6i 



ANNUAL REGISTER, 1800. 



larly in the western departments : 

 which determined the conncil of 

 five hundred to apply a remedy still 

 more violent. 



By the lav>r of Hostages, passed 

 on the twelfth of July, it was de- 

 creed, among other articles, that 

 when a department, or commune, 

 was notoriously in a state of civil 

 disorder, the relations of emigrants, 

 and nohles, comprehended in the 

 revolutionary law of the twenty- 

 fifth of Octoher, third year of the 

 republic, their grand-fathers, grand- 

 mothers, fathers and mothers, and 

 individuals, who, without being 

 relations, or ex-nobles, were known 

 to form part of the assemblies or 

 bands of assassins, should be person- 

 ally and civilly responsible for what- 

 ever assassinations or robberies were 

 committed in their communes; that 

 whenever disorders should takeplace 

 the administration of departments 

 should take hostages among these 

 classes, and that they should be au- 

 thorized to do so, even before any de- 

 claration of such department or com- 

 mune being in a state of disorder ; 

 that these hostages should surrender 

 themselves, on demand, in such 

 places as should be pointed out ; 

 that a delay of ten days should in- 

 cur constraint by force, and fliglit. 

 If a murder was committed on any 

 public functionary, defender of the 

 country, or purchaser of national 

 domains, or any person of this cha- 

 racter carried oti', four hostages were 

 to be banished for every person so 

 murdered or carried off, besides 

 a line of six thousand livres. Every 

 hostage was made responsible for 

 the payment of four thousand livres, 

 in case of any murder in his com- 

 munity, to be paid into the public 

 treasury, of six thousand to the 

 widow, and three thousand to the 



children of the person assassinated : 

 which indemnity was allowed like- 

 wise to every person nuuilated. 

 The same responsibility was also 

 extended to whatever damage or 

 waste was committed against pro- 

 perty. And the law was to have 

 its due course, till the conclusion 

 of a general peace. 



The effects of this law were 

 such as might have been expected. 

 While some, from the various mo- 

 tives of ambition, interest, and re- 

 sentment, were tempted to commit 

 innumerable acts of oppression, 

 others were driven to despair. In 

 such departments of the west as had 

 never been thoroughly reduced to 

 an obedience to the republic, the 

 law of Hostages was a signal of 

 almost general revolt, not only se- 

 veral of those who had been for- 

 merly chiefs of the insurgents and 

 again took up the arms which they 

 had laid down, but others who had 

 hitherto remained quiet, preferred 

 a state of insurrection, and opposi- 

 tion to tyranny, before a sub- 

 mission to laws of so atrocious a 

 nature. Tumults and riots had 

 for some time disturbed the peace 

 of different departments, when, 

 towards the end of August, a gene- 

 ral insurrection broke out in the 

 department of Mayenne, on the 

 right of the Loire. Here the in- 

 surgents, who had hitherto remain- 

 ed in the woods, or villages remote 

 from general resort and communi- 

 cation, appeared under their leaders 

 in force, made themselves masters 

 of several towns, deposed the con- 

 stituted authorities, seized their pa- 

 pers, took republican hostages, and 

 proclaimed by public advertise- 

 ments the object of their rising in 

 arms : which was, the restoration 

 of the monarchy without limita-. 



