On the 17th of April, 1791, a troop of five hundred
armed men assembled by the beat of a drum, and collected from three
villages in the vicinity, set themselves to demolish the dike. The
proprietor, M. de Sedi?res, a substitute-deputy in the National
Assembly, is not advised of it until eleven o'clock in the evening.
Mounting his horse, along with his guests and domestics, he makes a
charge on the insane wretches, and, with the aid of pistol and gun
shots, disperses them. It was time, for the trench they had dug was
already eight feet deep, and the water was nearly on a level with
it: a half-hour later and the terrible rolling mass of waters would
have poured out on the inhabitants of the gorge. - But such
vigorous strokes, which are rare and hardly ever successful, are no
defense against universal and continuous attacks. The regular
troops and the gendarmerie, both of which are in the way of
reorganization or of dissolution, are not trustworthy, or are too
weak. There are no more than thirty of the cavalry in Creuse, and
as many in Corr?ze.
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