During the month of October, 1789, at Paris, after the assassination of

the baker François, the leading murderer, who is a porter at the grain

depot, declares "that he wanted to avenge the nation." It is quite

probable that this declaration is sincere. In his mind, assassination is

one of the forms of patriotism, and it does not take long for his way

of thinking to become prevalent. In ordinary times, social and political

ideas slumber in uncultured minds in the shape of vague antipathies,

restrained aspirations, and fleeting desires. Behold them

aroused--energetic, imperious, stubborn, and unbridled. Objection or

opposition is not to be tolerated; dissent, with them, is a sure sign

of treachery.--Apropos of the nonjuring priests,[3140] five hundred and

twenty-seven of the National Guards of Arras write, "that no one could

doubt their iniquity without being suspected of being their accomplices.

. . . Should the whole town combine and express a contrary opinion, it

would simply show that it is filled with enemies of the Constitution;"

and forthwith, in spite of the law and the remonstrances of

the authorities, they insist on the closing of the churches. At

Boulogne-sur-Mer, an English vessel having shipped a quantity of

poultry, game, and eggs, "the National Guards, of their own authority,"

go on board and remove the cargo. On the strength of this, the

accommodating municipal body approves of the act, declares the cargo

confiscated, orders it to be sold, and awards one-half of the proceeds

to the National Guards and the other half to charitable purposes. The

concession is a vain one, for the National Guards consider that one-half

is too little, "insult and threaten the municipal officers," and

immediately proceed to divide the booty in kind, each one going home

with a share of stolen hams and chickens.[3141] The magistrates must

necessarily keep quiet with the guns of those they govern pointed at

them.--Sometimes, and it is generally the case, they are timid, and

do not try to resist. At Douai,[3142] the municipal officers, on being

summoned three times to proclaim martial law, refuse, and end by avowing

that they dare not unfold the red flag: "Were we to take this course

we should all be sacrificed on the spot." Neither the troops nor the

National Guards, in fact, are to be relied on. In this universal

state of apathy the field is open to savages, and a dealer in wheat is

hung.--Sometimes the administrative corps tries to resist, but in the

end it has to succumb to violence. "For more than six hours," writes one

of the members of the district of Etampes,[3143] "we were closed in by

bayonets leveled at us and with pistols at our breasts; and they were

obliged to sign a dismissal of the troops which had arrived to protect

the market. At present "we are all away from Etampes; there is no

longer a district or a municipality;" almost all have handed in their

resignations, or are to return for that purpose.--Sometimes, and this

is the rarest case,[3144] the officials do their duty to the end, and

perish. In this same town, six months later, Simoneau, the mayor,

having refused to cut down the price of wheat, is beaten with

iron-pointed sticks, and his corpse is riddled with balls by the

murderers.--Municipal bodies must take heed how they undertake to stem

the torrent; the slightest opposition will soon be at the expense of

their lives. In Touraine,[3145] "as the publication of the tax-rolls

takes place, riots break out against the municipal authorities; they are

forced to surrender the rolls they have drawn up, and their papers are

torn up." And still more, "they kill, they assassinate the municipal

authorities." In that large commune men and women "beat and kick them

with their fists and sabots. . . . The mayor is laid up after it, and

the procureur of the commune died between nine and ten o'clock in the

morning. Véteau, a municipal officer, received the last sacrament this

morning;" the rest have fled, being constantly threatened with death and

incendiarism. They do not, consequently, return, and "no one now will

take the office of either mayor or administrator."--The outrages which

the municipalities thus commit against their superiors are committed

against themselves. The National Guards, the mob, the controlling

faction, arrogating to themselves in the commune the same violent

sovereignty which the commune pretends to exercise against the State.

I should never finish if I undertook to enumerate the outbreaks in

which the magistrates are constrained to tolerate or to sanction popular

usurpations, to shut up churches, to drive off or imprison priests, to

suppress octrois, tax grain, and allow clerks; bakers, corn-dealers,

ecclesiastics, nobles, and officers to be hung, beaten to death, or

to have their throats cut. Ninety-four thick files of records in the

national archives are filled with these acts of violence, and do not

contain two-thirds of them. It is worth while to take in detail one

case more, a special one, and one that is authentic, which serves as a

specimen, and which presents a foreshortened image of France during

one tranquil year. At Aix, in the month of December, 1790,[3146] in

Opposition to the two Jacobin clubs, a club had been organized, had

complied with all the formalities, and, like the "Club des Monarchiens"

at Paris, claimed the same right of meeting as the others. But here, as

at Paris, the Jacobins recognize no rights but for themselves alone,

and refuse to admit their adversaries to the privileges of the law.

Moreover, alarming rumors are circulated. A person who has arrived

from Nice states that he had "heard that there were twenty thousand men

between Turin and Nice, under the pay of the emigrants, and that at

Nice a neuvaine[3147] was held in Saint François-de-Paule to pray God to

enlighten the French." A counter-revolution is certainly under way.

Some of the aristocrats have stated "with an air of triumph, that the

National Guard and municipalities are a mere toy, and that this sort of

thing will not last long." One of the leading members of the new club,

M. de Guiraitiand, an old officer of seventy-eight years, makes speeches

in public against the National Assembly, tries to enlist artisans in his

party, "affects to wear a white button on his hat fastened by pins with

their points jutting out," and, as it is stated, he has given to several

mercers a large order for white cockades. In reality, on examination,

not one is found in any shop, and all the dealers in ribbons, on

being interrogated, reply that they know of no transaction of that

description. But this simply proves that the culprit is a clever

dissimulator, and the more dangerous because he is eager to save the

country.--On the 12th of December, at four o'clock in the afternoon,

the two Jacobin clubs fraternise, and pass in long procession before

the place of meeting, "where some of the members, a few officers of the

Lyons regiment and other individuals, are quietly engaged at play

or seeing others play." The crowd hoot, but they remain quiet. The

procession passes by again, and they hoot and shout, "Down with the

aristocrats to the lamp post with them!" Two or three of the officers

standing on the threshold of the door become irritated, and one of them,

drawing his sword, threatens to strike a young man if he keeps on. Upon

this the crowd cries out, "Guard! Help! An assassin!" and rushes at

the officer, who withdraws into the house, exclaiming, "To arms!" His

comrades, sword in hand, descend in order to defend the door; M. de

Guiramand fires two pistol shots and receives a stab in the thigh. A

shower of stones smashes in the windows, and the door is on the point of

being burst open when several of the members of the club save themselves

by taking to the roof. About a dozen others, most of them officers,

form in line, penetrate the crowd with uplifted swords, strike and get

struck, and escape, five of them being wounded. The municipality orders

the doors and windows of the club-house to be walled up, sends the

Lyons regiment away, decrees the arrest of seven officers and of M. de

Guiramand, and all this in a few hours, with no other testimony than

that of the conquerors.

But these prompt, vigorous and partial measures are not sufficient for

the Jacobin club; other conspirators must be seized, and it is the club

which designates them and goes to take them.--Three months before

this, M. Pascalis, an advocate, on addressing along with some of his

professional brethren the dissolved parliament, deplored the blindness

of the people, "exalted by prerogatives of which they knew not the

danger." A man who dared talk in this way is evidently a traitor.--There

is another, M. Morellet de la Roquette, who refused to join the

proscribed club. His former vassals, however, had been obliged to bring

an action against him to make him accept the redemption of his feudal

dues; also, six years before this, his carriage, passing along the

public promenade, had run over a child; he likewise is an enemy of the

people. While the municipal officers are deliberating, "a few members of

the club" get together and decide that M. Pascalis and M. de la Roquette

must be arrested. At eleven o'clock at night eighty trustworthy National

Guards, led by the president of the club, travel a league off to seize

them in their beds and lodge them in the town prison.--Zeal of this kind

excites some uneasiness, and if the municipality tolerates the arrests,

it is because it is desirous of preventing murder. Consequently, on the

following day, December 13th, it sends to Marseilles for four hundred

men of the Swiss Guard commanded by Ernest, and four hundred National

Guards, adding to these the National Guard of Aix, and orders this

company to protect the prison against any violence. But, along with the

Marseilles National Guards, there came a lot of armed people who are

volunteers of disorder. On the afternoon of the 13th the first mob

strives to force the prison, and the next day, fresh squads congregate

around it demanding the head of M. Pascalis. The members of the club

head the riot with "a crowd of unknown men from outside the town, who

give orders and carry them out." During the night the populace of Aix

are tampered with, and the dikes all give way at the same moment. At the

first clamors the National Guard on duty on the public promenade disband

and disperse, while, as there is no signal for the assemblage of the

others, notwithstanding the regulations, the general alarm is not

sounded. "The largest portion of the National Guard draws off so as not

to appear to authorize by its presence outrages which it has not been

ordered to prevent. Peaceable Citizens are in great consternation;" each

one takes to flight or shuts himself up in his house, the streets being

deserted and silent. Meanwhile the prison gates are shattered with axes.

The procureur-syndic of the department, who requests the commandant of

the Swiss regiment to protect the prisoners, is seized, borne off, and

runs the risk of losing his life. Three municipal officers in their

scarves, who arrive on the ground, dare not give the order required by

the commandant. At this decisive moment, when it is necessary to

shed blood and kill a number of men, they obviously fear to take

the responsibility; their reply is, "We have no orders to give."--An

extraordinary spectacle now presents itself in this barrack courtyard

surrounding the prison. On the side of the law stand eight hundred armed

men, four hundred of the "Swiss" and four hundred of the National Guard

of Marseilles. They are drawn up in battle array, with guns to their

shoulders, with special orders repeated the evening before at three

different times by the municipal district and departmental authorities

and they have the sympathies of all honest people and of most of the

National Guard. But the legal indispensable phrase does not pass the

lips of those who by virtue of the Constitution should utter it, and a

small group of convicts are found to be sovereign.--The three municipal

officers are seized in their turn under the eyes of their own soldiers

who remain motionless, and "with bayonets at their breasts they sign,

under constraint, the order to give up M. Pascalis to the people." M. de

la Roquette is likewise surrendered. "The only portion of the National

Guard of Aix which was visible," that is to say, the Jacobin minority,

form a circle around the gate of the prison and organize themselves into

a council of war. And there they stand; at once "accusers, witnesses,

judges, and executioners." A captain conducts the two victims to the

public promenade where they are hung. Very soon after this old M.

de Guiramand, whom the National Guard of his village have brought a

prisoner to Aix, is hung in the same manner.

There is no prosecution of the assassins. The new tribunal, frightened

or forestalled, has for some time back ranged itself on the popular

side; its writs, consequently, are served on the oppressed, against

the members of the assaulted dub. Writs of arrest, summonses to attend

court, searches, seizures of correspondence, and other proceedings,

rain down upon them. Three hundred witnesses are examined. Some of the

arrested officers are "loaded with chains and thrust into dungeons."

Henceforth the club rules, and "makes everybody tremble."[3148] "From

the 23rd to the 27th of December, more than ten thousand passports

are delivered at Aix." "If the emigrations continue," write the

commissioners, "there will be no one left at Aix but workmen without

work and with no resources. Whole streets are uninhabited. . . . . As

long as such crimes can be permitted with impunity fear will drive out

of this town every one who has the means of living elsewhere."--Many

come back after the arrival of the commissioners, hoping to obtain

justice and security through them. But, "if a prosecution is not

ordered, we shall scarcely have departed from Aix when three or four

hundred families will abandon it. . . . And what man in his senses would

dare guarantee that each village will not soon have some one hung in

it?. . . Country valets arrest their masters. . . . The expectation

of impunity leads the inhabitants of villages to commit all sorts of

depredations in the forests, which is very harmful in a region where

woods are very scarce. They set up the most absurd and most unjust

pretensions against rich proprietors, and the fatal rope is ever the

interpreter and the signal of their will." There is no refuge against

these outrages. "The department, the districts, the municipalities,

administer only in conformity with the multiplied petitions of the

club." In the sight of all, and on one solemn day, a crushing defeat

has demonstrated the weakness of the government officials; and, bowed

beneath the yoke of their new masters, they preserve their legal

authority only on the condition that it remains at the service of the

victorious party.

*****

[Footnote 3101: Festivals approving the federation of all the National

Guards in France. (SR.)]

[Footnote 3102: See the address of the commune of Paris, June 5, 1790.

"Let the most touching of all utterances be heard on this day (the

anniversary of the taking of the Bastille), Frenchmen, we are brothers!

Yes, brothers, freemen and with a country!" Roux et Buchez, VI. 275.]

[Footnote 3103: Buchez and Roux, IV. 3, 309; V. 123; VI. 274,

399.--Duvergier, Collection of Laws and Decrees. Decree of June 8 and 9,

1790.]

[Footnote 3104: For one who, like myself, has lived for years among the

Moslems, the 5 daily ritual prayers all performed while turned towards

Mecca, this description of the French taking of the oath, has something

familiar in it. (SR.)]

[Footnote 3105: Michelet, "Histoire de la Révolution Française," II,

470, 474.]

[Footnote 3106: De Ferrières, II. 91.--Albert Babeau, I. 340. (Letter

addressed to the Chevalier de Poterat, July 18, 1790.)--De Dampmartin,

"Evénements qui se sont passés sous mes yeux," etc., 155.]

[Footnote 3107: One may imagine the impression Taine's description made

upon the thousands of political science students and others in the years

after this book was printed and widely sold all over Europe. (SR.)]

[Footnote 3108: Sauzay, I. 202.]

[Footnote 3109: Albert Babeau, ib. I, 339--De Ferrières, II, 92.]

[Footnote 3110: "Archives Nationales," H. 1453, Correspondence of M. de

Bercheney, May 23, 1790.]

[Footnote 3111: "Archives Nationales," ibid, May 13, 1790. "M. de la

Rifaudière was dragged from his carriage and brought to the guard-house,

which was immediately filled with people, shouting, 'To the lamp post,

the aristocrat!'--The fact is this: after his having repeatedly shouted

Vive le Roi et la Nation! They wanted him to shout Vive la Nation!

alone, upon which he gave Vive la Nation tant qu'elle pourra."--At

Blois, on the day of the Federation, a mob promenades the streets with

a wooden head covered with a wig, and a placard stating that the

aristocrats must be decapitated.]

[Footnote 3112: Might Freud ( 1856--1939) have been inspired, directly

or indirectly, by Taine's observation? 'La Révolution' vol. I, was

published in 1877 when Freud was 21 years old!! (SR.)]

[Footnote 3113: Mercure de France, the articles by Mallet du Pan (June

18th and August 16, 1791; April 14, 1792).]

[Footnote 3114: Moniteur, IV. 560. (sitting of June 5, 1790) report

of M. Freteau. "These facts are attested by fifty witnesses."--Cf. The

number of April 19, 1791.]

[Footnote 3115: Solon was a famous legislator who reformed Athens some

2500 years ago. (SR.)]

[Footnote 3116: "Archives Nationales," KK, 1105, Correspondence of M. de

Thiard, military commandant in Brittany (September, 1789), "There are

in every petty village three conflicting powers, the présidial, the

bourgeois militia, and the permanent committee. Each is anxious to

outrank the other, and, on this occasion, a scene happened to come under

my eyes at Landivisiau which might have had a bloody termination, but

which turned out to be simply ridiculous. A lively dispute arose between

three speakers to determine which should make the first address. They

appealed to me to decide. Not to offend either of the parties, I

decided that all three should speak at the same time; which decision was

immediately carried out."]

[Footnote 3117: Decree of August 10-14, 1789.]

[Footnote 3118: "Archives Nationales," KK, 1105. Correspondence of M.

de Thiard, September 21, 1789. "The troops now obey the municipalities

only."--Also July 30th, August 11, 1790.]

[Footnote 3119: "Archives Nationales," KK, 1105. Correspondence of 31.

M. de Thiard, September 11 and 25, November 20, December 25 and 30,

1789.]

[Footnote 3120: Buchez and Roux, V.304 (April, 1790).--"Archives

Nationales," Papers of the committee of Investigation, DXXIX. I (note of

M. Latour-du-Pin, October 28, 1789)--? Buchez and Roux, IV. 3 (December

1, 1789); IV. 390 (February, 1790); VI. 179 (April and May, 1790).]

[Footnote 3121: Mercure de France, Report of M. Emery, sitting of July

21, 1790, Number for July 32.--"Archives Nationales," F7, 3200. Letter

of the directory of Calvados, September 26 and October 20, 1791.]

[Footnote 3122: "Archives Nationales," F7, 3207. Letter of the minister

Dumouriez, June 15, 1792. Report of M. Caillard, May 29, 1792.]

[Footnote 3123: Mercure de France, No. for July, 1791 (sitting of the

6th); Nos. for November 5 and 26, 1791.]

[Footnote 3124: Albert Babeau, "Histoire de Troyes," vol. I.

passim.--"Archives Nationales," F7, 3257. Address of the Directory of

Saône-et-Loire to the National Assembly, November 1, 1790.--F7, 3200.

Letter of the Directory of Calvados, November 9, 1791.--F 7, 3195.

Minutes of the meeting of the municipality of Aix, March 1, 1792 (on

the events of February 26th); letter of M. Villard, President of the

Directory, March 20, 1792.--F7, 3220. Extracts from the deliberations

of the Directory of Gers, and a letter to the King, January 28, 1792.

Letter of M. Lafitau, President of the Directory, January 30. (He was

dragged along by his hair and obliged to leave the town.)]

[Footnote 3125: Mercure de France, No. for October 30, 1790.]

[Footnote 3126: "Archives Nationales," F7, 3226. Letter of the directory

of Indre to M. Cahier, minister, December 6, 1791.--Letter of M.

Delessart, minister, to the directory of Indre, December 31, 1791.]

[Footnote 3127: Fabre, "Histoire de Marseille," II. 442. Martin had but

3,555 votes, when shortly after the National Guard numbered 24,000 men.]

[Footnote 3128: "Archives Nationales," F7, 3196. Letter of the minister,

M. de Saint-Priest, to the President of the National Assembly, May 11,

1790.]

[Footnote 3129: "Archives Nationales," F7 3196. Letters of the military

commandant, M. de Miran, March 6, 14, 30, 1790.]

[Footnote 3130: "Archives Nationales," F7, 3196. Letter of M. de

Bournissac, grand-privot, March 6,1790.]

[Footnote 3131: "Archives Nationales," F7, 3196. Letters of M. du Miran,

April 11th and 16th, and May 1, 1790.]

[Footnote 3132: "Archives Nationales," F7, 3196. Procés-verbal of events

on the 30th of April.]

[Footnote 3133: "Archives Nationales," F7, 3196. Letters of the

Municipality of Marseilles to the National Assembly, May 5 and 20,

1790.]

[Footnote 3134: "Archives Nationales," F7, 3196. Order of the king,

May10. Letter of M. de Saint-Priest to the National Assembly, May 11.

Decree of the National Assembly, May 12. Letter of the Municipality

to the King. May 20. Letter of M. de Rubum, May 20. Note sent from

Marseilles, May 31. Address of the Municipality to the President of the

Friends of the Constitution, at Paris, May 5. In his narration of the

taking of the forts we read the following sentence: "We arrived without

hindrance in the presence of the commandant, whom we brought to an

agreement by means of the influence which force, fear and reason give to

persuasion."]

[Footnote 3135: "Archives Nationales," F7, 3196, Letter of M. de Miran,

May 5.--The spirit of the ruling party at Marseilles is indicated by

several printed documents joined to the dossier, and, among others, by a

"Requéte à Desmoulins, procureur-général de la Lanterne." It relates

to a "patriotic inkstand," recently made out of the stones of the

demolished citadel, representing a hydra with four heads, symbolizing

the nobility, the clergy, the ministry and the judges. "It is from the

four patriotic skulls of the hydra that the ink of proscription will be

taken for the enemies of the Constitution. This inkstand, cut out of

the first stone that fell in the demolition of Fort Saint-Nicolas, is

dedicated to the patriotic Assembly of Marseilles. The magic art of the

hero of the liberty of Marseilles, that Renaud who, under the mask of

devotion, surprised the watchful sentinel of Notre-Dame de la Garde, and

whose manly courage and cunning ensured the conquest of that key of the

great focus of counter-revolution, has just given birth to a new trait

of genius a new Deucalion, he personifies this stone which Liberty has

flung from the summit of our menacing Bastilles, etc."]

[Footnote 3136: "Archives Nationales," F7. 3198. Letters of the royal

commissioners, April 13 and 5, 1791.]

[Footnote 3137: De Ségur, "Memoires," III, 482 (early in 1790).]

[Footnote 3138: De Dampmartin, I. 184 (January, 1791).]

[Footnote 3139: "Archives Nationales," KK, 1105. Correspondence of M. de

Thiard (October 12, 1789).]

[Footnote 3140: "Archives Nationales," F7, 3250. Minutes from the

meeting of the directory of the department. March 28, 1792. "As the

ferment was at the highest point and fears were entertained that greater

evils would follow, M. le Président, with painful emotion declared that

he yielded and passed the unconstitutional act." Reply of the minister,

June 23: "If the constituted authorities are thus forced to yield to the

arbitrary will of a wild multitude, government no longer exists and we

are in the saddest stage of anarchy. If you think it best I will propose

to the King to reverse your last decision."]

[Footnote 3141: "Archives Nationales," F7, 3250. Letter of M. Duport,

minister of justice, December 24, 1791.]

[Footnote 3142: "Archives Nationales," F7, 3248, Report of the members

of the department, finished March 18, 1792.--Buchez and Roux, IX. 240

(Report of M. Alquier).]

[Footnote 3143: "Archives Nationales," F7, 3268. Extract from the

deliberations of the directory of Seine-et-Oise, with the documents

relating to the insurrection at Etampes, September 16, 1791. Letter of

M. Venard, administrator of the district, September 20--" I shall not

set foot in Etampes until the re-establishment of order and tranquility,

and the first thing I shall do will be to record my resignation in the

register. I am tired of making sacrifices, for ungrateful wretches."]

[Footnote 3144: Moniteur, March 16, 1792.--Mortimer-Ternaux, "Histoire

de la Terreur" (Proceedings against the assassins of Simoneau), I. 381.]

[Footnote 3145: "Archives Nationales," F7, 3226. Letter and memorandum

of Chenantin, cultivator, November 7, 1792. Extract from the

deliberations of the directory of Langeais, November 5, 1792 (sedition

at Chapelle-Blanche, near Langeais, October 5, 1792).]

[Footnote 3146: "Archives Nationales," F7, 3105. Report of the

commissioners sent by the National Assembly and the King, February 23,

1791. (On the events of December 12 and 14, 1790)--Mercure de France,

February 29, 5791. (Letters from Aix, and notably a letter from seven

officers shut up in prison at Aix, January 30, 1791.) The oldest Jacobin

Club formed in February, 1790, was entitled "(Club des vrais amis de

la Constitution.)" The second Jacobin club, formed in October, 1790, was

"composed from the beginning of artisans and laborers from the faubourgs

and suburbs." Its title was" Société des frères anti-politiques," or

"frères vrais, justes et utiles à la patrie." The opposition club,

formed in December, 1790, bore the title, according to some, of "Les

Amis du Roi, de la paix et de la religion;" according to others,

"Les amis de la paix;" and finally, according to another report, "Les

Défenseurs de la religion, des personnes et des proprietés."]

[Footnote 3147: A special series of religious services. (TR)]

[Footnote 3148: "Archives Nationales," F7, 3195. Letters of the

commissioners, March 20, February 11, May 10, 1791.]

CHAPTER II. SOVEREIGNTY OF UNRESTRAINED PASSIONS.

Under these conditions when passions are freed; any determined and

competent man who can gather a couple of hundred men may form a band

and slip through the enlarged or weakened meshes of the net held by the

passive or ineffective government. An experiment on a grand scale

is about to be made on human society; owing to the slackening of the

regular restraints which have maintained it, it is now possible to

measure the force of the permanent instincts which attack it. They are

always there even in ordinary times; we do not notice them because they

are kept in check; but they are not the less energetic and effective,

and, moreover, indestructible. The moment their repression ceases,

their power of mischief becomes evident; just as that of the water which

floats a ship, but which, at the first leak enters into it and sinks it.

I.--Old Religious Grudges

Montauban and Nîmes in 1790.

Religious passions, to begin with, are not to be kept down by

federations, embraces, and effusions of fraternity. In the south, where

the Protestants have been persecuted for more than a century, hatreds

exist more than a century old.[3201] In vain have the odious edicts

which oppressed them fallen into desuetude for the past twenty years; in

vain have civil rights been restored to them since 1787: The past still

lives in transmitted recollections; and two groups are confronting each

other, one Protestant and the other Catholic, each defiant, hostile,

ready to act on the defensive, and interpreting the preparations of its

adversary as a plan of attack. Under such circumstances the guns go off

of their own accord.--On a sudden alarm at Uzès[3202] the Catholics,

two thousand in number, take possession of the bishop's palace and the

Hôtel-de-Ville; while the Protestants, numbering four hundred, assemble

outside the walls on the esplanade, and pass the night under arms,

each troop persuaded that the other is going to massacre it, one

party summoning the Catholics of Jalès to its aid, and the other the

Protestants of Gardonnenque.--There is but one way of avoiding civil war

between parties in such an attitude, and that is the ascendancy of an

energetic third party, impartial and on the spot. A plan to this

effect, which promises well, is proposed by the military commandant of

Languedoc.[3203] According to him the two firebrands are, on the

one hand, the bishops of Lower Languedoc, and on the other, MM.

Rabaut-Saint-Etienne, father and two sons, all three being pastors. Let

them be responsible "with their heads" for any mob, insurrection, or

attempt to debauch the army; let a tribunal of twelve judges be selected

from the municipal bodies of twelve towns, and all delinquents be

brought before it; let this be the court of final appeal, and its

sentence immediately executed. The system in vogue, however, is just the

reverse. Both parties being organized into a body of militia, each takes

care of itself, and is sure to fire on the other; and the more readily,

inasmuch as the new ecclesiastical regulations, which are issued from

month to month, strike like so many hammers on Catholic sensibility, and

scatter showers of sparks on the primings of the already loaded guns.

At Montauban, on the 10th of May, 1790, the day of the inventory and

expropriation of the religious communities,[3204] the commissioners

are not allowed to enter. Women in a state of frenzy lie across the

thresholds of the doors, and it would be necessary to pass over their

bodies; a large mob gathers around the "Cordeliers," and a petition is

signed to have the convents maintained.--The Protestants who witness

this commotion become alarmed, and eighty of their National Guards march

to the Hôtel-de-Ville, and take forcible possession of the guard-house

which protects it. The municipal authorities order them to withdraw,

which they refuse to do. Thereupon the Catholics assembled at the

"Cordeliers" begin a riot, throw stones, and drive in the doors with

pieces of timber, while a cry is heard that the Protestants, who have

taken refuge in the guard-house, are firing from the windows. The

enraged multitude immediately invade the arsenal, seize all the guns

they can lay their hands on, and fire volleys on the guard-house, the

effect of which is to kill five of the Protestants and wound twenty-four

others. The rest are saved by a municipal officer and the police; but

they are obliged to appear, two and two, before the cathedral in their

shirts, and do public penance, after which they are put in prison.

During the tumult political shouts have been heard: "Hurrah for the

nobles! Hurrah for the aristocracy! Down with the nation! Down with the

tricolor flag!" Bordeaux, regarding Montauban as in rebellion against

France, dispatches fifteen hundred of its National Guard to set the

prisoners free. Toulouse gives its aid to Bordeaux. The fermentation is

frightful. Four thousand of the Protestants of Montauban take flight;

armed cities are about to contend with each other, as formerly in Italy.

It is necessary that a commissioner of the National Assembly and of

the King, Mathieu Dumas, should be dispatched to harangue the people of

Montauban, obtain the release of the prisoners, and re-establish order.

One month after this a more bloody affray takes place at Nîmes[3205]

against the Catholics. The Protestants, in fact, are but twelve thousand

out of fifty-four thousand inhabitants, but the principal trade of the

place is in their hands; they hold the manufactories and support thirty

thousand workmen; in the elections of 1789 they furnished five out of

the eight deputies. The sympathies of that time were in their favor;

nobody then imagined that the dominant Church was exposed to any

risk. It is to be attacked in its turn, and the two parties are seen

confronting each other.--The Catholics sign a petition,[3206] hunt up

recruits among the market-gardeners of the suburbs, retain the white

cockade, and, when this is prohibited, replace it with a red rosette,

another sign of recognition. At their head is an energetic man named

Froment, who has vast projects in view; but as the soil on which he

treads is undermined, he cannot prevent the explosion. It takes place

naturally, by chance, through the simple collision of two equally

distrustful bodies; and before the final day it has commenced and

recommenced twenty times, through mutual provocations and denunciations,

through insults, libels, scuffles, stone-throwing, and gun-shots.--On

the 13th of June, 1790, the question is which party shall furnish

administrators for the district and department, and the conflict begins

in relation to the elections. The Electoral Assembly is held at the

guard-house of the bishop's palace, where the Protestant dragoons and

patriots have come "three times as many as usual, with loaded muskets

and pistols, and with full cartridge-boxes," and they patrol the

surrounding neighborhood. On their side, the red rosettes, royalists

and Catholics, complain of being threatened and "treated contemptuously"

(nargués). They give notice to the gate-keeper "not to let any dragoon

enter the town either on foot or mounted, at the peril of his life," and

declare that "the bishop's quarters were not made for a guard-house."--A

mob forms, and shouting takes place under the windows; stones are

thrown; the bugle of a dragoon, who sounds the roll-call, is broken and

two shots are fired.[3207] The dragoons immediately fire a volley, which

wounds a good many people and kills seven. From this moment, firing goes

on during the evening and all night, in every quarter of the town, each

party believing that the other wants to exterminate it, the Protestants

satisfied that it is another St. Bartholomew, and the Catholics that

it is "a Michelade."[3208] There is no one to act between them. The

municipality authorities, far from issuing orders, receive them: they

are roughly handled, hustled and jostled about, and made to march about

like servants. The patriots seize the Abbé de Belmont, a municipal

officer, at the Hôtel-de-Ville, order him, on pain of death, to proclaim

martial--law, and place the red flag in his hand. "March, rascal, you

bastard! Hold up your flag--higher up still--you are big enough to do

that!" Blows follow with the but-ends of their muskets. The poor man

spits blood, but this is of no consequence; he must be in full sight at

the head of the crowd, like a target, whilst his conductors prudently

remain behind. Thus does he advance, exposed to bullets, holding the

flag, and finally becomes the prisoner of the red rosettes, who release

him, but keep his flag. There is a second march with a red flag held

by a town valet, and fresh gunshots; the red rosettes capture this flag

also, as well as another municipal officer. The rest of the municipal

body, with a royal commissioner, take refuge in the barracks and order

out the troops. Meanwhile Froment, with his three companies, posted

in their towers and in the houses on the ramparts, resist to the last

extremity. Daylight comes, the tocsin is sounded, the drums beat to

arms, and the patriot militia of the neighborhood, the Protestants from

the mountains, the rude Cévenols, arrive in crowds. The red rosettes are

besieged; a Capuchin convent, from which it is pretended that they have

fired, is sacked, and five of the monks are killed. Froment's tower is

demolished with cannon and taken by assault. His brother is massacred

and thrown from the walls, while a Jacobin convent next to the ramparts

is sacked. Towards night, all the red rosettes who have fought are slain

or have fled, and there is no longer any resistance.--But the fury still

lasts; the fifteen thousand rustics who have flooded the town think

that they have not yet done enough. In vain are they told that the other

fifteen companies of red rosettes have not moved; that the pretended

aggressors "did not even put themselves in a state of defense;" that

during the battle they remained at home, and that afterwards, through

extra precaution, the municipal authorities had made them give up their

arms. In vain does the Electoral Assembly, preceded by a white flag,

march to the public square and exhort the people to keep the peace.

"Under the pretext of searching suspicious houses, they pillage or

destroy, and what-ever cannot be carried away is broken." One hundred

and twenty houses are sacked in Nîmes alone, while the same ravages

are committed in the environs, the damage, at the end of three days,

amounting to seven or eight hundred thousand livres. A number of poor

creatures, workmen, merchants, old and infirm men, are massacred in

their houses; some, "who have been bedridden for many years, are

dragged to the sills of their doors to be shot." Others are hung on the

esplanade and at the Cours Neuf, while others have their noses, ears,

feet, and hands cut off; and are hacked to pieces with sabers and

scythes. Horrible stories, as is commonly the case, provoke the most

atrocious acts.

A publican, who refuses to distribute anti-Catholic lists, is supposed

to have a mine in his cellar filled with kegs of gunpowder and with

sulfur matches all ready; he is hacked to pieces with a saber, and

twenty guns are discharged into his corpse: they expose the body before

his house with a long loaf of bread on his breast, and they again stab

him with bayonets, saying to him: "Eat, you bastard, eat"--More than

five hundred Catholics were assassinated, and many others, covered with

blood, "are crowded together in the prisons, while the search for the

proscribed is continued; whenever they are seen, they are fired upon

like so many wolves." Thousands of the inhabitants, accordingly, demand

their passports and leave the town. The rural Catholics, meanwhile,

on their side, massacre six Protestants in the environs--an old man

of eighty-two years, a youth of fifteen, and a husband and his wife

in their farm-house. In order to put a stop to the murderous acts, the

National Guard of Montpellier have to be summoned. But the restoration

of order is for the benefit of the victorious party. Three-fifths of

the electors have fled; one-third of the district and departmental

administrators have been appointed in their absence, and the majority of

the new directories is taken from the club of patriots. It is for this

reason that the prisoners are prejudged as guilty. "No bailiff of the

court dares give them the benefit of his services; they are not allowed

to bring forward justifying facts in evidence, while everybody knows

that the judges are not impartial."[3209]

Thus do the violent measures of political and religious discord come to

an end. The victor stops the mouth of the law when it is about to

speak in his adversary's behalf; and, under the legal iniquity of an

administration which he has himself established, he crushes those whom

the illegal force of his own strong hand has stricken down.

II.--Passion Supreme.

Dread of hunger its most acute form.--The non-circulation of

grain.--Intervention and usurpations of the electoral

assemblies.--The rural code in Nivernais.--The four central

provinces in 1790.--Why high prices are kept up.--Anxiety

and insecurity.--Stagnation of the grain market.--The

departments near Paris in 1791.--The supply and price of

grain regulated by force.--The mobs in 1792.--Village armies

of Eure and of the lower Seine and of Aisne.--Aggravation of

the disorder after August 10th.--The dictatorship of

unbridled instinct.--Its practical and political expedients.

Passions of this stamp are the product of human cultivation, and break

loose only within narrow bounds. Another passion exists which is neither

historic nor local, but natural and universal, the most indomitable,

most imperious, and most formidable of all, namely, the fear of hunger.

There is no such thing with this passion as delay, or reflection, or

looking beyond itself. Each commune or canton wants its bread, and a

sure and unlimited supply of it. Our neighbor may provide for himself as

best he can, but let us look out for ourselves first and then for other

people. Each group of people, accordingly, through its own decrees, or

by main force, keeps for itself whatever subsistence it possesses, or

takes from others the subsistence which it does not possess. ii

At the end of 1789,[3210] "Roussillon refuses aid to Languedoc; Upper

Languedoc to the rest of the province, and Burgundy to Lyonnais;

Dauphiny shuts herself up, and Normandy retains the wheat purchased for

the relief of Paris." At Paris, sentinels are posted at the doors of all

the bakers; on the 21st of October one of the latter is hung, and his

head is borne about on a pike. On the 27th of October, at Vernon, a

corn-merchant named Planter, who the preceding winter had supported the

poor for six leagues around, has to take his turn. At the present moment

the people do not forgive him for having sent flour to Paris, and he is

hung twice, but is saved through the breaking of the rope each time.--It

is only by force and under an escort that it is possible to insure the

arrival of grain in a town; the excited people or the National Guards

constantly seize it on its passage. In Normandy the militia of

Caen stops wheat on the highways which is destined for Harcourt and

elsewhere.[3211] In Brittany, Auray and Vannes retain the convoys

for Nantes, and Lannion those for Brest. Brest having attempted to

negotiate, its commissioners are seized, and, with knives at their

throats, are forced to sign a renunciation, pure and simple, of the

grain which they have paid for, and they are led out of Lannion and

stoned on the way. Eighteen hundred men, consequently, leave Brest with

four cannon, and go to recover their property with their guns loaded.

These are the customs prevalent during the great famines of feudal

times; and, from one end of France to the other, to say nothing of

the out-breaks of the famished in the large towns, similar outrages or

attempts at recovery are constantly occurring.--" The armed population

of Nantua, Saint-Claude, and Septmoncel," says a dispatch,[3212] "have

again cut off provisions from the Gex region; there is no wheat coming

there from any direction, all the roads being guarded. Without the aid

of the government of Geneva, which is willing to lend to this region

eight hundred Cuttings of wheat, we should either die of starvation or

be compelled to take grain by force from the municipalities which

keep it to themselves." Narbonne starves Toulon; the navigation of the

Languedoc canal is intercepted; the people on its banks repulse two

companies of soldiers, burn a large building, and want to destroy the

canal itself." Boats are stopped, wagons are pillaged, bread is forcibly

lowered in price, stones are thrown and guns discharged; the populace

contend with the National Guard, peasants with townsmen, purchasers

with dealers, artisans and laborers with farmers and land-owners, at

Castelnaudary, Niort, Saint-Etienne, in Aisne, in Pas-de-Calais, and

especially along the line stretching from Montbrison to Angers--that

is to say, for almost the whole of the extent of the vast basin of the

Loire,--such is the spectacle presented by the year 1790.--And yet the

crop has not been a bad one. But there is no circulation of grain. Each

petty center has formed a league for the monopoly of food; and hence the

fasting of others and the convulsions of the entire body are the

first effects of the unbridled freedom which the Constitution and

circumstances have conferred on each local group.

"We are told to assemble, vote, and elect men that will attend to our

business; let us attend to it ourselves. We have had enough of talk and

hypocrisy. Bread at two sous, and let us go after wheat where it can

be found!" Such is the reasoning of the peasantry, and, in Nivernais,

Bourbonnais, Berri, and Touraine, electoral gatherings are the

firebrands of the insurrections.[3213] At Saint-Sauge, "the first work

of the primary meeting is to oblige the municipal officers to fix the

price of wheat under the penalty of being decapitated." At Saint-Géran

the same course is taken with regard to bread, wheat, and meat; at

Châtillon-en-Bayait it is done with all supplies, and always a third or

a half under the market price, without mentioning other exactions.--They

come by degrees to the drafting of a tariff for all the valuables they

know, proclaiming the maximum price which an article may reach, and so

establishing a complete code of rural and social economy. We see in the

turbulent and spasmodic wording of this instrument their dispositions

and sentiments, as in a mirror.[3214] It is the program of villagers.

Its diverse articles, save local variations, must be executed, now one

and now the other, according to the occasion, the need, and the time,

and, above all, whatever concerns provisions.--The wish, as usual, is

the father of the thought; the peasantry thinks that it is acting by

authority: here, through a decree of the King and the National Assembly,

there, by a commission directly entrusted to the Comte d'Estrées. Even

before this, in the market-place of Saint-Amand, "a man jumped on a heap

of wheat and cried out, 'In the name of the King and the nation, wheat

at one-half the market-price!"' An old officer of the Royal Grenadiers,

a chevalier of the order of Saint-Louis, is reported to be marching at

the head of several parishes, and promulgating ordinances in his own

name and that of the King, imposing a fine of eight livres on whoever

may refuse to join him.--On all sides there is a swarm of working

people, and resistance is fruitless. There are too many of them, the

constabulary being drowned in the flood. For, these rustic legislators

are the National Guard itself, and when they vote reductions upon, or

requisitions for, supplies, they enforce their demands with their guns.

The municipal officials, willingly or unwillingly, must needs serve the

insurgents. At Donjon the Electoral Assembly has seized the mayor of the

place and threatened to kill him, or to burn his house, if he did not

put the cutting of wheat at forty sous; whereupon he signs, and all the

mayors with him, "under the penalty of death." As soon as this is done

the peasants, "to the sound of fifes and drums," spread through the

neighboring parishes and force the delivery of wheat at forty sous, and

show such a determined spirit that the four brigades of gendarmes sent

out against them think it best to retire.--Not content with taking what

they want, they provide for reserve supplies; wheat is a prisoner. In

Nivernais and Bourbonnais, the peasants trace a boundary line over which

no sack of grain of that region must pass; in case of any infraction

of this law the rope and the torch are close at hand for the

delinquent.--It remains to make sure that this rule is enforced. In

Berri bands of peasants visit the markets to see that their tariff is

everywhere maintained. In vain are they told that they are emptying the

markets; "they reply that they know how to make grain come, that they

will take it from private hands, and money besides, if necessary." In

fact, the granaries and cellars belonging to a large number of persons

are pillaged. Farmers are constrained to put their crops into a common

granary, and the rich are put to ransom; "the nobles are compelled to

contribute, and obliged to give entire domains as donations; cattle are

carried off; and they want to take the lives of the proprietors,"

while the towns, which defend their storehouses and markets, are

openly attacked.[3215] Bourbon-Lancy, Bourbon-l'Archambault,

Saint-Pierre-le-Moutier, Montluçon, Saint-Amand, Chateau-Gontier,

Decises, each petty community is an islet assailed by the mounting

tide of rustic insurrection. The militia pass the night under arms;

detachments of the National Guards of the large towns with regular

troops come and garrison them. The red flag is continuously raised for

eight days at Bourbon-Lancy, and cannon stand loaded and pointed in

the public square. On the 24th of May an attack is made on

Saint-Pierre-le-Moutier, and fusillades take place all night on

both sides. On the 2nd of June, Saint-Amand, menaced by twenty-seven

parishes, is saved only by the preparations it makes and by the

garrison. About the same time Bourbon-Lancy is attacked by twelve

parishes combined, and Chateau-Gontier by the sabotiers of the forests

in the vicinity. A band of from four to five hundred villagers arrests

the convoys of Saint-Amand, and forces their escorts to capitulate;

another band entrenches itself in the Chateau de la Fin, and fires

throughout the day on the regulars and the National Guard.--The large

towns themselves are not safe. Three or four hundred rustics, led

by their municipal officers, forcibly enter Tours, to compel the

municipality to lower the price of corn and diminish the rate of leases.

Two thousand slate-quarry-men, armed with guns, spits, and forks, force

their way into Angers to obtain a reduction on bread, fire upon the

guard, and are charged by the troops and the National Guard; a number

remain dead in the streets, two are hung that very evening, and the red

flag is displayed for eight days. "The town," say the dispatches, "would

have been pillaged and burnt had it not been for the Picardy regiment."

Fortunately, as the crop promises to be a good one, prices fall. As the

Electoral Assemblies are closed, the fermentation subsides; and towards

the end of the year, like a clear spell in a steady storm, the gleam of

a truce appears in the civil war excited by hunger.

But the truce does not last long, as it is broken in twenty places

by isolated explosions; and towards the month of July, 1791, the

disturbances arising from the uncertainty of basic food supplies

begin again, to cease no more. We will consider but one group in this

universal state of disorder--that of the eight or ten departments which

surround Paris and furnish it with supplies. These districts, Brie and

Beauce, are rich wheat regions, and not only was the crop of 1790 good,

but that of 1791 is ample. Information is sent to the minister from

Laon[3216] that, in the department of Aisne, "there is a supply of

wheat for two years. . . that the barns, generally empty by the month

of April, will not be so this season before July," and, consequently,

"subsistence is assured." But this does not suffice, for the source of

the evil is not in a scarcity of wheat. In order that everybody, in a

vast and populous country, where the soil, cultivation, and occupations

differ, may eat, it is essential that food should be attainable by the

non-producers; and for it to reach them freely, without delay, solely by

the natural operation of supply and demand, it is essential that

there should be a police able to protect property, transactions, and

transport. Just in proportion as the authority of a State becomes

weakened, and in proportion as security diminishes, the distribution of

subsistence becomes more and more difficult: a gendarmerie, therefore,

is an indispensable wheel in the machine by which we are able to secure

our daily bread. Hence it is that, in 1791, daily bread is wanting to a

large number of men. Simply through the working of the Constitution, all

restraints, already slackened both at the extremities and at the center,

are becoming looser and more loose each day. The municipalities, which

are really sovereign, repress the people more feebly, some because the

latter are the bolder and themselves more timid, and others because they

are more radical and always consider them in the right. The National

Guard is wearied, never comes forward, or refuses to use its arms. The

active citizens are disgusted, and remain at home. At Étampes,[3217]

where they are convoked by the commissioners of the department to take

steps to re-establish some kind of order, only twenty assemble; the

others excuse themselves by saying that, if the populace knew that they

opposed its will, "their houses would be burnt," and they accordingly

stay away. "Thus," write the commissioners, "the common-weal is given

up to artisans and laborers whose views are limited to their own

existence."--It is, accordingly, the lower class which rules, and the

information upon which it bases its decrees consists of rumors which it

accepts or manufactures, to hide by an appearance of right the outrages

which are due to its cupidity or to the brutalities of its hunger. At

Étampes, "they have been made to believe that the grain which had

been sold for supplying the departments below the Loire, is shipped at

Paimboeuf and taken out of the kingdom from there to be sold abroad." In

the suburbs of Rouen they imagine that grain is purposely "engulfed

in the swamps, ponds, and clay-pits." At Laon, imbecile and Jacobin

committees attribute the dearness of provisions to the avidity of the

rich and the malevolence of the aristocrats according to them, "jealous

millionaires grow rich at the expense of the people. They know the

popular strength," and, not daring to measure their forces with it, "in

an honorable fight," have recourse "to treachery." To conquer the

people easily they have determined to reduce them in advance by extreme

suffering and by the length of their fast, and hence they monopolize

"wheat, rye, and meal, soap, sugar, and brandy."[3218]--Similar reports

suffice to excite a suffering crowd to acts of violence, and it must

inevitably accept for its leaders and advisers those who urge it forward

on the side to which it is inclined. The people always require leaders,

and they are chosen wherever they can be found, at one time amongst the

elite, and at another amongst the dregs. Now that the nobles are

driven out, the bourgeoisie in retirement, the large cultivators

under suspicion, while animal necessities exercise their blind and

intermittent despotism, the appropriate popular ministers consist of

adventurers and of bandits. They need not be very numerous, for in a

place full of combustible matter a few firebrands suffice to start the

conflagration. "About twenty, at most, can be counted in the towns of

Étampes and Dourdan, men with nothing to lose and everything to gain by

disturbances; they are those who always produce excitement and disorder,

while other citizens afford them the means through their indifference."

Those whose names are known among the new guides of the crowd are almost

all escaped convicts whose previous habits have accustomed them to

blows, violence, frequently to murder, and always to contempt for the

law. At Brunoy,[3219] the leaders of the outbreak are "two deserters of

the 18th regiment, sentenced and unpunished, who, in company with the

vilest and most desperate of the parish, always go about armed and

threatening." At Étampes, "the two principal assassins of the mayor

are a poacher repeatedly condemned for poaching, and an old carabiniere

dismissed from his regiment with a bad record against him."[3220] Around

these are artisans "without a known residence," wandering workmen,

journeymen and apprentices, vagrants and highway rovers, who flock into

the towns on market-days and are always--ready for mischief when an

opportunity occurs. Vagabonds, indeed, now roam about the country

everywhere, all restrictions against them having ceased.

"For a year past," write several parishes in the neighborhood of

Versailles, "we have seen no gendarmes except those who come with

decrees," and hence the multiplication of "murders and brigandage"

between Étampes and Versailles, on the highways and in the country.

Bands of thirteen, fifteen, twenty and twenty-two beggars rob the

vineyards, enter farm-houses at night, and compel their inmates to lodge

and feed them, returning in the same way every fortnight, all farms or

isolated dwellings being their prey. An ecclesiastic is killed in his

own house in the suburbs of Versailles, on the 26th of September, 1791,

and, on the same day, a bourgeois and his wife are garroted and robbed.

On the 22nd of September, near Saint-Rémi-Honoré, eight bandits ransack

the dwelling of a farmer. On the 25th of September, at Villers-le-Sec,

thirteen others strip another farmer, and then add with much politeness,

"It is lucky for your masters that they are not here, for we would have

roasted them at yonder fire." Six similar outrages are committed by

armed ruffians in dwelling-places, within a radius of from three to four

leagues, accompanied with the threats of the chauffeurs.[3221] "After

enterprises of such force and boldness," write the people of this

region, "there is not a well-to-do man in the country who can rely upon

an hour's security in his house. Already many of our best cultivators

are giving up their business, while others threaten to do the same in

case these disorders continue."--What is worse still is the fact that in

these outrages most of the bandits were "in the national uniform." The

most ignorant, the poorest, and most fanatical of the National Guard

thus enlist for the sake of plunder. It is so natural for men to believe

in their right to that of which they feel the need, that the possessors

of wheat thus become its monopolists, and the superfluity of the rich

the property of the poor! This is what the peasants say who devastate

the forest of Bruyères-le-Chatel: "We have neither wood, bread, nor

work--necessity knows no law."

The necessaries of life are not to be had cheap under such a system.

There is too much anxiety, and property is too precarious; there are too

many obstacles to commerce; purchases, sales, shipments, arrivals and

payments are too uncertain. How are goods to be stored and transported

in a country where neither the central government, the local

authorities, the National Guard, nor the regular troops perform their

duties, and where every transaction in produce, even the most legal and

the most serviceable, is subject to the caprice of a dozen villains whom

the populace obey.--Wheat remains in the barn, or is secreted, or is

kept waiting, and only reaches by stealth the hands of those who are

rich enough to pay, not only its price, but the extra cost of the

risk. Thus forced into a narrow channel, it rises to a rate which the

depreciation of the assignats augments, its dearness being not only

maintained, but ever on the increase.--Thereupon popular instinct

invents for the cure of the evil a remedy which serves to aggravate

it: henceforth, wheat must not travel; it is impounded in the canton in

which it is gathered. At Laon, "the people have sworn to die rather than

let their food be carried off." At Étampes, to which the municipality

of Angers dispatches an administrator of its hospital to buy two

hundred and fifty sacks of flour, the commission cannot be executed,

the delegate not even daring to avow for several days the object of

his coming; all he can do is "to visit incognito, and at night, the

different flour-dealers in the valley, who would offer to furnish

the supply, but fear for their lives and dare not even leave their

houses."--The same violence is shown in the more distant circle of

departments which surround the first circle. At Aubigny, in Cher,[3222]

grain-wagons are stopped, the district administrators are menaced; two

have a price set on their heads; a portion of the National Guard sides

with the mutineers. At Chaumont, in Haute-Marne, the whole of the

National Guard is in a state of mutiny; a convoy of over three hundred

sacks is stopped, the Hôtel-de-Ville forced, and the insurrection lasts

four days; the directory of the department takes flight; and the people

seize on the powder and cannons. At Douai, in the "Nord," to save

a grain-dealer, he is put in prison; the mob forces the gates, the

soldiers refuse to fire, and the man is hung, while the directory of

the department takes refuge in Lille. At Montreuil-sur-Mer, in

Pas-de-Calais, the two leaders of the insurrection, a brazier and a

horse-shoer, "Bèquelin, called Petit-Gueux," the latter with his saber

in hand, reply to the summons of the municipal authorities, that "not a

grain shall go now that they are masters," and that if they dare to make

such proclamations "they will cut off their heads." There are no

means of resistance. The National Guard, when it is convoked, does not

respond; the volunteers when called upon turn their muskets down, and

the crowd, assembled beneath the windows, shouts out its huzzahs. So

much the worse for the law when it opposes popular passion: "We will not

obey it," they say; "people make laws to please themselves."--By way

of practical illustration, at Tortes, in Seine-Inférieure, six thousand

armed men belonging to the surrounding parishes form a deliberative

armed body; the better to establish their rights, they bring two cannon

with them fastened by ropes on a couple of carts; twenty-two companies

of the National Guard, each under its own banner, march beside them,

while all peaceable inhabitants are compelled to fall in "under penalty

of death," the municipal officers being at their head. This improvised

parliament promulgates a complete law in relation to grain, which, as

a matter of form, is sent for acceptance to the department, and to the

National Assembly; and one of its articles declares that all husbandmen

shall be forbidden "to sell their wheat elsewhere than on the

market-places." With no other outlet for it, wheat must be brought

to the corn markets (halles), and when these are full the price must

necessarily fall.

What a profound deception! Even in the granary of France wheat remains

dear, and costs about one-third more than would be necessary to secure

the sale of bread at two sous the pound, in conformity with the will of

the people. For instance,[3223] at Gonesse, Dourdan, Corbeil, Mennecy,

Brunoy, Limours, Brie-Comte-Robert, and especially at Étampes and

Montlhéry, the holders of grain are compelled almost weekly, through the

clamors and violence of the people, to reduce prices one-third and

more. It is impossible for the authorities to maintain, on their

corn-exchange, the freedom of buying and selling. The regular troops

have been sent off by the people beforehand. Whatever the tolerance or

connivance of the soldiers may be, the people have a vague sentiment

that they are not there to permit the ripping open of sacks of flour, or

the seizing of farmers by the throat. To get rid of all obstacles and of

being watched, they make use of the municipality itself, and force it

to effect its own disarmament. The municipal officers, besieged in the

town-hall, at times threatened with pistols and bayonets,[3224] dispatch

to the detachments they are expecting an order to turn back, and entreat

the Directory not to send any more troops, for, if any come, they have

been told that "they will be sorry for it." Nowhere are there regular

troops. At Étampes, the people repeat that "they are sent for and paid

by the flour-dealers;" at Montlhéry, that "they merely serve to arm

citizens against each other;" at Limours, that "they make grain dearer."

All pretexts seem good in this direction; the popular will is absolute,

and the authorities complacently meet its decrees half-way. At

Montlhéry, the municipal body orders the gendarmerie to remain at the

gates of the town, which gives full play to the insurrection.--The

administrators, however, are not relieved by leaving the people free to

act; they are obliged to sanction their exactions by ordinances. They

are taken out of the Hôtel-de-Ville, led to the marketplace, and there

forthwith, under the dictation of the uproar which establishes prices,

they, like simple clerks, proclaim the reduction. When, moreover, the

armed rabble of a village marches forth to tyrannize over a neighboring

market, it carries its mayor along with it in spite of himself, as an

official instrument which belongs to it.[3225] "There is no resistance

against force," writes the mayor of Vert-le-Petit; "we had to set forth

immediately."--" They assured me," says the Mayor of Fontenay, "that,

if I did not obey them, they would hang me."--On any municipal officer

hazarding a remonstrance, they tell him that "he is getting to be an

aristocrat." Aristocrat and hung, the argument is irresistible, and

all the more so because it is actually applied. At Corbeil, the

procureur-syndic who tries to enforce the law is almost beaten to

death, and three houses in which they try to find him are demolished. At

Montlhéry, a seed merchant, accused of mixing the flour of beans (twice

as dear) with wheaten flour, is massacred in his own house. At Étampes,

the mayor who promulgates the law is cudgeled to death. Mobs talk of

nothing but "burning and destroying," while the farmers, abused,

hooted at, forced to sell, threatened with death and robbed, run away,

declaring they will never return to the market again.

Such is the first effect of popular dictatorship. Like all unintelligent

forces, it operates in a direction the reverse of its intention: to

dearness it adds dearth, and empties, instead of replenishing, the

markets. That of Étampes often contained fifteen or sixteen hundred

sacks of flour; the week following this insurrection there were, at

most, sixty brought to it. At Montlhéry, where six thousand men had

collected together, each one obtains for his share only a small measure,

while the bakers of the town have none at all. This being the case, the

enraged National Guards tell the farmers that they are coming to see

them on their farms. And they really go.[3226] Drums roll constantly

on the roads around Montlhéry, Limours, and other large market-towns.

Columns of two, three, and four hundred men are seen passing under the

lead of their commandant and of the mayor whom they take along with

them. They enter each farm, mount into the granaries, estimate the

quantity of grain thrashed out, and force the proprietor to sign an

agreement to bring it to market the following week. Sometimes, as they

are hungry, they compel people to give them something to eat and drink

on the spot, and it will not do to enrage them,--a farmer and his wife

come near being hung in their own barn.

Their effort is useless: Wheat is impounded and hunted up in vain; it

takes to the earth or slips off like a frightened animal. In vain do

insurrections continue. In vain do armed mobs, in all the market-towns

of the department,[3227] subject grain to a forced reduction of price.

Wheat becomes scarcer and dearer from month to month, rising in price

from twenty-six francs to thirty-three. And because the outraged farmer

"brings now a very little," just "what is necessary to sacrifice

in order to avoid threats, he sells at home, or in the inns, to the

flour-dealers from Paris."--The people, in running after abundance, have

thus fallen deeper down into want: their brutality has aggravated their

misery, and it is to themselves that their starvation is owing. But

they are far from attributing all this to their own insubordination;

the magistrates are accused; these, in the eyes of the populace, are "in

league with the monopolists." On this incline no stoppage is possible.

Distress increases rage, and rage increases distress; and on this fatal

declivity men are precipitated from one outrage to another.

After the month of February, 1792, such outrages are innumerable; the

mobs which go in quest of grain or which cut down its price consist

of armies. One of six thousand men comes to control the market of

Montlhéry.[3228] There are seven to eight--thousand men who invade the

market-place of Verneuil, and there is an army of ten and another of

twenty-five thousand men, who remain organized for ten days near

Laon. One hundred and fifty parishes have sounded the tocsin, and the

insurrection spreads for ten leagues around. Five boats loaded with

grain are stopped, and, in spite of the orders of district, department,

minister, King, and National Assembly, they refuse to surrender them.

Their contents, in the meantime, are made the most of: "The municipal

officers of the different parishes, assembled together, pay themselves

their fees, to wit: one hundred sous per diem for the mayor, three

livres for the municipal officers, two livres ten sous for the guards,

two livres for the porters. They have ordered that these sums should

be paid in grain, and they reduce grain, it is said, fifteen livres the

sack. It is certain that they have divided it amongst themselves, and

that fourteen hundred sacks have been distributed." In vain do the

commissioners of the National Assembly make speeches to them three hours

in length. The discourse being finished, they deliberate, in presence of

the commissioners, whether the latter shall be hung, drowned, or cut

up, and their heads put on the five points of the middle of the abbey

railing. On being threatened with military force, they make their

dispositions accordingly. Nine hundred men who relieve each other watch

day and night on the ground, in a well chosen and permanent encampment,

while lookouts stationed in the belfries of the surrounding villages

have only to sound the alarm to bring together twenty-five thousand

men in a few hours.--So long as the Government remains on its feet it

carries on the combat as well as it can; but it grows weaker from month

to month, and, after the 10th of August, when it lies on the ground, the

mob takes its place and becomes the universal sovereign. From this time

forth not only is the law which protects provisioning powerless against

the disturbers of sale and circulation, but the Assembly actually

sanctions their acts, since it decrees[3229] the stoppage of all

proceedings commenced against them, remits sentences already passed,

and sets free all who are imprisoned or in irons. Behold every

administration, with merchants, proprietors, and farmers abandoned to

the famished, the furious, and to robbers; henceforth food supplies are

for those who are disposed and able to take them.

"You will be told," says a petition,[3230] "that we violate the law. We

reply to these perfidious insinuations that the salvation of the people

is the supreme law. We come in order to keep the markets supplied, and

to insure an uniform price for wheat throughout the Republic. For, there

is no doubt about it, the purest patriotism dies out (sic) when there is

no bread to be had. . . . Resistance to oppression--yes, resistance to

oppression is the most sacred of duties; is there any oppression more

terrible than that of wanting bread? Undoubtedly, no. . . . Join us

and 'Ça ira, ça ira!' We cannot end our petition better than with this

patriotic air."

This supplication was written on a drum, amidst a circle of firearms;

and with such accompaniments it is equivalent to a command.--They are

well aware of it, and of their own authority they often confer

upon themselves not only the right but also the title. In

Loire-et-Cher,[3231] a band of from four to five thousand men assume the

name of "Sovereign Power." They go from one market-town to another,

to Saint-Calais, Montdoubleau, Blois, Vendôme, reducing the cost of

provisions, their troop increasing like a snowball--for they threaten

"to burn the effects and set fire to the houses of all who are not as

courageous as themselves."

In this state of social disintegration, insurrection is a gangrene in

which the healthy are infected by the morbid parts. Mobs are everywhere

produced and re-produced, incessantly, large and small, like abscesses

which break out side by side, and painfully irritate each other and

finally combine. There are the towns against the rural districts and

rural districts against the towns. On the one hand "every farmer

who transports anything to the market passes (at home) for an

aristocrat,[3232] and becomes the horror of his fellow-citizens in the

village." On the other hand the National Guards of the towns spread

themselves through the rural districts and make raids to save themselves

from death by hunger.[3233] It is admitted in the rural districts that

each municipality has the right to isolate itself from the rest. It

is admitted in the towns that each town has the right to derive its

provisions from the country. It is admitted by the indigent of each

commune that the commune must provide bread gratis or at a cheap rate.

On the strength of this there is a shower of stones and a fusillade;

department against department, district against district, canton against

canton, all fight for food, and the strongest get it and keep it for

themselves.--I have simply described the North, where, for the past

three years, the crops are good. I have omitted the South, where trade

is interrupted on the canal of the Deux Mers, where the procureur-syndic

of Aude has lately been massacred for trying to secure the passage of

a convoy; where the harvest has been poor; where, in many places, bread

costs eight sous the pound; where, in almost every department, a bushel

of wheat is sold twice as dear as in the North!

Strange phenomenon! and the most instructive of all, for in it we see

down into the depths of humanity; for, as on a raft of shipwrecked

beings without food, there is a reversion to a state of nature. The

light tissue of habit and of rational ideas in which civilization has

enveloped man, is torn asunder and is floating in rags around him; the

bare arms of the savage show themselves, and they are striking out.

The only guide he has for his conduct is that of primitive days, the

startled instinct of a craving stomach. Henceforth that which rules in

him and through him is animal necessity with its train of violent

and narrow suggestions, sometimes sanguinary and sometimes grotesque.

Incompetent or savage, in all respects like a Negro monarch, his sole

political expedients are either the methods of a slaughter house or the

dreams of a carnival. Two commissioners whom Roland, Minister of the

Interior, sends to Lyons, are able to see within a few days the carnival

and the slaughter-house.[3234]--On the one hand the peasants, all along

the road, arrest everybody; the people regard every traveler as an

aristocrat who is running away--which is so much the worse for those who

fall into their hands. Near Autun, four priests who, to obey the law,

are betaking themselves to the frontier, are put in prison "for their

own protection;" they are taken out a quarter of an hour later, and,

in spite of thirty-two of the mounted police, are massacred. "Their

carriage was still burning as I passed, and the corpses were stretched

out not far off. Their driver was still in durance, and it was it vain

that I solicited his release."--On the other hand, at Lyons, the power

has fallen into the hands of the degraded women of the streets. "They

seized the central club, constituted themselves commissaries of police,

signed notices as such, and paid visits of inspection to store-houses;"

they drew up a tariff of provisions, "from bread and meat up to common

peaches, and peaches of fine quality." They announced that "whoever

dared to dispute it would be considered a traitor to the country,

an adherent of the civil list, and prosecuted as such." All this is

published, proclaimed and applied by "female commissaries of police,"

themselves the dregs of the lowest sinks of corruption. Respectable

housewives and workwomen had nothing to do with it, nor "working-people

of any class." The sole actors of this administrative parody are

"scamps, a few bullies of houses of ill-fame, and a portion of the dregs

of the female sex."--To this end comes the dictatorship of instinct,

yonder let loose on the highway in a massacre of priests, and here, in

the second city of France, in the government of strumpets.

III.--Egotism of the tax-payer.

Issoudun in 1790.--Rebellion against taxation.--Indirect

taxes in 1789 and 1790.--Abolition of the salt tax, excise,

and octrois.--Direct taxation in 1789 and 1790.--Delay and

insufficiency of the returns.--New levies in 1791 and 1792.

--Delays, partiality, and concealment in preparing the

rolls.--Insufficiency of, and the delay in, the returns.

--Payment in assignats.--The tax-payer relieves himself of

one-half.--Devastation of the forests.--Division of the

communal property.

The fear of starvation is only the sharper form of a more general

passion, which is the desire of possession and the determination not

to give anything up. No popular instinct, had been longer, more rudely,

more universally offended under the ancient régime; and there is none

which gushes out more readily under constraint, none which requires a

higher or broader public barrier, or one more entirely constructed of

solid blocks, to keep it in check. Hence it is that this passion from

the commencement breaks down or engulfs the slight and low boundaries,

the tottering embankments of crumbling earth between which the

Constitution pretends to confine it.--The first flood sweeps away the

pecuniary claims of the State, of the clergy, and of the noblesse. The

people regard them as abolished, or, at least, they consider their debts

discharged. Their idea, in relation to this, is formed and fixed; for

them it is that which constitutes the Revolution. The people have no

longer a creditor; they are determined to have none, they will pay

nobody, and first of all, they will make no further payment to the

State.

On the 14th of July, 1790, the day of the Federation, the population of

Issoudun, in Touraine, solemnly convoked for the purpose, had just taken

the solemn oath which was to ensure public peace, social harmony, and

respect for the law for evermore.[3235] Here, probably, as elsewhere,

arrangements had been made for an stirring ceremonial; there were young

girls dressed in white, and learned and impressionable magistrates were

to pronounce philosophical harangues. All at once they discover that the

people gathered on the public square are provided with clubs, scythes,

and axes, and that the National Guard will not prevent their use; on the

contrary, the Guard itself is composed almost wholly of wine growers and

others interested in the suppression of the duties on wine, of coopers,

innkeepers, workmen, carters of casks, and others of the same stamp,

all rough fellows who have their own way of interpreting the Social

Contract. The whole mass of decrees, acts, and rhetorical flourishes

which are dispatched to them from Paris, or which emanate from the new

authorities, are not worth a halfpenny tax maintained on each bottle

of wine. There are to be no more excise duties; they will only take the

civic oath on this express condition, and that very evening they hang,

in effigy, their two deputies, who "had not supported their interests"

in the National Assembly. A few months later, of all the National Guard

called upon to protect the clerks, only the commandant and two officers

respond to the summons. If a docile taxpayer happens to be found, he

is not allowed to pay the dues; this seems a defection and almost

treachery. An entry of three puncheons of wine having been made, they

are stove in with stones, a portion is drunk, and the rest taken to the

barracks to debauch the soldiers; M. de Sauzay, commandant of the "Royal

Roussillon," who was bold enough to save the clerks, is menaced, and for

this misdeed he barely escapes being hung himself. When the municipal

body is called upon to interpose and employ force, it replies that "for

so small a matter, it is not worth while to compromise the lives of the

citizens," and the regular troops sent to the Hôtel-de-Ville are ordered

by the people not to go except with the but-ends of their muskets in the

air. Five days after this the windows of the excise office are smashed,

and the public notices are torn down; the fermentation does not subside,

and M. de Sauzay writes that a regiment would be necessary to restrain

the town. At Saint-Amand the insurrection breaks out violently, and is

only put down by violence. At Saint-Étienne-en-Forez, Bertheas, a clerk

in the excise office, falsely accused of monopolizing grain,[3236]

is fruitlessly defended by the National Guard; he is put in prison,

according to the usual custom, to save his life, and, for greater

security, the crowd insist on his being fastened by an iron collar.

But, suddenly changing its mind, it breaks upon the door and drags him

outside, beating him till he is unconscious. Stretched on the ground,

his head still moves and he raises his hand to it, when a woman,

picking up a large stone, smashes his skull.--These are not isolated

occurrences. During the months of July and August, 1789, the tax offices

are burnt in almost every town in the kingdom. In vain does the National

Assembly order their reconstruction, insist on the maintenance of duties

and octrois, and explain to the people the public needs, pathetically

reminding them, moreover, that the Assembly has already given them

relief;--the people prefer to relieve themselves instantly and entirely.

Whatever is consumed must no longer be taxed, either for the benefit of

the State or for that of the towns. "Entrance dues on wine and cattle,"

writes the municipality of Saint-Etienne, "scarcely amount to anything,

and our powers are inadequate for their enforcement." At Cambrai, two

successive outbreaks compel the excise office and the magistracy of

the town[3237] to reduce the duties on beer one-half. But "the evil, at

first confined to one corner of the province, soon spreads;" the grands

baillis of Lille, Douai, and Orchies write that "we have hardly a bureau

which has not been molested, and in which the taxes are not wholly

subject to popular discretion." Those only pay who are disposed to do

so, and, consequently, "greater fraud could not exist." The taxpayers,

indeed, cunningly defend themselves, and find plenty of arguments or

quibbles to avoid paying their dues. At Cambrai they allege that, as

the privileged now pay as well as the rest, the Treasury must be

rich enough.[3238] At Noyon, Ham, and Chauny, and in the surrounding

parishes, the butchers, innkeepers, and publicans combined, who have

refused to pay excise duties, pick flaws in the special decree by which

the Assembly subjects them to the law, and a second special decree is

necessary to circumvent these new legal experts. The process at Lyons

is simpler. Here the thirty-two sections appoint commissioners; these

decide against the octroi, and request the municipal authorities to

abolish it. They must necessarily comply, for the people are at hand and

are furious. Without waiting, however, for any legal measures, they take

the authority on themselves, rush to the toll-houses and drive out the

clerks, while large quantities of provisions, which "through a singular

predestination" were waiting at the gates, come in free of duty.--The

Treasury defends itself as it best can against this universally bad

disposition of the tax-payer, against these irruptions and infiltrations

of fraud; it repairs the dike where it has been carried away, stops up

the fissures and again resumes collections. But how can these be regular

and complete in a State where the courts dare not condemn delinquents,

where public force dares not support the courts,[3239] where popular

favor protects the most notorious bandits and the worst vagabonds

against the tribunals and against the public powers? At Paris, where,

After eight months of impunity, proceedings are begun against the

pillagers who, on the 13th of August, 1789, set fire to the tax offices,

the officers of the election, "considering that their audiences

have become too tumultuous, that the thronging of the people excites

uneasiness, that threats have been uttered of a kind calculated to

create reasonable alarm," are constrained to suspend their sittings and

refer matters to the National Assembly, while the latter, considering

that "if prosecutions are authorized in Paris it will be necessary to

authorize them throughout the kingdom," decides that it is best "to veil

the statue of the Law."[3240]

Not only does the Assembly veil the statue of the Law, but it takes to

pieces, remakes, and mutilates it, according to the requirements of the

popular will; and, in the matter of indirect imposts all its decrees are

forced upon it. The outbreak against the salt impost was terrible from

the beginning; sixty thousand men in Anjou alone combined to destroy it,

and the price of salt had to be reduced from sixteen to six sous.[3241]

The people, however, are not satisfied with this. This monopoly has been

the cause of so much suffering that they are not disposed to put up with

any remains of it, and are always on the side of the smugglers against

the excise officers. In the month of January, 1790, at Béziers,

thirty-two employees, who had seized a quantity of contraband salt on

the persons of armed smugglers,[3242] are pursued by the crowd to the

Hôtel-de-Ville; the consuls decline to defend them and run away; the

troops defend them, but in vain. Five are tortured, horribly mutilated,

and then hung. In the month of March, 1790, Necker states that,

according to the returns of the past three months, the deficit in

the salt-tax amounts to more than four millions a month, which is

four-fifths of the ordinary revenue, while the tobacco monopoly is no

more respected than that of salt. At Tours,[3243] the bourgeois

militia refuse to give assistance to the employees, and "openly protect

smuggling," "and contraband tobacco is publicly sold at the fair, under

the eyes of the municipal authorities, who dare make no Opposition to

it." All receipts, consequently, diminish at the same time.[3244] From

the 1st of May, 1789, to the 1st of May, 1790, the general collections

amount to 127 millions instead of 150 millions; the dues and excise

combined return only 31, instead of 50 millions. The streams which

filled the public exchequer are more and more obstructed by popular

resistance, and under the popular pressure, the Assembly ends by closing

them entirely. In the month of March, 1790,[3245] it abolishes salt

duties, internal customs-duties, taxes on leather, on oil, on starch,

and the stamp of iron. In February and March, 1791, it abolishes octrois

and entrance-dues in all the cities and boroughs of the kingdom, all the

excise duties and those connected with the excise, especially all taxes

which affect the manufacture, sale, or circulation of beverages. The

people have in the end prevailed, and on the 1st of May, 1791, the day

of the application of the decree, the National Guard of Paris parades

around the walls playing patriotic airs. The cannon of the Invalides and

those on the Pont-Neuf thunder out as if for an important victory.

There is an illumination in the evening, there is drinking all night, a

universal revel. Beer, indeed, is to be had at three sous the pot, and

wine at six sous a pint, which is a reduction of one-half; no conquest

could be more popular, since it brings intoxication within easy reach of

the thirsty.[3246]

The object, now, is to provide for the expenses which have been defrayed

by the suppressed octrois. In 1790, the octroi of Paris had produced

35,910,859 francs, of which 25,059,446 went to the State, and 10,851,413

went to the city. How is the city going to pay for its watch, the

lighting and cleaning of its streets, and the support of its hospitals?

What are the twelve hundred other cities and boroughs going to do which

are brought by the same stroke to the same situation? What will

the State do, which, in abolishing the general revenue from all

entrance-dues and excise, is suddenly deprived of two-fifths of its

revenue?--In the month of March, 1790, when the Assembly suppressed the

salt and other duties, it established in the place of these a tax of

fifty millions, to be divided between the direct imposts and dues on

entrance to the towns. Now, consequently, that the entrance-dues are

abolished, the new charge falls entirely upon the direct imposts.

Do returns come in, and will they come in?--In the face of so many

outbreaks, any indirect taxation (VAT) is, certainly, difficult to

collect. Nevertheless it is not so repulsive as the other because the

levies of the State disappear in the price of the article, the hand of

the Exchequer being hidden by the hand of the dealer. The Government

clerk formerly presented himself with his stamped paper and the seller

handed him the money without much grumbling, knowing that he would

soon be more than reimbursed by his customer: the indirect tax is thus

collected. Should any difficulty arise, it is between the dealer and the

taxpayer who comes to his shop to lay in his little store; the latter

grumbles, but it is at the high price which he feels, and possibly at

the seller who pockets his silver; he does not find fault with the clerk

of the Exchequer, whom he does not see and who is not then present

In the collection of the direct tax, on the contrary, it is the clerk

himself whom he sees before him, who abstracts the precious piece of

silver. This authorized robber, moreover, gives him nothing in exchange;

it is an entire loss. On leaving the dealer's shop he goes away with a

jug of wine, a pot of salt, or similar commodities; on leaving the tax

office he has nothing in hand but an acquittance, a miserable bit of

scribbled paper.--But now he is master in his own commune, an elector, a

National Guard, mayor, the sole authority in the use of armed force, and

charged with his own taxation. Come and ask him to unearth the buried

mite on which he has set all his heart and all his soul, the earthen pot

wherein he has deposited his cherished pieces of silver one by one, and

which he has laid by for so many years at the cost of so much misery and

fasting, in the very face of the bailiff in spite of the prosecutions of

the sub-delegate, commissioner, collector, and clerk!

From the 1st of May, 1789, to the 1st of May, 1790,[3247] the general

returns, the taille and its accessories, the poll-tax and "twentieths,"

instead of yielding 161.000,000 francs, yield but 28,000,000 francs in

the provinces which impose their own taxes (pays d'Etats); instead of

28,000,000 francs, the Treasury obtains but 6,000,000. On the patriotic

contribution which was to deduct one quarter of all incomes over four

hundred livres, and to levy two and a half per cent. on plate, jewels,

and whatever gold and silver each person has in reserve, the State

received 9.700,000 francs. As to patriotic gifts, their total,

comprising the silver buckles of the deputies, reaches only 361,587

francs; and the closer our examination into the particulars of these

figures, the more do we see the contributions of the villager, artisan,

and former subjects of the taille diminish.--Since the month of October,

1789, the privileged classes, in fact, appear in the tax-rolls, and they

certainly form the class which is best off, the most alive to general

ideas and the most truly patriotic. It is therefore probable that, of

the forty-three millions of returns from the direct imposts and from the

patriotic contribution, they have furnished the larger portion, perhaps

two thirds of it, or even three-quarters. If this be the case, the

peasant, the former tax-payer, gave nothing or almost nothing from his

pocket during the first year of the Revolution. For instance, in regard

to the patriotic contribution, the Assembly left it to the conscience of

each person to fix his own quota; at the end of six months, consciences

are found too elastic, and the Assembly is obliged to confer this right

on the municipalities. The result is[3248] that this or that individual

who taxed himself at forty-eight livres, is taxed at a hundred and

fifty; another, a cultivator, who had offered six livres, is judged to

be able to pay over one hundred. Every regiment contains a small number

of select brave men, and it is always these who are ready to advance

under fire. Every State contains a select few of honest men who advance

to meet the tax-collector. Some effective constraint is essential in the

regiment to supply those with courage who have but little, and in the

State to supply those with probity who do not possess it. Hence, during

the eight months which follow, from May 1st, 1790, to January 1st, 1791,

the patriotic contribution furnishes but 11,000,000 livres. Two years

later, on the 1st of February, 1793, out of the forty thousand communal

tax-rolls which should provide for it, there are seven thousand which

are not yet drawn up; out of 180,000,000 livres which it ought

to produce, there are 70,000,000 livres which are still due.--The

resistance of the tax-payer produces a similar deficit, and similar

delays in all branches of the national income.[3249] In the month of

June, 1790, a deputy declares in the tribune that "out of thirty-six

millions of imposts which ought to be returned each month only nine have

been received."[3250] In the month of November, 1791, a reporter on

the budget states that the receipts, which should amount to forty or

forty-eight millions a month, do not reach eleven millions and a half.

On February 1, 1793, there remains still due on the direct taxes of 1789

and 1790 one hundred and seventy-six millions. It is evident that

the people struggle with all their might against the old taxes, even

authorized and prolonged by the Constituent Assembly, and all that is

obtained from them is wrested from them.

Will the people be more docile under the new taxation? The Assembly

exhorts them to be so and shows them how, with the relief they have

gained and with the patriotism they ought to possess, they can and

should discharge their dues. The people are able to do it because,

having got rid of tithes, feudal dues, the salt-tax, octrois and excise

duties, they are in a comfortable position. They should do so, because

the taxation adopted is indispensable to the State, equitable, assessed

on all in proportion to their fortune, collected and expended under

rigid scrutiny, without perversion or waste, according to precise,

clear, periodical and audited accounts. No doubt exists that, after the

1st of January, 1791, the date when the new financial scheme comes into

operation, each tax-payer will gladly pay as a good citizen, and the

two hundred and forty millions of the new tax on real property, and

the sixty millions of that on personal property, leaving out the

rest--registries, license, and customs duties--will flow in regularly

and easily of their own accord.

Unfortunately, before the tax-gatherer can collect the first two levies

these have to be assessed, and as there are complicated writings

and formalities, claims to settle amidst great resistance and local

ignorance, the operation is indefinitely prolonged. The personal and

land-tax schedule of 1791 is not transmitted to the departments by the

Assembly until June, 1791. The departments do not distribute it among

the districts until the months of July, August, and September, 1791. It

is not distributed by the districts among the communes before October,

November, and December, 1791. Thus in the last month of 1791 it is not

yet distributed to the tax-payers by the communes; from which it follows

that on the budget of 1791 and throughout that year, the tax-payer

has paid nothing.--At last, in 1792, everybody begins to receive this

assessment. It would require a volume to set forth the partiality and

dissimulation of these assessments. In the first place the office of

assessor is one of danger; the municipal authorities, whose duty it

is to assign the quotas, are not comfortable in their town quarters.

Already, in 1790,[3251] the municipal officers of Monbazon have been

threatened with death if they dared to tax industrial pursuits on the

tax-roll, and they escaped to Tours in the middle of the night. Even at

Tours, three or four hundred insurgents of the vicinity, dragging along

with them the municipal officers of three market-towns, come and declare

to the town authorities "that for all taxes they will not pay more than

forty-five sous per household." I have already narrated how, in 1792,

in the same department, "they kill, they assassinate the municipal

officers" who presume to publish the tax-rolls of personal property. In

Creuse, at Clugnac, the moment the clerk begins to read the document,

the women spring upon him, seize the tax-roll, and "tear it up with

countless imprecations;" the municipal council is assailed, and two

hundred persons stone its members, one of whom is thrown down, has his

head shaved, and is promenaded through the village in derision.--When

the small tax-payer defends himself in this manner, it is a warning that

he must be humored. The assessment, accordingly, in the village councils

is made amongst a knot of cronies. Each relieves himself of the burden

by shoving it off on somebody else. "They tax the large proprietors,

whom they want to make pay the whole tax." The noble, the old seigneur,

is the most taxed, and to such an extent that in many places his

income does not suffice to pay his quota.--In the next place they make

themselves out poor, and falsify or elude the prescriptions of the law.

"In most of the municipalities, houses, tenements, and factories[3252]

are estimated according to the value of the area they cover, and

considered as land of the first class, which reduces the quota to

almost nothing." And this fraud is not practiced in the villages alone.

"Communes of eight or ten thousand souls might be cited which have

arranged matters so well amongst themselves in this respect that not

a house is to be found worth more than fifty sous."--Last expedient

of all, the commune defers as long as it can the preparation of its

tax-rolls. On the 30th of January, 1792, out of 40,211, there are only

2,560 which are complete; on the 5th of October, 1792, the schedules are

not made out in 4,800 municipalities, and it must be noted that all this

relates to a term of administration which has been finished for more

than nine months. At the same date, there are more than six thousand

communes which have not yet begun to collect the land-tax of 1791, and

more than fifteen thousand communes which have not yet begun to collect

the personal tax; the Treasury and the departments have not yet received

152,000,000 francs, there being still 222,000,000 to collect. On the 1st

February, 1793, there still remains due on the same period 161,000,000

francs, while of the 50,000,000 assessed in 1790, to replace the

salt-tax and other suppressed duties, only 2,000,000 have been

collected. Finally, at the same date, out of the two direct taxes of

1792, which should produce 300,000,000, less than 4,000,000 have been

received.--It is a maxim of the debtor that he must put off payment as

long as possible. Whoever the creditor may be, the State or a private

individual, a leg or a wing may be saved by dint of procrastination. The

maxim is true, and, on this occasion, success once more demonstrates

its soundness. During the year 1792, the peasant begins to discharge a

portion of his arrears, but it is with assignats. In January, February,

and March, 1792, the assignats diminish thirty-four, forty-four, and

forty-five per cent. in value; in January, February, and March,

1793, forty-seven and fifty percent.; in May, June, and July, 1793,

fifty-four, sixty, and sixty-seven per cent. Thus has the old credit

of the State melted away in its hands; those who have held on to their

crowns gain fifty per cent. and more. Again, the greater their delay the

more their debts diminish, and already, on the strength of this, the way

to release themselves at half-price is found.

Meanwhile, hands are laid on the badly defended landed property of this

feeble creditor.--It is always difficult for rude brains to form any

conception of the vague, invisible, abstract entity called the State,

to regard it as a veritable personage and a legitimate proprietor,

especially when they are persistently told that the State is everybody.

The property of all is the property of each, and as the forests belong

to the public, the first-comer has a right to profit by them. In the

month of December, 1789,[3253] bands of sixty men or more chop down the

trees in the Bois de Boulogne and at Vincennes. In April, 1790, in the

forest of Saint-Germain, "the patrols arrest all kinds of delinquents

day and night:" handed over to the National Guards and municipalities in

the vicinity, these are "almost immediately released, even with the

wood which they have cut down against the law." iii There is no means

of repressing "the reiterated threats and insults of the low class of

people." A mob of women, urged on by an old French guardsman, come and

pillage under the nose of the escort a load of faggots confiscated for

the benefit of a hospital; and in the forest itself, bands of marauders

fire upon the patrols.--At Chantilly, three game-keepers are mortally

wounded;[3254] both parks are devastated for eighteen consecutive days;

the game is all killed, transported to Paris and sold.--At Chambord the

lieutenant of the constabulary writes to announce his powerlessness; the

woods are ravaged and even burnt; the poachers are now masters of the

situation; breaches in the wall are made by them, and the water from

the pond is drawn off to enable them to catch the fish.--At Claix, in

Dauphiny, an officer of the jurisdiction of woods and forests, who has

secured an injunction against the inhabitants for cutting down trees on

leased ground, is seized, tortured during five hours, and then stoned

to death.--In vain does the National Assembly issue three decrees and

regulations, placing the forests under the supervision and protection of

administrative bodies,--he latter are too much afraid of their charge.

Between the central power, which is weak and remote, and the people,

present and strong, they always decide in favor of the latter. Not one

of the five municipalities surrounding Chantilly is disposed to assist

in the execution of the laws, while the directories of the district

and department respectively, sanction their inertia.--Similarly, near

Toulouse,[3255] where the magnificent forest of Larramet is devastated

in open day and by an armed force, where the wanton destruction by

the populace leaves nothing of the underwood and shrubbery but "a few

scattered trees and the remains of trunks cut at different heights,"

the municipalities of Toulouse and of Tournefeuille refuse all aid.

And worse still, in other provinces, as for instance in Alsace, "whole

municipalities, with their mayors at the head, cut down woods which

are confided to them, and carry them off."[3256] If some tribunal is

disposed to enforce the law, it is to no purpose; it takes the risk,

either of not being allowed to give judgment, or of being constrained

to reverse its decision. At Paris the judgment prepared against the

incendiaries of the tax-offices could not be given. At Montargis, the

sentence pronounced against the marauders who had stolen cartloads

of wood in the national forests had to be revised, and by the judges

themselves. The moment the tribunal announced the confiscation of the

carts and horses which had been seized, there arose a furious outcry

against it; the court was insulted by those present; the condemned

parties openly declared that they would have their carts and horses back

by force. Upon this "the judges withdrew into the council-chamber, and

when soon after they resumed their seats, that part of their decision

which related to the confiscation was canceled."

And yet this administration of justice, ludicrous and flouted as it

may be, is still a sort of barrier. When it falls, along with the

Government, everything is exposed to plunder, and there is no such thing

as public property.--After August 10, 1792, each commune or individual

appropriates whatever comes in its way, either products or the soil

itself. Some of the plunderers go so far as to say that, since the

Government no longer represses them, they act under its authority.[3257]

"They have destroyed even the recent plantation of young trees." "One of

the villages near Fontainebleau cleared off and divided an entire grove.

At Rambouillet, from August 10th to the end of October," the loss is

more than 100,000 crowns; the rural agitators demand with threats the

partition of the forest among the inhabitants. "The destruction is

enormous" everywhere, prolonged for entire months, and of such a kind,

says the minister, as to dry up this source of public revenue for a

long time to come.--Communal property is no more respected than

national property. In each commune, these bold and needy folk, the rural

populace, are privileged to enjoy and make the most of it. Not content

with enjoying it, they desire to acquire ownership of it, and, for days

after the King's fall, the Legislative Assembly, losing its footing in

the universal breaking up, empowers the indigent to put in force the

agrarian law. Henceforth it suffices in any commune for one-third of

its inhabitants of both sexes, servants, common laborers, shepherds,

farm-hands or cowherds, and even paupers, to demand a partition of the

communal possessions. All that the commune owns, save public edifices

and woods, is to be cut up into as many equal lots as there are heads,

the lots to be drawn for, and each individual to take possession of his

or her portion.[3258] The Operation is carried out, for "those who

are least well off are infinitely flattered by it." In the district of

Arcis-sur-Aube, there are not a dozen communes out of ninety in which

more than two-thirds of the voters had the good sense to pronounce

against it. From this time forth the commune ceases to be an

independent proprietor; it has nothing to fall back upon. In case of

distress it is obliged to lay on extra taxes and obtain, if it can, a

few additional sous. Its future revenue is at present in the

tightly buttoned pockets of the new proprietors.--The prevalence of

short-sighted views is once more due to the covetousness of individuals.

Whether national or communal, it is always public interest which

succumbs, and it succumbs always under the usurpations of indigent

minorities, at one time through the feebleness of public authority,

which dares not oppose their violence, and at another through the

complicity of public authority, which has conferred upon them the rights

of the majority.

IV.--Cupidity of tenants.

The third and fourth jacquerie.--Brittany and other

provinces in 1790 and 1791.--The burning of chateaux.

--Title-deeds destroyed.--Refusal of claims.--Destruction of

reservoirs.--Principal characteristics, prime motive and

ruling passion of the revolution

When there is a lack of public force for the protection of public

property, there is also a lack of it for the protection of private

property, for the same greed and the same needs attack both. Let a man

owe anything either to the State or to an individual, and the temptation

not to pay is equally the same. In both cases it suffices to find a

pretext for denying the debt; in finding this pretext the cupidity of

the tenant is as good as the selfishness of the tax-payer. Now that the

feudal system is abolished let nothing remain of it: let there be no

more seignorial claims. "If the Assembly has maintained some of them,

yonder in Paris, it did so inadvertently or through corruption: we

shall soon hear of all being suppressed. In the meantime we will relieve

ourselves, and burn the agreements in the places where they are kept."