Seventy-two Chateaus have flamed aloft in the Maconnais and Beaujolais
alone: this seems the centre of the conflagration; but it has spread
over Dauphine, Alsace, the Lyonnais; the whole South-East is in a blaze.
All over the North, from Rouen to Metz, disorder is abroad: smugglers
of salt go openly in armed bands: the barriers of towns are burnt;
toll-gatherers, tax-gatherers, official persons put to flight. 'It was
thought,' says Young, 'the people, from hunger, would revolt;' and we
see they have done it. Desperate Lackalls, long prowling aimless, now
finding hope in desperation itself, everywhere form a nucleus. They ring
the Church bell by way of tocsin: and the Parish turns out to the work.
(See Hist. Parl. ii. 243-6.) Ferocity, atrocity; hunger and revenge:
such work as we can imagine!

Ill stands it now with the Seigneur, who, for example, 'has walled up
the only Fountain of the Township;' who has ridden high on his chartier
and parchments; who has preserved Game not wisely but too well. Churches
also, and Canonries, are sacked, without mercy; which have shorn the
flock too close, forgetting to feed it. Wo to the land over which
Sansculottism, in its day of vengeance, tramps roughshod,--shod in
sabots! Highbred Seigneurs, with their delicate women and little ones,
had to 'fly half-naked,' under cloud of night; glad to escape the
flames, and even worse. You meet them at the tables-d'hote of inns;
making wise reflections or foolish that 'rank is destroyed;' uncertain
whither they shall now wend. (See Young, i. 149, &c.) The metayer will
find it convenient to be slack in paying rent. As for the Tax-gatherer,
he, long hunting as a biped of prey, may now get hunted as one; his
Majesty's Exchequer will not 'fill up the Deficit,' this season: it is
the notion of many that a Patriot Majesty, being the Restorer of French
Liberty, has abolished most taxes, though, for their private ends, some
men make a secret of it.