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The French Revolution - Volume 1

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Title: The French Revolution - Volume 1

Author: Hippolyte Taine

Annotator: Svend Rom

Translator: John Durand


        
Release date: June 22, 2008 [eBook #2578]
                Most recently updated: July 14, 2008

Language: English

Other information and formats: www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/2578

Credits: Produced by Svend Rom and David Widger


*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE FRENCH REVOLUTION - VOLUME 1 ***




Produced by Svend Rom





THE ORIGINS OF CONTEMPORARY FRANCE, VOLUME 2

THE FRENCH REVOLUTION, VOLUME 1.


by Hippolyte A. Taine



CONTENTS:

ANARCHY

PREFACE

BOOK FIRST. Spontaneous Anarchy.

CHAPTER I. The Beginnings of Anarchy

CHAPTER II. Paris up to the 14th of July

CHAPTER III. Anarchy from July 14th to October 6th, 1789

CHAPTER IV. PARIS

BOOK SECOND. The constituent Assembly, and the Result of its Labors

CHAPTER I. The Constituent Assembly

CHAPTER II. The Damage

CHAPTER III. The Constructions--The Constitution of 1791.

BOOK THIRD. The Application of the Constitution

CHAPTER I. The Federations

CHAPTER II. Sovereignty of Unrestrained Passions

CHAPTER III. Development of the ruling Passion




PREFACE

This second part of "Les Origines de la France Contemporaine" will
consist of two volumes.--Popular insurrections and the laws of the
Constituent Assembly end in destroying all government in France; this
forms the subject of the present volume.--A party arises around
an extreme doctrine, grabs control of the government, and rules in
conformity with its doctrine. This will form the subject of the second
volume.

A third volume would be required to criticize and evaluate the source
material. I lack the necessary space: I merely state the rule that I
have observed. The trustworthiest testimony will always be that of an
eyewitness, especially

* When this witness is an honorable, attentive, and intelligent man,

* When he is writing on the spot, at the moment, and under the dictate
of the facts themselves,

* When it is obvious that his sole object is to preserve or furnish
information,

* When his work instead of a piece of polemics planned for the needs
of a cause, or a passage of eloquence arranged for popular effect is a
legal deposition, a secret report, a confidential dispatch, a private
letter, or a personal memento.

The nearer a document approaches this type, the more it merits
confidence, and supplies superior material.--I have found many of
this kind in the national archives, principally in the manuscript
correspondence of ministers, intendants, sub-delegates, magistrates, and
other functionaries; of military commanders, officers in the army,
and gendarmerie; of royal commissioners, and of the Assembly; of
administrators of departments, districts, and municipalities, besides
persons in private life who address the King, the National Assembly, or
the ministry. Among these are men of every rank, profession, education,
and party. They are distributed by hundreds and thousands over the
whole surface of the territory. They write apart, without being able to
consult each other, and without even knowing each other. No one is so
well placed for collecting and transmitting accurate information. None
of them seek literary effect, or even imagine that what they write will
ever be published. They draw up their statements at once, under the
direct impression of local events. Testimony of this character, of the
highest order, and at first hand, provides the means by which all other
testimony ought to be verified.--The footnotes at the bottom of the
pages indicate the condition, office, name, and address of those
decisive witnesses. For greater certainty I have transcribed as often as
possible their own words. In this way the reader, confronting the texts,
can interpret them for himself, and form his own opinions; he will have
the same documents as myself for arriving at his conclusions, and, if he
is pleased to do so, he may conclude otherwise. As for allusions, if he
finds any, he himself will have introduced them, and if he applies them
he is alone responsible for them. To my mind, the past has features of
its own, and the portrait here presented resembles only the France of
the past. I have drawn it without concerning myself with the discussions
of the day; I have written as if my subject were the revolutions of
Florence or Athens. This is history, and nothing more, and, if I may
fully express myself, I esteem my vocation of historian too highly to
make a cloak of it for the concealment of another. (December 1877).


*****




BOOK FIRST. SPONTANEOUS ANARCHY.




CHAPTER I. THE BEGINNINGS OF ANARCHY.




I.--Dearth the first cause.

     Bad crops. The winter of 1788 and 1789.--High price and poor
     quality of bread.--In the provinces.--At Paris.

During the night of July 14-15, 1789, the Duc de la
Rochefoucauld-Liancourt caused Louis XVI to be aroused to inform him of
the taking of the Bastille. "It is a revolt, then?" exclaimed the King.
"Sire!" replied the Duke; "it is a revolution!" The event was even more
serious. Not only had power slipped from the hands of the King, but also
it had not fallen into those of the Assembly. It now lay on the
ground, ready to the hands of the unchained populace, the violent and
over-excited crowd, the mobs, which picked it up like some weapon that
had been thrown away in the street. In fact, there was no longer any
government; the artificial structure of human society was giving way
entirely; things were returning to a state of nature. This was not a
revolution, but a dissolution.

Two causes excite and maintain the universal upheaval. The first one is
food shortages and dearth, which being constant, lasting for ten years,
and aggravated by the very disturbances which it excites, bids fair to
inflame the popular passions to madness, and change the whole course of
the Revolution into a series of spasmodic stumbles.

When a stream is brimful, a slight rise suffices to cause an overflow.
So was it with the extreme distress of the eighteenth century. A poor
man, who finds it difficult to live when bread is cheap, sees death
staring him in the face when it is dear. In this state of suffering the
animal instinct revolts, and the universal obedience which constitutes
public peace depends on a degree more or less of dryness or damp, heat
or cold. In 1788, a year of severe drought, the crops had been poor. In
addition to this, on the eve of the harvest,[1101] a terrible hail-storm
burst over the region around Paris, from Normandy to Champagne,
devastating sixty leagues of the most fertile territory, and causing
damage to the amount of one hundred millions of francs. Winter came on,
the severest that had been seen since 1709. At the close of December the
Seine was frozen over from Paris to Havre, while the thermometer stood
at 180 below zero. A third of the olive-trees died in Provence, and the
rest suffered to such an extent that they were considered incapable of
bearing fruit for two years to come. The same disaster befell Languedoc.
In Vivarais, and in the Cevennes, whole forests of chestnuts had
perished, along with all the grain and grass crops on the uplands. On
the plain the Rhone remained in a state of overflow for two months.
After the spring of 1789 the famine spread everywhere, and it increased
from month to month like a rising flood. In vain did the Government
order the farmers, proprietors, and corn-dealers to keep the markets
supplied. In vain did it double the bounty on imports, resort to all
sorts of expedients, involve itself in debt, and expend over forty
millions of francs to furnish France with wheat. In vain do individuals,
princes, noblemen, bishops, chapters, and communities multiply their
charities. The Archbishop of Paris incurring a debt of 400,000 livres,
one rich man distributing 40,000 francs the morning after the hailstorm,
and a convent of Bernardines feeding twelve hundred poor persons for six
weeks[1102]. But it had been too devastating. Neither public measures
nor private charity could meet the overwhelming need. In Normandy, where
the last commercial treaty had ruined the manufacture of linen and
of lace trimmings, forty thousand workmen were out of work. In many
parishes one-fourth of the population[1103] are beggars. Here, "nearly
all the inhabitants, not excepting the farmers and landowners, are
eating barley bread and drinking water;" there, "many poor creatures
have to eat oat bread, and others soaked bran, which has caused the
death of several children."--"Above all," writes the Rouen Parliament,
"let help be sent to a perishing people. . .. Sire, most of your
subjects are unable to pay the price of bread, and what bread is given
to those who do buy it "--Arthur Young,[1104] who was traveling through
France at this time, heard of nothing but the high cost of bread and the
distress of the people. At Troyes bread costs four sous a pound--that is
to say, eight sous of the present day; and unemployed artisans flock
to the relief works, where they can earn only twelve sous a day. In
Lorraine, according to the testimony of all observers, "the people are
half dead with hunger." In Paris the number of paupers has been trebled;
there are thirty thousand in the Faubourg Saint-Antoine alone. Around
Paris there is a short supply of grain, or it is spoilt[1105]. In the
beginning of July, at Montereau, the market is empty. "The bakers could
not have baked" if the police officers had not increased the price of
bread to five sous per pound; the rye and barley which the intendant
is able to send "are of the worst possible quality, rotten and in a
condition to produce dangerous diseases. Nevertheless, most of the small
consumers are reduced to the hard necessity of using this spoilt grain."
At Villeneuve-le-Roi, writes the mayor, "the rye of the two lots last
sent is so black and poor that it cannot be retailed without wheat." At
Sens the barley "tastes musty" to such an extent that buyers of it throw
the detestable bread, which it makes in the face of the sub-delegate. At
Chevreuse the barley has sprouted and smells bad; the "poor wretches,"
says an employee, "must be hard pressed with hunger to put up with it."
At Fontainebleau "the barley, half eaten away, produces more bran than
flour, and to make bread of it, one is obliged to work it over several
times." This bread, such as it is, is an object of savage greed; "it
has come to this, that it is impossible to distribute it except through
wickets." And those who thus obtain their ration, "are often attacked on
the road and robbed of it by the more vigorous of the famished people."
At Nangis "the magistrates prohibit the same person from buying more
than two bushels in the same market." In short, provisions are so
scarce that there is a difficulty in feeding the soldiers; the minister
dispatches two letters one after another to order the cutting down
of 250,000 bushels of rye before the harvest[1106]. Paris thus, in
a perfect state of tranquility, appears like a famished city put on
rations at the end of a long siege, and the dearth will not be greater
nor the food worse in December 1870, than in July 1789.

"The nearer the 14th of July approached," says an eyewitness,[1107] "the
more did the dearth increase. Every baker's shop was surrounded by a
crowd, to which bread was distributed with the most grudging economy.
This bread was generally blackish, earthy, and bitter, producing
inflammation of the throat and pain in the bowels. I have seen flour of
detestable quality at the military school and at other depots. I have
seen portions of it yellow in color, with an offensive smell; some
forming blocks so hard that they had to be broken into fragments
by repeated blows of a hatchet. For my own part, wearied with the
difficulty of procuring this poor bread, and disgusted with that offered
to me at the tables d'hôte, I avoided this kind of food altogether. In
the evening I went to the Café du Caveau, where, fortunately, they
were kind enough to reserve for me two of those rolls which are called
flutes, and this is the only bread I have eaten for a week at a time."

But this resource is only for the rich. As for the people, to get bread
fit for dogs, they must stand in a line for hours. And here they fight
for it; "they snatch food from one another." There is no more work to
be had; "the work-rooms are deserted;" often, after waiting a whole
day, the workman returns home empty-handed. When he does bring back a
four-pound loaf it costs him 3 francs 12 sous; that is, 12 sous for the
bread, and 3 francs for the lost day. In this long line of unemployed,
excited men, swaying to and fro before the shop-door, dark thoughts are
fermenting: "if the bakers find no flour to-night to bake with, we shall
have nothing to eat to-morrow." An appalling idea;--in presence of which
the whole power of the Government is not too strong; for to keep order
in the midst of famine nothing avails but the sight of an armed force,
palpable and threatening. Under Louis XIV and Louis XV there had been
even greater hunger and misery; but the outbreaks, which were roughly
and promptly put down, were only partial and passing disorders. Some
rioters were at once hung, and others were sent to the galleys. The
peasant or the workman, convinced of his impotence, at once returned to
his stall or his plow. When a wall is too high one does not even think
of scaling it.--But now the wall is cracking--all its custodians, the
clergy, the nobles, the Third-Estate, men of letters, the politicians,
and even the Government itself, making the breach wider. The wretched,
for the first time, discover an issue: they dash through it, at first
in driblets, then in a mass, and rebellion becomes as universal as
resignation was in the past.




II.--Expectations the second cause

     Separation and laxity of the administrative forces.--
     Investigations of local assemblies. --The people become
     aware of their condition.--Convocation of the States-
     General.--Hope is born. The coincidence of early Assemblies
     with early difficulties.

It is just through this breach that hope steals like a beam of light,
and gradually finds its way down to the depths below. For the last fifty
years it has been rising, and its rays, which first illuminated the
upper class in their splendid apartments in the first story, and next
the middle class in their entresol and on the ground floor. They have
now for two years penetrated to the cellars where the people toil, and
even to the deep sinks and obscure corners where rogues and vagabonds
and malefactors, a foul and swarming herd, crowd and hide themselves
from the persecution of the law.--To the first two provincial assemblies
instituted by Necker in 1778 and 1779, Loménie de Brienne has in 1787
just added nineteen others; under each of these are assemblies of the
arrondissement, under each assembly of the arrondissement are parish
assemblies[1108]. Thus the whole machinery of administration has been
changed. It is the new assemblies which assess the taxes and superintend
their collection; which determine upon and direct all public works; and
which form the court of final appeal in regard to matters in dispute.
The intendant, the sub-delegate, the elected representative[1109], thus
lose three-quarters of their authority. Conflicts arise, consequently,
between rival powers whose frontiers are not clearly defined; command
shifts about, and obedience is diminished. The subject no longer feels
on his shoulders the commanding weight of the one hand which, without
possibility of interference or resistance, held him in, urged him
forward, and made him move on. Meanwhile, in each assembly of the
parish arrondissement, and even of the province, plebeians,
"husband-men,"[1110] and often common farmers, sit by the side of lords
and prelates. They listen to and remember the vast figure of the taxes
which are paid exclusively, or almost exclusively, by them--the taille
and its accessories, the poll-tax and road dues, and assuredly on their
return home they talk all this over with their neighbor. These figures
are all printed; the village attorney discusses the matter with his
clients, the artisans and rustics, on Sunday as they leave the mass,
or in the evening in the large public room of the tavern. These little
gatherings, moreover, are sanctioned, encouraged by the powers above.
In the earliest days of 1788 the provincial assemblies order a board
of inquiry to be held by the syndics and inhabitants of each parish.
Knowledge is wanted in detail of their grievances. What part of the
revenue is chargeable to each impost? What must the cultivator pay and
how much does he suffer? How many privileged persons there are in the
parish, what is the amount of their fortune, are they residents, and
what their exemptions amount to? In replying, the attorney who holds the
pen, names and points out with his finger each privileged individual,
criticizes his way of living, and estimates his fortune, calculates the
injury done to the village by his immunities, inveighs against the taxes
and the tax-collectors. On leaving these assemblies the villager broods
over what he has just heard. He sees his grievances no longer singly as
before, but in mass, and coupled with the enormity of evils under which
his fellows suffer. Besides this, they begin to disentangle the causes
of their misery: the King is good--why then do his collectors take so
much of our money? This or that canon or nobleman is not unkind--why
then do they make us pay in their place?--Imagine that a sudden gleam of
reason should allow a beast of burden to comprehend the contrast between
the species of horse and mankind. Imagine, if you can, what its first
ideas would be in relation to the coachmen and drivers who bridle
and whip it and again in relation to the good-natured travelers and
sensitive ladies who pity it, but who to the weight of the vehicle add
their own and that of their luggage.

Likewise, in the mind of the peasant, athwart his perplexed brooding, a
new idea, slowly, little by little, is unfolded:--that of an oppressed
multitude of which he makes one, a vast herd scattered far beyond the
visible horizon, everywhere ill used, starved, and fleeced. Towards the
end of 1788 we begin to detect in the correspondence of the intendants
and military commandants the dull universal muttering of coming
wrath. Men's characters seem to change; they become suspicious and
restive.--And just at this moment, the Government, dropping the reins,
calls upon them to direct themselves.[1111]. In the month of November
1787, the King declared that he would convoke the States-General. On the
5th of July 1788, he calls for memoranda (des mémoires) on this subject
from every competent person and body. On the 8th of August he fixes the
date of the session. On the 5th of October he convokes the notables,
in order to consider the subject with them. On the 27th of December he
grants a double representation to the Third-Estate, because "its cause
is allied with generous sentiments, and it will always obtain the
support of public opinion." The same day he introduces into the
electoral assemblies of the clergy a majority of curés[1112], "because
good and useful pastors are daily and closely associated with the
indigence and relief of the people," from which it follows "that they
are much more familiar with their sufferings" and necessities. On
the 24th January 1789, he prescribes the procedure and method of the
meetings. After the 7th of February writs of summons are sent out one
after the other. Eight days after, each parish assembly begins to draw
up its memorial of grievances, and becomes excited over the detailed
enumeration of all the miseries which it sets down in writing.--All
these appeals and all these acts are so many strokes, which reverberate,
in the popular imagination. "It is the desire of His Majesty," says the
order issued, "that every one, from the extremities of his kingdom, and
from the most obscure of its hamlets, should be certain of his wishes
and protests reaching him." Thus, it is all quite true: there can be
no mistake about it, the thing is sure. The people are invited to speak
out, they are summoned, and they are consulted. There is a disposition
to relieve them; henceforth their misery shall be less; better times
are coming. This is all they know about it. A few month after, in
July,[1113] the only answer a peasant girl can make to Arthur Young is,
"something was to be done by some great folks for such poor ones, but
she did not know who nor how." The thing is too complicated, beyond the
reach of a stupefied and mechanical brain.--One idea alone emerges, the
hope of immediate relief. The persuasion that one is entitled to it, the
resolution to aid it with every possible means. Consequently, an anxious
waiting, a ready fervor, a tension of the will simply due to the waiting
for the opportunity to let go and take off like a irresistible arrow
towards the unknown end which will reveal itself all of a sudden. Hunger
is to mark this sudden target out for them.

The market must be supplied with wheat; the farmers and land-owners must
bring it; wholesale buyers, whether the Government or individuals, must
not be allowed to send it elsewhere. The wheat must be sold at a low
price; the price must be cut down and fixed, so that the baker can sell
bread at two sous the pound. Grain, flour, wine, salt, and provisions
must pay no more duties. Seignorial dues and claims, ecclesiastical
tithes, and royal or municipal taxes must no longer exist. On the
strength of this idea disturbances broke out on all sides in March,
April, and May. Contemporaries "do not know what to think of such
a scourge;[1114] they cannot comprehend how such a vast number of
criminals, without visible leaders, agree amongst themselves everywhere
to commit the same excesses just at the time when the States-General are
going to begin their sittings." The reason is that, under the ancient
régime, the conflagration was smoldering in a closed chamber; the great
door is suddenly opened, the air enters, and immediately the flame
breaks out.




III.--The provinces during the first six months of 1789

     Effects of the famine.

At first there are only intermittent, isolated fires, which are
extinguished or go out of themselves; but, a moment after, in the same
place, or very near it, the sparks again appear. Their number, like
their recurrence, shows the vastness, depth, and heat of the combustible
matter, which is about to explode. In the four months, which precede the
taking of the Bastille, over three hundred outbreaks may be counted in
France. They take place from month to month and from week to week, in
Poitou, Brittany, Touraine, Orléanais, Normandy, Ile-de-France, Picardy,
Champagne, Alsace, Burgundy, Nivernais, Auvergne, Languedoc, and
Provence. On the 28th of May the parliament of Rouen announces robberies
of grain, "violent and bloody tumults, in which men on both sides have
fallen," throughout the province, at Caen, Saint-Lô, Mortain, Granville,
Evreux, Bernay, Pont-Andemer, Elboeuf; Louviers, and in other sections
besides. On the 20th of April Baron de Bezenval, military commander
in the Central Provinces, writes: "I once more lay before M. Necker a
picture of the frightful condition of Touraine and of Orléanais. Every
letter I receive from these two provinces is the narrative of three
or four riots, which are put down with difficulty by the troops and
constabulary,"[1115]--and throughout the whole extent of the kingdom a
similar state of things is seen. The women, as is natural, are generally
at the head of these outbreaks. It is they who, at Montlhéry, rip open
the sacks of grain with their scissors. On learning each week, on market
day that the price of a loaf of bread advances three, four, or seven
sous, they break out into shrieks of rage: at this rate for bread, with
the small salaries of the men, and when work fails,[1116] how can a
family be fed? Crowds gather around the sacks of flour and the doors of
the bakers. Amidst outcries and reproaches some one in the crowd makes a
push; the proprietor or dealer is hustled and knocked down. The shop
is invaded, the commodity is in the hands of the buyers and of the
famished, each one grabbing for himself, pay or no pay, and running
away with the booty.--Sometimes a party is made up beforehand[1117]
At Bray-sur-Seine, on the 1st of May, the villagers for four leagues
around, armed with stones, knives, and cudgels, to the number of four
thousand, compel the metayers and farmers, who have brought grain with
them, to sell it at 3 livres, instead of 4 livres 10 sous the bushel.
They threaten to do the same thing on the following market-day: but the
farmers do not return, the storehouse remains empty. Now soldiers must
be at hand, or the inhabitants of Bray will be pillaged. At Bagnols, in
Languedoc, on the 1st and 2nd of April, the peasants, armed with cudgels
and assembled by tap of drum, "traverse the town, threatening to burn
and destroy everything if flour and money are not given to them."
They go to private houses for grain, divide it amongst themselves at a
reduced price, "promising to pay when the next crop comes round," and
force the Consuls to put bread at two sous the pound, and to increase
the day's wages four sous.--Indeed this is now the regular thing; it is
not the people who obey the authorities, but the authorities who obey
the people. Consuls, sheriffs, mayors, municipal officers, town-clerks,
become confused and hesitating in the face of this huge clamor; they
feel that they are likely to be trodden under foot or thrown out of the
windows. Others, with more firmness, being aware that a riotous crowd
is mad, and having scruples to spill blood; yield for the time being,
hoping that at the next market-day there will be more soldiers
and better precautions taken. At Amiens, "after a very violent
outbreak,"[1118] they decide to take the wheat belonging to the Jacobin
monks, and, protected by the troops, to sell it to the people at a third
below its value. At Nantes, where the town hall is attacked, they are
forced to lower the price of bread one sou per pound. At Angoulême, to
avoid a recourse to arms, they request the Comte d'Artois to renounce
his dues on flour for two months, reduce the price of bread, and
compensate the bakers. At Cette they are so maltreated they let
everything take its course; the people sack their dwellings and get the
upper hand; they announce by sound of trumpet that all their demands are
granted. On other occasions, the mob dispenses with their services and
acts for itself. If there happens to be no grain on the market-place,
the people go after it wherever they can find it--to proprietors and
farmers who are unable to bring it for fear of pillage; to convents,
which by royal edict are obliged always to have one year's crop in
store; to granaries where the Government keeps its supplies; and to
convoys which are dispatched by the intendants to the relief of famished
towns. Each for himself--so much the worse for his neighbor. The
inhabitants of Fougères beat and drive out those who come from Ernée
to buy in their market; a similar violence is shown at Vitré to the
in-habitants of Maine.[1119] At Sainte-Léonard the people stop the grain
started for Limoges; at Bost that intended for Aurillac; at Saint-Didier
that ordered for Moulins; and at Tournus that dispatched to Macon. In
vain are escorts added to the convoys; troops of men and women, armed
with hatchets and guns, put themselves in ambush in the woods along the
road, and seize the horses by their bridles; the saber has to be used to
secure any advance. In vain are arguments and kind words offered, "and
in vain even is wheat offered for money; they refuse, shouting out that
the convoy shall not go on." They have taken a stubborn stand, their
resolution being that of a bull planted in the middle of the road and
lowering his horns. Since the wheat is in the district, it is theirs;
whoever carries it off or withholds it is a robber. This fixed idea
cannot be driven out of their minds. At Chant-nay, near Mans,[1120]
they prevent a miller from carrying that which he had just bought to
his mill. At Montdragon, in Languedoc, they stone a dealer in the act of
sending his last wagon load elsewhere. At Thiers, workmen go in force
to gather wheat in the fields; a proprietor with whom some is found
is nearly killed; they drink wine in the cellars, and leave the taps
running. At Nevers, the bakers not having put bread on their counters
for four days, the mob force the granaries of private persons, of
dealers and religious communities. "The frightened corn-dealers part
with their grain at any price; most of it is stolen in the face of the
guards," and, in the tumult of these searches of homes, a number of
houses are sacked.--In these days woe to all who are concerned in the
acquisition, commerce, and manipulation of grain! Popular imagination
requires living beings to who it may impute its misfortunes, and on whom
it may gratify its resentments. To it, all such persons are monopolists,
and, at any rate, public enemies. Near Angers the Benedictine
establishment is invaded, and its fields and woods are devastated.[1121]
At Amiens "the people are arranging to pillage and perhaps burn the
houses of two merchants, who have built labor-saving mills." Restrained
by the soldiers, they confine themselves to breaking windows; but other
"groups come to destroy or plunder the houses of two or three persons
whom they suspect of being monopolists." At Nantes, a sieur Geslin,
being deputized by the people to inspect a house, and finding no wheat,
a shout is set up that he is a receiver, an accomplice! The crowd rush
at him, and he is wounded and almost cut in pieces.--It is very evident
that there is no more security in France; property, even life, is in
danger. The primary possession, food, is violated in hundreds of places,
and is everywhere menaced and precarious. The local officials everywhere
call for aid, declare the constabulary incompetent, and demand
regular troops. And mark how public authority, everywhere inadequate,
disorganized, and tottering, finds stirred up against it not only the
blind madness of hunger, but, in addition, the evil instincts which
profit by every disorder and the inveterate lusts which every political
commotion frees from restraint.




IV.--Intervention of ruffians and vagabonds.

We have seen how numerous the smugglers, dealers in contraband salt,
poachers, vagabonds, beggars, and escaped convicts[1122] have become,
and how a year of famine increases the number. All are so many recruits
for the mobs, and whether in a disturbance or by means of a disturbance
each one of them fills his pouch. Around Caux,[1123] even up to the
environs of Rouen, at Roncherolles, Quévrevilly, Préaux, Saint-Jacques,
and in the entire surrounding neighborhood bands of armed bandits force
their way into the houses, particularly the parsonages, and lay their
hands on whatever they please. To the south of Chartres "three or four
hundred woodcutters, from the forests of Bellème, chop away everything
that opposes them, and force grain to be given up to them at their own
price." In the vicinity of Étampes, fifteen bandits enter the
farmhouses at night and put the farmer to ransom, threatening him with
a conflagration. In Cambrésis they pillage the abbeys of Vauchelles, of
Verger, and of Guillemans, the château of the Marquis de Besselard, the
estate of M. Doisy, two farms, the wagons of wheat passing along the
road to Saint-Quentin, and, besides this, seven farms in Picardy.
"The seat of this revolt is in some villages bordering on Picardy and
Cambrésis, familiar with smuggling operations and to the license of
that pursuit." The peasants allow themselves to be enticed away by the
bandits. Man slips rapidly down the incline of dishonesty; one who
is half-honest, and takes part in a riot inadvertently or in spite of
himself; repeats the act, allured on by impunity or by gain. In fact,
"it is not dire necessity which impels them;" they make a speculation of
cupidity, a new sort of illicit trade. An old soldier, saber in hand, a
forest-keeper, and "about eight persons sufficiently lax, put themselves
at the head of four or five hundred men, go off each day to three or
four villages. Here they force everybody who has any wheat to give it
to them at 24 livres," and even at 18 livres, the sack. Those among the
band, who say that they have no money, carry away their portion without
payment. Others, after having paid what they please, re-sell at a
profit, which amounts to even 45 livres the sack. This is a good
business, and one in which greed takes poverty for its accomplice. At
the next harvest the temptation will be similar: "they have threatened
to come and do our harvesting for us, and also to take our cattle and
sell the meat in the villages at the rate of two sous the pound."--In
every important insurrection there are similar evil-does and vagabonds,
enemies to the law, savage, prowling desperadoes, who, like wolves, roam
about wherever they scent a prey. It is they who serve as the directors
and executioners of public or private malice. Near Uzès twenty-five
masked men, with guns and clubs, enter the house of a notary, fire a
pistol at him, beat him, wreck the premises, and burn his registers
along with the title-deeds and papers which he has in keeping for the
Count de Rouvres. Seven of them are arrested, but the people are on
their side, and fall on the constabulary and free them.[1124]--They
are known by their acts, by their love of destruction for the sake of
destruction, by their foreign accent, by their savage faces and their
rags. Some of them come from Paris to Rouen, and, for four days, the
town is at their mercy.[1125] The stores are forced open, train wagons
are discharged, wheat is wasted, and convents and seminaries are put to
ransom. They invade the dwelling of the attorney-general, who has begun
proceedings against them, and want to tear him to pieces. They break his
mirrors and his furniture, leave the premises laden with booty, and go
into the town and its outskirts to pillage the manufactories and break
up or burn all the machinery.--Henceforth these constitute the new
leaders: for in every mob it is the boldest and least scrupulous
who march ahead and set the example in destruction. The example is
contagious: the beginning was the craving for bread, the end is murder
and arson; the savagery which is unchained adding its unlimited violence
to the limited revolt of necessity.




V.--Effect on the Population of the New Ideas.

Bad as it is, this savagery might, perhaps, have been overcome, in spite
of the dearth and of the brigands; but what renders it irresistible is
the belief of its being authorized, and that by those whose duty it is
to repress it. Here and there words and actions of a brutal frankness
break forth, and reveal beyond the somber present a more threatening
future--After the 9th of January, 1789, among the mob which attacks the
Hôtel-de-Ville and besieges the bakers' shops of Nantes, "shouts of Vive
la Liberté![1126] mingled with those of Vive le Roi! are heard." A
few months later, around Ploërmel, the peasants refuse to pay tithes,
alleging that the memorial of their seneschal's court demands their
abolition. In Alsace, after March, there is the same refusal "in many
places;" many of the communities even maintain that they will pay no
more taxes until their deputies to the States-General shall have fixed
the precise amount of the public contributions. In Isère it is decided,
by proceedings, printed and published, that "personal dues" shall no
longer be paid, while the landowners who are affected by this dare
not prosecute in the tribunals. At Lyons, the people have come to the
conclusion "that all levies of taxes are to cease," and, on the 29th of
June, on hearing of the meeting of the three orders, "astonished by the
illuminations and signs of public rejoicing," they believe that the good
time has come." They think of forcing the delivery of meat to them at
four sous the pound, and wine at the same rate. The publicans insinuate
to them the prospective abolition of octrois.[1127] and that, meanwhile,
the King, in favor of the re-assembling of the three orders, has granted
three days' freedom from all duties at Paris, and that Lyons ought
to enjoy the same privilege." Upon this the crowd, rushing off to
the barriers, to the gates of Sainte-Claire and Perrache, and to the
Guillotière bridge, burn or demolish the bureaux, destroy the registers,
sack the lodgings of the clerks, carry off the money and pillage the
wine on hand in the depot. In the mean time a rumor has circulated all
round through the country that there is free entrance into the town for
all provisions. During the following days the peasantry stream in with
enormous files of wagons loaded with wine and drawn by several oxen, so
that, in spite of the re-established guard, it is necessary to let them
enter all day without paying the dues. It is only on the 7th of July
that these can again be collected.--The same thing occurs in the
southern provinces, where the principal imposts are levied on
provisions. There also the collections are suspended in the name of
public authority. At Agde,[1128] "the people, considering the so-called
will of the King as to equality of classes, are foolish enough to think
that they are everything and can do everything." Thus do they interpret
in their own way and in their own terms the double representation
accorded to the Third-Estate. They threaten the town, consequently, with
general pillage if the prices of all provisions are not reduced, and if
the duties of the province on wine, fish, and meat are not suppressed.
They also wish to nominate consuls who have sprung up out of their
body." The bishop, the lord of the manor, the mayor and the notables,
against whom they forcibly stir up the peasantry in the country, are
obliged to proclaim by sound of trumpet that their demands shall be
granted. Three days afterwards they exact a diminution of one-half of
the tax on grinding, and go in quest of the bishop who owns the mills.
The prelate, who is ill, sinks down in the street and seats himself on
a stone; they compel him forthwith to sign an act of renunciation,
and hence "his mill, valued at 15,000 livres, is reduced to 7,500
livres."--At Limoux, under the pretext of searching for grain, they
enter the houses of the comptroller and tax contractors, carry off their
registers, and throw them into the water along with the furniture of
their clerks.--In Provence it is worse; for most unjustly, and through
inconceivable imprudence, the taxes of the towns are all levied on
flour. It is therefore to this impost that the dearness of bread is
directly attributed. Hence the fiscal agent becomes a manifest enemy,
and revolts on account of hunger are transformed into insurrections
against the State.




VI.--The first jacquerie in Province

     Feebleness or ineffectiveness of repressive measures.

Here, again, political novelties are the spark that ignites the mass
of gunpowder. Everywhere, the uprising of the people takes place on
the very day on which the electoral assembly meets. From forty to
fifty riots occur in the provinces in less than a fortnight. Popular
imagination, like that of a child, goes straight to its mark. The
reforms having been announced, people think them accomplished and, to
make sure of them, steps are at once taken to carry them out. Now
that we are to have relief, let us relieve ourselves. "This is not an
isolated riot as usual," writes the commander of the troops;[1129]
"here the faction is united and governed by uniform principles; the same
errors are diffused through all minds. . . . . The principles impressed
on the people are that the King desires equality. No more bishops
or lords, no more distinctions of rank, no tithes, and no seignorial
privileges. Thus, these misguided people fancy that they are exercising
their rights, and obeying the will of the King."--The effect of sonorous
phrases is apparent. The people have been told that the States-General
were to bring about the "regeneration of the kingdom" The inference is
"that the date of their assembly was to be one of an entire and absolute
change of conditions and fortunes." Hence, "the insurrection against the
nobles and the clergy is as active as it is widespread." "In many
places it was distinctly announced that there was a sort of war declared
against landowners and property," and "in the towns as well as in the
rural districts the people persist in declaring that they will pay
nothing, neither taxes, duties, nor debts."--Naturally, the first
assault is against the piquèt, or flour-tax. At Aix, Marseilles, Toulon,
and in more than forty towns and market-villages, this is summarily
abolished; at Aupt and at Luc nothing remains of the weighing-house but
the four walls. At Marseilles the home of the slaughter-house contractor
and at Brignolles that of the director of the leather excise, are
sacked. The determination is "to purge the land of excise-men. "--This
is only a beginning; bread and other provisions must become cheap, and
that without delay. At Arles, the Corporation of sailors, presided over
by M. de Barras, consul, had just elected its representatives. By way of
conclusion to the meeting, they pass a resolution insisting that M. de
Barras should reduce the price of all comestibles. On his refusal, they
"open the window, exclaiming, 'We hold him, and we have only to throw
him into the street for the rest to pick him up.'" Compliance is
inevitable. The resolution is proclaimed by the town-criers, and at each
article which is reduced in price the crowd shout, "Vive le Roi, vive M.
Barras!"--One must yield to brute force. But the inconvenience is great
for, through the suppression of the flour-tax, the towns have no longer
a revenue. On the other hand, as they are obliged to indemnify the
butchers and bakers, Toulon, for instance, incurs a debt of 2,500 livres
a day.

In this state of disorder, woe to those who are under suspicion of
having contributed, directly or indirectly, to the evils, which the
people endure! At Toulon a demand is made for the head of the mayor, who
signs the tax-list, and of the keeper of the records. They are trodden
under foot, and their houses are ransacked. At Manosque, the Bishop
of Sisteron, who is visiting the seminary, is accused of favoring
a monopolist. On his way to his carriage, on foot, he is hooted and
menaced. He is first pelted with mud, and then with stones. The consuls
in attendance, and the sub-delegate, who come to his assistance, are
mauled and repulsed. Meanwhile, some of the most furious begin, before
his eyes, "to dig a ditch to bury him in." Protected by five or six
brave fellows, amidst a volley of stones, and wounded on the head and
on many parts of his body, he succeeds in reaching his carriage. He is
finally only saved because the horses, which are likewise stoned, run
away. Foreigners, Italians, bandits, are mingled with the peasants and
artisans, and expressions are heard and acts are seen which indicate a
jacquerie.[1130] "The most excited said to the bishop, 'we are poor and
you are rich, and we mean to have all your property.'"[1131] Elsewhere,
"the seditious mob exacts contributions from all people in good
circumstances. At Brignolles, thirteen houses are pillaged from top to
bottom, and thirty others partly half.--At Aupt, M. de Montferrat, in
defending himself, is killed and "hacked to pieces."--At La Seyne, the
mob, led by a peasant, assembles by beat of drum. Some women fetch a
bier, and set it down before the house of a leading bourgeois, telling
him to prepare for death, and that "they will have the honor of burying
him." He escapes; his house is pillaged, as well as the bureau of
the flour-tax. The following day, the chief of the band "obliges the
principal inhabitants to give him a sum of money to indemnify, as he
states it, the peasants who have abandoned their work," and devoted the
day to serving the public.--At Peinier, the Président de Peinier, an
octogenarian, is "besieged in his chateau by a band of a hundred and
fifty artisans and peasants," who bring with them a consul and a notary.
Aided by these two functionaries, they force the president "to pass an
act by which he renounces his seignorial rights of every description
"--At Sollier they destroy the mills belonging to M. de Forbin-Janson.
They sack the house of his business agent, pillage the château, and
demolish the roof, chapel, altar, railings, and escutcheons. They enter
the cellars, stave in the casks, and carry away everything that can
be carried, "the transportation taking two days;" all of which cause
damages of a hundred thousand crowns to the marquis.--At Riez they
surround the episcopal palace with fagots, threatening to burn it, "and
compromise with the bishop on a promise of fifty thousand livres," and
want him to burn his archives.--In short, the sedition is social for it
singles out for attack all that profit by, or stand at the head of, the
established order of things.

Seeing them act in this way, one would say that the theory of the
Contrat-Social had been instilled into them. They treat magistrates as
domestics, promulgate laws, and conduct themselves like sovereigns.
They exercise public power, and establish, summarily, arbitrarily,
and brutally, whatever they think to be in conformity with natural
right.--At Peinier they exact a second electoral assembly, and, for
themselves, the right of suffrage.--At Saint-Maximin they themselves
elect new consuls and officers of justice.--At Solliez they oblige the
judge's lieutenant to give in his resignation, and they break his
staff of office.--At Barjols "they use consuls and judges as their town
servants, announcing that they are masters and that they will themselves
administer justice."--In fact, they do administer it, as they understand
it--that is to say, through many exactions and robberies! One man has
wheat; he must share it with him who has none. Another has money;
he must give it to him who has not enough to buy bread with. On this
principle, at Barjols, they tax the Ursulin nuns 1,800 livres, carry off
fifty loads of wheat from the Chapter, eighteen from one poor artisan,
and forty from another, and constrain canons and beneficiaries to give
acquittances to their farmers. Then, from house to house, with club
in hand, they oblige some to hand over money, others to abandon their
claims on their debtors, "one to desist from criminal proceedings,
another to nullify a decree obtained, a third to reimburse the expenses
of a lawsuit gained years before, a father to give his consent to the
marriage of his son."--All their grievances are brought to mind, and we
all know the tenacity of a peasant's memory. Having become the master,
he redresses wrongs, and especially those of which he thinks himself the
object. There must be a general restitution; and first, of the feudal
dues which have been collected. They take of M. de Montmeyan's business
agent all the money he has as compensation for that received by him
during fifteen years as a notary. A former consul of Brignolles had, in
1775, inflicted penalties to the amount of 1,500 or 1,800 francs, which
had been given to the poor; this sum is taken from his strong box.
Moreover, if consuls and law officers are wrongdoers, the title deeds,
rent-rolls, and other documents by which they do their business
are still worse. To the fire with all old writings--not only office
registers, but also, at Hyères, all the papers in the town hall and
those of the principal notary.--In the matter of papers none are
good but new ones--those which convey some discharge, quittance, or
obligation to the advantage of the people. At Brignolles the owners of
the gristmills are constrained to execute a contract of sale by which
they convey their mills to the commune in consideration of 5,000 francs
per annum, payable in ten years without interest--an arrangement which
ruins them. On seeing the contract signed the peasants shout and cheer,
and so great is their faith in this piece of stamped paper that they at
once cause a mass of thanksgiving to be celebrated in the Cordeliers.
Formidable omens these! Which mark the inward purpose, the determined
will, and the coming deeds of this rising power. If it prevails, its
first work will be to destroy all ancient documents, all title deeds,
rent-rolls, contracts, and claims to which force compels it to submit.
By force likewise it will draw up others to its own advantage, and the
scribes who do it will be its own deputies and administrators whom it
holds in its rude grasp.

Those who are in high places are not alarmed; they even find that there
is some good in the revolt, inasmuch as it compels the towns to suppress
unjust taxation.[1132] The new Marseilles guard, formed of young men, is
allowed to march to Aubagne, "to insist that M. le lieutenant criminel
and M. l'avocat du Roi release the prisoners." The disobedience of
Marseilles, which refuses to receive the magistrates sent under letters
patent to take testimony, is tolerated. And better still, in spite
of the remonstrances of the parliament of Aix, a general amnesty is
proclaimed; "no one is excepted but a few of the leaders, to whom is
allowed the liberty of leaving the kingdom." The mildness of the King
and of the military authorities is admirable. It is admitted that the
people are children, that they err only through ignorance, that faith
must be had in their repentance, and, as soon as they return to order,
they must be received with paternal effusions.--The truth is, that the
child is a blind Colossus, exasperated by sufferings. hence whatever it
takes hold of is shattered--not only the local wheels of the provinces,
which, if temporarily deranged, may be repaired, but even the incentive
at the center which puts the rest in motion, and the destruction of
which will throw the whole machinery into confusion.


*****


[Footnote 1101: Marmontel, "Mémoires," II. 221.--Albert Babeau,
"Histoire de la Révolution Française," I. 91, 187. (Letter by Huez Mayor
of Troyes, July 30, 1788.)--Archives Nationales, H. 1274. (Letter by M.
de Caraman, April 22, 1789.) H. 942 (Cahier des demandes des Etats de
Languedoc).--Buchez et Roux, "Histoire Parlementaire," I. 283.]

[Footnote 1102: See "The Ancient Régime," p.34. Albert Babeau, I. 91.
(The Bishop of Troyes gives 12,000 francs, and the chapter 6,000, for
the relief workshops.)]

[Footnote 1103: "The Ancient Regime," 350, 387.--Floquet, "Histoire du
Parlement de Normandie," VII. 505-518. (Reports of the Parliament of
Normandy, May 3,1788. Letter from the Parliament to the King, July 15,
1789.)]

[Footnote 1104: Arthur Young, "Voyages in France," June 29th, July 2nd
and 18th--" Journal de Paris," January 2, 1789. Letter of the curé of
Sainte-Marguerite.]

[Footnote 1105: Buchez and Roux, IV. 79-82. (Letter from the
intermediary bureau of Montereau, July 9, 1789; from the maire of
Villeneuve-le-Roi, July 10th; from M. Baudry, July 10th; from M.
Prioreau, July 11th, etc.)--Montjoie, "Histoire de la Révolution de
France," 2nd part, ch. XXI, p. 5.]

[Footnote 1106: Roux et Buchez, ibid. "It is very unfortunate," writes
the Marquis d'Autichamp, "to be obliged to cut down the standing crops
ready to be gathered in; but it is dangerous to let the troops die of
hunger."]

[Footnote 1107: Montjoie, "Histoire de la Révolution de France,"
ch. XXXIX, V, 37.--De Goncourt, "La Société Française pendant la
Révolution," p. 5l3.--Deposition of Maillard (Criminal Inquiry of the
Châtelet concerning the events of October 5th and 6th).]

[Footnote 1108: De Tocqueville, "L'Ancien Régime et la Révolution,"
272-290. De Lavergne, "Les Assemblées provinciales," 109. Procès-verbaux
des assemblées provinciales, passim.]

[Footnote 1109: A magistrate who gives judgment in a lower court in
cases relative to taxation. These terms are retained because there are
no equivalents in English. (Tr.)]

[Footnote 1110: "Laboureurs,"--this term, at this epoch, is applied to
those who till their own land. (Tr.)]

[Footnote 1111: Duvergier. "Collection des lois et décrets," I. 1 to 23,
and particularly p. 15.]

[Footnote 1112: Parish priests. (SR.)]

[Footnote 1113: Arthur Young, July 12th, 1789 (in Champagne).]

[Footnote 1114: Montjoie, 1st part, 102.]

[Footnote 1115: Floquet, "Histoire du Parlement de Normandie," VII.
508.--" Archives Nationales," H. 1453.]

[Footnote 1116: Arthur Young, June 29th (at Nangis).]

[Footnote 1117: "Archives Nationales," H.1453. Letter of the Duc
de Mortemart, Seigneur of Bray, May 4th; of M. de Ballainvilliers,
intendant of Languedoc, April 15th.]

[Footnote 1118: "Archives Nationales," H.1453. Letter of the intendant,
M. d'Agay, April 30th; of the municipal officers of Nantes, January
9th; of the intendant, M. Meulan d'Ablois, June 22nd; of M. de
Ballainvilliers, April 15th.]

[Footnote 1119: "Archives Nationales," H. 1453. Letter of the Count de
Langeron, July 4th; of M. de Meulan d'Ablois, June 5th; "Minutes of
the meeting of la Maréchaussée de Bost," April 29th. Letters of M. de
Chazerat, May 29th; of M. de Bezenval, June 2nd; of the intendant, M.
Amelot, April 25th.]

[Footnote 1120: '"Archives Nationales," H.1453. Letter of M. de
Bezenval, May 27th; of M. de Ballainvilliers, April 25th; of M. de
Foullonde, April 19th.]

[Footnote 1121: "Archives Nationales," H.1453. Letter of the intendant,
M. d'Aine, March 12th; of M. d'Agay, April 30th; of M. Amelot, April
25th; of the municipal authorities of Nantes, January 9th, etc.]

[Footnote 1122: "The Ancient Régime," pp. 380-389.]

[Footnote 1123: Floquet, VII. 508, (Report of February 27th).--Hippeau,
"La Gouvernement de Normandie," IV. 377. (Letter of M. Perrot, June
23rd.)--" Archives Nationales," H. 1453. Letter of M. de Sainte-Suzanne,
April 29th. Ibid. F7, 3250. Letter of M. de Rochambeau, May 16th Ibid.
F7, 3250. Letter of the Abbé Duplaquet, Deputy of the Third Estate of
Saint-Quentin, May 17th. Letter of three husbandmen in the environs of
Saint-Quentin, May 14th.]

[Footnote 1124: "Archives Nationales," H. 1453. Letter of the Count de
Perigord, military commandant of Languedoc, April 22nd.]

[Footnote 1125: Floquet, VII. 511 (from the 11th to the 14th July).]

[Footnote 1126: "Archives Nationales," H. 1453. Letter of the municipal
authorities of Nantes, January 9th; of the sub-delegate of Ploërmel,
July 4th; ibid. F7, 2353. Letter of the intermediary commission of
Alsace, September 8th ibid. F7, 3227. Letter of the intendant, Caze de
la Bove, June 16th; ibid. H. 1453. Letter of Terray, intendant of Lyons,
July 4th; of the prévot des échevins, July 5th and 7th.]

[Footnote 1127: (A tax on all goods entering a town. SR.)]

[Footnote 1128: "Archives Nationales," H. 1453. Letter of the mayor and
councils of Agde, April 21st; of M. de Perigord, April 19th, May 5th.]

[Footnote 1129: "Archives Nationales," H. 1453. Letters of M. de
Caraman, March 23rd, 26th 27th 28th; of the seneschal Missiessy, March
24th; of the mayor of Hyères, March 25th, etc.; ibid. H. 1274; of M. de
Montmayran, April 2nd; of M. de Caraman, March 18th, April 12th; of
the intendant, M. de la Tour, April 2nd; of the procureur-géneral, M.
d'Antheman, April 17th, and the report of June 15th; of the municipal
authorities of Toulon, April 11th; of the sub-delegate of Manosque,
March 14th; of M. de Saint-Tropez, March 21st.--Minutes of the meeting,
signed by 119 witnesses, of the insurrection at Aix, March 5th, etc.]

[Footnote 1130: An uprising of the peasants. The term is used to
indicate a country mob in contradistinction to a city or town mob.-Tr.]

[Footnote 1131: "Archives Nationales," H.1274. Letter of M. de la Tour,
April 2nd (with a detailed memorandum and depositions).]

[Footnote 1132: "Archives Nationales," H. 1274. Letter of M. de Caraman,
April 22nd:--"One real benefit results from this misfortune. . . The
well-to-do class is brought to sustain that which exceeded the strength
of the poor daily laborers. We see the nobles and people in good
circumstances a little more attentive to the poor peasants: they are now
habituated to speaking to them with more gentleness." M. de Caraman
was wounded, as well as his Son, at Aix, and if the Soldiery, who were
stoned, at length fired on the crowd, he did not give the order.--Ibid,
letter of M. d'Anthéman, April 17th; of M. de Barentin, June 11th.]




CHAPTER II. PARIS UP TO THE 14TH OF JULY.




I.--Mob recruits in the vicinity

     Entry of vagabonds.--The number of paupers.

INDEED it is in the center that the convulsive shocks are strongest.
Nothing is lacking to aggravate the insurrection--neither the liveliest
provocation to stimulate it, nor the most numerous bands to carry it
out. The environs of Paris all furnish recruits for it; nowhere are
there so many miserable wretches, so many of the famished, and so many
rebellious beings. Robberies of grain take place everywhere--at
Orleans, at Cosne, at Rambouillet, at Jouy, at Pont-Saint-Maxence, at
Bray-sur-Seine, at Sens, at Nangis.[1201] Wheat flour is so scarce at
Meudon, that every purchaser is ordered to buy at the same time an equal
quantity of barley. At Viroflay, thirty women, with a rear-guard of men,
stop on the main road vehicles, which they suppose to be loaded with
grain. At Montlhéry stones and clubs disperse seven brigades of the
police. An immense throng of eight thousand persons, women and men,
provided with bags, fall upon the grain exposed for sale. They force the
delivery to them of wheat worth 40 francs at 24 francs, pillaging the
half of it and conveying it off without payment. "The constabulary is
disheartened," writes the sub-delegate; "the determination of the people
is wonderful; I am frightened at what I have seen and heard."--After
the 13th of July, 1788, the day of the hail-storm, despair seized
the peasantry; well disposed as the proprietors may have been, it was
impossible to assist them. "Not a workshop is open;[1202] the noblemen
and the bourgeois, obliged to grant delays in the payment of their
incomes, can give no work." Accordingly, "the famished people are on
the point of risking life for life," and, publicly and boldly, they
seek food wherever it can be found. At Conflans-Saint-Honorine, Eragny,
Neuville, Chenevières, at Cergy, Pontoise, Ile-Adam, Presle, and
Beaumont, men, women, and children, the hole parish, range the country,
set snares, and destroy the burrows. "The rumor is current that the
Government, informed of the damage done by the game to cultivators,
allows its destruction. . . and really the hares ravaged about a fifth
of the crop. At first an arrest is made of nine of these poachers; but
they are released, "taking circumstances into account." Consequently,
for two months, there is a slaughter on the property of the Prince de
Conti and of the Ambassador Mercy d'Argenteau; in default of bread
they eat rabbits.--Along with the abuse of property they are led, by a
natural impulse, to attack property itself. Near Saint-Denis the woods
belonging to the abbey are devastated. "The farmers of the neighborhood
carry away loads of wood, drawn by four and five horses;" the
inhabitants of the villages of Ville-Parisis, Tremblay, Vert-Galant,
Villepinte, sell it publicly, and threaten the wood-rangers with a
beating. On the 15th of June the damage is already estimated at 60,000
livres.--It makes little difference whether the proprietor has been
benevolent, like M. de Talaru,[1203] who had supported the poor on his
estate at Issy the preceding winter. The peasants destroy the dike which
conducts water to his communal mill; condemned by the parliament to
restore it, they declare that not only will they not obey. Should M. de
Talaru try to rebuild it they will return with three hundred armed men,
and tear it away the second time.

For those who are most compromised Paris is the nearest refuge. For the
poorest and most exasperated, the door of nomadic life stands wide
open. Bands rise up around the capital, just as in countries where human
society has not yet been formed, or has ceased to exist. During the
first two weeks of May[1204] near Villejuif a band of five or six
hundred vagabonds strive to force Bicêtre and approach Saint-Cloud. They
arrive from thirty, forty, and sixty leagues off, from Champagne, from
Lorraine, from the whole circuit of country devastated by the hailstorm.
All hover around Paris and are there engulfed as in a sewer, the
unfortunate along with criminals, some to find work, others to beg and
to rove about under the injurious prompting of hunger and the rumors
of the public thoroughfares. During the last days of April,[1205] the
clerks at the tollhouses note the entrance of "a frightful number of
poorly clad men of sinister aspect." During the first days of May a
change in the appearance of the crowd is remarked. There mingle in it
"a number of foreigners, from all countries, most of them in rags, armed
with big sticks, and whose very aspect announces what is to be feared
from them." Already, before this final influx, the public sink is
full to overflowing. Think of the extraordinary and rapid increase of
population in Paris, the multitude of artisans brought there by recent
demolition and constructions. Think of all the craftsmen whom the
stagnation of manufactures, the augmentation of octrois, the rigor of
winter, and the dearness of bread have reduced to extreme distress.
Remember that in 1786 "two hundred thousand persons are counted whose
property, all told, has not the intrinsic worth of fifty crowns."
Remember that, from time immemorial, these have been at war with the
city watchmen. Remember that in 1789 there are twenty thousand poachers
in the capital and that, to provide them with work, it is found
necessary to establish national workshops. Remember "that twelve
thousand are kept uselessly occupied digging on the hill of Montmartre,
and paid twenty sous per day. Remember that the wharves and quays are
covered with them, that the Hôtel-de-Ville is invested by them, and
that, around the palace, they seem to be a reproach to the inactivity of
disarmed justice." Daily they grow bitter and excited around the doors
of the bakeries, where, kept waiting a long time, they are not sure of
obtaining bread. You can imagine the fury and the force with which they
will storm any obstacle to which their attention may be directed.




II. The Press.

     Excitement of the press and of opinion.--The people make
     their choice.

Such an obstacle has been pointed out to them during the last two years,
it is the Ministry, the Court, the Government, in short the entire
ancient régime. Whoever protests against it in favor of the people is
sure to be followed as far, and perhaps even farther, than he chooses
to lead.--The moment the Parliament of a large city refuses to register
fiscal edicts it finds a riot at its service. On the 7th of June 1788,
at Grenoble, tiles rain down on the heads of the soldiery, and the
military force is powerless. At Rennes, to put down the rebellious city,
an army and after this a permanent camp of four regiments of infantry
and two of cavalry, under the command of a Marshal of France, is
required.[1206]--The following year, when the Parliaments now side
with the privileged class, the disturbances again begin, but this time
against the Parliaments. In February 1789, at Besançon and at Aix, the
magistrates are hooted at, chased in the streets, besieged in the town
hall, and obliged to conceal themselves or take to flight.--If such
is the disposition in the provincial capitals, what must it be in the
capital of the kingdom? For a start, in the month of August, 1788, after
the dismissal of Brienne and Lamoignon, the mob, collected on the Place
Dauphine, constitutes itself judge, burns both ministers in effigy,
disperses the watch, and resists the troops: no sedition, as bloody as
this, had been seen for a century. Two days later, the riot bursts out
a second time; the people are seized with a resolve to go and burn the
residences of the two ministers and that of Dubois, the lieutenant of
police.--Clearly a new ferment has been infused among the ignorant and
brutal masses, and the new ideas are producing their effect. They have
for a long time imperceptibly been filtering downwards from layer
to layer After having gained over the aristocracy, the whole of the
lettered portion of the Third-Estate, the lawyers, the schools, all the
young, they have insinuated themselves drop by drop and by a thousand
fissures into the class which supports itself by the labor of its own
hands. Noblemen, at their toilettes, have scoffed at Christianity, and
affirmed the rights of man before their valets, hairdressers, purveyors,
and all those that are in attendance upon them. Men of letters, lawyers,
and attorneys have repeated, in the bitterest tone, the same diatribes
and the same theories in the coffee-houses and in the restaurants, on
the promenades and in all public places. They have spoken out before
the lower class as if it were not present, and, from all this eloquence
poured out without precaution, some bubbles besprinkle the brain of the
artisan, the publican, the messenger, the shopkeeper, and the soldier.

Hence it is that a year suffices to convert mute discontent into
political passion. From the 5th of July 1787, on the invitation of the
King, who convokes the States-General and demands advice from everybody,
both speech and the press alter in tone.[1207] Instead of general
conversation of a speculative turn there is preaching, with a view
to practical effect, sudden, radical, and close at hand, preaching as
shrill and thrilling as the blast of a trumpet. Revolutionary pamphlets
appear in quick succession: "Qu'est-ce que le Tiers?" by Sieyès;
"Mémoire pour le Peuple Français," by Cerutti; "Considerations sur les
Intérêts des Tiers-Etat," by Rabtau Saint-Etienne; "Ma Pétition," by
Target; "Les Droits des Etats-généraux," by M. d'Entraigues, and, a
little later, "La France libre," par Camille Desmoulins, and others by
hundreds and thousands.[1208] All of which are repeated and amplified
in the electoral assemblies, where new-made citizens come to declaim and
increase their own excitement.[1209] The unanimous, universal and daily
shout rolls along from echo to echo, into barracks and into faubourgs,
into markets, workshops, and garrets. In the month of February, 1789,
Necker avows "that obedience is not to be found anywhere, and that
even the troops are not to be relied on." In the month of May, the
fisherwomen, and next the greengrocers, of the town market halls come to
recommend the interests of the people to the bodies of electors, and to
sing rhymes in honor of the Third-Estate. In the month of June pamphlets
are in all hands; "even lackeys are poring over them at the gates
of hotels." In the month of July, as the King is signing an order, a
patriotic valet becomes alarmed and reads it over his shoulder.--There
is no illusion here; it is not merely the bourgeoisie which ranges
itself against the legal authorities and against the established regime.
It is the entire people as well. The craftsmen, the shopkeepers and
the domestics, workmen of every kind and degree, the mob underneath the
people, the vagabonds, street rovers, and beggars, the whole multitude,
which, bound down by anxiety for its daily bread, had never lifted
its eyes to look at the great social order of which it is the lowest
stratum, and the whole weight of which it bears.




III.--The Réveillon affair.

Suddenly the people stirs, and the superposed scaffolding totters. It
is the movement of a brute nature exasperated by want and maddened
by suspicion.--Have paid hands, which are invisible goaded it on from
beneath? Contemporaries are convinced of this, and it is probably the
case.[1210] But the uproar made around the suffering brute would alone
suffice to make it shy, and explain its arousal.--On the 21st of April
the Electoral Assemblies have begun in Paris; there is one in each
quarter, one for the clergy, one for the nobles, and one for the
Third-Estate. Every day, for almost a month, files of electors are seen
passing along the streets. Those of the first degree continue to meet
after having nominated those of the second: the nation must needs
watch its mandatories and maintain its imprescriptible rights. If this
exercise of their rights has been delegated to them, they still belong
to the nation, and it reserves to itself the privilege of interposing
when it pleases. A pretension of this kind travels fast; immediately
after the Third-Estate of the Assemblies it reaches the Third-Estate
of the streets. Nothing is more natural than the desire to lead one's
leaders: the first time any dissatisfaction occurs, they lay hands on
those who halt and make them march on as directed. On a Saturday,
April 25th,[1211] a rumor is current that Réveillon, an elector
and manufacturer of wall-paper, Rue Saint-Antoine, and Lerat, a
commissioner, have "spoken badly" at the Electoral Assembly of
Sainte-Marguerite. To speak badly means to speak badly of the people.
What has Réveillon said? Nobody knows, but popular imagination with
its terrible powers of invention and precision, readily fabricates or
welcomes a murderous phrase. He said that "a working-man with a wife and
children could live on fifteen sous a day." Such a man is a traitor, and
must be disposed of at once; "all his belongings must be put to fire and
sword." The rumor, it must be noted, is false.[1212] Réveillon pays
his poorest workman twenty-five sous a day, he provides work for three
hundred and fifty, and, in spite of a dull season the previous winter,
he kept all on at the same rate of wages. He himself was once a workman,
and obtained a medal for his inventions, and is benevolent and respected
by all respectable persons.--All this avails nothing; bands of vagabonds
and foreigners, who have just passed through the barriers, do not
look so closely into matters, while the Journeymen, the carters, the
cobblers, the masons, the braziers, and the stone-cutters whom they
go to solicit in their lodgings are just as ignorant as they are. When
irritation has accumulated, it breaks out haphazardly.

Just at this time the clergy of Paris renounce their privileges in way
of imposts,[1213] and the people, taking friends for adversaries, add in
their invectives the name of the clergy to that of Réveillon. During
the whole of the day, and also during the leisure of Sunday, the
fermentation increases; on Monday the 27th, another day of idleness and
drunkenness, the bands begin to move. Certain witnesses encounter one of
these in the Rue Saint-Sévérin, "armed with clubs," and so numerous as
to bar the passage. "Shops and doors are closed on all sides, and the
people cry out, 'There's the revolt!'" The seditious crowd belch out
curses and invectives against the clergy, "and, catching sight of an
abbé, shout 'Priest!'" Another band parades an effigy of Réveillon
decorated with the ribbon of the order of St. Michael, which undergoes
the parody of a sentence and is burnt on the Place de Grève, after which
they threaten his house. Driven back by the guard, they invade that of
a manufacturer of saltpeter, who is his friend, and burn and smash his
effects and furniture.[1214] It is only towards midnight that the crowd
is dispersed and the insurrection is supposed to have ended. On the
following day it begins again with greater violence; for, besides the
ordinary stimulants of misery[1215] and the craving for license, they
have a new stimulant in the idea of a cause to defend, the conviction
that they are fighting "for the Third-Estate." In a cause like this each
one should help himself; and all should help each other. "We should be
lost," one of them exclaimed, "if we did not sustain each other." Strong
in this belief, they sent deputations three times into the Faubourg
Saint-Marceau to obtain recruits, and on their way, with uplifted clubs
they enrol, willingly or unwillingly, all they encounter. Others, at the
gate of Saint-Antoine, arrest people who are returning from the races,
demanding of them if they are for the nobles or for the Third-Estate,
and force women to descend from their vehicles and to cry "Vive le
Tiers-Etat "[1216]. Meanwhile the crowd has increased before Réveillon's
dwelling; the thirty men on guard are unable to resist; the house
is invaded and sacked from top to bottom; the furniture, provisions,
clothing, registers, wagons, even the poultry in the back-yard, all
is cast into blazing bonfires lighted in three different places; five
hundred louis d'or, the ready money, and the silver plate are stolen.
Several roam through the cellars, drink liquor or varnish at haphazard
until they fall down dead drunk or expire in convulsions. Against
this howling horde, a corps of the watch, mounted and on foot, is seen
approaching;[1217] also a hundred cavalry of the "Royal Croats," the
French Guards, and later on the Swiss Guards. "Tiles and chimneys are
rained down on the soldiers," who fire back four files at a time. The
rioters, drunk with brandy and rage, defend themselves desperately
for several hours; more than two hundred are killed, and nearly three
hundred are wounded; they are only put down by cannon, while the mob
keeps active until far into the night.--Towards eight in the evening, in
the rue Vieille-du-Temple, the Paris Guard continue to make charges in
order to protect the doors which the miscreants try to force. Two doors
are forced at half-past eleven o'clock in the Rue Saintonge and in the
Rue de Bretagne, that of a pork-dealer and that of a baker. Even to
this last wave of the outbreak which is subsiding we can distinguish the
elements which have produced the insurrection, and which are about
to produce the Revolution.--Starvation is one of these: in the Rue de
Bretagne the band robbing the baker's shop carries bread off to the
women staying at the corner of the Rue Saintonge.--Brigandage is
another: in the middle of the night M. du Châtelet's spies, gliding
alongside of a ditch, "see a group of ruffians" assembled beyond the
Barrière du Trône, their leader, mounted on a little knoll, urging them
to begin again; and the following days, on the highways, vagabonds are
saying to each other, "We can do no more at Paris, because they are
too sharp on the look-out; let us go to Lyons!" There are, finally, the
patriots: on the evening of the insurrection, between the Pont-au-Change
and the Pont-Marie, the half-naked ragamuffins, besmeared with dirt,
bearing along their hand-barrows, are fully alive to their cause; they
beg alms in a loud tone of voice, and stretch out their hats to the
passers, saying, "Take pity on this poor Third-Estate!"--The starving,
the ruffians, and the patriots, all form one body, and henceforth
misery, crime, and public spirit unite to provide an ever-ready
insurrection for the agitators who desire to raise one.




IV.--The Palais-Royal.

But the agitators are already in permanent session. The Palais-Royal is
an open-air club where, all day and even far into the night, one excites
the other and urges on the crowd to blows. In this enclosure, protected
by the privileges of the House of Orleans, the police dare not enter.
Speech is free, and the public who avail themselves of this freedom seem
purposely chosen to abuse it.--The public and the place are adapted to
each other.[1218] The Palais-Royal, the center of prostitution, of
play, of idleness, and of pamphlets, attracts the whole of that uprooted
population which floats about in a great city, and which, without
occupation or home, lives only for curiosity or for pleasure--the
frequenters of the coffee-houses, the runners for gambling halls,
adventurers, and social outcasts, the runaway children or forlorn
hopefuls of literature, arts, and the bar, attorneys' clerks, students
of the institutions of higher learning, the curious, loungers,
strangers, and the occupants of furnished lodgings, these amounting,
it is said, to forty thousand in Paris. They fill the garden and the
galleries; "one would hardly find here one of what were called the
"Six Bodies,"[1219] a bourgeois settled down and occupied with his
own affairs, a man whom business and family cares render serious and
influential. There is no place here for industrious and orderly bees; it
is the rendezvous of political and literary drones. They flock into it
from every quarter of Paris, and the tumultuous, buzzing swarm covers
the ground like an overturned hive. "Ten thousand people," writes Arthur
Young,[1220] "have been all this day in the Palais-Royal;" the press
is so great that an apple thrown from a balcony on the moving floor of
heads would not reach the ground. The condition of these heads may
be imagined; they are emptier of ballast than any in France, the
most inflated with speculative ideas, the most excitable and the most
excited. In this pell-mell of improvised politicians no one knows who
is speaking; nobody is responsible for what he says. Each is there as
in the theater, unknown among the unknown, requiring sensational
impressions and strong emotions, a prey to the contagion of the passions
around him, borne along in the whirl of sounding phrases, of ready-made
news, growing rumors, and other exaggerations by which fanatics keep
outdoing each other. There are shouting, tears, applause, stamping and
clapping, as at the performance of a tragedy; one or another individual
becomes so inflamed and hoarse that he dies on the spot with fever and
exhaustion. In vain has Arthur Young been accustomed to the tumult of
political liberty; he is dumb-founded at what he sees.[1221] According
to him, the excitement is "incredible. . . . We think sometimes that
Debrett's or Stockdale's shops at London are crowded; but they are mere
deserts compared to Desenne's and some others here, in which one can
scarcely squeeze from the door to the counter. . . . Every hour produces
its pamphlet; 13 came out to-day, 16 yesterday, and 92 last week. 95% of
these productions are in favor of liberty;" and by liberty is meant the
extinction of privileges, numerical sovereignty, the application of
the Contrat-Social, "The Republic", and even more besides, a universal
leveling, permanent anarchy, and even the jacquerie. Camille Desmoulins,
one of the orators, commonly there, announces it and urges it in precise
terms:

"Now that the animal is in the trap, let him be battered to death...
Never will the victors have a richer prey. Forty thousand palaces,
mansions, and châteaux, two-fifth of the property of France, will be
the recompense of valor. Those who pretend to be the conquerors will be
conquered in turn. The nation shall be purged."

Here, in advance, is the program of the Reign of Terror.

Now all this is not only read, but declaimed, amplified, and turned
to practical account. In front of the coffee-houses "those who have
stentorian lungs relieve each other every evening."[1222] "They get
up on a chair or a table, they read the strongest articles on current
affairs, . . . the eagerness with which they are heard, and the thunder
of applause they receive for every sentiment of more than common
hardiness or violence against the present Government, cannot easily
be imagined." "Three days ago a child of four years, well taught and
intelligent, was promenaded around the garden, in broad daylight, at
least twenty times, borne on the shoulders of a street porter, crying
out, 'Verdict of the French people: Polignac exiled one hundred leagues
from Paris; Condé the same; Conti the same; Artois the same; the
Queen,--I dare not write it.'" A hall made of boards in the middle of
the Palais-Royal is always full, especially of young men, who carry
on their deliberations in parliamentary fashion: in the evening the
president invites the spectators to come forward and sign motions
passed during the day, and of which the originals are placed in the Café
Foy.[1223] They count on their fingers the enemies of the country; "and
first two Royal Highnesses (Monsieur and the Count d'Artois), three Most
Serene Highnesses (the Prince de Condé, Duc de Bourbon, and the Prince
de Conti), one favorite (Madame de Polignac), MM. de Vandreuil, de la
Trémoille, du Châtelet, de Villedeuil, de Barentin, de la Galaisière,
Vidaud de la Tour, Berthier, Foulon, and also M. Linguet." Placards are
posted demanding the pillory on the Pont-Neuf for the Abbeé Maury.
One speaker proposes "to burn the house of M. d'Espréménil, his wife,
children and furniture, and himself: this is passed unanimously."--No
opposition is tolerated. One of those present having manifested some
horror at such sanguinary motions, "is seized by the collar, obliged to
kneel down, to make an apology, and to kiss the ground. The punishment
inflicted on children is given to him; he is ducked repeatedly in one of
the fountain-basins, after which they him over to the mob, who roll him
in the mud." On the following day an ecclesiastic is trodden under foot,
and flung from hand to hand. A few days after, on the 22nd of June,
there are two similar events. The sovereign mob exercises all the
functions of sovereign authority, with those of the legislator those of
the judge, and those of the judge with those of the executioner.--Its
idols are sacred; if any one fails to show them respect he is guilty of
lése-majesté, and at once punished. In the first week of July, an abbé
who speaks ill of Necker is flogged; a woman who insults the bust of
Necker is stripped by the fishwomen, and beaten until she is covered
with blood. War is declared against suspicious uniforms. "On the
appearance of a hussar," writes Desmoulins, "they shout, 'There goes
Punch!' and the stone-cutters fling stones at him. Last night two
officers of the hussars, MM. de Sombreuil and de Polignac, came to the
Palais-Royal. . . chairs were flung at them, and they would have been
knocked down if they had not run away. The day before yesterday they
seized a spy of the police and gave him a ducking in the fountain. They
ran him down like a stag, hustled him, pelted him with stones, struck
him with canes, forced one of his eyes out of its socket, and finally,
in spite of his entreaties and cries for mercy, plunged him a second
time in the fountain. His torments lasted from noon until half-past
five o'clock, and he had about ten thousand executioners."--Consider
the effect of such a focal center at a time like this. A new power has
sprung up alongside the legal powers, a legislature of the highways
and public squares, anonymous, irresponsible, without restraint. It
is driven onward by coffeehouse theories, by strong emotions and
the vehemence of mountebanks, while the bare arms which have just
accomplished the work of destruction in the Faubourg Saint-Antoine, form
its bodyguard and ministerial cabinet.




V.--Popular mobs become a political force.

     Pressure on the Assembly.--Defection of the soldiery.

This is the dictatorship of a mob, and its proceedings, conforming to
its nature, consist in acts of violence, wherever it finds resistance,
it strikes.--The people of Versailles, in the streets and at the
doors of the Assembly, daily "come and insult those whom they call
aristocrats."[1224] On Monday, June 22nd, "d'Espréménil barely escapes
being knocked down; the Abbé Maury. . . owes his escape to the strength
of a curé, who takes him up in his arms and tosses him into the carriage
of the Archbishop of Arles." On the 23rd, "the Archbishop of Paris and
the Keeper of the Seals are hooted, railed at, scoffed at, and derided,
until they almost sink with shame and rage." So formidable is the
tempest of rage with which they are greeted, that Passeret, the King's
secretary, who accompanies the minister, dies of the excitement that
very day. On the 24th, the Bishop of Beauvais is almost knocked down by
a stone striking him on the head. On the 25th, the Archbishop of Paris
is saved only by the speed of his horses, the multitude pursuing him and
pelting him with stones. His mansion is besieged, the windows are all
shattered, and, notwithstanding the intervention of the French Guards,
the peril is so great that he is obliged to promise that he will join
the deputies of the Third-Estate. This is the way in which the rude hand
of the people effects a reunion of the Orders. It bears as heavily on
its own representatives as on its adversaries. "Although our hall was
closed to the public," says Bailly, "there were always more than six
hundred spectators."[1225] These were not respectful and silent, but
active and noisy, mingling with the deputies, raising their hands to
vote in all cases, taking part in the deliberations, by their applause
and hisses: a collateral Assembly which often imposes its own will on
the other. They take note of and put down the names of their opponents,
transmit them to the chair-bearers in attendance at the entrance of
the hall, and from them to the mob waiting for the departure of the
deputies, these names are from now considered as the names of public
enemies.[1226] Lists are made out and printed, and, at the Palais-Royal
in the evening, they become the lists of the proscribed.--It is under
this brutal pressure that many decrees are passed, and, amongst them,
that by which the commons declare themselves the National Assembly
and assume supreme power. The night before, Malouet had proposed to
ascertain, by a preliminary vote, on which side the majority was. In an
instant all those against had gathered around him to the number of three
hundred. "Upon which a mans springs out from the galleries, falls upon
him and takes him by the collar exclaiming, 'Hold your tongue, you false
citizen!'" Malouet is released and the guard comes forward, "but terror
has spread through the hall, threats are uttered against opponents, and
the next day we were only ninety." Moreover, the lists of their names
had been circulated; some of them, deputies from Paris, went to see
Bailly that very evening. One amongst them, "a very honest man and good
patriot," had been told that his house was to be set on fire. Now his
wife had just given birth to a child, and the slightest tumult
before the house would have been fatal. Such arguments are decisive.
Consequently, three days afterwards, at the Tennis-court, but one
deputy, Martin d'Auch, dares to write the word "opposing" after his
name. Insulted by many of colleagues, "at once denounced to the people
who had collected at the entrance of the building, he is obliged to
escape by a side door to avoid being cut to pieces," and, for several
days, to keep away from the meetings.[1227]--Owing to this intervention
of the galleries the radical minority, numbering about thirty,[1228]
lead the majority, and they do not allow them to free themselves.--On
the 28th of May, Malouet, having demanded a secret session to discuss
the conciliatory measures which the King had proposed, the galleries
hoot at him, and a deputy, M. Bourche, addresses him in very plain
terms. "You must know, sir, that we are deliberating here in the
presence of our masters, and that we must account to them for our
opinions." This is the doctrine of the Contrat-Social. Through timidity,
fear of the Court and of the privileged class, through optimism and
faith in human nature, through enthusiasm and the necessity of adhering
to previous actions, the deputies, who are novices, provincial, and
given up to theories, neither dare nor know how to escape from the
tyranny of the prevailing dogma.--Henceforth it becomes the law. All
the Assemblies, the Constituent, the Legislative, the Convention,[1229]
submit to it entirely. The public in the galleries is the admitted
representatives of the people, under the same title, and even under
a higher title, than the deputies. Now, this public is that of the
Palais-Royal, consisting of strangers, idlers, lovers of novelties,
Paris romancers, leaders of the coffee-houses, the future pillars of the
clubs, in short, the wild enthusiasts among the middle-class, just as
the crowd which threatens doors and throws stones is recruited from
among the wild enthusiasts of the lowest class. Thus by an involuntary
selection, the faction which constitutes itself a public power is
composed of nothing but violent minds and violent hands. Spontaneously
and without previous concert dangerous fanatics are joined with
dangerous brutes, and in the increasing discord between the legal
authorities this is the illegal league which is certain to overthrow
all.

When a commanding general sits in council with his staff-officers and
his counselors, and discusses the plan of a campaign, the chief public
interest is that discipline should remain intact, and that intruders,
soldiers, or menials, should not throw the weight of their turbulence
and thoughtlessness into the scales which have to be cautiously
and firmly held by their chiefs. This was the express demand of the
Government;[1230] but the demand was not regarded; and against the
persistent usurpation of the multitude nothing is left to it but the
employment of force. But force itself is slipping from its hands, while
growing disobedience, like a contagion, after having gained the people
is spreading among the troops.--From the 23rd of June,[1231] two
companies of the French Guards refused to do duty. Confined to their
barracks, they on the 27th break out, and henceforth "they are seen
every evening entering the Palais-Royal, marching in double file." They
know the place well; it is the general rendezvous of the abandoned women
whose lovers and parasites they are.[1232] "The patriots all gather
around them, treat them to ice cream and wine, and debauch them in the
face of their officers."--To this, moreover, must be added the fact that
their colonel, M. du Châtelet, has long been odious to them, that he has
fatigued them with forced drills, worried them and diminished the number
of their sergeants; that he suppressed the school for the education of
the children of their musicians; that he uses the stick in punishing the
men, and picks quarrels with them about their appearance, their board,
and their clothing. This regiment is lost to discipline: a secret
society has been formed in it, and the soldiers have pledged themselves
to their ensigns not to act against the National Assembly. Thus the
confederation between them and the Palais-Royal is established.--On the
30th of June, eleven of their leaders, taken off to the Abbaye, write to
claim their assistance. A young man mounts a chair in front of the Café
Foy and reads their letter aloud; a band sets out on the instant, forces
the gate with a sledge-hammer and iron bars, brings back the prisoners
in triumph, gives them a feast in the garden and mounts guard around
them to prevent their being re-taken.--When disorders of this kind go
unpunished, order cannot be maintained; in fact, on the morning of the
14th of July, five out of six battalions had deserted.--As to the other
corps, they are no better and are also seduced. "Yesterday," Desmoulins
writes, "the artillery regiment followed the example of the French
Guards, overpowering the sentinels and coming over to mingle with
the patriots in the Palais-Royal. . .. We see nothing but the rabble
attaching themselves to soldiers whom they chance to encounter. 'Allons,
Vive le Tiers-Etat!' and they lead them off to a tavern to drink the
health of the Commons." Dragoons tell the officers who are marching
them to Versailles: "We obey you, but you may tell the ministers on our
arrival that if we are ordered to use the least violence against our
fellow-citizens, the first shot shall be for you." At the Invalides
twenty men, ordered to remove the cocks and ramrods from the guns stored
in a threatened arsenal, devote six hours to rendering twenty guns
useless; their object is to keep them intact for plunder and for the
arming of the people.

In short, the largest portion of the army has deserted. However kind
a superior officer might be, the fact of his being a superior officer
secures for him the treatment of an enemy. The governor, "M. de
Sombreuil, against whom these people could utter no reproach," will soon
see his artillerists point their guns at his apartment, and will just
escape being hung on the iron-railings by their own hands. Thus the
force which is brought forward to suppress insurrection only serves to
furnish it with recruits. And even worse, for the display of arms
that was relied on to restrain the mob, furnished the instigation to
rebellion.




VI.--July 13th and 14th 1789.

The fatal moment has arrived; it is no longer a government which falls
that it may give way to another; it is all government which ceases to
exist in order to make way for an intermittent despotism, for factions
blindly impelled on by enthusiasm, credulity, misery, and fear.[1233]
Like a tame elephant suddenly become wild again, the mob throws off it
ordinary driver, and the new guides who it tolerates perched on its neck
are there simply for show. In future it will move along as it pleases,
freed from control, and abandoned to its own feelings, instincts, and
appetites.--Apparently, there was no desire to do more than anticipate
its aberrations. The King has forbidden all violence; the commanders
order the troops not to fire;[1234] but the excited and wild animal
takes all precautions for insults; in future, it intends to be its own
conductor, and, to begin, it treads its guides under foot.--On the 12th
of July, near noon,[1235] on the news of the dismissal of Necker, a cry
of rage arises in the Palais-Royal; Camille Desmoulins, mounted on
a table, announces that the Court meditates "a St. Bartholomew of
patriots." The crowd embrace him, adopt the green cockade which he has
proposed, and oblige the dancing-saloons and theaters to close in sign
of mourning: they hurry off to the residence of Curtius, and take the
busts of the Duke of Orleans and of Necker and carry them about in
triumph.--Meanwhile, the dragoons of the Prince de Lambesc, drawn up on
the Place Louis-Quinze, find a barricade of chairs at the entrance
of the Tuileries, and are greeted with a shower of stones and
bottles.[1236] Elsewhere, on the Boulevard, before the Hôtel
Montmorency, some of the French Guards, escaped from their barracks,
fired on a loyal detachment of the "Royal Allemand."--The alarm bell is
sounding on all sides, the shops where arms are sold are pillaged,
and the Hôtel-de-Ville is invaded; fifteen or sixteen well-disposed
electors, who meet there, order the districts to be assembled and
armed.--The new sovereign, the people in arms and in the street, has
declared himself.

The dregs of society at once come to the surface. During the night
between the 12th and 13th of July,[1237] "all the barriers, from the
Faubourg Saint-Antoine to the Faubourg Saint-Honoré, besides those of
the Faubourgs Saint-Marcel and Saint-Jacques, are forced and set on
fire." There is no longer an octroi; the city is without a revenue just
at the moment when it is obliged to make the heaviest expenditures; but
this is of no consequence to the mob, which, above all things, wants
to have cheap wine. "Ruffians, armed with pikes and sticks, proceed
in several parties to give up to pillage the houses of those who are
regarded as enemies to the public welfare." "They go from door to door
crying, 'Arms and bread!' During this fearful night, the bourgeoisie
kept themselves shut up, each trembling at home for himself and those
belonging to him." On the following day, the 13th, the capital appears
to be given up to bandits and the lowest of the low. One of the
bands hews down the gate of the Lazarists, destroys the library and
clothes-presses, the pictures, the windows and laboratory, and rushes
to the cellars; where it staves in the casks and gets drunk: twenty-four
hours after this, about thirty of them are found dead and dying, drowned
in wine, men and women, one of these being at the point of childbirth.
In front of the house[1238] the street is full of the wreckage, and of
ruffians who hold in their hands, "some, eatables, others a jug, forcing
the passers-by to drink, and pouring out wine to all comers. Wine
runs down into the gutter, and the scent of it fills the air;" it is a
drinking bout: meanwhile they carry away the grain and flour which the
monks kept on hand according to law, fifty-two loads of it being
taken to the market. Another troop comes to La Force, to deliver those
imprisoned for debt; a third breaks into the Garde Meuble, carrying away
valuable arms and armour. Mobs assemble before the hotel of Madame de
Breteuil and the Palais-Bourbon, which they intend to ransack, in order
to punish their proprietors. M. de Crosne, one of the most liberal and
most respected men of Paris, but, unfortunately for himself a lieutenant
of the police, is pursued, escaping with difficulty, and his hotel is
sacked.--During the night between the 13th and 14th of May, the baker's
shops and the wine shops are pillaged; "men of the vilest class, armed
with guns, pikes, and turnspits, make people open their doors and give
them something to eat and drink, as well as money and arms." Vagrants,
ragged men, several of them "almost naked," and "most of them armed
like savages, and of hideous appearance;" they are "such as one does not
remember to have seen in broad daylight;" many of them are strangers,
come from nobody knows where.[1239] It is stated that there were
50,000 of them, and that they had taken possession of the principal
guard-houses.

During these two days and nights, says Bailly, "Paris ran the risk of
being pillaged, and was only saved from the marauders by the National
Guard." Already, in the open street,[1240] "these creatures tore off
women's shoes and earrings," and the robbers were beginning to have
full sway.--Fortunately the militia organized itself and the principal
inhabitants and gentlemen enrolled themselves; 48,000 men are formed
into battalions and companies; the bourgeoisie buy guns of the vagabonds
for three livres apiece, and sabers or pistols for twelve sous. At last,
some of the offenders are hung on the spot, and others disarmed, and
the insurrection again becomes political. But, whatever its object, it
remains always wild, because it is in the hands of the mob. Dusaulx, its
panegyrist, confesses[1241] that "he thought he was witnessing the total
dissolution of society." There is no leader, no management. The electors
who have converted themselves into the representatives of Paris seem to
command the crowd, but it is the crowd which commands them. One of them,
Legrand, to save the Hôtel-de-Ville, has no other resource but to send
for six barrels of gun-powder, and to declare to the assailants that
he is about to blow everything into the air. The commandant whom they
themselves have chosen, M. de Salles, has twenty bayonets at his breast
during a quarter of an hour, and, more than once, the whole committee is
near being massacred. Let the reader imagine, on the premises where the
discussions are going on, and petitions are being made, "a concourse of
fifteen hundred men pressed by a hundred thousand others who are forcing
an entrance," the wainscoting cracking, the benches upset one over
another, the enclosure of the bureau pushed back against the president's
chair, a tumult such as to bring to mind 'the day of judgment," the
death-shrieks, songs, yells, and "people beside themselves, for the most
part not knowing where they are nor what they want."--Each district
is also a petty center, while the Palais-Royal is the main center.
Propositions, "accusations, and deputations travel to and fro from one
to the other, along with the human torrent which is obstructed or rushes
ahead with no other guide than its own inclination and the chances
of the way. One wave gathers here and another there, their strategy
consisting in pushing and in being pushed. Yet, their entrance is
effected only because they are let in. If they get into the Invalides it
is owing to the connivance of the soldiers.--At the Bastille, firearms
are discharged from ten in the morning to five in the evening against
walls forty feet high and thirty feet thick, and it is by chance that
one of their shots reaches an invalid on the towers. They are treated
the same as children whom one wishes to hurt as little as possible. The
governor, on the first summons to surrender, orders the cannon to be
withdrawn from the embrasures; he makes the garrison swear not to fire
if it is not attacked; he invites the first of the deputations to lunch;
he allows the messenger dispatched from the Hôtel-de-Ville to inspect
the fortress; he receives several discharges without returning them, and
lets the first bridge be carried without firing a shot.[1242] When, at
length, he does fire, it is at the last extremity, to defend the second
bridge, and after having notified the assailants that he is going to do
so. In short, his forbearance and patience are excessive, in conformity
with the humanity of the times. The people, in turn, are infatuated
with the novel sensations of attack and resistance, with the smell of
gunpowder, with the excitement of the contest; all they can think of
doing is to rush against the mass of stone, their expedients being on a
level with their tactics. A brewer fancies that he can set fire to this
block of masonry by pumping over it spikenard and poppy-seed oil mixed
with phosphorus. A young carpenter, who has some archaeological notions,
proposes to construct a catapult. Some of them think that they have
seized the governor's daughter, and want to burn her in order to make
the father surrender. Others set fire to a projecting mass of buildings
filled with straw, and thus close up the passage. "The Bastille was not
taken by main force," says the brave Elie, one of the combatants; "it
surrendered before even it was attacked,"[1243] by capitulation, on
the promise that no harm should be done to anybody. The garrison, being
perfectly secure, had no longer the heart to fire on human beings while
themselves risking nothing,[1244] and, on the other hand, they were
unnerved by the sight of the immense crowd. Eight or nine hundred
men only[1245] were concerned in the attack, most of them workmen or
shopkeepers belonging to the faubourg, tailors, wheelwrights, mercers
and wine-dealers, mixed with the French Guards. The Place de la
Bastille, however, and all the streets in the vicinity, were crowded
with the curious who came to witness the sight; "among them," says
a witness,[1246] "were a number of fashionable women of very good
appearance, who had left their carriages at some distance." To the
hundred and twenty men of the garrison looking down from their parapets
it seemed as though all Paris had come out against them. It is they,
also, who lower the drawbridge an introduce the enemy: everybody has
lost his head, the besieged as well as the besiegers, the latter more
completely because they are intoxicated with the sense of victory.
Scarcely have they entered when they begin the work of destruction, and
the latest arrivals shoot at random those that come earlier; "each
one fires without heeding where or on whom his shot tells." Sudden
omnipotence and the liberty to kill are a wine too strong for human
nature; giddiness is the result; men see red, and their frenzy ends in
ferocity.

For the peculiarity of a popular insurrection is that nobody obeys
anybody; the bad passions are free as well as the generous ones; heroes
are unable to restrain assassins. Elie, who is the first to enter the
fortress, Cholat, Hulin, the brave fellows who are in advance, the
French Guards who are cognizant of the laws of war, try to keep their
word of honor; but the crowd pressing on behind them know not whom to
strike, and they strike at random. They spare the Swiss soldiers who
have fired at them, and who, in their blue smocks, seem to them to
be prisoners; on the other hand, by way of compensation, they fall
furiously on the invalides who opened the gates to them; the man who
prevented the governor from blowing up the fortress has his wrist
severed by the blow of a saber, is twice pierced with a sword and is
hung, and the hand which had saved one of the districts of Paris is
promenaded through the streets in triumph. The officers are dragged
along and five of them are killed, with three soldiers, on the spot, or
on the way. During the long hours of firing, the murderous instinct has
become aroused, and the wish to kill, changed into a fixed idea,
spreads afar among the crowd which has hitherto remained inactive. It is
convinced by its own clamor; a hue and cry is all that it now needs; the
moment one strikes, all want to strike. "Those who had no arms," says
an officer, "threw stones at me;[1247] the women ground their teeth and
shook their fists at me. Two of my men had already been assassinated
behind me. I finally got to within some hundreds of paces of the
Hôtel-de-Ville, amidst a general cry that I should be hung, when a head,
stuck on a pike, was presented to me to look at, while at. the same
moment I was told that it was that of M. de Launay," the governor.--The
latter, on going out, had received the cut of a sword on his right
shoulder; on reaching the Rue Saint-Antoine "everybody pulled his hair
out and struck him." Under the arcade of Saint-Jean he was already
"severely wounded." Around him, some said, "his head ought to be struck
off;" others, "let him be hung;" and others, "he ought to be tied to
a horse's tail." Then, in despair, and wishing to put an end to his
torments, he cried out, "Kill me," and, in struggling, kicked one of the
men who held him in the lower abdomen. On the instant he is pierced with
bayonets, dragged in the gutter, and, striking his corpse, they exclaim,
"He's a scurvy wretch (galeux) and a monster who has betrayed us; the
nation demands his head to exhibit to the public," and the man who
was kicked is asked to cut it off.--This man, an unemployed cook, a
simpleton who "went to the Bastille to see what was going on," thinks
that as it is the general opinion, the act is patriotic, and even
believes that he "deserves a medal for destroying a monster." Taking a
saber which is lent to him, he strikes the bare neck, but the dull
saber not doing its work, he takes a small black-handled knife from his
pocket, and, "as in his capacity of cook he knows how to cut meat," he
finishes the operation successfully. Then, placing the head on the end
of a three-pronged pitchfork, and accompanied by over two hundred
armed men, "not counting the mob," he marches along, and, in the Rue
Saint-Honoré, he has two inscriptions attached to the head, to indicate
without mistake whose head it is.--They grow merry over it: after filing
alongside of the Palais-Royal, the procession arrives at the Pont-Neuf,
where, before the statue of Henry IV., they bow the head three times,
saying, "Salute thy master!"--This is the last joke: it is to be found
in every triumph, and inside the butcher, we find the rogue.




VII.--Murders of Foulon and Berthier.

Meanwhile, at the Palais-Royal, other buffoons, who with the levity of
gossips sport with lives as freely as with words, have drawn u. During
the night between the 13th and 14th of July, a list of proscriptions,
copies of which are hawked about. Care is taken to address one of
them to each of the persons designated, the Comte d'Artois, Marshal
de Broglie, the Prince de Lambesc, Baron de Bezenval, MM. de Breteuil,
Foulon, Berthier, Maury, d'Espréménil, Lefèvre d'Amécourt, and others
besides.[1248] A reward is promised to whoever will bring their heads to
the Café de Caveau. Here are names for the unchained multitude; all
that now is necessary is that some band should encounter a man who is
denounced; he will go as far as the lamppost at the street corner, but
not beyond it.--Throughout the day of the 14th, this improvised tribunal
holds a permanent session, and follows up its decisions with its
actions. M. de Flesselles, provost of the merchants and president of
the electors at the Hôtel-de-Ville, having shown himself somewhat
lukewarm,[1249] the Palais-Royal declares him a traitor and sends him
off to be hung. On the way a young man fells him with a pistol-shot,
others fall upon his body, while his head, borne upon a pike, goes to
join that of M. de Launay.--Equally deadly accusations and of equally
speedy execution float in the air and from every direction. "On the
slightest pretext," says an elector, "they denounced to us those whom
they thought opposed to the Revolution, which already signified the same
as enemies of the State. Without any investigation, there was only talk
of the seizure of their persons, the ruin of their homes, and the razing
of their houses. One young man exclaimed: 'Follow me at once, let us
start off at once to Bezenval's!'"--Their brains are so frightened, and
their minds so distrustful, that at every step in the streets "one's
name has to be given, one's profession declared, one's residence, and
one's intentions. . .. One can neither enter nor leave Paris without
being suspected of treason." The Prince de Montbarrey, advocate of the
new ideas, and his wife, are stopped in their carriage at the barrier,
and are on the point of being cut to pieces. A deputy of the nobles, on
his way to the National Assembly, is seized in his cab and conducted to
the Place de Grève; the corpse of M. de Launay is shown to him, and he
is told that he is to be treated in the same fashion.--Every life hangs
by a thread, and, on the following days, when the King had sent away
his troops, dismissed his Ministers, recalled Necker, and granted
everything, the danger remains just as great. The multitude, abandoned
to the revolutionaries and to itself, continues the same bloody antics,
while the municipal chiefs[1250] whom it has elected, Bailly, Mayor of
Paris, and Lafayette, commandant of the National Guard, are obliged to
use cunning, to implore, to throw themselves between the multitude and
the unfortunates whom they wish to destroy.

On the 15th of July, in the night, a woman disguised as a man is
arrested in the court of the Hôtel-de-Ville, and so maltreated that she
faints away; Bailly, in order to save her, is obliged to feign anger
against her and have her sent immediately to prison. From the 14th to
the 22nd of July, Lafayette, at the risk of his life, saves with his
own hand seventeen persons in different quarters.[1251]--On the 22nd of
July, upon the denunciations which multiply around Paris like trains
of gunpowder, two administrators of high rank, M. Foulon, Councillor
of State, and M. Berthier, his son-in-law, are arrested, one near
Fontainebleau, and the other near Compiègne. M. Foulon, a strict
master,[1252] but intelligent and useful, expended sixty thousand francs
the previous winter on his estate in giving employment to the poor. M.
Berthier, an industrious and capable man, had officially surveyed
and valued Ile-de-France, to equalize the taxes, and had reduced the
overcharged quotas first one-eighth and then a quarter. But both of
these gentlemen have arranged the details of the camp against which
Paris has risen; both are publicly proscribed for eight days previously
by the Palais-Royal, and, with a people frightened by disorder,
exasperated by hunger, and stupefied by suspicion, an accused person is
a guilty one.--With regard to Foulon, as with Réveillon, a story is made
up, coined in the same mint, a sort of currency for popular circulation,
and which the people itself manufactures by casting into one tragic
expression the sum of its sufferings and rankling memories:[1253] "He
said that we were worth no more than his horses; and that if we had no
bread we had only to eat grass."--The old man of seventy-four is brought
to Paris, with a truss of hay on his head, a collar of thistles around
his neck, and his mouth stuffed with hay. In vain does the electoral
bureau order his imprisonment that he may be saved; the crowd yells out:
"Sentenced and hung!" and, authoritatively, appoints the judges. In
vain does Lafayette insist and entreat three times that the judgment be
regularly rendered, and that the accused be sent to the Abbaye. A new
wave of people comes up, and one man, "well dressed," cries out: "What
is the need of a sentence for a man who has been condemned for thirty
years?" Foulon is carried off; dragged across the square, and hung
to the lamp post. The cord breaks twice, and twice he falls upon the
pavement. Re-hung with a fresh cord and then cut down, his head is
severed from his body and placed on the end of a pike.[1254] Meanwhile,
Berthier, sent away from Compiègne by the municipality, afraid to
keep him in his prison where he was constantly menaced, arrives in a
cabriolet under escort. The people carry placards around him filled with
opprobrious epithets; in changing horses they threw hard black bread
into the carriage, exclaiming, "There, wretch, see the bread you made us
eat!" On reaching the church of Saint-Merry, a fearful storm of insults
burst forth against him. He is called a monopolist, "although he had
never bought or sold a grain of wheat." In the eyes of the multitude,
who has to explain the evil as caused by some evil-doer, he is the
author of the famine. Conducted to the Abbaye, his escort is dispersed
and he is pushed over to the lamp post. Then, seeing that all is lost,
he snatches a gun from one of his murderers and bravely defends himself.
A soldier of the "Royal Croats" gives him a cut with his saber across
the stomach, and another tears out his heart. As the cook, who had cut
off the head of M. de Launay, happens to be on the spot, they hand him
the heart to carry while the soldiers take the head, and both go to
the Hôtel-de-Ville to show their trophies to M. de Lafayette. On their
return to the Palais-Royal, and while they are seated at table in a
tavern, the people demand these two remains. They throw them out of the
window and finish their supper, whilst the heart is marched about below
in a bouquet of white carnations.--Such are the spectacles which this
garden presents where, a year before, "good society in full dress" came
on leaving the Opera to chat, often until two o'clock in the morning,
under the mild light of the moon, listening now to the violin of
Saint-Georges, and now to the charming voice of Garat.




VIII.--Paris in the hands of the people.

Henceforth it is clear that no one is safe: neither the new militia nor
the new authorities suffice to enforce respect for the law. "They did
not dare," says Bailly,[1255] "oppose the people who, eight days before
this, had taken the Bastille."--In vain, after the last two murders, do
Bailly and Lafayette indignantly threaten to withdraw; they are forced
to remain; their protection, such as it is, is all that is left, and, if
the National Guard is unable to prevent every murder, it prevents some
of them. People live as they can under the constant expectation of fresh
popular violence. "To every impartial man," says Malouet, "the Terror
dates from the 14th of July".--On the 17th, before setting out for
Paris, the King attends communion and makes his will in anticipation
of assassination. From the 16th to the 18th, twenty personages of high
rank, among others most of those on whose heads a price is set by the
Palais-Royal, leave France: The Count d'Artois, Marshal de Broglie, the
Princes de Condé, de Conti, de Lambesc, de Vaudemont, the Countess
de Polignac, and the Duchesses de Polignac and de Guiche.--The day
following the two murders, M. de Crosne, M. Doumer, M. Sureau, the most
zealous and most valuable members of the committee on subsistence, all
those appointed to make purchases and to take care of the storehouses,
conceal themselves or fly. On the eve of the two murders, the notaries
of Paris, being menaced with a riot, had to advance 45,000 francs which
were promised to the workmen of the Faubourg Saint-Antoine; while the
public treasury, almost empty, is drained of 30,000 livres per day to
diminish the cost of bread.--Persons and possessions, great and small,
private individuals and public functionaries, the Government itself,
all is in the hands of the mob. "From this moment," says a deputy,[1256]
"liberty did not exist even in the National Assembly. . . France stood
dumb before thirty factious persons. The Assembly became in their hands
a passive instrument, which they forced to serve them in the execution
of their projects."--They themselves do not lead, although they seem to
lead. The great brute, which has taken the bit in its mouth, holds on to
it, and it's plunging becomes more violent. Not only do both spurs which
maddened it, I mean the desire for innovation and the daily scarcity
of food, continue to prick it on. But also the political hornets which,
increasing by thousands, buzz around its ears. And the license in which
it revels for the first time, joined to the applause lavished upon it,
urges it forward more violently each day. The insurrection is glorified.
Not one of the assassins is sought out. It is against the conspiracy of
Ministers that the Assembly institutes an inquiry. Rewards are bestowed
upon the conquerors of the Bastille; it is declared that they have saved
France. All honors are awarded to the people-to their good sense, their
magnanimity, and their justice. Adoration is paid to this new sovereign:
he is publicly and officially told, in the Assembly and by the press,
that he possesses every virtue, all rights and all powers. If he spills
blood it is inadvertently, on provocation, and always with an infallible
instinct. Moreover, says a deputy, "this blood, was it so pure?" The
greater number of people prefers the theories of their books to the
experience of their eyes; they persist in the idyll, which they have
fashioned for themselves. At the worst their dream, driven out from the
present, takes refuge in the future. To-morrow, when the Constitution is
complete, the people, made happy, will again become wise: let us endure
the storm, which leads us on to so noble a harbor.

Meanwhile, beyond the King, inert and disarmed, beyond the Assembly,
disobeyed or submissive, appears the real monarch, the people--that is
to say, a crowd of a hundred, a thousand, a hundred thousand individuals
gathered together at random, on an impulse, on an alarm, suddenly and
irresistibly made legislators, judges, and executioners. A formidable
power, undefined and destructive, on which no one has any hold, and
which, with its mother, howling and misshapen Liberty, sits at the
threshold of the Revolution like Milton's two specters at the gates of
Hell.

     . . . Before the gates there sat
     On either side a formidable shape;
     The one seem'd woman to the waist, and fair,
     but ended foul in many a scaly fold
     Voluminous and vast, a serpent arm'd
     With mortal sting: about her middle round
     A cry of hell hounds never ceasing bark'd
     With wide Cerberean mouths full loud, and rung
     A hideous peal: yet, when they list, would creep,
     If aught disturb'd their noise, into her womb,
     And kennel there; yet there still bark'd and howl'd
     Within unseen. . .
     ........the other shape,
     If shape it might be call'd, that shape had none
     Distinguishable in member, joint, or limb,
     Or substance might be call'd that shadow seem'd
     For each seem'd either: black it stood as night,
     Fierce as ten furies, terrible as hell,
     And shook a dreadful dart; what seem'd his head
     The likeness of a kingly crown had on.

     The monster moving onward came as fast,
     With horrid strides; hell trembled as he strode.


*****


[Footnote 1201: "Archives Nationales," H. 1453. Letter of M.
Miron, lieutenant de police, April 26th; of M. Joly de Fleury,
procureur-général, May 29th; of MM. Marchais and Berthier, April 18th
and 27th, March 23rd, April 5th, May 5th.--Arthur Young, June 10th
and 29th. "Archives Nationales," H. 1453 Letter of the sub-delegate of
Montlhéry, April 14th.]

[Footnote 1202: "Archives Nationales," H. 1453. Letter of the
sub-delegate Gobert, March 17th; of the officers of police, June
15th:--" On the 12th, 13th, 14th and 15th of March the inhabitants of
Conflans generally rebelled against the game law in relation to the
rabbit."]

[Footnote 1203: Montjoie, 2nd part, ch. XXI. p.14 (the first week in
June). Montjoie is a party man; but he gives dates and details, and his
testimony, when it is confirmed elsewhere, deserves, to be admitted.]

[Footnote 1204: Montjoie, 1st part, 92-101.--"Archives Nationales,"
H. 1453. Letter of the officer of police of Saint-Denis: "A good many
workmen arrive daily from Lorraine as well as from Champagne," which
increases the prices.]

[Footnote 1205: De Bezenval, "Mémoires," I.353. Cf. "The Ancient
Regime," p.509.--Marmontel, II, 252 and following pages.--De Ferrières,
I. 407.]

[Footnote 1206: Arthur Young, September 1st, 1788]

[Footnote 1207: Barrère, "Mémoires," I. 234.]

[Footnote 1208: See, in the National Library, the long catalogue of
those which have survived.]

[Footnote 1209: Malouet, I. 255. Bailly, I. 43 (May 9th and
19th).--D'Hezecques, "Souvenirs d'un page de Louis XV." 293.--De
Bezenval, I. 368.]

[Footnote 1210: Marmontel, II, 249.--Montjoie, 1st part, p. 92.--De
Bezenval, I. 387: "These spies added that persons were seen exciting the
tumult and were distributing money."]

[Footnote 1211: "Archives Nationales," Y.11441. Interrogatory of the
Abbé Roy, May 5th.--Y.11033, Interrogatory (April 28th and May 4th)
of twenty-three wounded persons brought to the Hôtel-Dieu--These two
documents are of prime importance in presenting the true aspect of the
insurrection; to these must be added the narrative of M. de Bezenval,
who was commandant at this time with M. de Châtelet. Almost all other
narratives are amplified or falsified through party bias.]

[Footnote 1212: De Ferrières, vol. III. note A. (justificatory
explanation by Réveillon).]

[Footnote 1213: Bailly I. 25 (April 26th).]

[Footnote 1214: Hippeau, IV. 377 (Letters of M. Perrot, April 29th).]

[Footnote 1215: Letter to the King by an inhabitant of the Faubourg
Saint-Antoine--"Do not doubt, sire, that our recent misfortunes are due
to the dearness of bread"]

[Footnote 1216: Dampmartin, "Evénements qui se sont passés sous mes
yeux," etc. I. 25: "We turned back and were held up by small bands of
scoundrels, who insolently proposed to us to shout 'Vive Necker! Vive
le Tiers-Etat!'" His two companions were knights of St. Louis, and
their badges seemed an object of "increasing hatred." "The badge excited
coarse mutterings, even on the part of persons who appeared superior to
the agitators."]

[Footnote 1217: Dampmartin, ibid. i. 25: "I was dining this very day at
the Hôtel d'Ecquevilly, in the Rue Saint-Louis." He leaves the house
on foot and witnesses the disturbance. "Fifteen to Sixteen hundred
wretches, the excrement of the nation, degraded by shameful vices,
covered with rags, and gorged with brandy, presented the most disgusting
and revolting spectacle. More than a hundred thousand persons of
both sexes and of all ages and conditions interfered greatly with the
operations of the troops. The firing soon commenced and blood flowed:
two innocent persons were wounded near me."]

[Footnote 1218: De Goncourt, "La Société Française pendant la
Révolution." Thirty-one gambling-houses are counted here, while a
pamphlet of the day is entitled "Pétition des deux mill cent filles du
Palais-Royal."]

[Footnote 1219: Montjoie, 2nd part, 144.--Bailly, II, 130.]

[Footnote 1220: Arthur Young, June 24th, 1789.--Montjoie, 2nd part, 69.]

[Footnote 1221: Arthur Young, June 9th, 24th, and 26th.--"La France
libre," passim, by C. Desmoulins.]

[Footnote 1222: C. Desmoulins, letters to his father, and Arthur Young,
June 9th.]

[Footnote 1223: Montjoie, 2nd part, 69, 77, 124, 144. C. Desmoulins,
letter, of June 24th and the following days.]

[Footnote 1224: Etienne Dumont, "Souvenirs," p.72.--C. Desmoulins,
letter of; June 24th.--Arthur Young, June 25th.--Buchez and Roux, II.
28.]

[Footnote 1225: Bailly, I. 227 and 179.--Monnier, "Recherches sur les
causes," etc. I. 289, 291; II.61;--Malouet, I. 299; II. 10.--"Actes
des Apôtres," V.43. (Letter of M. de Guillermy, July 31st,
1790).--Marmontel, I. 28: "The people came even into the Assembly, to
encourage their partisans, to select and indicate their victims, and to
terrify the feeble with the dreadful trial of open balloting."]

[Footnote 1226: Manuscript letters of M. Boullé, deputy, to the
municipal authorities of Pontivy, from May 1st, 1789, to September 4th,
1790 (communicated by M. Rosenzweig, archivist at Vannes). June 16th,
1789: "The crowd gathered around the hall. . . was, during these days,
from 3,000 to 4,000 persons."]

[Footnote 1227: Letters of M. Boullé, June 23rd. "How sublime the
moment, that in which we enthusiastically bind ourselves to the country
by a new oath!. . . . Why should this moment be selected by one of our
number to dishonor himself? His name is now blasted throughout France.
And the unfortunate man has children! Suddenly overwhelmed by public
contempt he leaves, and falls fainting at the door, exclaiming, 'Ah!
this will be my death!' I do not know what has become of him since. What
is strange is, he had not behaved badly up to that time, and he voted
for the Constitution."]

[Footnote 1228: De Ferrières, I. 168.--Malouet, I. 298 (according to
him the faction did not number more than ten members),--idem II.
10.--Dumont, 250.]

[Footnote 1229: "Convention nationale" governed France from 21st
September 1792 until Oct. 26th 1796. We distinguish between three
different assemblies, "la Convention Girondine" 1792-93, "the Mountain,"
1793-94 and "la Thermidorienne," from 1794-1795. (SR).]

[Footnote 1230: Declaration of June 23rd, article 15.]

[Footnote 1231: Montjoie, 2nd part, 118.--C. Desmoulins, letters of June
24th and the following days. A faithful narrative by M. de Sainte-Fère,
formerly an officer in the French Guard, p.9.--De Bezenval,
III, 413.--Buchez and Roux, II. 35.--"Souvenirs", by PASQUIER
(Etienne-Dennis, duc), chancelier de France. in VI volumes, Librarie
Plon, Paris 1893..]

[Footnote 1232: Peuchet ("Encyclopédie Méthodique," 1789, quoted by
Parent Duchâtelet): "Almost all of the soldiers of the Guard belong to
that class (the procurers of public women): many, indeed, only enlist in
the corps that they may live at the expense of these unfortunates."]

[Footnote 1233: Gouverneur Morris, "Liberty is now the general cry;
authority is a name and no longer a reality." (Correspondence with
Washington, July 19th.)]

[Footnote 1234: Bailly. I. 302. "The King was very well-disposed; his
measures were intended only to preserve order and the public peace. .
. Du Châtelet was forced by facts to acquit M. de Bezenval of attempts
against the people and the country."--Cf. Marmontel, IV. 183; Mounier,
II, 40.]

[Footnote 1235: Desmoulins, letter of the 16th July. Buchez and Roux,
II. 83.]

[Footnote 1236: Trial of the Prince de Lambesc (Paris, 1790), with the
eighty-three depositions and the discussion of the testimony.--It is the
crowd which began the attack. The troops fired in the air. But one
man, a sieur Chauvel, was wounded slightly by the Prince de Lambesc.
(Testimony of M. Carboire, p.84, and of Captain de Reinack, p. 101.) "M.
le Prince de Lambesc, mounted on a gray horse with a gray saddle without
holsters or pistols, had scarcely entered the garden when a dozen
persons jumped at the mane and bridle of his horse and made every effort
to drag him off. A small man in gray clothes fired at him with a pistol.
. . . The prince tried hard to free himself, and succeeded by making his
horse rear up and by flourishing his sword; without, however, up to this
time, wounding any one. . . . He deposes that he saw the prince strike
a man on the head with the flat of his saber who was trying to close the
turning-bridge, which would have cut off the retreat of his troops The
troops did no more than try to keep off the crowd which assailed them
with stones, and even with firearms, from the top of the terraces."--The
man who tried to close the bridge had seized the prince's horse with one
hand; the wound he received was a scratch about 23 lines long, which was
dressed and cured with a bandage soaked in brandy. All the details of
the affair prove that the patience and humanity of the officer, were
extreme. Nevertheless "on the following day, the 13th, some one posted a
written placard on the crossing Bussy recommending the citizens of Paris
to seize the prince and quarter him at once."--(Deposition of M. Cosson,
p.114.)]

[Footnote 1237: Bailly, I. 3, 6.--Marmontel, IV. 310]

[Footnote 1238: Montjoie, part 3, 86. "I talked with those who guarded
the château of the Tuileries. They did not belong to Paris. . . . A
frightful physiognomy and hideous apparel." Montjoie, not to be trusted
in many places, merits consultation for little facts of which he was an
eye-witness.--Morellet, "Mémoires," I. 374.--Dusaulx, "L'oeuvre des sept
jours," 352.--Revue Historique," March, 1876. Interrogatory of Desnot.
His occupation during the 13th of July (published by Guiffrey).]

[Footnote 1239: Mathieu Dumas, "Mémoires," I. 531. "Peaceable people
fled at the sight of these groups of strange, frantic vagabonds.
Everybody closed their houses. . .. When I reached home, in the
Saint-Denis quarter, several of these brigands caused great alarm by
firing off guns in the air."]

[Footnote 1240: Dusaulx, 379.]

[Footnote 1241: Dusaulx, 359, 360, 361, 288, 336. "In effect their
entreaties resembled commands, and, more than once, it was impossible to
resist them."]

[Footnote 1242: Dusaulx, 447 (Deposition of the invalides).--"Revue
Rétrospective," IV. 282 (Narrative of the commander of the thirty-two
Swiss Guards).]

[Footnote 1243: Marmontel, IV. 317.]

[Footnote 1244: Dusaulx, 454. "The soldiers replied that they would
accept whatever happened rather than cause the destruction of so great a
number of their fellow-citizens."]

[Footnote 1245: Dusaulx, 447. The number of combatants, maimed, wounded,
dead, and living, is 825.--Marmontel, IV. 320. "To the number of
victors, which has been carried up to 800, people have been added who
were never near the place."]

[Footnote 1246: "Memoires", by PASQUIER (Etienne-Dennis, duc,
1767-1862), chancelier de France. in VI volumes, Librarie Plon, Paris
1893. Vol. I. p.52. Pasquier was eye-witness. He leaned against the
fence of the Beaumarchais garden and looked on, with mademoiselle
Contat, the actress, at his side, who had left her carriage in the
Place-Royale.--Marat, "L'ami du peuple," No. 530. "When an unheard-of
conjunction of circumstances had caused the fall of the badly defended
walls of the Bastille, under the efforts of a handful of soldiers and
a troop of unfortunate creatures, most of them Germans and almost all
provincials, the Parisians presented themselves the fortress, curiosity
alone having led them there."]

[Footnote 1247: Narrative of the commander of the thirty-two
Swiss.--Narrative of Cholat, wine-dealer, one of the
victors.--Examination of Desnot (who cut off the head of M. de Launay).]

[Footnote 1248: Montjoie, part 3, 85.--Dusaulx, 355, 287, 368.]

[Footnote 1249: Nothing more. No Witness states that he had seen the
pretended note to M. do Launay. According to Dusaulx, he could not have
had either the time or the means to write it.]

[Footnote 1250: Bailly, II. 32, 74, 88, 90, 95, 108, 117, 137, 158, 174.
"I gave orders which were neither obeyed nor listened to. . . . They
gave me to understand that I was not safe." (July 15th.) "In these
sad times one enemy and one calumnious report sufficed to excite the
multitude. All who had formerly held power, all who had annoyed or
restrained the insurrectionists, were sure of being arrested."]

[Footnote 1251: M. de Lafayette, "Mémoires," III. 264. Letter of July
16th, 1789. "I have already saved the lives of six persons whom they
were hanging in different quarters."]

[Footnote 1252: Poujoulat. "Histoire de la Révolution Française," p.100
(with supporting documents). Procès-verbaux of the Provincial Assembly,
lle-de-France (1787), p.127.]

[Footnote 1253: For instance: "He is severe with his peasants."--"He
gives them no bread, and he wants them then to eat grass." "He wants
them to eat grass like horses."--"He has said that they could very well
eat hay, and that they are no better than horses."--The same story is
found in many of the contemporary jacqueries.]

[Footnote 1254: Bailly, II. 108. "The people, less enlightened and as
imperious as despots, recognize no positive signs of good administration
but success."]

[Footnote 1255: Bailly, II, 108, 95.--Malouet, II, 14.]

[Footnote 1256: De Ferrières, I. 168.]




CHAPTER III.




I.--Anarchy from July 14th to October 6th, 1789

     Destruction of the Government.--To whom does real power
     belong?

However bad a particular government may be, there is something still
worse, and that is the suppression of all government. For, it is owing
to government that human wills form a harmony instead of chaos.
It serves society as the brain serves a living being. Incapable,
inconsiderate, extravagant, engrossing, it often abuses its position,
overstraining or misleading the body for which it should care, and which
it should direct. But, taking all things into account, whatever it may
do, more good than harm is done, for through it the body stands erect,
marches on and guides its steps. Without it there is no organized
deliberate action, serviceable to the whole body. In it alone do we find
the comprehensive views, knowledge of the members of which it consists
and of their aims, an idea of outward relationships, full and accurate
information, in short, the superior intelligence which conceives what is
best for the common interests, and adapts means to ends. If it falters
and is no longer obeyed, if it is forced and pushed from without by a
violent pressure, it ceases to control public affairs, and the social
organization retrogrades by many steps. Through the dissolution of
society, and the isolation of individuals, each man returns to his
original feeble state, while power is vested in passing aggregates that
like whirlwinds spring up from the human dust.--One may divine how this
power, which the most competent find it difficult to apply properly, is
exercised by bands of men springing out of nowhere. It is a matter of
supplies, of their possessions, price and distribution. It is a matter
of taxes, its proportion, apportionment and collection; of private
property, its varieties, rights, and limitations It is a problem of
public authority, its allocation and its limits; of all those delicate
cogwheels which, working into each other, constitute the great economic,
social, and political machine. Each band in its own canton lays its
rude hands on the wheels within its reach. They wrench or break them
haphazardly, under the impulse of the moment, heedless and indifferent
to consequences, even when the reaction of to-morrow crushes them in the
ruin that they cause to day. Thus do unchained Negroes, each pulling and
hauling his own way, undertake to manage a ship of which they have just
obtained mastery.--In such a state of things white men are hardly worth
more than black ones. For, not only is the band, whose aim is violence,
composed of those who are most destitute, most wildly enthusiastic, and
most inclined to destructiveness and to license. But also, as this band
tumultuously carries out its violent action, each individual the most
brutal, the most irrational, and most corrupt, descends lower than
himself, even to the darkness, the madness, and the savagery of the
dregs of society. In fact, a man who in the interchange of blows, would
resist the excitement of murder, and not use his strength like a
savage, must be familiar with arms. He must be accustomed to danger, be
cool-blooded, alive to the sentiment of honor, and above all, sensitive
to that stern military code which, to the imagination of the soldier,
ever holds out to him the provost's gibbet to which he is sure to rise,
should he strike one blow too many. Should all these restraints, inward
as well as outward, be wanting, the man plunges into insurrection. He is
a novice in the acts of violence, which he carries out. He has no
fear of the law, because he abolishes it. The action begun carries him
further than he intended to go. Peril and resistance exasperate his
anger. He catches the fever from contact with those who are fevered,
and follows robbers who have become his comrades.[1301] Add to this
the clamors, the drunkenness, the spectacle of destruction, the nervous
tremor of the body strained beyond its powers of endurance, and we
can comprehend how, from the peasant, the laborer, and the bourgeois,
pacified and tamed by an old civilization, we see all of a sudden spring
forth the barbarian. Or still worse, the primitive animal, the grinning,
sanguinary, wanton baboon, who giggles while he slays, and gambols over
the ruin he has accomplished. Such is the actual government to which
France is given up, and after eighteen months' experience, the best
qualified, most judicious and profoundest observer of the Revolution
will find nothing to compare it to but the invasion of the Roman Empire
in the fourth century.[1302] "The Huns, the Heruli, the Vandals, and the
Goths will come neither from the north nor from the Black Sea; they are
in our very midst."




II.--The provinces

     Destruction of old Authorities.--Inadequacy of new
     Authorities

When in a building the principal beam gives way, cracks follow and
multiply, and the secondary joists fall in one by one for lack of the
prop, which supported them. In a similar manner the authority of the
King being broken, all the powers, which he delegated, fall to the
ground.[1303] Intendants, parliaments, military commands, grand
provosts, administrative, judicial, and police functionaries in every
province, and of every branch of the service, who maintain order and
protect property, taught by the murder of M. de Launey, the imprisonment
of M. de Besenval, the flight of Marshal de Broglie, the assassinations
of Foullon and Bertier, know what it costs should they try to perform
their duties. Should it be forgotten local insurrections intervene, and
keep them in mind of it.

The officer in command in Burgundy is a prisoner at Dijon, with a
guard at his door; and he is not allowed to speak with any one without
permission, and without the presence of witnesses.[1304] The Commandant
of Caen is besieged in the old palace and capitulates. The Commandant of
Bordeaux surrenders Château-Trompette with its guns and equipment. The
Commandant at Metz, who remains firm, suffers the insults and the orders
of the populace. The Commandant of Brittany wanders about his province
"like a vagabond," while at Rennes his people, furniture, and plate are
kept as pledges. As soon as he sets foot in Normandy he is surrounded,
and a sentinel is placed at his door.--The Intendant of Besançon takes
to flight; that of Rouen sees his dwelling sacked from top to bottom,
and escapes amid the shouts of a mob demanding his head.--At Rennes, the
Dean of the Parliament is arrested, maltreated, kept in his room with
a guard over him, and then, although ill, sent out of the town under an
escort.--At Strasbourg "thirty-six houses of magistrates are marked
for pillage."[1305]--At Besançon, the President of the Parliament is
constrained to let out of prison the insurgents arrested in a late
out-break, and to publicly burn the whole of the papers belonging to
the prosecution.--In Alsace, since the beginning of the troubles, the
provosts were obliged to fly, the bailiffs and manorial judges hid
themselves, the forest-inspectors ran away, and the houses of the guards
were demolished. One man, sixty years of age, is outrageously beaten and
marched about the village, the people, meanwhile, pulling out his hair;
nothing remains of his dwelling but the walls and a portion of the roof.
All his furniture and effects are broken up, burnt or stolen. He is
forced to sign, along with his wife, an act by which he binds himself
to refund all penalties inflicted by him, and to abandon all claims
for damages for the injuries to which he has just been subjected.--In
Franche-Comté the authorities dare not condemn delinquents, and the
police do not arrest them; the military commandant writes that "crimes
of every kind are on the increase, and that he has no means of punishing
them." Insubordination is permanent in all the provinces; one of the
provincial commissions states with sadness:

"When all powers are in confusion and annihilated, when public force
no longer exists, when all ties are sundered, when every individual
considers himself relieved from all kinds of obligation, when public
authority no longer dares make itself felt, and it is a crime to have
been clothed with it, what can be expected of our efforts to restore
order?"[1306]

All that remains of this great demolished State is forty thousand
groups of people, each separated and isolated, in towns and small market
villages where municipal bodies, elected committees, and improvised
National Guards strive to prevent the worst excesses.--But these local
chiefs are novices; they are human, and they are timid. Chosen by
acclamation they believe in popular rights; in the midst of riots they
feel themselves in danger. Hence, they generally obey the crowd.

"Rarely," says one of the provincial commissions reports, "do the
municipal authorities issue a summons; they allow the greatest excesses
rather than enter upon prosecutions for which, sooner or later, they
may be held responsible by their fellow-citizens. . . . Municipal bodies
have no longer the power to resist anything."

Especially in the rural districts the mayor or syndic, who is a farmer,
makes it his first aim to make no enemies, and would resign his place
if it were to bring him any "unpleasantness" with it. His rule in
the towns, and especially in large cities, is almost as lax and more
precarious, because explosive material is accumulated here to a much
larger extent, and the municipal officers, in their arm-chairs at the
town-hall, sit over a mine which may explode at any time. To-morrow,
perhaps, some resolution passed at a tavern in the suburbs, or some
incendiary newspaper just received from Paris, will furnish the
spark.--No other defense against the populace is at hand than the
sentimental proclamations of the National Assembly, the useless presence
of troops who stand by and look on, and the uncertain help of a National
Guard which will arrive too late. Occasionally these townspeople, who
are now the rulers, utter a cry of distress from under the hands of
the sovereigns of the street who grasp them by the throat. At
Puy-en-Velay,[1307] a town of twenty thousand inhabitants, the
présidial,[1308] the committee of twenty-four commissioners, a body of
two hundred dragoons, and eight hundred men of the guard of burgesses,
are "paralyzed, and completely stupefied, by the vile populace. A
mild treatment only increases its insubordination and insolence." This
populace proscribes whomsoever it pleases, and six days ago a gibbet,
erected by its hands, has announced to the new magistrates the fate that
awaits them.

" What will become of us this winter," they exclaim, "in our
impoverished country, where bread is not to be had! We shall be the prey
of wild beasts!"




III.--Public feeling.--Famine

These people, in truth, are hungry, and, since the Revolution, their
misery has increased. Around Puy-en-Velay the country is laid waste,
and the soil broken up by a terrible tempest, a fierce hailstorm, and
a deluge of rain. In the south, the crop proved to be moderate and even
insufficient.

"To trace a picture of the condition of Languedoc," writes the
intendant,[1309] "would be to give an account of calamities of every
description. The panic which prevails in all communities, and which is
stronger than all laws, stops traffic, and would cause famine even in
the midst of plenty. Commodities are enormously expensive, and there is
a lack of cash. Communities are ruined by the enormous outlays to which
they are exposed: The payment of the deputies to the seneschal's court,
the establishment of the burgess guards, guardhouses for this militia,
and the purchase of arms, uniforms, and outlays in forming communes and
permanent councils. To this must be add the cost of the printing of all
kinds, and the publication of trivial deliberations. Further the loss
of time due to disturbances occasioned by these circumstances, and
the utter stagnation of manufactures and of trade." All these causes
combined "have reduced Languedoc to the last extremity."--In the Center,
and in the North, where the crops are good, provisions are not less
scarce, because wheat is not put in circulation, and is kept concealed.

"For five months," writes the municipal assembly of Louviers,[1310] "not
a farmer has made his appearance in the markets of this town. Such a
circumstance was never known before, although, from time to time, high
prices have prevailed to a considerable extent. On the contrary, the
markets were always well supplied in proportion to the high price of
grain."

In vain the municipality orders the surrounding forty-seven parishes to
provide them with wheat. They pay no attention to the mandate; each for
himself and each for his own house; the intendant is no longer present
to compel local interests to give way to public interests.

"In the wheat districts around us," says a letter from one of the
Burgundy towns, "we cannot rely on being able to make free purchases.
Special regulations, supported by the civic guard, prevent grain from
being sent out, and put a stop to its circulation. The adjacent markets
are of no use to us. Not a sack of grain has been brought into our
market for about eight months."

At Troyes, bread costs four sous per pound, at Bar-sur-Aube, and in the
vicinity, four and a half sous per pound. The artisan who is out of work
now earns twelve sous a day at the relief works, and, on going into the
country, he sees that the grain crop is good. What conclusion can he
come to but that the dearth is due to the monopolists, and that, if he
should die of hunger, it would be because those scoundrels have
starved him?--By virtue of this reasoning whoever has to do with these
provisions, whether proprietor, farmer, merchant or administrator, all
are considered traitors. It is plain that there is a plot against
the people: the government, the Queen, the clergy, the nobles are all
parties to it; and likewise the magistrates and the wealthy amongst the
bourgeoisie and the rich. A rumor is current in the Ile-de-France that
sacks of flour are thrown into the Seine, and that the cavalry horses
are purposely made to eat unripe wheat in stalk. In Brittany, it is
maintained that grain is exported and stored up abroad. In Touraine, it
is certain that this or that wholesale dealer allows it to sprout in his
granaries rather than sell it. At Troyes, a story prevails that another
has poisoned his flour with alum and arsenic, commissioned to do so
by the bakers.--Conceive the effect of suspicions like these upon a
suffering multitude! A wave of hatred ascends from the empty stomach to
the morbid brain. The people are everywhere in quest of their imaginary
enemies, plunging forward with closed eyes no matter on whom or on what,
not merely with all the weight of their mass, but with all the energy of
their fury.





IV.--Panic.

     General arming.

From the earliest of these weeks they were already alarmed. Accustomed
to being led, the human herd is scared at being left to itself; it
misses its leaders who it has trodden under foot; in throwing off their
trammels it has deprived itself of their protection. It feels lonely,
in an unknown country, exposed to dangers of which it is ignorant, and
against which it is unable to guard itself. Now that the shepherds are
slain or disarmed, suppose the wolves should unexpectedly appear!--And
there are wolves--I mean vagabonds and criminals--who have but just
issued out of the darkness. They have robbed and burned, and are to be
found at every insurrection. Now that the police force no longer puts
them down, they show themselves instead of keeping themselves concealed.
They have only to lie in wait and come forth in a band, and both life
and property will be at their mercy.--Deep anxiety, a vague feeling of
dread, spreads through both town and country: towards the end of July
the panic, like a blinding, suffocating whirl of dusts, suddenly sweeps
over hundreds of leagues of territory. The brigands are coming! They are
burning the crops! They are only six leagues off, and then only two--the
refugees who have run away from the disorder prove it.

On the 28th of July, at Angoulême,[1311] the alarm bell is heard about
three o'clock in the afternoon; the drums beat to arms, and cannon are
mounted on the ramparts. The town has to be put in a state of defense
against 15,000 bandits who are approaching, and from the walls a cloud
of dust on the road is discovered with terror. It proves to be the
post-wagon on its way to Bordeaux. After this the number of brigands
is reduced to 1,500, but there is no doubt that they are ravaging the
country. At nine o'clock in the evening 20,000 men are under arms, and
thus they pass the night, always listening without hearing anything.
Towards three o'clock in the morning there is another alarm, the church
bells ringing and the people forming a battle array. They are convinced
that the brigands have burned Ruffec, Vernenil, La Rochefoucauld, and
other places. The next day countrymen flock in to give their aid against
bandits who are still absent. "At nine o'clock," says a witness, "we had
40,000 men in the town, to whom we showed our gratitude." As the bandits
do not show themselves, it must be because they are concealed; a hundred
horsemen, a large number of men on foot, start out to search the forest
of Braçonne, and to their great surprise they find nothing. But the
terror is not allayed; "during the following days a guard is kept
mounted, and companies are enrolled among the townsmen," while Bordeaux,
duly informed, dispatches a courier to offer the support of 20,000 men
and even 30,000. "What is surprising," adds the narrator, is that at ten
leagues off in the neighborhood, in each parish, a similar disturbance
took place, and at about the same hour."--All that is required is that a
girl, returning to the village at night, should meet two men who do
not belong to the neighborhood. The case is the same in Auvergne. Whole
parishes, on the strength of this, betake themselves at night to the
woods, abandoning their houses, and carrying away their furniture; "the
fugitives trod down and destroyed their own crops; pregnant women were
injured in the forests, and others lost their wits." Fear lends them
wings. Two years after this, Madame Campan was shown a rocky peak on
which a woman had taken refuge, and from which she was obliged to be let
down with ropes.--The people at last return to their homes, and resume
their usual routines. But such large masses are not unsettled with
impunity; a tumult like this is, in itself, a lively source of alarm. As
the country did rise, it must have been on account of threatened danger
and if the peril was not due to brigands, it must have come from some
other quarter. Arthur Young, at Dijon and in Alsace,[1312] hears at the
public dinner tables that the Queen had formed a plot to undermine the
National Assembly and to massacre all Paris. Later on he is arrested in
a village near Clermont, and examined because he is evidently conspiring
with the Queen and the Comte d'Entraigues to blow up the town and send
the survivors to the galleys.

No argument, no experience has any effect against the multiplying
phantoms of an over-excited imagination. Henceforth every commune, and
every man, provide themselves with arms and keep them ready for use. The
peasant searches his hoard, and "finds from ten to twelve francs for
the purchase of a gun." "A national militia is found in the poorest
village." Burgess guards and companies of volunteers patrol all the
towns. Military commanders deliver arms, ammunition, and equipment,
on the requisition of municipal bodies, while, in case of refusal,
the arsenals are pillaged, and, voluntarily or by force, four
hundred thousand guns thus pass into the hands of the people in six
months.[1313] Not content with this they must have cannon. Brest
having demanded two, every town in Brittany does the same thing;
their self-esteem is at stake as well as a need of feeling themselves
strong.--They lack nothing now to render themselves masters. All
authority, all force, every means of constraint and of intimidation
is in their hands, and in theirs alone; and these sovereign hands have
nothing to guide them in this actual interregnum of all legal powers,
but the wild or murderous suggestions of hunger or distrust.




V.--Attacks on public individuals and public property.

     At Strasbourg.--At Cherbourg.--At Mauberge.--At Rouen.--At
     Besançon.--At Troyes.

It would take too much space to recount all the violent acts which were
committed,--convoys arrested, grain pillaged, millers and corn merchants
hung, decapitated, slaughtered, farmers called upon under the threats of
death to give up even the seed reserved for sowing, proprietors ransomed
and houses sacked.[1314] These outrages, unpunished, tolerated and even
excused or badly suppressed, are constantly repeated, and are, at first,
directed against public men and public property. As is commonly the
case, the rabble head the march and stamp the character of the whole
insurrection.

On the 19th of July, at Strasbourg, on the news of Necker's return to
office, it interprets after its own fashion the public joy, which
it witnesses. Five or six hundred beggars,[1315] their numbers soon
increased by the petty tradesmen, rush to the town hall, the magistrates
only having time to fly through a back door. The soldiers, on their
part, with arms in their hands, allow all these things to go on, while
several of them spur the assailants on. The windows are dashed to pieces
under a hailstorm of stones, the doors are forced with iron crowbars,
and the populace enter amid a burst of acclamations from the spectators.
Immediately, through every opening in the building, which has a facade
frontage of eighty feet, "there is a shower of shutters, sashes,
chairs, tables, sofas, books and papers, and then another of tiles,
boards, balconies and fragments of wood-work." The public archives are
thrown to the wind, and the surrounding streets are strewed with them;
the letters of enfranchisement, the charters of privileges, all the
authentic acts which, since Louis XIV, have guaranteed the liberties of
the town, perish in the flames. Some of the rabble in the cellars stave
in casks of precious wine; fifteen thousand measures of it are lost,
making a pool five feet deep in which several are drowned. Others,
loaded with booty, go away under the eyes of the soldiers without
being arrested. The havoc continues for three days; a number of houses
belonging to some of the magistrates "are sacked from garret to cellar."
When the honest citizens at last obtain arms and restore order, they are
content with the hanging of one of the robbers; although, in order to
please the people, the magistrates are changed and the price of bread
and meat is reduced.--It is not surprising that after such tactics, and
with such rewards, the riot should spread through the neighborhood far
and near: in fact, starting from Strasbourg it overruns Alsace, while in
the country as in the city, there are always drunkards and rascals found
to head it.

No matter where, be it in the East, in the West, or in the North, the
instigators are always of this stamp. At Cherbourg, on the 21st of
July,[1316] the two leaders of the riot are "highway robbers," who place
themselves at the head of women of the suburbs, foreign sailors, the
populace of the harbor, and it includes soldiers in workmen's smocks.
They force the delivery of the keys of the grain warehouses, and
wreck the dwellings of the three richest merchants, also that of M. de
Garantot, the sub-delegate: "All records and papers are burnt; at M. de
Garantot's alone the loss is estimated at more than 100,000 crowns at
least."--The same instinct of destruction prevails everywhere, a sort
of envious fury against all who possess, command, or enjoy anything.
At Maubeuge, on the 27th of July, at the very assembly of the
representatives of the commune,[1317] the rabble interferes directly in
its usual fashion. A band of nail and gun-makers takes possession of the
town-hall, and obliges the mayor to reduce the price of bread. Almost
immediately after this another band follows uttering cries of death,
and smashes the windows, while the garrison, which has been ordered out,
quietly contemplates the damage done. Death to the mayor, to all rulers,
and to all employees! The rioters force open the prisons, set the
prisoners free, and attack the tax-offices. The octroi offices are
demolished from top to bottom: they pull down the harbor offices and
throw the scales and weights into the river. All the custom and
excise stores are carried off; and the officials are compelled to give
acquaintances. The houses of the registrar and of the sheriff, that of
the revenue comptroller, two hundred yards outside the town, are sacked;
the doors and the windows are smashed, the furniture and linen is torn
to shreds, and the plate and jewelry is thrown into the wells. The same
havoc is committed in the mayor's town-house, also in his country-house
a league off. "Not a window, not a door, not one article or eatable,"
is preserved; their work, moreover, is conscientiously done, without
stopping a moment, "from ten in the evening up to ten in the morning on
the following day." In addition to this the mayor, who has served
for thirty-four years, resigns his office at the solicitation of the
well-disposed but terrified people, and leaves the country.--At
Rouen, after the 24th of July,[1318] a written placard shows, by its
orthography and its style, what sort of intellects composed it and what
kind of actions are to follow it:

"Nation, you have here four heads to strike off, those of Pontcarry
(the first president), Maussion (the intendant), Godard de Belboeuf (the
attorney-general), and Durand (the attorney of the King in the town).
Without this we are lost, and if you do not do it, people will take you
for a heartless nation."

Nothing could be more explicit. The municipal body, however, to whom
the Parliament denounces this list of proscriptions, replies, with its
forced optimism, that

"no citizen should consider himself or be considered as proscribed; he
may and must believe himself to be safe in his own dwelling, satisfied
that there is not a person in the city who would not fly to his rescue."

This is equal to telling the populace that it is free to do as it
pleases. On the strength of this the leaders of the riot work on in
security for ten days. One of them is a man named Jourdain, a lawyer of
Lisieux, and, like most of his brethren, a demagogue in principles; the
other is a strolling actor from Paris named Bordier, famous in the part
of harlequin,[1319] a bully in a house of ill-fame, "a night-rover
and drunkard, and who, fearing neither God nor devil," has taken up
patriotism, and comes down into the provinces to play tragedy, and that,
tragedy in real life. The fifth act begins on the night of the 3rd of
August, with Bordier and Jourdain as the principal actors, and behind
them the rabble along with several companies of fresh volunteers. A
shout is heard, "Death to the monopolists! death to Maussion! we must
have his head!" They pillage his hotel: many of them become intoxicated
and fall asleep in his cellar. The revenue offices, the toll-gates of
the town, the excise office, all buildings in which the royal revenue is
collected, are wrecked. Immense bonfires are lighted in the streets and
on the old market square; furniture, clothes, papers, kitchen utensils,
are all thrown in pell-mell, while carriages are dragged out and tumbled
into the Seine. It is only when the town-hall is attacked that the
National Guard, beginning to be alarmed, makes up its mind to seize
Bordier and some others. The following morning, however, at the shout of
Carabo, and led by Jourdain, the prison is forced, Bordier set free, and
the intendant's residence, with its offices, is sacked a second time.
When, finally, the two rascals are taken and led to the scaffold, the
populace is so strongly in their favor as to require the pointing of
loaded cannon on them to keep them down.--At Besançon,[1320] on the 13th
of August, the leaders consist of the servant of an exhibitor of
wild animals, two goal-birds of whom one has already been branded in
consequence of a riot, and a number of "inhabitants of ill-repute," who,
towards evening, spread through the town along with the soldiers. The
gunners insult the officers they meet, seize them by the throat and want
to throw them into the Doubs. Others go to the house of the commandant,
M. de Langeron, and demand money of him; on his refusing to give it
they tear off their cockades and exclaim, "We too belong to the
Third-Estate!" in other words, that they are the masters: subsequently
they demand the head of the intendant, M. de Caumartin, forcibly enter
his dwelling and break up his furniture. On the following day the rabble
and the soldiers enter the coffee-houses, the convents, and the inns,
and demand to be served with wine and eatables as much as they want, and
then, heated by drink, they burn the excise offices, force open several
prisons, and set free all the smugglers and deserters. To put an end to
this saturnalia a grand banquet in the open air is suggested, in which
the National Guard is to fraternize with the whole garrison; but the
banquet turns into a drinking-bout, entire companies remaining under the
tables dead drunk; other companies carry away with them four hogsheads
of wine, and the rest, finding themselves left in the lurch, are
scattered abroad outside the walls in order to rob the cellars of the
neighboring villages. The next day, encouraged by the example set them,
a portion of the garrison, accompanied by a number of workmen, repeat
the expedition in the country. Finally, after four days of this orgy, to
prevent Besançon and its outskirts from being indefinitely treated as a
conquered country, the burgess guard, in alliance with the soldiers who
have remained loyal, rebel against the rebellion, go in quest of
the marauders and hang two of them that same evening.--Such is
rioting![1321] an irruption of brute force which, turned loose on the
habitations of men, can do nothing but gorge itself, waste, break,
destroy, and do damage to itself; and if we follow the details of local
history, we see how, in these days, similar outbreaks of violence might
be expected at any time.

At Troyes,[1322] on the 18th of July, a market-day, the peasants refuse
to pay the entrance duties; the octroi having been suppressed at Paris,
it ought also to be suppressed at Troyes. The populace, excited by this
first disorderly act, gather into a mob for the purpose of dividing the
grain and arms amongst themselves, and the next day the town-hall is
invested by seven or eight thousand men, armed with clubs and stones.
The day after, a band, recruited in the surrounding villages, armed
with flails, shovels, and pitch-forks, enters under the leadership of
a joiner who marches at the head of it with a drawn saber; fortunately,
"all the honest folks among the burgesses "immediately form themselves
into a National Guard, and this first attempt at a Jacquerie is put
down. But the agitation continues, and false rumors constantly keep
it up.--On the 29th of July, on the report being circulated that five
hundred "brigands" had left Paris and were coming to ravage the country,
the alarm bell sounds in the villages, and the peasants go forth armed.
Henceforth, a vague idea of some impending danger fills all minds; the
necessity of defense and of guarding against enemies is maintained.
The new demagogues avail themselves of this to keep their hold on the
people, and when the time comes, to use it against their chiefs.--It is
of no use to assure the people that the latter are patriots; that the
recently welcomed Necker with enthusiastic shouts; that the priests, the
monks, and canons were the first to adopt the national cockade; that
the nobles of the city and its environs are the most liberal in France;
that, on the 20th of July, the burgess guard saved the town; that
all the wealthy give to the national workshops; that Mayor Huez, "a
venerable and honest magistrate," is a benefactor to the poor and to
the public. All the old leaders are objects of distrust.--On the 8th
of August, a mob demands the dismissal of the dragoons, arms for
all volunteers, bread at two sous the pound, and the freedom of all
prisoners. On the 19th of August the National Guard rejects its old
officers as aristocrats, and elects new ones. On the 27th of August, the
crowd invade the town-hall and distribute the arms amongst themselves.
On the 5th of September, two hundred men, led by Truelle, president of
the new committee, force the salt depot and have salt delivered to them
at six sous per pound.--Meanwhile, in the lowest quarters of the city,
a story is concocted to the effect that if wheat is scarce it is
because Huez, the mayor, and M. de St. Georges, the old commandant, are
monopolists, and now they say of Huez what they said five weeks before
of Foulon, that "he wants to make the people eat hay." The many-headed
brute growls fiercely and is about to spring. As usual, instead of
restraining him, they try to manage him.

"You must put your authority aside for a moment," writes the deputy of
Troyes to the sheriffs," and act towards the people as to a friend; be
as gentle with them as you would be with your equals, and rest assured
that they are capable of responding to it."

Thus does Huez act, and he even does more, paying no attention to their
menaces, refusing to provide for his own safety and almost offering
himself as a sacrifice.

"I have wronged no one," he exclaimed; "why should any one bear me
ill-will?"

His sole precaution is to provide something for the unfortunate poor
when he is gone: he bequeaths in his will 18,000 livres to the poor,
and, on the eve of his death, sends 100 crowns to the bureau of charity.
But what avail self-abnegation and beneficence against blind, insane
rage! On the 9th of September, three loads of flour proving to be
unsound, the people collect and shout out,

"Down with the flour-dealers! Down with machinery! Down with the mayor!
Death to the mayor, and let Truelle be put in his place!"

Huez, on leaving his court-room, is knocked down, murdered by kicks and
blows, throttled, dragged to the reception hall, struck on his head
with a wooden-shoe and pitched down the grand staircase. The municipal
officers strive in vain to protect him; a rope is put around his neck
and they begin to drag him along. A priest, who begs to be allowed at
least to save his soul, is repulsed and beaten. A woman jumps on
the prostrate old man, stamps on his face and repeatedly thrusts her
scissors in his eyes. He is dragged along with the rope around his neck
up to the Pont de la Selle, and thrown into the neighboring ford, and
then drawn out, again dragged through the streets and in the gutters,
with a bunch of hay crammed in his mouth.[1323]

In the meantime, his house as well as that of the lieutenant of police,
that of the notary Guyot, and that of M. de Saint-Georges, are sacked;
the pillaging and destruction lasts four hours; at the notary's house,
six hundred bottles of wine are consumed or carried off; objects of
value are divided, and the rest, even down to the iron balcony, is
demolished or broken; the rioters cry out, on leaving, that they have
still to burn twenty-seven houses, and to take twenty-seven heads. "No
one at Troyes went to bed that fatal night."--During the succeeding
days, for nearly two weeks, society seems to be dissolved. Placards
posted about the streets proscribe municipal officers, canons, divines,
privileged persons, prominent merchants, and even ladies of charity; the
latter are so frightened that they throw up their office, while a number
of persons move off into the country; others barricade themselves in
their dwellings and only open their doors with saber in hand. Not
until the 26th does the orderly class rally sufficiently to resume the
ascendancy and arrest the miscreants.--Such is public life in France
after the 14th of July: the magistrates in each town feel that they are
at the mercy of a band of savages and sometimes of cannibals. Those of
Troyes had just tortured Huez after the fashion of Hurons, while those
of Caen did worse; Major de Belzance, not less innocent, and under sworn
protection,[1324] was cut to pieces like Laperouse in the Fiji Islands,
and a woman ate his heart.




VI.--Taxes are no longer paid.

     Devastation of the Forests.--The new game laws.

It is, under such circumstances, possible to foretell whether taxes come
in, and whether municipalities that sway about in every popular breeze
will have the authority to collect the odious revenues.--Towards the end
of September,[1325] I find a list of thirty-six committees or municipal
bodies which, within a radius of fifty leagues around Paris, refuse
to ensure the collection of taxes. One of them tolerates the sale
of contraband salt, in order not to excite a riot. Another takes the
precaution to disarm the employees in the excise department. In a
third the municipal officers were the first to provide themselves with
contraband salt and contraband tobacco.

At Peronne and at Ham, the order having come to restore the toll-houses,
the people destroy the soldiers' quarters, conduct all the employees
to their homes, and order them to leave within twenty-four hours, under
penalty of death. After twenty months' resistance Paris will end the
matter by forcing the National Assembly to give in and by obtaining the
final suppression of its octroi.[1326]--Of all the creditors whose hand
each one felt on his shoulders, that of the exchequer was the heaviest,
and now it is the weakest; hence this is the first whose grasp is to
be shaken off; there is none which is more heartily detested or which
receives harsher treatment. Especially against collectors of the
salt-tax, custom-house officers, and excisemen the fury is universal.
These, everywhere,[1327] are in danger of their lives and are obliged to
fly. At Falaise, in Normandy, the people threaten to "cut to pieces
the director of the excise." At Baignes, in Saintonge, his house is
devastated and his papers and effects are burned; they put a knife to
the throat of his son, a child six years of age, saying, "Thou must
perish that there may be no more of thy race." For four hours the clerks
are on the point of being torn to pieces; through the entreaties of the
lord of the manor, who sees scythes and sabers aimed at his own
head, they are released only on the condition that they "abjure
their employment."--Again, for two months following the taking of
the Bastille, insurrections break out by hundreds, like a volley
of musketry, against indirect taxation. From the 23rd of July the
Intendant of Champagne reports that "the uprising is general in almost
all the towns under his command." On the following day the Intendant of
Alençon writes that, in his province, "the royal dues will no longer be
paid anywhere." On the 7th of August, M. Necker states to the National
Assembly that in the two intendants' districts of Caen and Alençon it
has been necessary to reduce the price of salt one-half; that "in
an infinity of places" the collection of the excise is stopped or
suspended; that the smuggling of salt and tobacco is done by "convoys
and by open force" in Picardy, in Lorraine, and in the Trois-Évêchés;
that the indirect tax does not come in, that the receivers-general and
the receivers of the taille are "at bay" and can no longer keep their
engagements. The public income diminishes from month to month; in the
social body, the heart, already so feeble, faints; deprived of the
blood which no longer reaches it, it ceases to propel to the muscles the
vivifying current which restores their waste and adds to their energy.

"All controlling power is slackened," says Necker, "everything is a prey
to the passions of individuals." Where is the power to constrain them
and to secure to the State its dues?--The clergy, the nobles, wealthy
townsmen, and certain brave artisans and farmers, undoubtedly pay, and
even sometimes give spontaneously. But in society those who possess
intelligence, who are in easy circumstances and conscientious, form a
small select class; the great mass is egotistic, ignorant, and needy,
and lets its money go only under constraint; there is but one way to
collect the taxes, and that is to extort them. From time immemorial,
direct taxes in France have been collected only by bailiffs and
seizures; which is not surprising, as they take away a full half of the
net income. Now that the peasants of each village are armed and form
a band, let the collector come and make seizures if he dare!--"
Immediately after the decree on the equality of the taxes," writes the
provincial commission of Alsace,[1328] "the people generally refused
to make any payments, until those who were exempt and privileged should
have been inscribed on the local lists." In many places the peasants
threaten to obtain the reimbursement of their installments, while in
others they insist that the decree should be retrospective and that the
new rate-payers should pay for the past year. "No collector dare send an
official to distrain; none that are sent dare fulfill their mission."--"
It is not the good bourgeois" of whom there is any fear, "but the rabble
who make the latter and every one else afraid of them;" resistance and
disorder everywhere come from "people that have nothing to lose."--Not
only do they shake off taxation, but they usurp property, and declare
that, being the Nation, whatever belongs to the Nation belongs to
them. The forests of Alsace are laid waste, the seignorial as well as
communal, and wantonly destroyed with the wastefulness of children or
of maniacs. "In many places, to avoid the trouble of removing the woods,
they are burnt, and the people content themselves with carrying off the
ashes."--After the decrees of August 4th, and in spite of the law which
licenses the proprietor only to hunt on his own grounds, the impulse
to break the law becomes irresistible. Every man who can procure a gun
begins operations;[1329] the crops which are still standing are trodden
under foot, the lordly residences are invaded and the palings are
scaled; the King himself at Versailles is wakened by shots fired in his
park. Stags, fawns, deer, wild boars, hares, and rabbits, are slain by
thousands, cooked with stolen wood, and eaten up on the spot. There is
a constant discharge of musketry throughout France for more than two
months, and, as on an American prairie, every living animal belongs to
him who kills it. At Choiseul, in Champagne, not only are all the hares
and partridges of the barony exterminated, but the ponds are exhausted
of fish; the court of the chateau even is entered, to fire on the
pigeon-house and destroy the pigeons, and then the pigeons and fish, of
which they have too many, are offered to the proprietor for sale--It
is "the patriots" of the village with "smugglers and bad characters"
belonging to the neighborhood who make this expedition; they are seen
in the front ranks of every act of violence, and it is not difficult
to foresee that, under their leadership, attacks on public persons
and public property will be followed by attacks on private persons and
private property.




VII.--Attack upon private individuals and private property.

     Aristocrats denounced to the people as their enemies.
     --Effect of news from Paris.--Influence of the village
     attorneys.--Isolated acts of violence.--A general rising of
     the peasantry in the east.--War against the castles, feudal
     estates, and property.--Preparations for other Jacqueries.

Indeed, an outlawed class already exists, they are called "aristocrats."
This deadly term, applied at first to the nobles and prelates in the
States-General who declined to take part in the reunion of the three
orders, is extended so as to embrace all whose titles, offices,
alliances, and manner of living distinguish them from the multitude.
That which entitled them to respect is that which marks them out as
objects of ill-will; while the people, who, though suffering from their
privileges, did not regard them personally with hatred, are now taught
to consider them as their enemies. Each, on his own estate, is
held accountable for the evil designs attributed to his brethren at
Versailles, and, on the false report of a plot at the center, the
peasants classify him as one of the conspirators.[1330] Thus does the
peasant jacquerie commence, and the fanatics who have fanned the flame
in Paris are to do the same in the provinces. "You wish to know the
authors of the agitation," writes a sensible man to the committee
of investigation; "you will find them amongst the deputies of the
Third-Estate," and especially among the attorneys and advocates. "These
dispatch incendiary letters to their constituents, which letters
are received by municipal bodies alike composed of attorneys and of
advocates.... they are read aloud in the public squares, while copies of
them are distributed among all the villages. In these villages, if any
one knows how to read besides the priest and the lord of the manor, it
is the legal practitioner," the born enemy of the lord of the manor,
whose place he covets, vain of his oratorical powers, embittered by
his power, and never failing to blacken everything.[1331] It is highly
probable that he is the one who composes and circulates the placards
calling on the people, in the King's name, to resort to violence.--At
Secondigny, in Poitou, on the 23rd of July,[1332] the laborers in the
forest receive a letter "which summons them to attack all the country
gentlemen round about, and to massacre without mercy all those who
refuse to renounce their privileges.... promising them that not only
will their crimes go unpunished, but that they will even be rewarded."
M. Despretz-Montpezat, correspondent of the deputies of the nobles,
is seized, and dragged with his son to the dwelling of the
procurator-fiscal, to force him to give his signature; the inhabitants
are forbidden to render him assistance "on pain of death and fire."
"Sign," they exclaim, "or we will tear out your heart, and set fire to
this house!" At this moment the neighboring notary, who is doubtless an
accomplice, appears with a stamped paper, and says to him, "Monsieur,
I have just come from Niort, where the Third-Estate has done the same
thing to all the gentlemen of the town; one, who refused, was cut to
pieces before our eyes."--"We are compelled to sign renunciations of our
privileges, and give our assent to one and the same taxation, as if
the nobles had not already done so." The band gives notice that it will
proceed in the same fashion with all the chateaux in the vicinity, and
terror precedes or follows them. "Nobody dares write," M. Despretz
sends word; "I attempt it at the risk of my life."--Nobles and prelates
become objects of suspicion everywhere; village committees open their
letters, and they have to suffer their houses to be searched.[1333] They
are forced to adopt the new cockade: to be a gentleman, and not wear it,
is to deserve hanging. At Mamers, in Maine, M. de Beauvoir refuses to
wear it, and is at the point of being put into the pillory and felled.
Near La F1èche, M. de Brissac is arrested, and a message is sent
to Paris to know if he shall be taken there, "or be beheaded in the
meantime." Two deputies of the nobles, MM. de Montesson and de Vassé who
had come to ask the consent of their constituents to their joining the
Third-Estate, are recognized near Mans; their honorable scruples and
their pledges to the constituents are considered of no importance, nor
even the step that they are now taking to fulfill them; it suffices that
they voted against the Third-Estate at Versailles; the populace pursues
them and breaks up their carriages, and pillages their trunks.--Woe to
the nobles, especially if they have taken any part in local rule, and
if they are opposed to popular panics! M. Cureau, deputy-mayor of
Mans,[1334] had issued orders during the famine, and, having retired to
his chateau of Nouay, had told the peasants that the announcement of
the coming of brigands was a false alarm; he thought that it was not
necessary to sound the alarm bell, and all that was necessary was that
they should remain quiet. Accordingly he is set down as being in league
with the brigands, and besides this he is a monopolist, and a buyer of
standing crops. The peasants lead him off; along with his son-in-law, M.
de Montesson, to the neighboring village, where there are judges. On the
way "they dragged their victims on the ground, pummeled them, trampled
on them, spit in their faces, and besmeared them with filth." M. de
Montesson is shot, while M. Cureau is killed by degrees; a carpenter
cuts off the two heads with a double-edged ax, and children bear them
along to the sound of drums and violins. Meanwhile, the judges of the
place, brought by force, draw up an official report stating the finding
of thirty louis and several bills of the Banque d'Escompte in the
pockets of M. de Cureau, on the discovery of which a shout of triumph is
set up: this evidence proves that they were going to buy up the standing
wheat!--Such is the course of popular justice. Now that the Third-Estate
has become the nation, every mob thinks that it has the right to
pronounce sentences, which it carries out, on lives and on possessions.

These explosions are isolated in the western, central and southern
provinces; the conflagration, however, is universal in the east. On a
strip of ground from thirty to fifty leagues broad, extending from
the extreme north down to Provence. Alsace, Franche-Comté, Burgundy,
Mâconnais, Beaujolais, Auvergne, Viennois, Dauphiny, the whole of this
territory resembles a continuous mine which explodes at the same time.
The first column of flame which shoots up is on the frontiers of Alsace
and Franche-Comté, in the vicinity of Belfort and Vésoul, a feudal
district, in which the peasant, over-burdened with taxes, bears the
heavier yoke with greater impatience. An instinctive argument is going
on in his mind without his knowing it. "The good Assembly and the good
King want us to be happy, suppose we help them! They say that the King
has already relieved us of the taxes, suppose we relieve ourselves
of paying rents! Down with the nobles! They are no better than the
tax-collectors!"--On the 16th of July, the chateau of Sancy, belonging
to the Princesses de Beaufremont, is sacked, and on the 18th those of
Lure, Bithaine, and Molans.[1335] On the 29th, an accident which occurs
with some fire-works at a popular festival at the house of M. de Mesmay,
leads the lower class to believe that the invitation extended to
them was a trap, and that there was a desire to get rid of them by
treachery.[1336] Seized with rage they set fire to the chateau, and
during the following week[1337] destroy three abbeys, ruin eleven
chateaux and pillage others. "All records are destroyed, the registers
and court-rolls are carried off; and the deposits violated."--Starting
from this spot, "the hurricane of insurrection" stretches over the
whole of Alsace from Huningue to Landau.[1338] The insurgents display
placards, signed Louis, stating that for a certain lapse of time they
shall be permitted to exercise justice themselves, and, in Sundgau, a
well-dressed weaver, decorated with a blue belt, passes for a prince,
the King's second son. They begin by falling on the Jews, their
hereditary leeches; they sack their dwellings, divide their money among
themselves, and hunt them down like so many fallow-deer. At Bâle alone,
it is said that twelve hundred of these unfortunate fugitives arrived
with their families.--The distance between the Jew creditor and the
Christian proprietor is not great, and this is soon cleared. Remiremont
is only saved by a detachment of dragoons. Eight hundred men attack
the chateau of Uberbrünn. The abbey of Neubourg is taken by storm. At
Guebwiller, on the 31st of July, five hundred peasants, subjects of the
abbey of Murbach, make a descent on the abbot's palace and on the house
of the canons. Cupboards, chests, beds, windows, mirrors, frames, even
the tiles of the roof and the hinges of the casements are hacked
to pieces: "They kindle fires on the beautiful inlaid floors of the
apartments, and there burn up the library and the title-deeds." The
abbot's superb carriage is so broken up that not a wheel remains entire.
"Wine streams through the cellars. One cask of sixteen hundred measures
is half lost; the plate and the linen are carried off."--Society is
evidently being overthrown, while with the power, property is changing
hands.

These are their very words. In Franche-Comte[1339] the inhabitants of
eight communes come and declare to the Bernardins of Grâce-Dieu and of
Lieu-Croissant "that, being of the Third-Estate, it is time now for the
people to rule over abbots and monks, considering that the domination
of the latter has lasted too long," and thereupon they carry off all
the titles to property and to rentals belonging to the abbey in their
commune. In Upper Dauphiny, during the destruction of M. de Murat's
chateau, a man named Ferréol struck the furniture with a big stick,
exclaiming, "Hey, so much for you, Murat; you have been master a good
while, now it's our turn!"[1340] Those who rifle houses, and steal like
highway robbers, think that they are defending a cause, and reply to
the challenge, "Who goes there?" "We are for the brigand
Third-Estate!"--Everywhere the belief prevails that they are clothed
with authority, and they conduct themselves like a conquering horde
under the orders of an absent general. At Remiremont and at Luxeuil
they produce an edict, stating that "all this brigandage, pillage, and
destruction" is permitted. In Dauphiny, the leaders of the bands
say that they possess the King's orders. In Auvergne, "they follow
imperative orders, being advised that such is his Majesty's will."
Nowhere do we see that an insurgent village exercises personal vengeance
against its lord. If the people fire on the nobles they encounter, it is
not through personal hatred. They are destroying the class, and do not
pursue individuals. They detest feudal privileges, holders of charters,
the cursed parchments by virtue of which they are made to pay, but not
the nobleman who, when he resides at home, is of humane intentions,
compassionate, and even often beneficent. At Luxeuil, the abbot, who
is forced with uplifted ax to sign a relinquishment of his seignorial
rights over twenty-three estates, has dwelt among them for forty-six
years, and has been wholly devoted to them.[1341] In the canton of
Crémieu, "where the havoc is immense," all the nobles, write the
municipal officers, are "patriots and benevolent." In Dauphiny, the
engineers, magistrates, and prelates, whose chateaux are sacked, were
the first to espouse the cause of the people and of public liberties
against the ministers. In Auvergne, the peasants themselves "manifest a
good deal of repugnance to act in this way against such kind masters."
But it must be done; the only concession which can be made in
consideration of the kindness which had been extended to them is, not to
burn the chateau of the ladies of Vanes, who had been so charitable; but
they burn all their title-deeds, and torture the business agent at three
different times by fire, to force him to deliver a document which
he does not possess; they then only withdraw him from the fire
half-broiled, because the ladies, on their knees, implore mercy for
him. They are like the soldiers on a campaign who execute orders
with docility, for which necessity is the only plea, and who, without
regarding themselves as brigands, commit acts of brigandage.

But here the situation is more tragic, for it is war in the midst of
peace, a war of the brutal and barbaric multitude against the highly
cultivated, well-disposed and confiding, who had not anticipated
anything of the kind, who had not even dreamt of defending themselves,
and who had no protection. The Comte de Courtivron, with his family,
was staying at the watering-place of Luxeuil with his uncle, the Abbé
of Clermont-Tonnerre, an old man of seventy years. On the 19th of July,
fifty peasants from Fougerolle break into and demolish everything in the
houses of an usher and a collector of the excise. Thereupon the mayor
of the place intimates to the nobles and magistrates who are taking the
waters, that they had better leave the house in twenty-four hours, as
"he had been advised of an intention to burn the houses in which they
were staying," and he did not wish to have Luxeuil exposed to this
danger on account of their presence there. The following day, the guard,
as obliging as the mayor, allows the band to enter the town and to force
the abbey: the usual events follow, renunciations are extorted, records
and cellars are ransacked, plate and other effects are stolen. M. de
Courtivron escaping with his uncle during the night, the alarm bell
is sounded and they are pursued, and with difficulty obtain refuge
in Plombières. The bourgeoisie of Plombières, however, for fear of
compromising themselves, oblige them to depart. On the road two hundred
insurgents threaten to kill their horses and to smash their carriage,
and they only find safety at last at Porentruy, outside of France.
On his return, M. de Courtivron is shot at by the band which has just
pillaged the abbey of Lure, and they shout out at him as he passes,
"Let's massacre the nobles!" Meanwhile, the chateau of Vauvilliers, to
which his sick wife had been carried, is devastated from top to bottom;
the mob search for her everywhere, and she only escapes by hiding
herself in a hay-loft. Both are anxious to fly into Burgundy, but word
is sent them that at Dijon "the nobles are blockaded by the people," and
that, in the country, they threaten to set their houses on fire.--There
is no asylum to be had, either in their own homes nor in the homes of
others, nor in places along the roads, fugitives being stopped in all
the small villages and market-towns. In Dauphiny[1342] "the Abbess of
St. Pierre de Lyon, one of the nuns, M. de Perrotin, M. de Bellegarde,
the Marquis de la Tour-du-Pin, and the Chevalier de Moidieu, are
arrested at Champier by the armed population, led to the Côte
Saint-André, confined in the town-hall, whence they send to Grenoble
for assistance," and, to have them released, the Grenoble Committee is
obliged to send commissioners. Their only refuge is in the large cities,
where some semblance of a precarious order exists, and in the ranks of
the City Guards, which march from Lyons, Dijon, and Grenoble, to keep
the inundation down. Throughout the country scattered chateaux are
swallowed up by the popular tide, and, as the feudal rights are often in
plebeian hands, it insensibly rises beyond its first overflow.--There
is no limit to an insurrection against property. This one extends from
abbeys and chateaux to the "houses of the bourgeoisie."[1343] The grudge
at first was confined to the holders of charters; now it is extended to
all who possess anything. Well-to-do farmers and priests abandon their
parishes and fly to the towns. Travelers are put to ransom. Thieves,
robbers, and returned convicts, at the head of armed bands, seize
whatever they can lay their hands on. Cupidity becomes inflamed by such
examples; on domains which are deserted and in a state of confusion,
where there is nothing to indicate a master's presence, all seems to
lapse to the first comer. A small farmer of the neighborhood has carried
away wine and returns the following day in search of hay. All the
furniture of a chateau in Dauphin is removed, even to the hinges of the
doors, by a large reinforcement of carts.--" It is the war of the
poor against the rich," says a deputy, "and, on the 3rd of August, the
Committee on Reports declares to the National Assembly "that no kind of
property has been spared." In Franche-Comté, "nearly forty chateaux and
seignorial mansions have been pillaged or burnt."[1344] From Lancers
to Gray about three out of five chateaux are sacked. In Dauphin
twenty-seven are burned or destroyed; five in the small district of
Viennese, and, besides these, all the monasteries--nine at least in
Auvergne, seventy-two, it is said, in Mâconnais and Beaujolais, without
counting those of Alsace. On the 31st of July, Lally-Tollendal, on
entering the tribune, has his hands full of letters of distress, with
a list of thirty-six chateaux burnt, demolished, or pillaged, in one
province, and the details of still worse violence against persons:[1345]

"in Languedoc, M. de Barras, cut to pieces in the presence of his
wife who is about to be confined, and who is dead in consequence; in
Normandy, a paralytic gentleman left on a burning pile and taken off
from it with his hands burnt; in Franche-Comté, Madame de Bathilly
compelled, with an ax over her head, to give up her title-deeds and even
her estate; Madame de Listenay forced to do the same, with a pitchfork
at her neck and her two daughters in a swoon at her feet; Comte de
Montjustin, with his wife, having a pistol at his throat for three
hours; and both dragged from their carriage to be thrown into a pond,
where they are saved by a passing regiment of soldiers; Baron de
Montjustin, one of the twenty-two popular noblemen, suspended for an
hour in a well, listening to a discussion whether he shall be dropped
down or whether he should die in some other way; the Chevalier d'Ambly,
torn from his chateau and dragged naked into the village, placed on a
dung-heap after having his eyebrows and all his hair pulled out, while
the crowd kept on dancing around him."

In the midst of a disintegrated society, under the semblance only of a
government, it is manifest that an invasion is under way, an invasion
of barbarians which will complete by terror that which it has begun by
violence, and which, like the invasions of the Normans in the tenth and
eleventh centuries, ends in the conquest and dispossession of an entire
class. In vain the National Guard and the other troops that remain loyal
succeed in stemming the first torrent; in vain does the Assembly hollow
out a bed for it and strive to bank it in by fixed boundaries. The
decrees of the 4th of August and the regulations which follow are but so
many spiders' webs stretched across a torrent. The peasants, moreover,
putting their own interpretation on the decrees, convert the new laws
into authority for continuing in their course or beginning over again.
No more rents, however legitimate, however legal!

"Yesterday,"[1346] writes a gentleman of Auvergne, we were notified
that the fruit-tithe (percières) would no longer be paid, and that the
example of other provinces was only being followed which no longer, even
by royal order, pay tithes." In Franche-Comté "numerous communities
are satisfied that they no longer owe anything either to the King or to
their lords. . . . The villages divide amongst themselves the fields and
woods belonging to the nobles."--

It must be noted that charter-holding and feudal titles are still intact
in three-fourths of France, that it is the interest of the peasant to
ensure their disappearance, and that he is always armed. To secure a
new outbreak of jacqueries, it is only necessary that central control,
already thrown into disorder, should be withdrawn. This is the work of
Versailles and of Paris; and there, at Paris as well as at Versailles,
some, through lack of foresight and infatuation, and others, through
blindness and indecision--the latter through weakness and the former
through violence--all are laboring to accomplish it.


*****


[Footnote 1301: Dusaulx, 374. "I remarked that if there were a few
among the people at that time who dared commit crime, there were several
who wished it, and that every one endured it."--" Archives Nationales,"
DXXIX, 3. (Letter of the municipal authorities of Crémieu, Dauphiny,
November 3, 1789.) "The care taken to lead them first to the cellars
and to intoxicate them, can alone give a conception of the incredible
excesses of rage to which they gave themselves up in the sacking and
burning of the chateaux."]

[Footnote 1302: Mercure de France, January 4, 1792. ("Revue politique de
l'année 1791," by Mallet du Pan.)]

[Footnote 1303: Albert Babeau, I. 206. (Letter of the deputy Camuzet
de Belombre, August 22, 1789.) The executive power is absolutely gone
to-day."--Gouverneur Morris, letter of July 31, 1789: "This country is
now as near in a state of anarchy as it is possible for a community to
be without breaking up."]

[Footnote 1304: "Archives Nationales," H. 1453. Letter of M. Amelot,
July 24th; H. 784, of M. de Langeron, October 16th and 18th.--KK.
1105. correspondence of M. de Thiard, October 7th and 30th, September
4th.--Floquet, VII. 527, 555.--Guadet, "Histoire des Girondins" (July
29, 1789).]

[Footnote 1305: M. de Rochambeau, "Mémoires," I. 353 (July
18th).--Sauzay, "Histoire de la Persécution Révolutionnaire dans le
Département de Doubs," I. 128 (July 19th.)--"Archives Nationales," F7,
3253. (Letter of the deputies of the provincial commission of Alsace,
September 8th.) D. XXIX. I. note of M. de Latour-du-Pin, October
28, 1789.--Letter of M. de Langeron, September 3rd; of Breitman,
garde-marteau, Val Saint-Amarin (Upper Alsace), July 26th.]

[Footnote 1306: Léonce de Lavergne, 197. (Letter of the intermediate
commission of Poitou, the last month in 1789.)--Cf. Brissot (Le patriote
français, August, 1789). "General insubordination prevails in the
provinces because the restraints of executive power are no longer felt.
What were but lately the guarantees of that power? The intendants,
tribunals, and the army. The intendants are gone, the tribunals are
silent, and the army is against the executive power and on

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