The anger of the assassin leader instantly resonated with his companions, and this group of normally reticent peasants from the provinces suddenly opened up to Arthur, recounting their different origins but common ordeals.
Some spoke of how their old father was forcibly conscripted by a drafting officer sent by the National Assembly while harvesting buckwheat in the fields without any warning, others talked about their families being massacred by the republican government troops, and some even angrily slammed the table, accusing the Jacobin Party of the tyranny it imposed on their hometown, detailing the story of a kind and amiable rural priest near their home being sent to the guillotine for refusing to denounce his religious stance.
But among the experiences personally recounted by these narrators, they all eventually converged on one time and place — the Vendee of 1793, and that conscription order issued by the National Assembly.
