three o'clock in the afternoon; the drums beat to arms, and cannon
are mounted on the ramparts. The town has to be put in a state of
defense against 15,000 bandits who are approaching, and from the
walls a cloud of dust on the road is discovered with terror. It
proves to be the post-wagon on its way to Bordeaux. After this the
number of brigands is reduced to 1,500, but there is no doubt that
they are ravaging the country. At nine o'clock in the evening
20,000 men are under arms, and thus they pass the night, always
listening without hearing anything. Towards three o'clock in the
morning there is another alarm, the church bells ringing and the
people forming a battle array. They are convinced that the brigands
have burned Ruffec, Vernenil, La Rochefoucauld, and other places.
The next day countrymen flock in to give their aid against bandits
who are still absent. "At nine o'clock," says a witness, "we had
40,000 men in the town, to whom we showed our gratitude." As the
bandits do not show themselves, it must be because they are
concealed; a hundred horsemen, a large number of men on foot, start
out to search the forest of Braçonne, and to their great surprise
they find nothing. But the terror is not allayed; "during the
following days a guard is kept mounted, and companies are enrolled
among the townsmen," while Bordeaux, duly informed, dispatches a
courier to offer the support of 20,000 men and even 30,000. "What
is surprising," adds the narrator, is that at ten leagues off in the
neighborhood, in each parish, a similar disturbance took place, and
at about the same hour." -- All that is required is that a girl,
returning to the village at night, should meet two men who do not
belong to the neighborhood. The case is the same in Auvergne.
Whole parishes, on the strength of this, betake themselves at night
to the woods, abandoning their houses, and carrying away their
furniture; "the fugitives trod down and destroyed their own crops;