r the cardinal
demands the infliction of the death penalty on all Protestant preachers.

The period has become one of spiritual and moral bankruptcy. The Bible
has been suppressed and blind human reason has been exalted. There is no
bond of morality to hold the people together. Men become slaves of their
lusts and appetites, and society, a mass of sensuality, rascality and
falsehood. Infidelity, despotism and general bankruptcy prevail every
where. There is no royal authority and the palace of justice at
Versailles is closed.

The poverty and misery, experienced by the peasants in their comfortless
hovels, awakens a feeling of discontent and protest. This feeling of
protest, among the poor and illiterate, permeates upward and becomes
more intense as it proceeds. In this unorganized protest the hand of one
is arrayed against his fellow man. The common people are arrayed against
the nobles; the nobles, against each other, and both nobles and people
are bitter against the government. Townships are arrayed against
townships and towns against towns. Gibbets are erected everywhere and a
dozen wretched bodies may be seen hanging in a row. The mayor of Vaison
is buried alive; the mayor of Etampes, defending a supply of food, is
trampled to death by a mob exasperated with hunger, and the mayor of
Saint Denis is hung at Lanterne. The ripening grain is left ungathered
in the fields, and the fruit of the vineyards is trodden under foot. The
bloody cruelty of universal madness prevails everywhere.

A frightful hail storm, that destroys the grain and fruits of the year
at the beginning of harvest, is followed by a severe drought in 1788.
Foulon, an official grown gray in treachery and iniquity, when asked,

"What will the people do?" makes response,

"The people may eat grass."

The royal government is now described, as existing only for its own
benefit; without right, except possession; and now also without might.
"It foresees nothing, and has no purpose, except to maintain its own
existence. It is wholly a vortex in which vain counsels, falsehoods,
intrigues and imbecilities whirl like withered rubbish in the meeting of
the winds."

Commerce of all kinds, as far as possible, has come to a dead pause, and
the hand of the industrious is idle. Many of the people subsist on
meal-husks and boiled grass. Armed Brigands begin to make their
appearance and a "reign of terror," is ushered in.

FIRST POPULAR ASSEMBLY

On May 4, 1