Those
women who fail in this patriotic duty, shall be excluded from the
assemblies, from the national festivals, while all good citoyennes are
requested to repel them from their homes. All good citizens are
requested to give to this rural festivity that sentimental character
which befits it."
- And the programme is carried out, here in idyllic shape and there
under compulsion. Around Avignon,[95] the commanding officer, the
battalions of volunteers, and patriotic ladies, "the wives and
daughters of patriots," inscribe themselves as harvesters. Around
Arles, "the municipality drafts all the inhabitants; patrols are sent
into the country to compel all who are engaged on other work to leave
it and do the harvesting." The Convention, on its side, orders[96] the
release, "provisionally, of all ploughmen, day-laborers, reapers, and
professional artisans and brewers, in the country and in the market
towns and communes, the population of which is not over twelve hundred
inhabitants, and who are confined as 'suspects.' " - In other terms,
physical necessity has imposed silence on the inept theory; above all
things, the crop must be harvested, and indispensable arms be restored
to the field of labor.
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