cks, proceed
in several parties to give up to pillage the houses of those who are
regarded as enemies to the public welfare." "They go from door to door
crying, 'Arms and bread!' During this fearful night, the bourgeoisie
kept themselves shut up, each trembling at home for himself and those
belonging to him." On the following day, the 13th, the capital appears
to be given up to bandits and the lowest of the low. One of the
bands hews down the gate of the Lazarists, destroys the library and
clothes-presses, the pictures, the windows and laboratory, and rushes
to the cellars; where it staves in the casks and gets drunk: twenty-four
hours after this, about thirty of them are found dead and dying, drowned
in wine, men and women, one of these being at the point of childbirth.
In front of the house[1238] the street is full of the wreckage, and of
ruffians who hold in their hands, "some, eatables, others a jug, forcing
the passers-by to drink, and pouring out wine to all comers. Wine
runs down into the gutter, and the scent of it fills the air;" it is a
drinking bout: meanwhile they carry away the grain and flour which the
monks kept on hand according to law, fifty-two loads of it being
taken to the market. Another troop comes to La Force, to deliver those
imprisoned for debt; a third breaks into the Garde Meuble, carrying away
valuable arms and armour. Mobs assemble before the hotel of Madame de
Breteuil and the Palais-Bourbon, which they intend to ransack, in order
to punish their proprietors. M. de Crosne, one of the most liberal and
most respected men of Paris, but, unfortunately for himself a lieutenant
of the police, is pursued, escaping with difficulty, and his hotel is
sacked.--During the night between the 13th and 14th of May, the baker's
shops and the wine shops are pillaged; "men of the vilest class, armed
with guns, pikes, and turnspits, make people open their doors and give
them something to eat and drink, as well as money and arms." Vagrants,
ragged men, several of them "almost naked," and "most of them armed
like savages, and of hideous appearance;" they are "such as one does not
remember to have seen in broad daylight;" many of them are strangers,
come from nobody knows where.[1239] It is stated that there were
50,000 of them, and that they had taken possession of the principal
guard-houses.

During these two days and nights, says Bailly, "Paris ran the risk of
being pillaged, and was only saved from the maraud