t, all such persons are monopolists,
and, at any rate, public enemies. Near Angers the Benedictine
establishment is invaded, and its fields and woods are devastated.[1121]
At Amiens "the people are arranging to pillage and perhaps burn the
houses of two merchants, who have built labor-saving mills." Restrained
by the soldiers, they confine themselves to breaking windows; but other
"groups come to destroy or plunder the houses of two or three persons
whom they suspect of being monopolists." At Nantes, a sieur Geslin,
being deputized by the people to inspect a house, and finding no wheat,
a shout is set up that he is a receiver, an accomplice! The crowd rush
at him, and he is wounded and almost cut in pieces.--It is very evident
that there is no more security in France; property, even life, is in
danger. The primary possession, food, is violated in hundreds of places,
and is everywhere menaced and precarious. The local officials everywhere
call for aid, declare the constabulary incompetent, and demand
regular troops. And mark how public authority, everywhere inadequate,
disorganized, and tottering, finds stirred up against it not only the
blind madness of hunger, but, in addition, the evil instincts which
profit by every disorder and the inveterate lusts which every political
commotion frees from restraint.

IV.--Intervention of ruffians and vagabonds.

We have seen how numerous the smugglers, dealers in contraband salt,
poachers, vagabonds, beggars, and escaped convicts[1122] have become,
and how a year of famine increases the number. All are so many recruits
for the mobs, and whether in a disturbance or by means of a disturbance
each one of them fills his pouch. Around Caux,[1123] even up to the
environs of Rouen, at Roncherolles, Quevrevilly, Preaux, Saint-Jacques,
and in the entire surrounding neighborhood bands of armed bandits force
their way into the houses, particularly the parsonages, and lay their
hands on whatever they please. To the south of Chartres "three or four
hundred woodcutters, from the forests of Belleme, chop away everything
that opposes them, and force grain to be given up to them at their own
price." In the vicinity of Etampes, fifteen bandits enter the
farmhouses at night and put the farmer to ransom, threatening him with
a conflagration. In Cambresis they pillage the abbeys of Vauchelles, of
Verger, and of Guillemans, the chateau of the Marquis de Besselard, the
estate of M. Doisy, two far