The departmental assembly of the South names Rigaud general in chief with power to make laws, appoint to posts and levy taxes.

Pétion, however, still wishes to try only the way of conciliation with regard to the citizens of the South. He asks Rigaud for a detailed report on the new events. Rigaud declines responsibility; he declares “that the scission of the South was the work of the will of the people, before which he had been forced to bow.” But when Pétion learned that Rigaud had been named, on 3 November, general-in-chief by the departmental assembly, with “power to make laws, to annul those already made, to appoint to civil and military posts, to organize the army of the South, and to establish taxes (1),” he hesitated no longer and marched upon the seceding department 1,500 men under the orders of Generals Delva and Gédéon. At the same time he dispatched to General Rigaud the citizens Fresnel, Dupré, Lespinasse, Pierre Michel, Michaut and Arrault, to invite him to return to better principles.