III.—The provinces during the first six months of 1789
Effects of the famine.
At first there are only intermittent, isolated fires, which are extinguished or go out of themselves; but, a moment after, in the same place, or very near it, the sparks again appear. Their number, like their recurrence, shows the vastness, depth, and heat of the combustible matter, which is about to explode. In the four months, which precede the taking of the Bastille, over three hundred outbreaks may be counted in France. They take place from month to month and from week to week, in Poitou, Brittany, Touraine, Orléanais, Normandy, Ile-de-France, Picardy, Champagne, Alsace, Burgundy, Nivernais, Auvergne, Languedoc, and Provence. On the 28th of May the parliament of Rouen announces robberies of grain, "violent and bloody tumults, in which men on both sides have fallen," throughout the province, at Caen, Saint-Lô, Mortain, Granville, Evreux, Bernay, Pont-Andemer, Elboeuf; Louviers, and in other sections besides. On the 20th of April Baron de Bezenval, military commander in the Central Provinces, writes: "I once more lay before M. Necker a picture of the frightful condition of Touraine and of Orléanais. Every letter I receive from these two provinces is the narrative of three or four riots, which are put down with difficulty by the troops and constabulary,"[1115]—and throughout the whole extent of the kingdom a similar state of things is seen. The women, as is natural, are generally at the head of these outbreaks. It is they who, at Montlhéry, rip open the sacks of grain with their scissors. On learning each week, on market day that the price of a loaf of bread advances three, four, or seven sous, they break out into shrieks of rage: at this rate for bread, with the small salaries of the men, and when work fails,[1116] how can a family be fed? Crowds gather around the sacks of flour and the doors of the bakers. Amidst outcries and reproaches some one in the crowd makes a push; the proprietor or dealer is hustled and knocked down. The shop is invaded, the commodity is in the hands of the buyers and of the famished, each one grabbing for himself, pay or no pay, and running away with the booty.—Sometimes a party is made up beforehand[1117] At Bray-sur-Seine, on the 1st of May, the villagers for four leagues around, armed with stones, knives, and cudgels, to the number of four thousand, compel the metayers and farmers, who have brought grain with them, to sell it at 3 livres, instead of 4 livres 10 sous the bushel. They threaten to do the same thing on the following market-day: but the farmers do not return, the storehouse remains empty. Now soldiers must be at hand, or the inhabitants of Bray will be pillaged. At Bagnols, in Languedoc, on the 1st and 2nd of April, the peasants, armed with cudgels and assembled by tap of drum, "traverse the town, threatening to burn and destroy everything if flour and money are not given to them." They go to private houses for grain, divide it amongst themselves at a reduced price, "promising to pay when the next crop comes round," and force the Consuls to put bread at two sous the pound, and to increase the day's wages four sous.—Indeed this is now the regular thing; it is not the people who obey the authorities, but the authorities who obey the people. Consuls, sheriffs, mayors, municipal officers, town-clerks, become confused and hesitating in the face of this huge clamor; they feel that they are likely to be trodden under foot or thrown out of the windows. Others, with more firmness, being aware that a riotous crowd is mad, and having scruples to spill blood; yield for the time being, hoping that at the next market-day there will be more soldiers and better precautions taken. At Amiens, "after a very violent outbreak,"[1118] they decide to take the wheat belonging to the Jacobin monks, and, protected by the troops, to sell it to the people at a third below its value. At Nantes, where the town hall is attacked, they are forced to lower the price of bread one sou per pound. At Angoulême, to avoid a recourse to arms, they request the Comte d'Artois to renounce his dues on flour for two months, reduce the price of bread, and compensate the bakers. At Cette they are so maltreated they let everything take its course; the people sack their dwellings and get the upper hand; they announce by sound of trumpet that all their demands are granted. On other occasions, the mob dispenses with their services and acts for itself. If there happens to be no grain on the market-place, the people go after it wherever they can find it—to proprietors and farmers who are unable to bring it for fear of pillage; to convents, which by royal edict are obliged always to have one year's crop in store; to granaries where the Government keeps its supplies; and to convoys which are dispatched by the intendants to the relief of famished towns. Each for himself—so much the worse for his neighbor. The inhabitants of Fougères beat and drive out those who come from Ernée to buy in their market; a similar violence is shown at Vitré to the in-habitants of Maine.[1119] At Sainte-Léonard the people stop the grain started for Limoges; at Bost that intended for Aurillac; at Saint-Didier that ordered for Moulins; and at Tournus that dispatched to Macon. In vain are escorts added to the convoys; troops of men and women, armed with hatchets and guns, put themselves in ambush in the woods along the road, and seize the horses by their bridles; the saber has to be used to secure any advance. In vain are arguments and kind words offered, "and in vain even is wheat offered for money; they refuse, shouting out that the convoy shall not go on." They have taken a stubborn stand, their resolution being that of a bull planted in the middle of the road and lowering his horns. Since the wheat is in the district, it is theirs; whoever carries it off or withholds it is a robber. This fixed idea cannot be driven out of their minds. At Chant-nay, near Mans,[1120] they prevent a miller from carrying that which he had just bought to his mill. At Montdragon, in Languedoc, they stone a dealer in the act of sending his last wagon load elsewhere. At Thiers, workmen go in force to gather wheat in the fields; a proprietor with whom some is found is nearly killed; they drink wine in the cellars, and leave the taps running. At Nevers, the bakers not having put bread on their counters for four days, the mob force the granaries of private persons, of dealers and religious communities. "The frightened corn-dealers part with their grain at any price; most of it is stolen in the face of the guards," and, in the tumult of these searches of homes, a number of houses are sacked.—In these days woe to all who are concerned in the acquisition, commerce, and manipulation of grain! Popular imagination requires living beings to who it may impute its misfortunes, and on whom it may gratify its resentments. To it, all such persons are monopolists, and, at any rate, public enemies. Near Angers the Benedictine establishment is invaded, and its fields and woods are devastated.[1121] At Amiens "the people are arranging to pillage and perhaps burn the houses of two merchants, who have built labor-saving mills." Restrained by the soldiers, they confine themselves to breaking windows; but other "groups come to destroy or plunder the houses of two or three persons whom they suspect of being monopolists." At Nantes, a sieur Geslin, being deputized by the people to inspect a house, and finding no wheat, a shout is set up that he is a receiver, an accomplice! The crowd rush at him, and he is wounded and almost cut in pieces.—It is very evident that there is no more security in France; property, even life, is in danger. The primary possession, food, is violated in hundreds of places, and is everywhere menaced and precarious. The local officials everywhere call for aid, declare the constabulary incompetent, and demand regular troops. And mark how public authority, everywhere inadequate, disorganized, and tottering, finds stirred up against it not only the blind madness of hunger, but, in addition, the evil instincts which profit by every disorder and the inveterate lusts which every political commotion frees from restraint.
IV.—Intervention of ruffians and vagabonds.
We have seen how numerous the smugglers, dealers in contraband salt, poachers, vagabonds, beggars, and escaped convicts[1122] have become, and how a year of famine increases the number. All are so many recruits for the mobs, and whether in a disturbance or by means of a disturbance each one of them fills his pouch. Around Caux,[1123] even up to the environs of Rouen, at Roncherolles, Quévrevilly, Préaux, Saint-Jacques, and in the entire surrounding neighborhood bands of armed bandits force their way into the houses, particularly the parsonages, and lay their hands on whatever they please. To the south of Chartres "three or four hundred woodcutters, from the forests of Bellème, chop away everything that opposes them, and force grain to be given up to them at their own price." In the vicinity of Étampes, fifteen bandits enter the farmhouses at night and put the farmer to ransom, threatening him with a conflagration. In Cambrésis they pillage the abbeys of Vauchelles, of Verger, and of Guillemans, the château of the Marquis de Besselard, the estate of M. Doisy, two farms, the wagons of wheat passing along the road to Saint-Quentin, and, besides this, seven farms in Picardy. "The seat of this revolt is in some villages bordering on Picardy and Cambrésis, familiar with smuggling operations and to the license of that pursuit." The peasants allow themselves to be enticed away by the bandits. Man slips rapidly down the incline of dishonesty; one who is half-honest, and takes part in a riot inadvertently or in spite of himself; repeats the act, allured on by impunity or by gain. In fact, "it is not dire necessity which impels them;" they make a speculation of cupidity, a new sort of illicit trade. An old soldier, saber in hand, a forest-keeper, and "about eight persons sufficiently lax, put themselves at the head of four or five hundred men, go off each day to three or four villages. Here they force everybody who has any wheat to give it to them at 24 livres," and even at 18 livres, the sack. Those among the band, who say that they have no money, carry away their portion without payment. Others, after having paid what they please, re-sell at a profit, which amounts to even 45 livres the sack. This is a good business, and one in which greed takes poverty for its accomplice. At the next harvest the temptation will be similar: "they have threatened to come and do our harvesting for us, and also to take our cattle and sell the meat in the villages at the rate of two sous the pound."—In every important insurrection there are similar evil-does and vagabonds, enemies to the law, savage, prowling desperadoes, who, like wolves, roam about wherever they scent a prey. It is they who serve as the directors and executioners of public or private malice. Near Uzès twenty-five masked men, with guns and clubs, enter the house of a notary, fire a pistol at him, beat him, wreck the premises, and burn his registers along with the title-deeds and papers which he has in keeping for the Count de Rouvres. Seven of them are arrested, but the people are on their side, and fall on the constabulary and free them.[1124]—They are known by their acts, by their love of destruction for the sake of destruction, by their foreign accent, by their savage faces and their rags. Some of them come from Paris to Rouen, and, for four days, the town is at their mercy.[1125] The stores are forced open, train wagons are discharged, wheat is wasted, and convents and seminaries are put to ransom. They invade the dwelling of the attorney-general, who has begun proceedings against them, and want to tear him to pieces. They break his mirrors and his furniture, leave the premises laden with booty, and go into the town and its outskirts to pillage the manufactories and break up or burn all the machinery.—Henceforth these constitute the new leaders: for in every mob it is the boldest and least scrupulous who march ahead and set the example in destruction. The example is contagious: the beginning was the craving for bread, the end is murder and arson; the savagery which is unchained adding its unlimited violence to the limited revolt of necessity.
V.—Effect on the Population of the New Ideas.
Bad as it is, this savagery might, perhaps, have been overcome, in spite of the dearth and of the brigands; but what renders it irresistible is the belief of its being authorized, and that by those whose duty it is to repress it. Here and there words and actions of a brutal frankness break forth, and reveal beyond the somber present a more threatening future—After the 9th of January, 1789, among the mob which attacks the Hôtel-de-Ville and besieges the bakers' shops of Nantes, "shouts of Vive la Liberté![1126] mingled with those of Vive le Roi! are heard." A few months later, around Ploërmel, the peasants refuse to pay tithes, alleging that the memorial of their seneschal's court demands their abolition. In Alsace, after March, there is the same refusal "in many places;" many of the communities even maintain that they will pay no more taxes until their deputies to the States-General shall have fixed the precise amount of the public contributions. In Isère it is decided, by proceedings, printed and published, that "personal dues" shall no longer be paid, while the landowners who are affected by this dare not prosecute in the tribunals. At Lyons, the people have come to the conclusion "that all levies of taxes are to cease," and, on the 29th of June, on hearing of the meeting of the three orders, "astonished by the illuminations and signs of public rejoicing," they believe that the good time has come." They think of forcing the delivery of meat to them at four sous the pound, and wine at the same rate. The publicans insinuate to them the prospective abolition of octrois.[1127] and that, meanwhile, the King, in favor of the re-assembling of the three orders, has granted three days' freedom from all duties at Paris, and that Lyons ought to enjoy the same privilege." Upon this the crowd, rushing off to the barriers, to the gates of Sainte-Claire and Perrache, and to the Guillotière bridge, burn or demolish the bureaux, destroy the registers, sack the lodgings of the clerks, carry off the money and pillage the wine on hand in the depot. In the mean time a rumor has circulated all round through the country that there is free entrance into the town for all provisions. During the following days the peasantry stream in with enormous files of wagons loaded with wine and drawn by several oxen, so that, in spite of the re-established guard, it is necessary to let them enter all day without paying the dues. It is only on the 7th of July that these can again be collected.—The same thing occurs in the southern provinces, where the principal imposts are levied on provisions. There also the collections are suspended in the name of public authority. At Agde,[1128] "the people, considering the so-called will of the King as to equality of classes, are foolish enough to think that they are everything and can do everything." Thus do they interpret in their own way and in their own terms the double representation accorded to the Third-Estate. They threaten the town, consequently, with general pillage if the prices of all provisions are not reduced, and if the duties of the province on wine, fish, and meat are not suppressed. They also wish to nominate consuls who have sprung up out of their body." The bishop, the lord of the manor, the mayor and the notables, against whom they forcibly stir up the peasantry in the country, are obliged to proclaim by sound of trumpet that their demands shall be granted. Three days afterwards they exact a diminution of one-half of the tax on grinding, and go in quest of the bishop who owns the mills. The prelate, who is ill, sinks down in the street and seats himself on a stone; they compel him forthwith to sign an act of renunciation, and hence "his mill, valued at 15,000 livres, is reduced to 7,500 livres."—At Limoux, under the pretext of searching for grain, they enter the houses of the comptroller and tax contractors, carry off their registers, and throw them into the water along with the furniture of their clerks.—In Provence it is worse; for most unjustly, and through inconceivable imprudence, the taxes of the towns are all levied on flour. It is therefore to this impost that the dearness of bread is directly attributed. Hence the fiscal agent becomes a manifest enemy, and revolts on account of hunger are transformed into insurrections against the State.