famished, and the
pillaging of storehouses, I should never end; these are the convulsive
twitching of exhaustion; the people have fasted as long as possible, and
instinct, at last, rebels. In 1747,[5112] "extensive bread-riots occur
in Toulouse, and in Guyenne they take place on every market-day." In
1750, from 6 to 7,000 men gather in Bearn behind a river to resist the
clerks; two companies of the Artois regiment fire on the rebels and kill
a dozen of them. In 1752, a sedition at Rouen and in its neighborhood
lasts three days; in Dauphiny and in Auvergne riotous villagers force
open the grain warehouses and take away wheat at their own price; the
same year, at Arles, 2,000 armed peasants demand bread at the town-hall
and are dispersed by the soldiers. In one province alone, that of
Normandy, I find insurrections in 1725, in 1737, in 1739, in 1752, in
1764, 1765, 1766, 1767 and 1768,[5113] and always on account of bread.

"Entire hamlets," writes the Parliament, "being without the necessities
of life, hunger compels them to resort to the food of brutes. . . . Two
days more and Rouen will be without provisions, without grain, without
bread."

Accordingly, the last riot is terrible; on this occasion, the populace,
again masters of the town for three days, pillage the public granaries
and the stores of all the communities.--Up to the last and even later,
in 1770 at Rheims, in 1775 at Dijon, at Versailles, at St. Germain, at
Pontoise and at Paris, in 1772 at Poitiers, in 1785 at Aix in Provence,
in 1788 and 1789 in Paris and throughout France, similar eruptions are
visible.[5114]--Undoubtedly the government under Louis XVI is milder;
the intendants are more humane, the administration is less rigid, the
taille becomes less unequal, and the corvee is less onerous through its
transformation, in short, misery has diminished, and yet this is greater
than human nature can bear.

Examine administrative correspondence for the last thirty years
preceding the Revolution. Countless statements reveal excessive
suffering, even when not terminating in fury. Life to a man of the lower
class, to an artisan, or workman, subsisting on the labor of his own
hands, is evidently precarious; he obtains simply enough to keep him
from starvation and he does not always get that[5115]. Here, in four
districts, "the inhabitants live only on buckwheat," and for five years,
the apple crop having failed, they drink only water. There, in a country
of