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 the side of
the people. Liberty is not a nourishment for unprepared stomachs."]
[Footnote 1307: "Archives Nationales," D. XXIX. I. (Letter of the
clergy, consuls, présidial-councillors and principal merchants of
Puy-en-Velay, September 16, 1789.)--H. 1453. (letter of the Intendant
or Alençon, July 18th). "I must not leave you in ignorance of the
multiplied outbreaks we have in all parts of my jurisdiction. The
impunity with which they flatter themselves, because the judges are
afraid of irritating the people by examples of severity, only emboldens
them. Mischief-makers, confounded with honest folks, spread false
reports about particular persons whom they accuse of concealing grain,
or of not belonging to the Third-Estate, and, under this pretext, they
pillage their houses, taking whatever they can find, the owners only
avoiding death by flight."]
[Footnote 1308: A body of magistrates forming one of the lower
tribunals.]
[Footnote 1309: "Archives Nationales," H. 942. (Observations of M. de
Ballainvilliers, October 30, 1789.)]
[Footnote 1310: "Archives Nationales," D, XXIX. 1. Letter of the
municipal assembly of Louviers, the end of August, 1789.--Letter of
the communal assembly of Saint-Bris (bailiwick of Auxerre),
September 25th.--Letter of the municipal officers of Ricey-Haut, near
Bar-sur-Seine, August 25th; of the Chevalier d'Allouville, September
8th.]
[Footnote 1311: "Archives Nationales," D, XXIX. I. Letter of
M. Briand-Delessart (Angoulême, August 1st).--Of M. Bret,
Lieutenant-General of the provostship of Mardogne, September 5th.--Of
the Chevalier de Castellas (Auvergue), September 15th (relating to the
night between the 2nd and 3rd of August).--Madame Campan, II. 65.]
[Footnote 1312: Arthur Young, "Voyages in France," July 24th and 31st,
August 13th and 19th.]
[Footnote 1313: De Bouillé, 108.--"Archives Nationales," KK. 1105.
Correspondence of M. deThiard, September 20, 1789 (apropos of one
hundred guns given to the town of Saint-Brieuc). "They are not of the
slightest use, but this passion for arms is a temporary epidemic which
must be allowed to subside of itself. People are determined to believe
in brigands and in enemies, whereas neither exist."--September 25th,
"Vanity alone impels them, and the pride of having cannon is their sole
motive."]
[Footnote 1314: "Archives Nationales," H. 1453. Letters of M. Amelot,
July 17th and 24th. "Several wealthy private persons of the town
(Auxonne) have been put to ransom by this band, of which the largest
portion consists of ruffians."--Letter of nine cultivators of Breteuil
(Picardy) July 23rd (their granaries were pillaged up to the last grain
the previous evening). "They threaten to pillage our crops and set our
barns on fire as soon as they are full. M. Tassard, the notary, has been
visited in his house by the populace, and his life has been threatened."
Letter of Moreau, Procureur du Roi at the Senechal's Court at
Bar-le-Duc, September 15, 1789, D, XXIX, 1. "On the 27th of July the
people rose and most cruelly assassinated a merchant trading in wheat.
On the 27th and 28th his house and that of another were sacked," etc.]
[Footnote 1315: Chronicle of Dominick Schmutz ("Revue d'Alsace," V.
III. 3rd series). These are his own expressions: Gesindel,
Lumpen-gesindel.--De Rochambeau, "Mémoires," I. 353.--Arthur Young (an
eye-witness), July 21st.--Of Dampmartin (eye-witness), I. 105. M. de
Rochambeau shows the usual indecision and want of vigor: whilst the mob
are pillaging houses and throwing things out of the windows, he passes
in front of his regiments (8,000 men) drawn up for action, and says, "My
friends, my good friends, you see what is going on. How horrible! Alas!
these are your papers, your titles and those of your parents." The
soldiers smile at this sentimental prattle.]
[Footnote 1316: Dumouriez (an eye-witness), book III. ch. 3.--The trial
was begun and judgment given by twelve lawyers and an assessor, whom the
people, in arms, had themselves appointed.--Hippeau, IV. 382.]
[Footnote 1317: "Archives Nationales," F7 3248. (Letter of the mayor, M.
Poussiaude de Thierri, September 11th.)]
[Footnote 1318: Floquet, VII. 551.]
[Footnote 1319: De Goncourt, "La Société française pendant la
Révolution," 37.]
[Footnote 1320: "Archives Nationales," D. XXIX. 1. Letter of the
officers of the bailiwick of Dôle, August 24th.--Sauzay I. 128.]
[Footnote 1321: There is a similar occurrence at Strasbourg, a few days
after the sacking of the town-hall. The municipality having given each
man of the garrison twenty sous, the soldiers abandon their post, set
the prisoners free at the Pont-Couvert, feast publicly in the streets
with the women taken out of the penitentiary, and force innkeepers and
the keepers of drinking-places to give up their provisions. The shops
are all closed, and, for twenty-four hours, the officers are not obeyed.
(De Dampmartin, I. 105.)]
[Footnote 1322: Albert Babeau, I. 187-273.--Moniteur, II. 379. (Extract
from the provost's verdict of November 27, 1789.)]
[Footnote 1323: Moniteur, ibid. Picard, the principal murderer,
confessed "that he had made him suffer a great deal; that the said
sieur Huez did not die until they came near the Chaudron Inn; that he
nevertheless intended to make him suffer more by stabbing him in the
neck at the corner of each street, (and) by contriving it so that he
might do it often, as long as there was life in him; that the day on
which M. Huez died yielded him ten francs, together with the neck-buckle
of M. Hues, found on him when he was arrested in his flight."]
[Footnote 1324: Mercure de France,, September 26, 1789. Letters of the
officers of the Bourbon regiment and of members of the general committee
of Caen.--Floquet, VII. 545.]
[Footnote 1325: "Archives Nationales," H. 1453.--Ibid. D. XXIX. I. Note
of M. de la Tour-du-Pin, October 28th.]
[Footnote 1326: Decree, February 5, 1789, enforced May 1st following.]
[Footnote 1327: "Archives Nationales," D. XXIX. I. Letter of the count
de Montausier, August 8th, with notes by M. Paulian, director of the
excise (an admirable letter, modest and liberal, and ending by demanding
a pardon for people led astray).--H. 1453. Letter of the attorney of the
election district of Falaise, July 17th, etc.--Moniteur, I. 303, 387,
505 (sessions of August 7th and 27th and of September 23rd). "The royal
revenues are diminishing steadily."--Buchez and Roux, III. 219 (session
of October 24, 1789). Discourse of a deputation from Anjou: "Sixty
thousand men are armed; the barriers have been destroyed, the clerks'
horses have been sold by auction; the employees have been told to
withdraw from the province within eight days. The inhabitants have
declared that they will not pay taxes so long as the salt-tax exists.]
[Footnote 1328: "Archives Nationales," F7 3253 (Letter of September 8,
1789).]
[Footnote 1329: Arthur Young, September 30th. "It is being said that
every rusty gun in Provence is at work, killing all sorts of birds;
the shot has fallen five or six times in my chaise and about my
ears."--Beugnot, I.142.--"Archives Nationales," D. XXIX. I. Letter of
the Chevalier d'Allonville, September 8, 1789 (Near Bar-sur-Aube). "The
peasants go in armed bands into the woods belonging to the Abbey of
Trois-Fontaines, which they cut down. They saw up the oaks and transport
them on wagons to Pont-Saint-Dizier, where they sell them. In other
places they fish in the ponds and break the embankments."]
[Footnote 1330: "Archives Nationales," D. XXIX. 1. Letter of the
assessor of the police of Saint-Flour, October 3, 1789. On the 31st
of July, a rumor is spread that the brigands are coming. On the 1st of
August the peasants arm themselves. "They amuse themselves by drinking,
awaiting the arrival of the brigands; the excitement increases to such
an extent as to make them believe that M. le Comte d'Espinchal had
arrived in disguise the evening before at Massiac, that he was the
author of the troubles disturbing the province at this time, and that he
was concealed in his chateau." On the strength of this shots are fired
into the windows, and there are searches, etc.]
[Footnote 1331: "Archives Nationales," D, XXIX, I, Letter of Etienne
Fermier, Naveinne, September 18th (it is possible that the author,
for the sake of caution, took a fictitious name).--The manuscript
correspondence of M. Boullé, deputy of Pontivy, to his constituents,
is a type of this declamatory and incendiary writing.--Letter of the
consuls, priests, and merchants of Puy-en-Velay, September 16th.--" The
Ancient Régime," p. 396.]
[Footnote 1332: "Archives Nationales," D. XXIX. 1. Letter of M.
Despretz-Montpezat, a former artillery officer, July 24th (with several
other signatures). On the same day the alarm bell is sounded In fifty
villages on the rumor spreading that 7,000 brigands, English and Breton,
were invading the country.]
[Footnote 1333: "Archives Nationales," D. XXIX. I. Letter of
Briand-Delessart, August 1st (domiciliary visits to the Carmelites
of Angoulême where it is pretended that Mme. de Polignac has just
arrived.--Beugnot, I. 140.--Arthur Young, July 20th, etc.--Buchez and
Roux, IV. 166. Letter of Mamers, July 24th; of Mans, July 26th.]
[Footnote 1334: Montjoie, ch. LXXII, p. 93 (according to acts of legal
procedure). There was a soldier in the band who had served under M. de
Montesson and who wanted to avenge himself for the punishments he had
undergone in the regiment.]
[Footnote 1335: Mercure de France, August 20th (Letter from Vésoul,
August 13th).]
[Footnote 1336: M. de Memmay proved his innocence later on, and was
rehabilitated by a public decision after two years' proceedings (session
of June 4, 1791; Mercure of June 11th).]
[Footnote 1337: Journal des Débats et Décrets, I. 258. (Letter of the
municipality of Vésoul, July 22nd.--Discourse of M. de Toulougeon, July
29th.)]
[Footnote 1338: De Rochambeau, "Mémoires," I. 353.--"Archives
Nationales," F7, 3253. (Letter of M. de Rochamheau, August
4th.)--Chronicle of Schmutz (ibid. ), p. 284. "Archives Nationales," D.
XXIX. I. (Letter of Mme. Ferrette, of Remiremont, August 9th.)]
[Footnote 1339: Sauzay, I. 180. (Letters of monks, July 22nd and 26th.)]
[Footnote 1340: "Archives Nationales," D. XXIX. I. (Letter of M. de
Bergeron, attorney to the présidial of Valence, August 28th, with the
details of the verdict stated.) Official report of the militia of Lyons,
sent to the president of the National Assembly, August 10th. (Expedition
to Serrière, in Dauphiny, July 31st.)]
[Footnote 1341: Letter of the Count of Courtivron, deputy substitute
(an eye-witness).--"Archives Nationales," D. XXIX. I. Letter of the
municipal officers of Crémieu (Dauphiny), November 3rd. Letter of the
Vicomte de Carbonnière (Auvergne), August 3rd.--Arthur Young, July 30th
(Dijon) says, apropos of a noble family which escaped almost naked
from its burning chateau, "they were esteemed by the neighbors;
their virtues ought to have commanded the love of the poor, for whose
resentment there was no cause."]
[Footnote 1342: "Archives Nationales," XXIX. I. (Letter of the
commission of the States of Dauphiny, July 31st.)]
[Footnote 1343: "Désastres du Mâconnais," by Puthod de la Maison-Rouge
(August, 1789). "Ravages du Mâconnais."--Arthur Young, July
27th.--Buchez and Roux, IV. 215, 214.--Mercure de France, September
12, 1789. (Letter by a volunteer of Orleans.) "On the 15th of August,
eighty-eight ruffians, calling themselves reapers, present themselves at
Bascon, in Beauce, and, the next day, at a chateau in the neighborhood,
where they demand within an hour the head of the son of the lord of the
manor, M. Tassin, who can only redeem himself by a contribution of 1,600
livres and the pillaging of his cellars.]
[Footnote 1344: Letter of the Count de Courtivron.--Arthur Young, July
31st.--Buchez and Roux, II. 243.--Mercure de France, August 15, 1789
(sitting of the 8th, discourse of a deputy from Dauphiné.)--Mermet,
"Histoire de la Ville de Vienne," 445--" Archives Nationales," ibid.
(Letter of the commission of the States of Dauphiny, July 31st.)--"The
list of burnt or devastated chateaux is immense." The committee already
cites sixteen of them.--Puthod de la Maison-Rouge, ibid.: "Were all
devastated places to be mentioned, it would be necessary to cite the
whole province" (Letter from Mâcon). "They have not the less destroyed
most of the chateaux and bourgeois dwellings, either burning them and or
else tearing them down."]
[Footnote 1345: Lally-Tollendal, "Second Letter to my Constituents,"
104.]
[Footnote 1346: Doniol, "La Révolution et la Féodalité," p.60 (a few
days after the 4th of August).--"Archives Nationales," H. 784. Letters
of M. de Langeron, military commander at Besançon, October 16th and
18th.--Ibid. , D. XXIX. I. Letter of the same, September 3rd.--Arthur
Young (in Provence, at the house of Baron de la Tour-d'Aignes). "The
baron is an enormous sufferer by the Revolution; a great extent of
country which belonged in absolute right to his ancestors, has been
granted for quit-rents, ceus, and other feudal payments, so that there
is no comparison between the lands retained and those thus granted by
his family. . . . The solid payments which the Assembly have declared
to be redeemable are every hour falling to nothing, without a shadow
of recompense. . . The situation of the nobility in this country is
pitiable; they are under apprehensions that nothing will be left them,
but simply such houses as the mob allows to stand unburned; that the
small farmers will retain their farms without paying the landlord his
half of the produce; and that, in case of such a refusal, there is
actually neither law nor authority in the country to prevent it. This
chateau, splendid even in ruins, with the fortune and lives of the
owners, is at the mercy of an armed rabble."]