Near Autun,
four priests who, to obey the law, are betaking themselves to the
frontier, are put in prison "for their own protection;" they are
taken out a quarter of an hour later, and, in spite of thirty-two of
the mounted police, are massacred. "Their carriage was still
burning as I passed, and the corpses were stretched out not far off.
Their driver was still in durance, and it was it vain that I
solicited his release." - On the other hand, at Lyons, the power
has fallen into the hands of the degraded women of the streets.
"They seized the central club, constituted themselves commissaries
of police, signed notices as such, and paid visits of inspection to
store-houses;" they drew up a tariff of provisions, "from bread and
meat up to common peaches, and peaches of fine quality." They
announced that "whoever dared to dispute it would be considered a
traitor to the country, an adherent of the civil list, and
prosecuted as such." All this is published, proclaimed and applied
by "female commissaries of police," themselves the dregs of the
lowest sinks of corruption.
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