For six months, in the principal town, a coterie of the National
Guard, called the Black Band, expel all persons who are displeasing
to them, "pillaging houses at will, beating to death, wounding or
mutilating by saber-strokes, all who have been proscribed in their
assemblies," and no official or advocate dares lodge a complaint.
Brigandage, borrowing the mask of patriotism, and patriotism
borrowing the methods of brigandage, have combined against property
at the same time as against the ancient r?gime, and, to free
themselves from all that inspires them with fear, they seize all
which can provide them with booty.
And yet this is merely the outskirts of the storm; the center is
elsewhere, around N?mes, Avignon, Arles, and Marseilles, in a
country where, for a long time, the conflict between cities and the
conflict between religions have kindled and accumulated malignant
passions.[71] Looking at the three departments of Gard, Bouches-de-
Rh?ne and Vaucluse, one would imagine one's self in the midst of a
war with savages.
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