Meanwhile, one Boniface, elected captain of the people of Corleone, went forth with three thousand men to scour the surrounding country.  The royal farms were plundered and devastated; the herds, which had been carefully fattened for the army of the East, were confiscated to the service of the Sicilian revolution; the castles of the French were stormed, their houses sacked, and the massacre so ruthless that, according to Saba Malaspina, it seemed as if every man either had the death of a father, son, or brother to revenge, or firmly believed that the slaughter of a Frenchman was an act well pleasing to God.  Thus, in a very few days, the movement propagated itself many miles around owing to the similarity of sentiments, the force of example, and the energy of the insurgents.  In many places it assumed a character which must be inexplicable to those who, in spite of all that has been already stated, would persist in regarding these tumultuous outbreaks as the result of conspiracy; while the people showed the utmost readiness to put the foreigners to the sword, yet they feared to disown the name of King Charles.  Their hesitation lasted but a few days, for they were carried away by the impulse of universal feeling and by the strength of the rebels; so that all, by degrees, declared themselves elected chiefs to lead their forces against the French, and captains of the people whom they sent to the capital, the fame of whose example had roused their courage, and which was now the centre of all their confidence, of all their hopes.

This first nucleus of the representatives of the nation being thus assembled in Palermo, they became imbued with the same valor which in one short night had raised a popular tumult to the dignity of a revolution.  They were further encouraged by the manly energy of the people, who, mingled with insurgents from the surrounding towns, traversed the city to and fro, eagerly relating to one another the outrages they had suffered, and crying aloud, “Death rather than the yoke of the French!” So that no sooner were the syndics of the greater part of Val di Mazzara assembled in parliament, than they agreed to the establishment of the republican form of government conducted in the name of the Church.  The people without responded with loud acclamations and shouts of “The Republic and Liberty!” All encouraged each other to venture everything, when Roger Mastrangelo, bent on urging them on so far that all retreat should be cut off and that they might be able to control the course of events, rose and boldly thus addressed the assembly: 

“Citizens!  I hear daring words and solemn oaths, but I see no symptoms of action, as if the blood that has been shed were the seal of victory rather than the provocation to a long and deadly struggle.  Do you know Charles and his thousands of executioners, and can you yet amuse yourselves with the decoration of banners?  Not far distant on the mainland are armies and navies ready for the Grecian war:  there