disturbances broke out on all sides in March, April, and May.
Contemporaries " do not know what to think of such a scourge;[14]
they cannot comprehend how such a vast number of criminals, without
visible leaders, agree amongst themselves everywhere to commit the
same excesses just at the time when the States-General are going to
begin their sittings." The reason is that, under the ancient régime,
the conflagration was smoldering in a closed chamber; the great door
is suddenly opened, the air enters, and immediately the flame breaks
out.

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