hand than the sentimental proclamations of the National Assembly,
the useless presence of troops who stand by and look on, and the
uncertain help of a National Guard which will arrive too late.
Occasionally these townspeople, who are now the rulers, utter a cry
of distress from under the hands of the sovereigns of the street who
grasp them by the throat. At Puy-en-Velay,[7] a town of twenty
thousand inhabitants, the présidial,[8] the committee of twenty-four
commissioners, a body of two hundred dragoons, and eight hundred men
of the guard of burgesses, are "paralyzed, and completely stupefied,
by the vile populace. A mild treatment only increases its
insubordination and insolence." This populace proscribes whomsoever it
pleases, and six days ago a gibbet, erected by its hands, has announced
to the new magistrates the fate that awaits them.

" What will become of us this winter," they exclaim, "in our
impoverished country, where bread is not to be had! We shall be the
prey of wild beasts!"

III.

Public feeling. - Famine

These people, in truth, are hungry, and, since the Revolution, their
misery has increased. Around Puy-en-Velay the country is laid
waste, and the soil broken up by a terrible tempest, a fierce
hailstorm, and a deluge of rain. In the south, the crop proved to
be moderate and even insufficient.

"To trace a picture of the condition of Languedoc," writes the
intendant,[9] "would be to give an account of calamities of every