On a brisk morning in February 1796, Thomas Bordas, an illiterate weaver from the village of Segonzac in the Dordogne, stood in the cold, listening to the president of the local administrative council deliver a long, elaborate, and—quite frankly—uninteresting speech. The speaker took pains to praise the hard work of the Parisian deputies who had recently completed the Constitution of the Year III, exalting the French Republic and its most recent government, the Directory. Bordas suspected that the presentation was drawing to a close when it came time for those assembled to swear an oath of loyalty to the Republic. But unlike earlier revolutionary oaths, which had required an unobjectionable statement of loyalty to the nation and a promise to uphold liberty and equality, the new oath of the Year IV demanded that citizens testify to their “hatred of royalty.” As first the municipal officers and then other citizens, in turn, began to pronounce aloud “I swear to despise the monarchy and to remain faithful to the Republic and to the Constitution of the Year III,” the villagers began to talk among themselves in low voices, and Bordas’ own frustration grew. He looked nervously from side to side, as if seeking the solidarity of his neighbors. Finally, he could take it no longer. He stepped forward, interrupting the speaker, and said loudly that this manner of swearing oaths meant nothing and that it was only the self-important municipal officers who insisted upon it.