Seven or eight domestics may be
added to the number. In the way of arms and munitions the chateau
contains two kegs of gunpowder which were on hand before 1789, seven
blunderbusses, and five cavalry sabers, left there in passing by M.
de Bussy's old dragoons: to these must be added two double-barreled
fowling-pieces, three soldiers' muskets, five brace of pistols, two
poor common guns, two old swords, and a hunting-knife. Such is the
garrison, such the arsenal, and these are the preparations, so well
justified and so slight, which prejudice conjointly with gossip is
about to transform into a great conspiracy.
The chateau, in effect, was an object of suspicion in the village
from the very first day. All its visitors, whenever they went out
or came in, with all the details of their actions, were watched,
denounced, exaggerated, and misinterpreted. If through the
awkwardness or carelessness of so many inexperienced National
Guards, a stray ball reaches a farm-house one day in broad daylight,
it comes from the chateau; it is the aristocrats who have fired upon
the peasants.
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