"Nobody dares write," M.Despretz sends word; "I attempt it at the risk of my life."-- Nobles and prelates become objects of suspicion everywhere; village committees open their letters, and they have to suffer their houses to be searched.[1333] They are forced to adopt the new cockade: to be a gentleman, and not wear it, is to deserve hanging.

At Mamers, in Maine, M.de Beauvoir refuses to wear it, and is at the point of being put into the pillory and felled.
Near La F1eche, M.de Brissac is arrested, and a message is sent to Paris to know if he shall be taken there, "or be beheaded in the meantime." Two deputies of the nobles, MM.

de Montesson and de Vasse who had come to ask the consent of their constituents to their joining the Third-Estate, are recognized near Mans; their honorable scruples and their pledges to the constituents are considered of no importance, nor even the step that they are now taking to fulfill them; it suffices that they voted against the Third-Estate at Versailles; the populace pursues them and breaks up their carriages, and pillages their trunks .-- Woe to the nobles, especially if they have taken any part in local rule, and if they are opposed to popular panics! M.Cureau, deputy-mayor of Mans,[1334] had issued orders during the famine, and, having retired to his chateau of Nouay, had told the peasants that the announcement of the coming of brigands was a false alarm; he thought that it was not necessary to sound the alarm bell, and all that was necessary was that they should remain quiet.

Accordingly he is set down as being in league with the brigands, and besides this he is a monopolist, and a buyer of standing crops.

The peasants lead him off; along with his son-in-law, M.
de Montesson, to the neighboring village, where there are judges.