After the first disarmament seven or eight families take refuge there, and a dozen or fifteen more join them after a threat of having their throats cut; after the religious persecution, unsworn ecclesiastics, the rest of the nobles, and countless other townspeople, "even with little means," betake themselves there in a mass.

There, at least, one is lost in the crowd; one is protected by an incognito against the outrages of the commonalty; one can live there as a private individual.

In the provinces even civil rights do not exist; how could any one there exercise political rights?
"All honest citizens are kept away from the primary meetings by threats or maltreatment..

.

The electoral battlefield is left for those who pay forty-five sous of taxes, more than one-half of them being registered on the poor list."-- Thus the elections are decided beforehand! The former cook is the one who authorizes or creates candidatures, and on the election of the department deputies at the county town, the electors elected are, like himself, true Jacobins.[2129] V .-- Intimidation and withdrawal of the Conservatives.
Popular outbreaks in Burgundy, Lyonnais, Provence, and the large cities .-- Electoral proceedings of the Jacobins; examples at Aix, Dax, and Montpellier .-- Agitators go unpunished--Denunciations by name .-- Manoeuvres with the peasantry .-- General tactics of the Jacobins.
Such is the pressure under which voting takes place in France during the summer and fall of 1791.