The old councillors themselves murmured between their teeth, "To Marly!" Fourteen carriages conveyed to Marly fifty magistrates, headed by the presidents.

The king refused to receive them; in vain the premier president insisted upon it, to Cardinal Fleury; the monarch and his Parliament remained equally obstinate.

"What a sad position!" exclaimed Abbe Pernelle, "not to be able to fulfil one's duties without falling into the crime of disobedience! We speak, and we are forbidden a word; we deliberate, and we are threatened.

What remains for us, then, in this deplorable position, but to represent to the king the impossibility of existing under form of Parliament, without having permission to speak; the impossibility, by consequence, of continuing our functions ?" Abbe Pernelle was carried off in the night, and confined in the abbey of Corbigny, in Nivernais, of which he was titular head.

Other councillors were arrested; a hundred and fifty magistrates immediately gave in their resignation.