On this very day the mob stops a vehicle, in which it hopes to find M.de Virieu, and declares, on searching it, that "they are looking for the deputy to massacre him, as well as others of whom they have a list."[1445] Two days afterwards the Abbe Gregoire tells the National Assembly that not a day passes without ecclesiastics being insulted in Paris, and pursued with "horrible threats." Malouet is advised that "as soon as guns are distributed among the militia, the first use made of them will be to get rid of those deputies who are bad citizens," and among others of the Abbe Maury.

"The moment I stepped out into the streets," writes Mounier, "I was publicly followed.

It was a crime to be seen in my company.

Wherever I happened to go, along with two or three of my companions, it was stated that an assembly of aristocrats was forming.

I had become such an object of terror that they threatened to set fire to a country-house where I had passed twenty-four hours; and, to relieve their minds, a promise had to be given that neither myself nor my friends should be again received into it." In one week five or six hundred deputies have their passports[1446] made out, and hold themselves ready to depart.