The French Revolution (Vol.1-3). Taine Hippolyte
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grain to be given up to them at their own price." In the vicinity of Étampes, fifteen bandits enter the farmhouses at night and put the farmer to ransom, threatening him with a conflagration. In Cambrésis they pillage the abbeys of Vauchelles, of Verger, and of Guillemans, the château of the Marquis de Besselard, the estate of M. Doisy, two farms, the wagons of wheat passing along the road to Saint-Quentin, and, besides this, seven farms in Picardy. "The seat of this revolt is in some villages bordering on Picardy and Cambrésis, familiar with smuggling operations and to the license of that pursuit." The peasants allow themselves to be enticed away by the bandits. Man slips rapidly down the incline of dishonesty; one who is half-honest, and takes part in a riot inadvertently or in spite of himself; repeats the act, allured on by impunity or by gain. In fact, "it is not dire necessity which impels them;" they make a speculation of cupidity, a new sort of illicit trade. An old soldier, saber in hand, a forest-keeper, and "about eight persons sufficiently lax, put themselves at the head of four or five hundred men, go off each day to three or four villages. Here they force everybody who has any wheat to give it to them at 24 livres," and even at 18 livres, the sack. Those among the band, who say that they have no money, carry away their portion without payment. Others, after having paid what they please, re-sell at a profit, which amounts to even 45 livres the sack. This is a good business, and one in which greed takes poverty for its accomplice. At the next harvest the temptation will be similar: "they have threatened to come and do our harvesting for us, and also to take our cattle and sell the meat in the villages at the rate of two sous the pound."—In every important insurrection there are similar evil-does and vagabonds, enemies to the law, savage, prowling desperadoes, who, like wolves, roam about wherever they scent a prey. It is they who serve as the directors and executioners of public or private malice. Near Uzès twenty-five masked men, with guns and clubs, enter the house of a notary, fire a pistol at him, beat him, wreck the premises, and burn his registers along with the title-deeds and papers which he has in keeping for the Count de Rouvres. Seven of them are arrested, but the people are on their side, and fall on the constabulary and free them.1124—They are known by their acts, by their love of destruction for the sake of destruction, by their foreign accent, by their savage faces and their rags. Some of them come from Paris to Rouen, and, for four days, the town is at their mercy.1125 The stores are forced open, train wagons are discharged, wheat is wasted, and convents and seminaries are put to ransom. They invade the dwelling of the attorney-general, who has begun proceedings against them, and want to tear him to pieces. They break his mirrors and his furniture, leave the premises laden with booty, and go into the town and its outskirts to pillage the manufactories and break up or burn all the machinery.—Henceforth these constitute the new leaders: for in every mob it is the boldest and least scrupulous who march ahead and set the example in destruction. The example is contagious: the beginning was the craving for bread, the end is murder and arson; the savagery which is unchained adding its unlimited violence to the limited revolt of necessity.
V.—Effect on the Population of the New Ideas.
Bad as it is, this savagery might, perhaps, have been overcome, in spite of the dearth and of the brigands; but what renders it irresistible is the belief of its being authorized, and that by those whose duty it is to repress it. Here and there words and actions of a brutal frankness break forth, and reveal beyond the somber present a more threatening future—After the 9th of January, 1789, among the mob which attacks the Hôtel-de-Ville and besieges the bakers' shops of Nantes, "shouts of Vive la Liberté!1126 mingled with those of Vive le Roi! are heard." A few months later, around Ploërmel, the peasants refuse to pay tithes, alleging that the memorial of their seneschal's court demands their abolition. In Alsace, after March, there is the same refusal "in many places;" many of the communities even maintain that they will pay no more taxes until their deputies to the States-General shall have fixed the precise amount of the public contributions. In Isère it is decided, by proceedings, printed and published, that "personal dues" shall no longer be paid, while the landowners who are affected by this dare not prosecute in the tribunals. At Lyons, the people have come to the conclusion "that all levies of taxes are to cease," and, on the 29th of June, on hearing of the meeting of the three orders, "astonished by the illuminations and signs of public rejoicing," they believe that the good time has come." They think of forcing the delivery of meat to them at four sous the pound, and wine at the same rate. The publicans insinuate to them the prospective abolition of octrois.1127 and that, meanwhile, the King, in favor of the re-assembling of the three orders, has granted three days' freedom from all duties at Paris, and that Lyons ought to enjoy the same privilege." Upon this the crowd, rushing off to the barriers, to the gates of Sainte-Claire and Perrache, and to the Guillotière bridge, burn or demolish the bureaux, destroy the registers, sack the lodgings of the clerks, carry off the money and pillage the wine on hand in the depot. In the mean time a rumor has circulated all round through the country that there is free entrance into the town for all provisions. During the following days the peasantry stream in with enormous files of wagons loaded with wine and drawn by several oxen, so that, in spite of the re-established guard, it is necessary to let them enter all day without paying the dues. It is only on the 7th of July that these can again be collected.—The same thing occurs in the southern provinces, where the principal imposts are levied on provisions. There also the collections are suspended in the name of public authority. At Agde,1128 "the people, considering the so-called will of the King as to equality of classes, are foolish enough to think that they are everything and can do everything." Thus do they interpret in their own way and in their own terms the double representation accorded to the Third-Estate. They threaten the town, consequently, with general pillage if the prices of all provisions are not reduced, and if the duties of the province on wine, fish, and meat are not suppressed. They also wish to nominate consuls who have sprung up out of their body." The bishop, the lord of the manor, the mayor and the notables, against whom they forcibly stir up the peasantry in the country, are obliged to proclaim by sound of trumpet that their demands shall be granted. Three days afterwards they exact a diminution of one-half of the tax on grinding, and go in quest of the bishop who owns the mills. The prelate, who is ill, sinks down in the street and seats himself on a stone; they compel him forthwith to sign an act of renunciation, and hence "his mill, valued at 15,000 livres, is reduced to 7,500 livres."—At Limoux, under the pretext of searching for grain, they enter the houses of the comptroller and tax contractors, carry off their registers, and throw them into the water along with the furniture of their clerks.—In Provence it is worse; for most unjustly, and through inconceivable imprudence, the taxes of the towns are all levied on flour. It is therefore to this impost that the dearness of bread is directly attributed. Hence the fiscal agent becomes a manifest enemy, and revolts on account of hunger are transformed into insurrections against the State.
VI.—The first jacquerie in Province
Feebleness or ineffectiveness of repressive measures.
Here, again, political novelties are the spark that ignites the mass of gunpowder. Everywhere, the uprising of the people takes place on the very day on which the electoral assembly meets. From forty to fifty riots occur in the provinces in less than a fortnight. Popular imagination, like that of a child, goes straight to its mark. The reforms having been announced, people think them accomplished and, to make sure of them, steps are at once taken to carry them out. Now that we are to have relief, let us relieve ourselves. "This is not an isolated riot as usual," writes the commander of the troops;1129 "here the faction is united and governed by uniform principles; the same errors are diffused through