Very early next morning I sent to three commissioners of police, one after the other, for permission to have the corpse carried to the hospital, but these gentlemen were either not up or had already gone out, so that it was not until eleven o’clock and after repeated applications that they condescended to give me the needed authorisation.

Thanks to this delay, the whole town came to see the body of the unfortunate man.  Indeed, the day which followed a massacre was always kept as a holiday, everyone leaving his work undone and coming out to stare at the slaughtered victims.  In this case, a man wishing to amuse the crowd took his pipe out of his mouth and put it between the teeth of the corpse—­a joke which had a marvellous success, those present shrieking with laughter.

Many murders had been committed during the night; the companies had scoured the streets singing some doggerel, which one of the bloody wretches, being in poetic vein, had composed, the chorus of which was—­,

    “Our work’s well done,
     We spare none!”

Seventeen fatal outrages were committed, and yet neither the reports of the firearms nor the cries of the victims broke the peaceful slumbers of M, le Prefet and M. le Commissaire General de la Police.  But if the civil authorities slept, General Lagarde, who had shortly before come to town to take command of the city in the name of the king, was awake.  He had sprung from his bed at the first shot, dressed himself, and made a round of the posts; then sure that everything was in order, he had formed patrols of chasseurs, and had himself, accompanied by two officers only, gone wherever he heard cries for help.  But in spite of the strictness of his orders the small number of troops at his disposition delayed the success of his efforts, and it was not until three o’clock in the morning that he succeeded in securing Trestaillons.  When this man was taken he was dressed as usual in the uniform of the National Guard, with a cocked hat and captain’s epaulets.  General Lagarde ordered the gens d’armes who made the capture to deprive him of his sword and carbine, but it was only after a long struggle that they could carry out this order, for Trestaillons protested that he would only give up his carbine with his life.  However, he was at last obliged to yield to numbers, and when disarmed was removed to the barracks; but as there could be no peace in the town as long as he was in it, the general sent him to the citadel of Montpellier next morning before it was light.

The disorders did not, however, cease at once.  At eight o’clock A.M. they were still going on, the mob seeming to be animated by the spirit of Trestaillons, for while the soldiers were occupied in a distant quarter of the town a score of men broke into the house of a certain Scipion Chabrier, who had remained hidden from his enemies for a long time, but who had lately returned home on the strength of