France may be dated from the period of the emigration of the priests and nobles. "By their desertion," said Chamfort, "they will drive the nation to sans-culotisme." The prediction was verified.

The family of the Ultras, the descendants of which still embarrass the public counsels, began their operations by sending agents from Turin and Germany, to the south of France. At their arrival in the department of the Gard, the aspect of things was suddenly changed. The municipalities, by means of skilful and multiplied intrigues, were soon composed of catholics only; and companies of militia were formed exclusively of catholics. Incendiary pamphlets were circulated against the protestants, and deliberations in opposition to the new principles were signed by the catholics in midnight assemblies held in their churches. Protestations were made against any change in the ecclesiastical hierarchy, and it was declared that no adhesion of Louis XVI to any such change

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should be considered as valid, since he was not at complete liberty. The Ultras of 1790 were, like those of 1815, always "plus royaliste que le Roi."

The curés distributed these protestations in their respective parishes. The oligarchic party soon proceeded from menaces to deeds of violence; men posted at the corners of the streets of Nismes, fired upon the protestants as they passed by; they were sometimes assailed by stones, sometimes wounded on the high-road with pitch-forks, and finally murdered in their dwellings.

It is not my purpose to relate the details of these assassinations, of which those that took place in 1815 are in such an exact spirit of imitation, that they seem to have been formed upon the same model. One incident, among numbers, will serve to show the fanaticism that prevailed at that period. A youth of fifteen years of age, passing by a military post, was asked, whether he was a catholic or a protestant: he answered, that he was a

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protestant;-upon which the soldier fired at him, and the boy fell dead at his feet. "You might as well have killed a lamb," said one of his comrades to the assassin :-" I promised," he replied, "to kill four protestants for my share, and the boy will count for one."

The municipality of Nismes, now composed of agents of the oligarchic party, were unmoved spectators of these enormities. They saw nothing, they heard nothing, and above all, they punished nothing. But while every dispatch from that corporation carried intelligence to the National Assembly of the fraternity that prevailed among the good citizens of Nismes, civil war broke forth in all its fury, and a general counter-revolution menaced the south of France.

It was now the turn of the protestants to triumph: they were joined by all the catholics who were friends to the revolution, and who at length perceived, that the hostilities which had commenced by religious dissensions, were meant to terminate in the subversion of the

new order of things, and the re-establishment of the ancient despotism.

The oligarchic party surprised the unarmed citizens, repulsed the first regular troops sent against them, and at length transformed the house of their chief into a fortress, communicating with the towers of the Dominican church, from whence they directed a murderous fire on the people. The corps de reserve of the patriot troops was posted in a square, opposite the convent of the Capuchins, and an officer was killed by a ball fired from the convent. The troops, thus irritated, broke open the convent doors, and five monks were masacred. A heavy discharge of musketry was at the same time fired from the towers of the Dominicans, where the counterrevolutionists were entrenched, waiting for fresh succours; but the patriots forced this position: headed by an officer of artillery, they dragged their cannon to the place, and in 1 a short time silenced the fire from the towers.

The convent still remained in hostility pro

positions of capitulation were offered to the besieged, and answered by a heavy fire from the house. Ladders were then applied to the walls, and after a bloody siege the convent was stormed. The leaders had, for the most part, fled; but some who had not found means to escape were put to the sword. Thus a just triumph was sullied by a crime: it was indeed committed in the fury of revenge—it was an act of vengeance for unparalleled enormities; but what provocation can palliate a deed of cruelty, or change the nature of guilt?

The work of civil war in the south of France was now terminated. We hear no more of religious dissension during a long interval of time. Civil and religious liberty were alike crushed under the reign of terror; the theophilanthropic Directory were tolerant; and their successor Bonaparte favoured the protestants because he hated the priests. A calm of twenty-five years had banished the