ommandant,
M. de Langeron, and demand money of him; on his refusing to give it
they tear off their cockades and exclaim, "We too belong to the
Third-Estate!" in other words, that they are the masters: subsequently
they demand the head of the intendant, M. de Caumartin, forcibly enter
his dwelling and break up his furniture. On the following day the rabble
and the soldiers enter the coffee-houses, the convents, and the inns,
and demand to be served with wine and eatables as much as they want, and
then, heated by drink, they burn the excise offices, force open several
prisons, and set free all the smugglers and deserters. To put an end to
this saturnalia a grand banquet in the open air is suggested, in which
the National Guard is to fraternize with the whole garrison; but the
banquet turns into a drinking-bout, entire companies remaining under the
tables dead drunk; other companies carry away with them four hogsheads
of wine, and the rest, finding themselves left in the lurch, are
scattered abroad outside the walls in order to rob the cellars of the
neighboring villages. The next day, encouraged by the example set them,
a portion of the garrison, accompanied by a number of workmen, repeat
the expedition in the country. Finally, after four days of this orgy, to
prevent Besancon and its outskirts from being indefinitely treated as a
conquered country, the burgess guard, in alliance with the soldiers who
have remained loyal, rebel against the rebellion, go in quest of
the marauders and hang two of them that same evening.--Such is
rioting![1321] an irruption of brute force which, turned loose on the
habitations of men, can do nothing but gorge itself, waste, break,
destroy, and do damage to itself; and if we follow the details of local
history, we see how, in these days, similar outbreaks of violence might
be expected at any time.

At Troyes,[1322] on the 18th of July, a market-day, the peasants refuse
to pay the entrance duties; the octroi having been suppressed at Paris,
it ought also to be suppressed at Troyes. The populace, excited by this
first disorderly act, gather into a mob for the purpose of dividing the
grain and arms amongst themselves, and the next day the town-hall is
invested by seven or eight thousand men, armed with clubs and stones.
The day after, a band, recruited in the surrounding villages, armed
with flails, shovels, and pitch-forks, enters under the leadership of
a joiner who marches at the head of it w