ASSASSINATION OF FRANÇOIS THE BAKER.
In other parts of the kingdom there were occasional acts of violence. Bread was so enormously dear that the corn-dealers were accused of hoarding up immense stores for the sake of speculation. The ignorant mob in some instances seriously maltreated those suspected of this crime. The innocent were thus often punished, for the violence of the mob is as likely to fall upon the innocent as upon the guilty.
Many of the most intelligent friends of reform began now to fear that the nation was going "too fast and too far." The scenes of the 5th of October, and the omnipotence of the mob as evinced on that day, had inspired fearful apprehensions for the future. Even La Fayette felt that the salvation of the cause of liberty depended upon strengthening the power of the king. He induced the king to send the Duke of Orleans from Paris, and when the duke wished to return he sent him word that, the day after his return, he would have to fight a duel with him.
Mirabeau united with La Fayette in these endeavors to stop the nation in its headlong rush, and to secure constitutional liberty by giving strength to the monarchical arm. They were both of the opinion that France, surrounded by powerful and jealous monarchies, and with millions of peasants unaccustomed to self-government, who could neither read nor write, and who were almost as uninstructed as the sheep they tended, needed a throne founded upon a free constitution.[238] Even in the Assembly Mirabeau ventured to urge that it was necessary to restore strength to the executive power.[239] But the court hated both La Fayette and Mirabeau, and were opposed to any diminution of their own exclusive privileges. They would accept of no compromise, and all the efforts of the moderate party were unavailing.
Gloomy winter now commenced, and there was no money, no labor, no bread. The aristocratic party all over the realm were packing their trunks, and sending before them across the frontiers whatever funds they could collect. They wished to render France as weak and miserable as possible, that the people might be more easily again subjugated to the feudal yoke by the armies of foreign despots. Hence there was a frightful increase of beggary. In Paris alone there were two hundred thousand. It is one of the greatest of marvels that such a mass of men, literally starving, could have remained so quiet. The resources of the kingdom were exhausted during the winter in feeding, in all the towns of France, paupers amounting to millions. All eyes were now directed to the National Assembly for measures of relief.
FIRES IN THE STREETS FOR THE POOR.
The wealth of the clergy was enormous. Almsgiving, which has filled Europe with beggary, has ever been represented by the Catholic Church as the first act of piety. During long ages of superstition, the dying had been induced, as an atonement for godless lives, to bequeath their possessions to the Church, to be dispensed in charity to the people. Thus many a wealthy sinner had obtained absolution, and thus the ecclesiastics held endowments which comprised one fifth of the lands of the kingdom, and were estimated at four thousand millions of francs ($800,000,000).[240]
Notwithstanding this immense opulence of the Church, nearly all the parish pastors, the hard and faithful workers for Christianity—and there were many such, men of true lives and of unfeigned religion—were in the extreme of poverty. The bishops were all nobles, for even Louis XVI. would elect no other. These bishops were often the most dissolute and voluptuous of men, and reveled in incomes of a million of francs ($250,000) a year. The working clergy, on the contrary, who were from the people, seldom received more than two hundred francs ($40) a year. They were so poor as to be quite dependent upon their parishioners for charity.[241]