As an instrument of police control and judicial repression, the maréchaussée was an institution devoted to the maintenance of law and order, hence of the status quo. The Revolution was the ultimate rebellion against its authority, the maréchaussée's ultimate defeat. Prévôtal justice was destroyed in a barrage of public execration; the very name maréchaussée disappeared for ever, apart from a few derisory appearances in student songs. Having had nothing more intimidating to face than sporadic interference from men emboldened by drink, or rioting by hungry women, the maréchaussée in 1789 soon found itself hopelessly inadequate to deal with a nation-wide uprising. This did not mean however that the normal service of the force was discontinued. Indeed a conscious decision seems to have been taken, with the blessing of society at large, to retreat into the daily routine while a thousand years of injustice crumbled round about.

The traditional clientèle flowed into the prévôtal prison in Bordeaux till October 1790. The prisoners accused in May 1789 of attroupement were considerably outnumbered by a succession of beggars, vagabonds, petty thieves, escaped galley slaves, and in 1790 the Bordeaux prison had no ‘political’ inmates, only 2 horse-thieves, a boy suspected of theft, 2 escaped convicts from Rochefort, and 9 deserters. The prévôtal court in Agen dealt with no cases remotely concerned with the Revolution, and devoted most of 1789 to the prosecution, in his absence, of an unidentified Spaniard accused of the murder and robbery of a sheep merchant.