people is sure to be followed as far, and perhaps even farther, than
he chooses to lead. -- The moment the Parliament of a large city
refuses to register fiscal edicts it finds a riot at its service.
On the 7th of June 1788, at Grenoble, tiles rain down on the heads
of the soldiery, and the military force is powerless. At Rennes, to
put down the rebellious city, an army and after this a permanent
camp of four regiments of infantry and two of cavalry, under the
command of a Marshal of France, is required.[6] - The following
year, when the Parliaments now side with the privileged class, the
disturbances again begin, but this time against the Parliaments. In
February 1789, at Besançon and at Aix, the magistrates are hooted
at, chased in the streets, besieged in the town hall, and obliged to
conceal themselves or take to flight. -- If such is the disposition
in the provincial capitals, what must it be in the capital of the
kingdom? For a start, in the month of August, 1788, after the
dismissal of Brienne and Lamoignon, the mob, collected on the Place
Dauphine, constitutes itself judge, burns both ministers in effigy,
disperses the watch, and resists the troops: no sedition, as bloody
as this, had been seen for a century. Two days later, the riot
bursts out a second time; the people are seized with a resolve to go
and burn the residences of the two ministers and that of Dubois, the
lieutenant of police. -- Clearly a new ferment has been infused
among the ignorant and brutal masses, and the new ideas are
producing their effect. They have for a long time imperceptibly
been filtering downwards from layer to layer After having gained
over the aristocracy, the whole of the lettered portion of the
Third-Estate, the lawyers, the schools, all the young, they have
insinuated themselves drop by drop and by a thousand fissures into
the class which supports itself by the labor of its own hands.
Noblemen, at their toilettes, have scoffed at Christianity, and