"[158] "Bacon, eggs, butter and chickens -
the peasants surrender whatever is demanded of them, and thenceforth
have nothing that they can take to market. They curse the Republic
which has brought war and famine on them, and nevertheless they do
what they are told: on being addressed, 'Citizen peasant, I require of
you on peril of your head,' . . . it is not possible to
refuse."[159] - Accordingly, they are only too glad to be let off so
cheaply. On Brumaire 19, about seven o'clock in the evening, at
Tigery, near Corbeil, twenty-five men "with sabers and pistols in
their belts, most of them in the uniform of the National Guards and
calling themselves the revolutionary army," enter the house of Gibbon,
an old ploughman, seventy-one years of age, while fifty others guard
all egress from it, so that the expedition may not be interfered with.
Turlot, captain, and aid-de-camp to General Henriot, wants to know
where the master of the house is. - "In his bed," is the reply. -
"Wake him up." - The old man rises. - Give up your arms." - His wife
hands over a fowling-piece, the only arm on the premises. 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.
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