propose to exclude an intruder, a servant on wages. The Jacobins at once rush forward. Laurède is pressed back on the holy-water basin and wounded on the head; on trying to escape he is seized by the hair, thrown down, pierced in the arm with a bayonet, put in prison, and Brunache along with him. Eight days afterwards, at the second meeting none are present but Jacobins; naturally, "they are all elected". They form the new municipality, which, notwithstanding the orders of the department, not only refuses to liberate the two prisoners, but throws them into a dungeon.--At Montpellier, the delay in the operation is greater, but it is only the more complete. The votes are deposited, the ballot-boxes closed and sealed up and the conservatives obtain a majority. Thereupon the Jacobin club, with the Society of the "iron-clubs," calling itself the Executive power, betake themselves in force to the sectional meetings, burn one of the ballots, use firearms and kill two men. To restore order the municipality stations each company of the National Guard at its captain's door, The moderates among them naturally obey orders, but the violent party do not. They overrun the town, numbering about 2,000 inhabitants, enter the houses, kill three men in the street or in their domiciles, and force the administrative body to suspend its electoral assemblies. In addition to this they require the disarmament "of the aristocrats," and this not being done soon enough, they kill an artisan who is walking in the street with his mother, cut off his head, bear it aloft in triumph, and suspend it in front of his dwelling. The authorities are now convinced and accordingly decree a disarmament, and the victors parade the streets in a body. In exuberance or as a precaution, they fire, as they pass along, at the windows of suspected houses and happen to kill an additional man and woman. During the three following days six hundred families emigrate, while the authorities report that everything is going on well, and that order is restored. "The elections," they say, "are now proceeding in the quietest manner since the ill-intentioned voluntarily keeping away from them, a large number having left the town. "[2134] A void is created around the ballot-box and this is called the unanimity of voters.--The effect of such assassinations is great and only a few are required; especially when they go unpunished, which is always the case. Henceforth all that the Jacobins have to do is to threaten; people no longer resist them for they know that it costs too much to face them down. They do not care to attend electoral meetings where they meet insult and danger; they acknowledge defeat at the start. Have not the Jacobins irresistible arguments, without taking blows into account? At Paris,[2135] Marat in three successive numbers of his paper has just denounced by name "the rascals and thieves" who canvass for electoral nominations, not the nobles and priests but ordinary citizens, lawyers,