the essential
Continuation of the analysis conducted by Fernand Cassany de Mazet on the History of the Revolution in Villeneuve. We are in January 1793, after the words of Pierre Paganel.
January 18, 1793 (district register). An order from the department, sent from Agen on December 9, 1792, obliged the District Directory to issue a decree which, if executed to the letter, would have led to the destruction of masses of serious papers for local and general history, books rare, monuments worthy of preservation. Here’s how our witty and intelligent administrators fared. First, considerations of rare violence: “order to burn the nobility and titles of a proud caste. A free nation must pursue men, but even all titles, acts, noble books, paintings and all signs any which could serve to perpetuate the memory of this execrated horde of subordinate tyrants who for too long have soiled the land of freedom with their injustices, their usurpations and their shameful privileges. “hour of the book burning.”
January 19, 1793 (district register). Then, after agreement with our no less witty and intelligent municipal officers, two days later, on the market square, now called Liberty Square, we burned the odious objects whose nomenclature follows: 1. Inviolable royalty; 2. Mornaq’s memorandum concerning the immunities of the church; 3. the style of the parliament of Paris; 4. the antiquities of Aquitaine; 5. the collection of regulations of notables; 6. the Treaty of Justice; 7. questions and answers on French customs; 8. the Lordships Treaty; 9. the genealogy of the house of Montesquieu; 10. the royal almanac; 11. the State of France; 12. a paper tapestry which decorated the board room of the District dotted with fleur-de-lys and where these words the Nation, the Law, the King were printed from distance to distance. The report adds: “all the citizens attended this burning with a cheerfulness that characterizes true republicans.” The fact is that there was something to laugh about.
The citizen Jean-Pierre Isaac Martin, first member of the District administration, called to replace the resigning citizen JB Pourpory on the Directory, took the oath.
200,000 pounds will be distributed for public utility work to be carried out by charity workshops. The share of Villeneuve, which has 10,137 inhabitants, is 4,392 livres, 10 sols and 6 deniers.
January 22, 1793 (district register). The fathers and mothers of emigrant children are taxed for the two volunteers to clothe and equip at the sum of 883 pounds per each emigrant child. The Directory received numerous requests for travel allowances from the delegates to the Federation on July 14, 1790. These travel costs had been set at 120 pounds per delegate.
January 23, 1793 (municipal register). The scarcity of wheat comes less from scarcity, it seems, than from destroyed roads. The council of the commune charges citizens Landié and Serres, municipal officers, with discovering the quantity of wheat there is in town and who the owners are so that the council can take the most appropriate measures to engage them in restocking the market. . The hospital having lost its income and the number of needy having increased, the council demanded essential assistance from the ministers. He signed a petition in order to obtain as parish oratory, the churches of the former Penitents. (To be continued).
