Only after years of conflict, however, did he succeed in reducing these unruly desperadoes to something like obedience.
Looks like they've got us desperadoes.
Thus the Magyars were saddled with two rival kings with equally valid titles, which proved an even worse disaster than the Mohacs catastrophe; for in most of the counties of the unhappy kingdom desperadoes of every description plundered the estates of the gentry, and oppressed the common people, under the pretext that they were fighting the battles of the contending monarchs.
The outcome of it was the despatch of some five or six Chouan desperadoes to Paris, three of whom exploded an infernal machine close to Bonaparte's carriage in the narrow streets near the Tuileries (3rd Nivose [24th of December] 1800).
The exiles had among them desperadoes who could slay; and, besides exciting the enmity of the Anglican clergy about the king, who bitterly resented the secularist spirit of his book, he had compromised himself with the French authorities by his elaborate attack on the papal system.