The Origins of Contemporary France, Volume 2

H >> Hippolyte A. Taine >> The Origins of Contemporary France, Volume 2

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[27] Fabre, "Histoire de Marseille," II. 442. Martin had but 3,555
votes, when shortly after the National Guard numbered 24,000 men.

[28] "Archives Nationales," F7, 3196. Letter of the minister, M.
de Saint-Priest, to the President of the National Assembly, May 11,
1790.

[29] "Archives Nationales," F7 3196. Letters of the military
commandant, M. de Miran, March 6, 14, 30, 1790.

[30] "Archives Nationales," F7, 3196. Letter of M. de Bournissac,
grand-privot, March 6,1790.

[31] "Archives Nationales," F7, 3196. Letters of M. du Miran,
April 11th and 16th, and May 1, 1790.

[32] "Archives Nationales," F7, 3196. Procés-verbal of events on
the 30th of April.

[33] "Archives Nationales," F7, 3196. Letters of the Municipality
of Marseilles to the National Assembly, May 5 and 20, 1790.

[34] "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."

[35] "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 he 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."

[36] "Archives Nationales," F7. 3198. Letters of the royal
commissioners, April 13 and 5, 1791.

[37] De Ségur, "Memoires," III, 482 (early in 1790).

[38] De Dampmartin, I. 184 (January, 1791).

[39] "Archives Nationales," KK, 1105. Correspondence of M. de
Thiard (October 12, 1789).

[40] "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."

[41] "Archives Nationales," F7, 3250. Letter of M. Duport,
minister of justice, December 24, 1791.

[42] "Archives Nationales," F7, 3248, Report of the members of the
department, finished March 18, 1792. -- Buchez and Roux, IX. 240
(Report of M. Alquier).

[43] "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."

[44] Moniteur, March 16, 1792. -- Mortimer-Ternaux, "Histoire de la
Terreur" (Proceedings against the assassins of Simoneau), I. 381.

[45] "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).

[46] "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."

[47] A special series of religious services. (TR)

[48] "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.[1] 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[2] 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.[3] 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,[4] 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[5]
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,[6] 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.[7] 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."[8] 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."[9]

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,[10] "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.[11] 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,[12] "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.[13] 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.[14] 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.[15] 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.

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