nherent Rights of Man. Never was any country in
the world in less danger of being trampled under foot by 'tyrants and
oppressors' than was France in 1789, when of a sudden, all over the
kingdom, the peasants, who were about to be liberated and crowned with
flowers, rose like wolves upon the landholders who were to liberate and
to crown them--burst by night into defenceless chateaux, dragged tender
women and young children out of their beds, and drove them out into the
world penniless and to starve, demolished all the valuables they could
not carry away, wrecked the buildings, burned the pictures, the works of
art, and the libraries.

The 'Terror' of 1793 at Paris was black and vile enough. But the Terror
of 1789 in the provinces was blacker and more vile. Arthur Young met on
the highway seigneurs flying from their homes half-naked, with their
families, in the vain hope of finding shelter in the nearest town. At
Montcuq, in what is now the Department of the Lot, the peasants broke
into the chateau of the Marquise de Fondani, and carried off all the
grain, all the beds, a hundred and twenty sheets, forty-two dozen
towels, fifty-four tablecloths, two hundred and forty chemises, eleven
silk dresses, twelve dresses of Indian muslin, thirty-two pairs of silk
stockings, five fine Aubusson tapestries. The plundered mistress of the
house was driven out, to live on the charity of her friends. Her aunt,
aged ninety-four years, was thrown upon a dunghill, where she died
gazing on the peasants whom she had cared for and treated with kindness
for years, as they divided among themselves her house-linen, her
furniture, her plate, her porcelains, the very doors and windows of her
home. All this was in the summer of 1789, long before a German trumpet
sounded to arms on the French frontier. And all this went on throughout
the glorious year 1789 all over France. At Mamers, on the Dive, in
Brittany, in July 1789, while the Gardes-Francaises were dishonouring
the uniform they wore and disgracing the name of France by joining in
the cowardly attack of a howling mob on the Bastille, and protecting the
ruffians who butchered the unfortunate De Launay, the estimable peasants
of that place seized two ladies, Madame de Barneval and Madame des
Malets, and beat their teeth to pieces with stones like so many Comanche
savages.

The people of the city of Le Mans at the same time beat to death M. de
Guilly, burned alive the aged Comte de Falconniere, b