rate, public enemies. Near Angers the Benedictine establishment is
invaded, and its fields and woods are devastated.[21] 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[22] 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