ssed threshold when you yourself more lightly
spoken of than if you were one of them." The same attitude is taken by
the peasants in the environment of Paris; Madame Vigee-Lebrun,[5319] on
going to Romainville to visit Marshal de Segur, remarks: "Not only do
they not remove their hats but they regard us insolently; some of them
even threatened us with clubs." In March and April following this, her
guests arrive at her concert in consternation. "In the morning, at
the promenade of Longchamps, the populace, assembled at the barrier of
l'Etoile, insulted the people passing by in carriages in the grossest
manner; some of the wretches on the footsteps exclaiming: 'Next year you
shall be behind the carriage and we inside.'" At the close of the
year 1788, the stream becomes a torrent and the torrent a cataract.
An intendant[5320] writes that, in his province, the government must
decide, and in the popular sense, to separate from privileged classes,
abandon old forms and give the Third-Estate a double vote. The clergy
and the nobles are detested, and their supremacy is a yoke. "Last July,"
he says, "the old States-General would have been received with pleasure
and there would have been few obstacles to its formation. During the
past five months minds have become enlightened; respective interests
have been discussed, and leagues formed. You have been kept in ignorance
of the fermentation which is at its height among all classes of the
Third-Estate, and a spark will kindle the conflagration. If the
king's decision should be favorable to the first two orders a general
insurrection will occur throughout the provinces, 600,000 men in arms
and the horrors of the Jacquerie." The word is spoken and the reality is
coming. An insurrectionary multitude rejecting its natural leaders
must elect or submit to others. It is like an army which, entering on
a campaign, finding itself without officers; the vacancies are for the
boldest, most violent, those most oppressed by the previous rule, and
who, leading the advance, shouting "forward" and thus form the leading
groups. In 1789, the bands are ready; for, below the suffering people
there is yet another people which suffers yet more, whose insurrection
is permanent, and which, repressed, persecuted, and obscure, only awaits
an opportunity to come out of its hiding-place and openly give their
passions free vent.

IV.

Insurrectionary leaders and recruits.--Poachers.--Smugglers