Introduction
Neither the frost nor the autumn rain brought damp into the houses that day. Beneath the jutting cliff that peered over the river Tarn the smell of smoke, so familiar to the villagers of La Malène, began to arouse fear. Armed men who had crossed into the department of Lozère from neighbouring Ardèche had drunk all of the wine in the village and slaughtered all of the pigs. Now this ‘band of assassins, known as the revolutionary army’ set out to destroy what remained. ‘They tied up our inconsolable women and subjected them to constant terror and mortal threat in front of the horrible spectacle of flames engulfing their homes.’ La Malène, inhabited by some eighty people, was razed on 4 November 1793. Those who survived the calamity described how ‘nothing was spared, neither our belongings, nor our livelihoods. Everything was reduced to ash.’...