it was as it is in Spain, one
single people, where nobility is only, if we may say so, but a right of
first birth of the same blood. These people had, it is true, laid down
their arms after the insurrection of the preceding year in the camp of
Jales: but hearts were far from being disarmed. These provinces watched
with an attentive eye for the favourable moment in which they might rise
_en masse_ against Paris. The insults to the dignity of the king, and
the violence done to religion by the Legislative Assembly, excited
their minds even to fanaticism. They burst out again, as though
involuntarily, on the occasion of a movement of troops across their
valleys. The tricoloured cockade, emblem of infidelity to God and the
king, had entirely disappeared for several months in the town of Mende,
and they put up the white cockade, as a _souvenir_ and a hope of that
order of things to which they were secretly devoted.

The directory of the department, consisting of men strangers to the
country, resolved on having the emblem of the constitution respected,
and applied for some troops of the line. This the municipality opposed,
in a resolution addressed to the directory, and made an insurrectional
appeal to the neighbouring municipalities, and a kind of federation with
them to resist together the sending of any troops into their districts.
However, the troops sent from Lyons at the request of the directory
approached; on their appearance, the municipality dissolved the ancient
national guard, composed of a few friends of liberty, and formed a fresh
national guard, of which the officers were chosen by itself from amongst
the gentry and most devoted royalists of the neighbourhood. Armed with
this force, the municipality compelled the directory of the department
to supply them with arms and ammunition.

Such were the movements of the town of Mende, when the troops entered
the place. The national guard, under arms, replied to the cry of _Vive
la nation_, uttered by the troops, by the cry of _Vive le roi_. Then
they followed the soldiers to the principal square in the city, and
there took, in presence of the defenders of the constitution, an oath to
obey the king only, and to recognise no one but t