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The French Revolution - Volume 1 by Hippolyte Taine
page 90 of 535 (16%)
themselves masters. All authority, all force, every means of
constraint and of intimidation is in their hands, and in theirs
alone; and these sovereign hands have nothing to guide them in this
actual interregnum of all legal powers, but the wild or murderous
suggestions of hunger or distrust.

V.

Attacks on public individuals and public property. - At Strasbourg.
- At Cherbourg. - At Mauberge. - At Rouen. - At Besançon. - At
Troyes.

It would take too much space to recount all the violent acts which
were committed, - convoys arrested, grain pillaged, millers and corn
merchants hung, decapitated, slaughtered, farmers called upon under
the threats of death to give up even the seed reserved for sowing,
proprietors ransomed and houses sacked.[14] These outrages,
unpunished, tolerated and even excused or badly suppressed, are
constantly repeated, and are, at first, directed against public men
and public property. As is commonly the case, the rabble head the
march and stamp the character of the whole insurrection.

On the 19th of July, at Strasbourg, on the news of Necker's return
to office, it interprets after its own fashion the public joy, which
it witnesses. Five or six hundred beggars,[15] their numbers soon
increased by the petty tradesmen, rush to the town hall, the
magistrates only having time to fly through a back door. The
soldiers, on their part, with arms in their hands, allow all these
things to go on, while several of them spur the assailants on. The
windows are dashed to pieces under a hailstorm of stones, the doors
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