Lyons, Clermont, Lons-le-Saunier, Besançon, Mâcon and Dijon,[50] the
citizens, assembled in their sections, had provoked, or maintained by
cheering them on, the acts of their administrators. Rulers and
citizens, all declared that, the Convention not being free, its
decrees after the 31st of May, no longer had the force of law; that
the troops of the departments should march on Paris to deliver that
city from its oppressors, and that their substitutes should be called
out and assemble at Bourges. In many places words were converted into
acts. Already before the end of May, Marseilles and Lyons had taken
up arms and checkmated their local Jacobins. After the 2nd of June,
Normandy, Brittany, Gard, Jura, Toulouse and Bordeaux, had also raised
troops. At Marseilles, Bordeaux and Caen representatives on mission,
arrested or under guard, were retained as hostages.[51] At Nantes, the
national Guard and popular magistrates who, a week before, had so
bravely repulsed the great Vendéan army, dared to more than this; they
limited the powers of the Convention and condemned all meddling:
according to them, the sending of representatives on mission was "an
usurpation, an attack on national sovereignty;" representatives had
been elected

"to make and not to execute laws, to prepare a constitution and
regulate all public powers, and not to confound these together and
exercise them all at once; to protect and maintain intermediary powers
which the people have delegated, and not to encroach upon and
annihilate them."[52]

With still greater boldness, Montpellier enjoined all representatives
everywhere to meet at the headquarters of their respective
departments, and await the verdict of a national jury. In short, in
accordance with the very democratic creed, "nothing was visible amid