Two nights later a frightened messe

Two nights later a frightened messenger galloped into Clermont. He came from the Jacobin society at Ambert in the hills toward Lyons. His news was dreadful. A few miles away, in the next department, the Jacobin commander and his troops had been ambushed and captured by a party of Muscadins. Ambert was in a panic. Its Jacobins were threatened; even people of neutral or undecided opinions could fear the worst. The peasants, unconcerned though they might be in the issues, faced the ravaging of their fields and homes. For the first time in two hundred years Ambert looked upon the stark prospect of civil war.