"You wish to know the authors of the agitation," writes a sensible man to the committee of investigation; "you will find them amongst the deputies of the Third-Estate," and especially among the attorneys and advocates.

"These dispatch incendiary letters to their constituents, which letters are received by municipal bodies alike composed of attorneys and of advocates....

they are read aloud in the public squares, while copies of them are distributed among all the villages.

In these villages, if any one knows how to read besides the priest and the lord of the manor, it is the legal practitioner," the born enemy of the lord of the manor, whose place he covets, vain of his oratorical powers, embittered by his power, and never failing to blacken everything.[1331] It is highly probable that he is the one who composes and circulates the placards calling on the people, in the King's name, to resort to violence .-- At Secondigny, in Poitou, on the 23rd of July,[1332] the laborers in the forest receive a letter "which summons them to attack all the country gentlemen round about, and to massacre without mercy all those who refuse to renounce their privileges....

promising them that not only will their crimes go unpunished, but that they will even be rewarded." M.Despretz-Montpezat, correspondent of the deputies of the nobles, is seized, and dragged with his son to the dwelling of the procurator-fiscal, to force him to give his signature; the inhabitants are forbidden to render him assistance "on pain of death and fire." "Sign," they exclaim, "or we will tear out your heart, and set fire to this house!" At this moment the neighboring notary, who is doubtless an accomplice, appears with a stamped paper, and says to him, "Monsieur, I have just come from Niort, where the Third-Estate has done the same thing to all the gentlemen of the town; one, who refused, was cut to pieces before our eyes."-- "We are compelled to sign renunciations of our privileges, and give our assent to one and the same taxation, as if the nobles had not already done so." The band gives notice that it will proceed in the same fashion with all the chateaux in the vicinity, and terror precedes or follows them.