nces, the Military
Commandants are at their posts, on the appointed 8th of May: but in no
Parlement, if not in the single one of Douai, can these new Edicts
get registered. Not peaceable signing with ink; but browbeating,
bloodshedding, appeal to primary club-law! Against these Bailliages,
against this Plenary Court, exasperated Themis everywhere shows face
of battle; the Provincial Noblesse are of her party, and whoever hates
Lomenie and the evil time; with her attorneys and Tipstaves, she enlists
and operates down even to the populace. At Rennes in Brittany, where the
historical Bertrand de Moleville is Intendant, it has passed from fatal
continual duelling, between the military and gentry, to street-fighting;
to stone-volleys and musket-shot: and still the Edicts remained
unregistered. The afflicted Bretons send remonstrance to Lomenie, by a
Deputation of Twelve; whom, however, Lomenie, having heard them, shuts
up in the Bastille. A second larger deputation he meets, by his scouts,
on the road, and persuades or frightens back. But now a third largest
Deputation is indignantly sent by many roads: refused audience on
arriving, it meets to take council; invites Lafayette and all Patriot
Bretons in Paris to assist; agitates itself; becomes the Breton Club,
first germ of--the Jacobins' Society. (A. F. de Bertrand-Moleville,
Memoires Particuliers (Paris, 1816), I. ch. i. Marmontel, Memoires, iv.
27.)

So many as eight Parlements get exiled: (Montgaillard, i. 308.) others
might need that remedy, but it is one not always easy of appliance. At
Grenoble, for instance, where a Mounier, a Barnave have not been idle,
the Parlement had due order (by Lettres-de-Cachet) to depart, and
exile itself: but on the morrow, instead of coaches getting yoked, the
alarm-bell bursts forth, ominous; and peals and booms all day: crowds
of mountaineers rush down, with axes, even with firelocks,--whom (most
ominous of all!) the soldiery shows no eagerness to deal with. 'Axe over
head,' the poor General has to sign capitulation; to engage that the
Lettres-de-Cachet shall remain unexecuted, and a beloved Parlement stay
where it is. Besancon, Dijon, Rouen, Bourdeaux, are not what they should
be! At Pau in Bearn, where the old Commandant had failed, the new one
(a Grammont, native to them) is met by a Procession of townsmen with the
Cradle of Henri Quatre, the Palladium of their Town; is conjured as he
venerates this old Tortoise-shell, in which the g