The band immediately falls on the poor man, "strikes him down, ties his hands, and puts a sack over his head," and the same thing is done to his wife and to eight male and two female servants.

"Now, give us the keys of your closets;" they want to be sure that there are no fleur-de-lys or other illegal articles.

They search the old man's pockets, take his keys, and, to dispatch business, break into the chests and seize or carry off all the plate, "twenty-six table-dishes, three soup-ladles, three goblets, two snuff-boxes, forty counters, two watches, another gold watch and a gold cross." "We will draw up a proces-verbal of all this at our leisure in Meaux.

Now, where's your silver?
If you don't say where it is, the guillotine is outside and I will be your executioner." The old man yields and merely requests to be untied.

But it is better to keep him bound, "so as to make him 'sing.'" They carry him into the kitchen and "put his feet into a heated brazier." He shouts with pain, and indicates another chest which they break open and then carry off what they find there, "seventy-two francs in coin and five or six thousand livres in assignats, which Gibbon had just received for the requisitions made on him for corn." Next, they break open the cellar doors, set a cask of vinegar running, carry wine upstairs, eat the family meal, get drunk and, at last, clear out, leaving Gibbon with his feet burnt, and garroted, as well as the other eleven members of his household, quite certain that there will be no pursuit.[33160]--In the towns, especially in federalist districts, however, these robberies are complicated with other assaults.