are forced with iron crowbars, and the populace enter amid a burst
of acclamations from the spectators. Immediately, through every
opening in the building, which has a facade frontage of eighty feet,
" there is a shower of shutters, sashes, chairs, tables, sofas,
books and papers, and then another of tiles, boards, balconies and
fragments of wood-work." The public archives are thrown to the wind,
and the surrounding streets are strewed with them; the letters of
enfranchisement, the charters of privileges, all the authentic acts
which, since Louis XIV, have guaranteed the liberties of the town,
perish in the flames. Some of the rabble in the cellars stave in
casks of precious wine; fifteen thousand measures of it are lost,
making a pool five feet deep in which several are drowned. Others,
loaded with booty, go away under the eyes of the soldiers without
being arrested. The havoc continues for three days; a number of
houses belonging to some of the magistrates "are sacked from garret
to cellar." When the honest citizens at last obtain arms and restore
order, they are content with the hanging of one of the robbers;
although, in order to please the people, the magistrates are changed
and the price of bread and meat is reduced. - It is not surprising
that after such tactics, and with such rewards, the riot should
spread through the neighborhood far and near: in fact, starting from
Strasbourg it overruns Alsace, while in the country as in the city,
there are always drunkards and rascals found to head it.

No matter where, be it in the East, in the West, or in the North,
the instigators are always of this stamp. At Cherbourg, on the 21st
of July,[16] the two leaders of the riot are " highway robbers," who
place themselves at the head of women of the suburbs, foreign
sailors, the populace of the harbor, and it includes soldiers in
workmen's smocks. They force the delivery of the keys of the grain