Of the two Marseilles divisions, one, led back to Aix, sets down to "a grand patriotic feast," and then dances fandangoes, of which "the principal one is led off by the mayor and commandant";[2436] the other makes its entry into Avignon the same day, with still greater pomp and jollity.
IV .-- The Jacobins of Avignon.
How they obtain recruits .-- Their robberies in the Comtat.
-- The Avignon municipality in flight or in prison .-- Murder of Lecuyer and the Glaciere massacre .-- Entry of the murderers, supported by their Marseilles allies .-- Jacobin dictatorship in Vaucluse and the Buches-du-Rhone.
Nowhere else in France was there another nest of brigands like it: not that a great misery might have produced a more savage uprising; on the contrary, the Comtat, before the Revolution, was a land of plenty.
There was no taxation by the Pope; the taxes were very light, and were expended on the spot.

"For one or two pennies, one here could have meat, bread, and wine."[2437] But, under the mild and corrupt administration of the Italian legates, the country had become "the safe asylum of all the rogues in France, Italy, and Genoa, who by means of a trifling sum paid to the Pope's agents, obtained protection and immunity." Smugglers and receivers of stolen goods abounded here in order to break through the lines of the French customs.

"Bands of robbers and assassins were formed, which the vigorous measures of the parliaments of Aix and Grenoble could not wholly extirpate.

Idlers, libertines, professional gamblers,"[2438] kept-cicisbeos, schemers, parasites, and adventurers, mingle with men with branded shoulders, the veterans "of vice and crime, "the scapegraces of the Toulon and Marseilles galleys." Ferocity here is hidden in debauchery, like a serpent hidden in its own slime, here all that is required is some chance event and this bad place will be transformed into a death trap.
The Jacobin leaders, Tournal, Rovere, the two Duprats, the two Mainvielles, and Lecuyer, readily obtain recruits in this sink .-- They begin, aided by the rabble of the town and of its suburbs, peasants enemies of the octroi, vagabonds opposed to order of any kind, porters and watermen armed with scythes, turnspits and clubs, by exciting seven or eight riots.

Then they drive off the legate, force the Councils to resign, hang the chiefs of the National Guard and of the conservative party,[2439] and take possession of the municipal offices .-- After this their band increases to the dimensions of an army, which, with license for its countersign and pillage for its pay, is the same as that of Tilly and Wallenstein, "a veritable roving Sodom, at which the ancient city would have stood aghast." Out of 3,000 men, only 200 belong in Avignon; the rest are composed of French deserters, smugglers, fugitives from justice, vagrant foreigners, marauders and criminals, who, scenting a prey, come from afar, and even from Paris;[2440] along with them march the women belonging to them, still more base and bloodthirsty.