pieces." -- At La Seyne, the mob, led by a peasant, assembles by
beat of drum. Some women fetch a bier, and set it down before the
house of a leading bourgeois, telling him to prepare for death, and
that "they will have the honor of burying him." He escapes; his
house is pillaged, as well as the bureau of the flour-tax. The
following day, the chief of the band "obliges the principal
inhabitants to give him a sum of money to indemnify, as he states
it, the peasants who have abandoned their work," and devoted the day
to serving the public. -- At Peinier, the Président de Peinier, an
octogenarian, is "besieged in his chateau by a band of a hundred and
fifty artisans and peasants," who bring with them a consul and a
notary. Aided by these two functionaries, they force the president
"to pass an act by which he renounces his seignorial rights of every
description " -- At Sollier they destroy the mills belonging to M.
de Forbin-Janson. They sack the house of his business agent,
pillage the château, and demolish the roof, chapel, altar, railings,
and escutcheons. They enter the cellars, stave in the casks, and
carry away everything that can be carried, "the transportation
taking two days;" all of which cause damages of a hundred thousand
crowns to the marquis. -- At Riez they surround the episcopal
palace with fagots, threatening to burn it, "and compromise with the
bishop on a promise of fifty thousand livres," and want him to burn
his archives. -- In short, the sedition is social for it singles
out for attack all that profit by, or stand at the head of, the
established order of things.

Seeing them act in this way, one would say that the theory of the
Contrat-Social had been instilled into them. They treat magistrates
as domestics, promulgate laws, and conduct themselves like
sovereigns. They exercise public power, and establish, summarily,