Such were the movements of the town of Mende, when the troops entered the place.  The national guard, under arms, replied to the cry of Vive la nation, uttered by the troops, by the cry of Vive le roi.  Then they followed the soldiers to the principal square in the city, and there took, in presence of the defenders of the constitution, an oath to obey the king only, and to recognise no one but the king.  After this audacious display, the national guard, in parties, paraded the town, insulting, braving the soldiers:  swords were drawn, and blood flowed.  The troops pursued made a stand, and took to their weapons.  The municipality, having the directory in check, and holding it as hostage, compelled it to send the troops orders to withdraw to their quarters.  The commandant of the forces obeyed.  This victory emboldened the national guard; and during the night it compelled the directory to send the troops an order to leave the city and evacuate the department.  The national guard, drawn up in a line of battle in the square of Mende, saw hourly its ranks increase by detachments of the neighbouring municipalities, who came down from the mountains, armed with fowling pieces, scythes, and ploughshares.  The troops would have been massacred if they had not retired under cover of the night.  They retreated from the city amidst victorious cries from the royalists.  The following day was a series of fetes, in which the royalists of the town and those of the city celebrated their common triumph, and fraternised together.  They insulted all the emblems of the Revolution; hooted the constitution; plundered the hall of the Jacobins; burnt down the houses of the principal members of this hateful club—­put some in prison.  But their vengeance confined itself to outrage.  The people, controlled by the gentlemen and the cures, spared the blood of their enemies.

XIV.

Whilst humiliated liberty was threatened by fanaticism in the south, it, in its turn, carried on the work of assassination in the north.  Brest was the very focus of Jacobinism—­the close proximity of La Vendee gave this city reason to apprehend the counter-revolution that constantly threatened them—­the presence of the fleet, commanded by officers suspected of favouring the aristocratic part—­a population greatly composed of strangers and sailors, accessible to corruption, and capable of being readily excited to crime—­rendered this city more turbulent and more agitated than any other port in the kingdom.  The clubs constantly strove to work on the sailors to mutiny against their officers, whilst the revolutionists mistrusted the navy, as that was far more independent of the people than the army, for the court could at a moment change the station of the fleet, and turn their cannon against the constitution, and the feeling of discipline, of aristocracy, and of the colonies, were all contrary to the new school of ideas; and