Massacres of the South (1551-1815): Celebrated CrimesDumas, Alexandre
History
Massacres of the South (1551-1815): Celebrated Crimes
Dumas, Alexandre
Crime
On the receipt of this letter, the city herald was sent to the towers to
offer the rebels terms of capitulation. The three “captains in command”
came out to discuss the terms with the commissioners of the electoral
body; they were armed and followed by a great number of adherents.
However, as the negotiators desired peace before all things, they
proposed that the three chiefs should surrender and place themselves in
the hands of the Electoral Assembly. This offer being refused, the
electoral commissioners withdrew, and the rebels retired behind their
fortifications. About five o’clock in the evening, just as the
negotiations were broken off, M. Aubry, an artillery captain who had
been sent with two hundred men to the depot of field artillery in the
country, returned with six pieces of ordnance, determined to make a
breach in the tower occupied by the conspirators, and from which they
were firing in safety at the soldiers, who had no cover. At six o’clock,
the guns being mounted, their thunder began, first drowning the noise of
the musketry and then silencing it altogether; for the cannon balls did
their work quickly, and before long the tower threatened to fall.
Thereupon the electoral commissioners ordered the firing to cease for a
moment, in the hope that now the danger had become so imminent the
leaders would accept the conditions which they had refused one hour
before; and not desiring to drive them to desperation, the commissioners
advanced again down College Street, preceded by a bugler, and the
captains were once more summoned to a parley. Froment and Descombiez
came out to meet them, and seeing the condition of the tower, they
agreed to lay down their arms and send them for the palace, while they
themselves would proceed to the Electoral Assembly and place themselves
under its protection. These proposals being accepted, the commissioners
waved their hats as a sign that the treaty was concluded.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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