t what Nature
gives her wild children of the desert: Ferocity and Appetite; Strength
grounded on Hunger. Did ye mark among your Rights of Man, that man was
not to die of starvation, while there was bread reaped by him? It is
among the Mights of Man.

Seventy-two Chateaus have flamed aloft in the Maconnais and Beaujolais
alone: this seems the centre of the conflagration; but it has spread
over Dauphine, Alsace, the Lyonnais; the whole South-East is in a blaze.
All over the North, from Rouen to Metz, disorder is abroad: smugglers
of salt go openly in armed bands: the barriers of towns are burnt;
toll-gatherers, tax-gatherers, official persons put to flight. 'It was
thought,' says Young, 'the people, from hunger, would revolt;' and we
see they have done it. Desperate Lackalls, long prowling aimless, now
finding hope in desperation itself, everywhere form a nucleus. They ring
the Church bell by way of tocsin: and the Parish turns out to the work.
(See Hist. Parl. ii. 243-6.) Ferocity, atrocity; hunger and revenge:
such work as we can imagine!

Ill stands it now with the Seigneur, who, for example, 'has walled up
the only Fountain of the Township;' who has ridden high on his chartier
and parchments; who has preserved Game not wisely but too well. Churches
also, and Canonries, are sacked, without mercy; which have shorn the
flock too close, forgetting to feed it. Wo to the land over which
Sansculottism, in its day of vengeance, tramps roughshod,--shod in
sabots! Highbred Seigneurs, with their delicate women and little ones,
had to 'fly half-naked,' under cloud of night; glad to escape the
flames, and even worse. You meet them at the tables-d'hote of inns;
making wise reflections or foolish that 'rank is destroyed;' uncertain
whither they shall now wend. (See Young, i. 149, &c.) The metayer will
find it convenient to be slack in paying rent. As for the Tax-gatherer,
he, long hunting as a biped of prey, may now get hunted as one; his
Majesty's Exchequer will not 'fill up the Deficit,' this season: it is
the notion of many that a Patriot Majesty, being the Restorer of French
Liberty, has abolished most taxes, though, for their private ends, some
men make a secret of it.

Where this will end? In the Abyss, one may prophecy; whither all
Delusions are, at all moments, travelling; where this Delusion has now
arrived. For if there be a Faith, from of old, it is this, as we often
repeat, that no Lie can live for ever. The very Trut