A heavy roll of the drum, accompanied by the repeated ringing of the bell, drowned the last words of the impudent soldier. After that signal for silence, the bailiff of the very high, very powerful, very honorable and very redoubtable Seigneur Justin-Dominic-Raoul Neroweg, Count of Issoire in Auvergne; Baron of Nointel, Valdeuil and other places in Beauvoisis; Seigneur of Plouernel and Mezlean in Brittany, etc., etc., announced: "That the said Gildas Lebrenn, vassal and lease-holder of the fief of Mezlean, having, with evil intent and for other reasons, put off, beyond the only and last term, the payment of the taxes, imposts and duties, which it had pleased the very high and very powerful and very redoubted seigneur, etc., etc., to assess upon his vassals of Mezlean, therefore, the furniture, crops, cattle, domestic and field animals, household utensils, etc., etc., of the said Gildas Lebrenn are hereby ordered to be seized and sold by virtue of _military constraint_. And if the said goods and chattels of the said Gildas shall not suffice to meet his obligations, then action shall be instituted against a house, to him belonging as the property of his wife, and the said house, in default of a purchaser in block, shall be demolished, and its doors, windows, beams, rafters and other debris shall be sold to the highest bidder at the option of the said bailiff, who, having presented himself at the said farm, called Karnak, in order to execute the orders herein contained and to effect the seizure, found the house closed and the stable empty, the latter of which should have contained especially two yokes of white and orange oxen, the which, being exposed by the malignity of the said Gildas to being kept out of the farm in the evening and to being surreptitiously sold during the day, the said usher now came to seize them bodily, _hic et nunc_, without prejudice to the other seizures which he reserves the right of operating on the said farm, including the materials that may proceed from the demolition of the house above referred to.[5] "The bailiff, being also vested with the powers of the very respectable, discreet, pious and venerable curate of the parish, shall collect by force of the same seizures, an arrear of tithes due to the said venerable person by the said Gildas Lebrenn and other vassals herein below named, etc., etc.