Interference of Government against the Protestants

M. Bernis, extraordinary royal commissioner, in consequence of these abuses, issued a proclamation which reflects disgrace on the authority from whence it emanated. "Considering," it said, "that the residence of citizens in places foreign to their domicile, can only be prejudicial to the communes they have left, and to those to which they have repaired, it is ordered, that those inhabitants who have quitted their residence since the commandment of July, return home by the 28th at the latest, otherwise they shall be deemed accomplices of the evil-disposed persons who disturb the public tranquility, and their property shall be placed under provisional sequestration."

The fugitives had sufficient inducements to return to their hearths, without the fear of sequestration. They were more anxious to embrace their fathers, mothers, wives, and children, and to resume their ordinary occupations, than M. Bernis could be to insure their return. But thus denouncing men as criminals who fled for safety from the sabres of assassins, was adding oil to the fire of persecution. Trestaillon, one of the chiefs of the brigands, was dressed in complete uniform and epaulettes which he had stolen; he wore a sabre at his side, pistols in his belt, a cockade of white and green, and a sash of the same colours on his arm. He had under him, Truphemy, Servan, Aime, and many other desperate characters. Some time after this M. Bernis ordered all parties and individuals, armed or unarmed, to abstain from searching houses, without either an order, or the presence of an officer. On suspicion of arms being concealed, the commandant of the town was ordered to furnish a patrol to make search and seizure; and all persons carrying arms in the streets, without being on service, were to be arrested. Trestaillon, however, who still carried arms, was not arrested till some months after, and then not by these authorities, but by General La Garde, who was afterwards assassinated by one of his comrades. On this occasion it was remarked, that "the system of specious and deceptive proclamations was perfectly understood, and had long been practised in Languedoc; it was not too late to persecute the protestants simply for their religion. Even in the good times of Louis XIV. there was public opinion enough in Europe to make that arch tyrant have recourse to the meanest stratagems." The following single specimen of the plan pursued by the authors of the Dragonades may serve as a key to all the plausible proclamations which, in 1815, covered the perpetration of the most deliberate and extensive crimes:—