hat

"no citizen should consider himself or be considered as proscribed; he
may and must believe himself to be safe in his own dwelling, satisfied
that there is not a person in the city who would not fly to his rescue."

This is equal to telling the populace that it is free to do as it
pleases. On the strength of this the leaders of the riot work on in
security for ten days. One of them is a man named Jourdain, a lawyer of
Lisieux, and, like most of his brethren, a demagogue in principles; the
other is a strolling actor from Paris named Bordier, famous in the part
of harlequin,[1319] a bully in a house of ill-fame, "a night-rover
and drunkard, and who, fearing neither God nor devil," has taken up
patriotism, and comes down into the provinces to play tragedy, and that,
tragedy in real life. The fifth act begins on the night of the 3rd of
August, with Bordier and Jourdain as the principal actors, and behind
them the rabble along with several companies of fresh volunteers. A
shout is heard, "Death to the monopolists! death to Maussion! we must
have his head!" They pillage his hotel: many of them become intoxicated
and fall asleep in his cellar. The revenue offices, the toll-gates of
the town, the excise office, all buildings in which the royal revenue is
collected, are wrecked. Immense bonfires are lighted in the streets and
on the old market square; furniture, clothes, papers, kitchen utensils,
are all thrown in pell-mell, while carriages are dragged out and tumbled
into the Seine. It is only when the town-hall is attacked that the
National Guard, beginning to be alarmed, makes up its mind to seize
Bordier and some others. The following morning, however, at the shout of
Carabo, and led by Jourdain, the prison is forced, Bordier set free, and
the intendant's residence, with its offices, is sacked a second time.
When, finally, the two rascals are taken and led to the scaffold, the
populace is so strongly in their favor as to require the pointing of
loaded cannon on them to keep them down.--At Besancon,[1320] on the 13th
of August, the leaders consist of the servant of an exhibitor of
wild animals, two goal-birds of whom one has already been branded in
consequence of a riot, and a number of "inhabitants of ill-repute," who,
towards evening, spread through the town along with the soldiers. The
gunners insult the officers they meet, seize them by the throat and want
to throw them into the Doubs. Others go to the house of the c