Bands of thirteen, fifteen, twenty and twenty-two beggars rob the
vineyards, enter farm-houses at night, and compel their inmates to
lodge and feed them, returning in the same way every fortnight, all
farms or isolated dwellings being their prey. An ecclesiastic is
killed in his own house in the suburbs of Versailles, on the 26th of
September, 1791, and, on the same day, a bourgeois and his wife are
garroted and robbed. On the 22nd of September, near Saint-R?mi-
Honor?, eight bandits ransack the dwelling of a farmer. On the 25th
of September, at Villers-le-Sec, thirteen others strip another
farmer, and then add with much politeness, "It is lucky for your
masters that they are not here, for we would have roasted them at
yonder fire." Six similar outrages are committed by armed ruffians
in dwelling-places, within a radius of from three to four leagues,
accompanied with the threats of the chauffeurs.[21] "After
enterprises of such force and boldness," write the people of this
region, "there is not a well-to-do man in the country who can rely
upon an hour's security in his house.
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