med
Catholics, and you may imagine the confusion and alarm that prevail in
the town. As a good citizen and a true patriot, I entreat you to send
an order to the regiment of royal dragoons to repair at once to Nimes
to restore tranquillity and put down all who break the peace. The Town
Council does not meet, none of them dares to leave his house; and if
you receive no requisition from them just now, it is because they go in
terror of their lives and fear to appear openly. Two red flags have been
carried about the streets, and municipal officers without guards have
been obliged to take refuge in patriotic houses. Although I am only a
private citizen, I take the liberty of asking for aid from you, knowing
that the Protestants have sent to La Vannage and La Gardonninque to ask
you for reinforcements, and the arrival of fanatics from these districts
would expose all good patriots to slaughter. Knowing as I do of your
kindness and justice, I have full trust that my prayer will receive your
favourable attention.

"FROMENT, Captain of Company No. 39

"June 13, 1790, 11 o'c. p.m."

Unfortunately for the Catholic party, Dupre and Lieutaud, to whom this
letter was entrusted for delivery, and for whom passports were made out
as being employed on business connected with the king and the State,
were arrested at Vehaud, and their despatches laid before the Electoral
Assembly. Many other letters of the same kind were also intercepted,
and the red-tufts went about the town saying that the Catholics of Nimes
were being massacred.

The priest of Courbessac, among others, was shown a letter saying that a
Capuchin monk had been murdered, and that the Catholics were in need of
help. The agents who brought this letter to him wanted him to put
his name to it that they might show it everywhere, but were met by a
positive refusal.

At Bouillargues and Manduel the tocsin was sounded: the two villages
joined forces, and with weapons in their hands marched along the
road from Beaucaire to Nimes. At the bridge of Quart the villagers of
Redressan and Marguerite joined them. Thus reinforced, they were able to
bar the way to all who passed and subject them to examination; if a
man could show he was a Catholic, he was allowed to proceed, but the
Protestants were murdered then and there. We may remind our readers that
the "Cadets de la Croix" pursued the same method in 1704.

Meantime Descombiez, Froment, and Folacher remained masters of the
ramp