Chapter II: Sovereignty of Unrestrained Passions (3)

After such successes, the extension of the revolt is inevitable; and at the end of some weeks and months it becomes permanent in the three neighboring departments.--In Creuse,[3274] the judges are threatened with death if they order the payment of seignorial dues, and the same fate awaits all proprietors who claim their rents. In many places, and especially in the mountains, the peasants, "considering that they form the nation, and that clerical possessions are national," want to have these divided amongst themselves, instead of their being sold. Fifty parishes around La Souterraine receive incendiary letters inviting them to come in arms to the town, in order to secure by force, and by staking their lives, the production of all titles to rentals. The peasants, in a circle of eight leagues, are all stirred up by the sound of the tocsin, and preceded by the municipal officers in their scarves; there are four thousand of them, and they drag with them a wagon full of arms: this is for the revision and re-constitution of the ownership of the soil.--In Dordogne,[3275] self-appointed arbitrators interpose imperiously between the proprietor and the small farmer, at the time of harvest, to prevent the proprietor from claiming, and the farmer from paying, the tithes or the réve;[3276] any agreement to this end is forbidden; whoever shall transgress the new order of things, proprietor or farmer, shall be hung. Accordingly, the rural militia in the districts of Bergerac, Excideuil, Ribérac, Mucidan, Montignac, and Perigueux, led by the municipal officers, go from commune to commune in order to force the proprietors to sign an act of withdrawal; and these visits "are always accompanied with robberies, outrages, and ill-treatment from which there is no escape but in absolute submission." Moreover, "they demand the abolition of every species of tax and the partition of the soil. "--It is impossible for "proprietors moderately rich" to remain in the country; on all sides they take refuge in Perigueux, and there, organizing in companies, along with the gendarmerie and the National Guard of the town, overrun the cantons to restore order. But there is no way of persuading the peasantry that it is order which they wish to restore. With that stubbornness of the imagination which no obstacle arrests, and which, like a vigorous spring, always finds some outlet, the people declare that "the gendarmes and National Guard" who come to restrain them "are priests and gentlemen in disguise."--The new theories, moreover, have struck down to the lowest depths; and nothing is easier than to draw from them the abolition of debts, and even the agrarian law. At Ribérac, which is invaded by the people of the neighboring parishes, a village tailor, taking the catechism of the Constitution from his pocket, argues with the procureur-syndic, and proves to him that the insurgents are only exercising the rights of man. The book states, in the first place, "that Frenchmen are equals and brethren, and that they should give each other aid;" and that "the masters should share with their fellows, especially this year, which is one of scarcity." In the next place, it is written that "all property belongs to the nation," and that is the reason why "it has taken the possessions of the Church." Now, all Frenchmen compose the nation, and the conclusion is clearly apparent. Since, in the eyes of the tailor, the property of individual Frenchmen belongs to all the French, he, the tailor, has a right to at least the quota which belongs to him.--One travels fast and far on this downhill road, for every mob considers that this means immediate enjoyment, and enjoyment according to its own ideas. There is no care for neighbors or for consequences, even when imminent and physical, and in twenty places the confiscated property perishes in the hands of the usurpers.

This voluntary destruction of property can be best observed in the third department, that of Corrèze.[3277] Not only have the peasants here refused to pay rents from the beginning of the Revolution; not only have they "planted maypoles, supplied with iron hooks, to hang the first one that dared to claim or to pay them;" not only are violent acts of every description committed "by entire communes," "the National Guards of the small communes participating in them;" not only do the culprits, whose arrest is ordered, remain at liberty, while "nothing is spoken of but the hanging of the constables who serve writs," but farther, together with the ownership of the water-sources, the power of collecting, directing, and distributing the water is overthrown, and, in a country of in a country of steep slopes, the consequences of such an operation may be imagined. Three leagues from Tulle, in a forming a semi-circle, a pond twenty feet in depth, and covering an area of three hundred acres, was enclosed by a broad embankment on the side of a very deep gorge, which was completely covered with houses, mills, and cultivation. On the 17th of April, 1791, a troop of five hundred armed men assembled by the beat of a drum, and collected from three villages in the vicinity, set themselves to demolish the dike. The proprietor, M. de Sedières, a substitute-deputy in the National Assembly, is not advised of it until eleven o'clock in the evening. Mounting his horse, along with his guests and domestics, he makes a charge on the insane wretches, and, with the aid of pistol and gun shots, disperses them. It was time, for the trench they had dug was already eight feet deep, and the water was nearly on a level with it: a half-hour later and the terrible rolling mass of waters would have poured out on the inhabitants of the gorge.--But such vigorous strokes, which are rare and hardly ever successful, are no defense against universal and continuous attacks. The regular troops and the gendarmerie, both of which are in the way of reorganization or of dissolution, are not trustworthy, or are too weak. There are no more than thirty of the cavalry in Creuse, and as many in Corrèze. The National Guards of the towns are knocked up by expeditions into the country, and there is no money with which to provide for their change of quarters. And finally, as the elections are in the hands of the people, this brings into power men disposed to tolerate popular excesses. At Tulle, the electors of the second class, almost all chosen from among the cultivators, and, moreover, catechized by the club, nominate for deputies and public prosecutor only the candidates who are pledged against rentals and against water privileges.--Accordingly, the general demolition of the dikes begins as the month of May approaches. This operation continues unopposed on a vast pond, a league and a half from the town, and lasts for a whole week; elsewhere, on the arrival of the guards or of the gendarmerie, they are fired upon. Towards the end of September, all the embankments in the department are broken down: nothing is left in the place of the ponds but fetid marshes; the mill-wheels no longer turn, and the fields are no longer watered. But those who demolish them carry away baskets full of fish, and the soil of the ponds again becomes communal.--Hatred is not the motive which impels them, but the instinct of acquisition: all these violent outstretched hands, which rigidly resist the law, are directed against property, but not against the proprietor; they are more greedy than hostile. One of the noblemen of Corrèze,[3278] M. de Saint-Victour, has been absent for five years. From the beginning of the Revolution, although his feudal dues constitute one-half of the income of his estate, he has given orders that no rigorous measures shall be employed in their collection, and the result is that, since 1789, none of them were collected. Moreover, having a reserve stock of wheat on hand, he lent grain, to the amount of four thousand francs, to those of his tenants who had none. In short, he is liberal, and, in the neighboring town, at Ussel, he even passes for a Jacobin. In spite of all this, he is treated just like the rest. It is because the parishes in his domain are "clubbist," governed by associations of moral and practical levelers; in one of them "the brigands have organized themselves into a municipal body," and have chosen their leader as procureur-syndic. Consequently, on the 22nd of August, eighty armed peasants opened the dam of his large pond, at the risk of submerging a village in the neighborhood, the inhabitants of which came and closed it up. Five other ponds belonging to him are demolished in the course of the two following weeks; fish to the value of from four to five thousand francs are stolen, and the rest perish in the weeds. In order to make this expropriation sure, an effort is made to burn his title-deeds; his chateau, twice attacked in the night, is saved only by the National Guard of Ussel. His farmers and domestics hesitate, for the time being, whether or not to cultivate the ground, and come and ask the steward if they could sow the seeds. There is no recourse to the proper authorities: the administrators and judges, even when their own property is concerned, "dare not openly show themselves," because "they do not find themselves protected by the shield of the law. "--Popular will, traversing both the old and the new law, obstinately persists in its work, and forcibly attains its ends. Thus, whatever the grand terms of liberty, equality, and fraternity may be, with which the Revolution graces itself, it is, in its essence, a transfer of property; in this alone consists its chief support, its enduring energy, its primary impulse and its historical significance.--Formerly, in antiquity, similar movements were accomplished, debts were abolished or lessened, the possessions of the rich were confiscated, and the public lands were divided; but this operation was confined to a city and limited to a small territory. For the first time it takes place on a large scale and in a modern State.--Thus far, in these vast States, when the deeper foundations have been disturbed, it has ever been on account of foreign domination or on account of an oppression of conscience. In France in the fifteenth century, in Holland in the sixteenth and in England in the seventeenth century, the peasant, the mechanic, and the laborer had taken up arms against an enemy or in behalf of their faith. On religious or patriotic zeal has followed the craving for prosperity and comfort, and the new motive is as powerful as the others; for in our industrial, democratic, and utilitarian societies it is this which governs almost all lives, and excites almost all efforts. Kept down for centuries, the passion recovers itself by throwing off government and privilege, the two great weights which have borne it down. At the present time this passion launches itself impetuously with its whole force, with brutal insensibility, athwart every kind of proprietorship that is legal and legitimate, whether it be public or private. The obstacles it encounters only render it the more destructive, beyond property it attacks proprietors, and completes plunder with proscriptions.

*****

[Footnote 3201: The expression is that of Jean Bon Saint-André to Mathieu Dumas, sent to re-establish tranquillity in Montauban (1790): "The day of vengeance, which we have been awaiting for a hundred years, has come!"]

[Footnote 3202: De Dampmartin, I. 187 (an eye-witness).]

[Footnote 3203: "Archives Nationales," F7, 3223 and 3216. Letters of M. de Bouzols, major general, residing at Montpellier, May 21, 25, 28, 1790.]

[Footnote 3204: Mary Lafon, "Histoire d'une Ville Protestante ".(with original documents derived from the archives of Montauban).]

[Footnote 3205: Archives Nationales," F7, 2216. Procés-verbal of the Municipality of Nîmes and report of the Abbé de Belmont.--Report of the Administrative commissioners, June 28, 1790.--Petition of the Catholics, April 20.--Letters of the Municipality, the commissioners, and M. de Nausel, on the events of May 2 and 3.--Letter of M. Rabaut Saint-Etienne, May 12--Petition of the widow Gas, July 30.--Report (printed) of M. Alquier, February 19, 1791.--Memoir (printed) of the massacre of the Catholics at Nîmes, by Froment (1790).--New address of the Municipality of Nîmes, presented by M. de Marguerite, mayor and deputy (1790), printed. Mercure de France, February 23, 1791.]

[Footnote 3206: The petition is signed by 3,127 persons, besides 1560 who put a cross declaring that they could not write. The counter-petition of the club is signed by 262 persons.]

[Footnote 3207: This last item, stated in M. Alquier's report, is denied by the municipality. According to it, the red rosettes gathered around the bishop's quarters had no guns.]

[Footnote 3208: An insurrection in the sixteenth century, when the Protestants fired on the Catholics on St. Michael's Day.--320TR.]

[Footnote 3209: "Archives Nationales," F7, 3216. Letter of M. de Lespin, Major at Nîmes, to the commandant of Provence, M de Perigord, July 27, 1790: "The plots and conspiracies which were attributed to the vanquished party, and which, it was believed, would be discovered in the depositions of the four hundred men in prison, vanish as the proceedings advance. The veritable culprits are to be found among the informers."]

[Footnote 3210: Buchez and Roux, III. 240 (Memorandum of the Ministers, October 28, 1789).--"Archives Nationales," D, XXIX. 3. Deliberation of the Municipal council of Vernon (November 4, 1789)]

[Footnote 3211: "Archives Nationales," KK, 1105. correspondence of M. de Thiard, November 4, 1789.--See similar occurrences, September 4, October 23, November 4 and 19, 1789, January 27 and March 27, 1790]

[Footnote 3212: "Archives Nationales," F7, 3257. Letter from Gex, May 29, 1790.--Buchez and Roux, VII. 198, 369 (September, October, 1790).]

[Footnote 3213: "Archives Nationales," H. 1453. correspondence of M. de Bercheny, Commandant of the four central provinces. Letters of May 25, June 11, 19, and 27, 1790.--" Archives Nationales," D. XXIX. 4. Deliberations of the district administrators of Bourbon-Lancy, May 26.]

[Footnote 3214: "Archives Nationales," H. 2453. Minutes of the meeting of a dozen parishes in Nivernais, June 4. "White bread is to be 2 sous, and brown bread 11/2 sous. Husbandmen are to have 30 sous, reapers 10 sous, wheelwrights 10 sous, bailiffs 6 sous per league. Butter is to be at 8 sous, meat at 5 sous, pork at 8 sous, oil at 8 sous the pint, a square foot of masonry-work 40 sous, a pair of large sabots 3 sous. All rights of pasturage and of forests are to be surrendered. The roads are to be free everywhere, as formerly. All seignorial rents are to be suppressed. Millers are to take only one thirty-second of a bushel. The seigneurs of our department are to give up all servile holidays and ill-acquired property. The curé of Bièze is simply to say mass at nine o'clock in the morning and vespers at two o'clock in the afternoon, in summer and winter; he must marry and bury gratis, it being reserved to us to pay him a salary. He is to be paid 6 sous for masses, and not to leave his curé except to repeat his breviary and make proper calls on the men and women of his parish. Hats must be had from 3 livres to 30 sous. Nails 3 livres the gross. Curés are to have none but circumspect females of fifty for domestics. Curés are not to go to either fairs or markets. All curés are to be on the same footing as the one at Bièze. There must be no more wholesale dealers in wheat. Law officers who make unjust seizures must return the money. Farm leases must expire on St. Martin's Day. M. le Comte, although not there, M. de Tontenelle, and M. de Commandant must sign this document without difficulty. M. de Mingot is formally to resign his place in writing: he went away with his servant-woman--he even missed his mass on the first Friday of the Fête-Dieu, and it is supposed that he slept in the woods. Joiners' wages shall be fixed at the same rate as wheelwrights'. Ox-straps are not to cost over 40 sous, yokes 10 sous. Masters must pay one-half of the tailles. Notaries are to take only the half of what they had formerly, as well as comptrollers. The Commune claims the right of protest against whatever it may have forgotten in the present article, in fact or in law." (It is signed by about twenty persons, several of them being mayors and municipal clerks.)]

[Footnote 3215: "Archives Nationales," H. 1453. The same correspondence, May 29, June 11 and 17, September 15, 1790.--ibid, F7, 3257. Letter of the municipal authorities of Marsigny, May 3; of the municipal officers of Bourbon-Lancy, June 5. Extract from letters written to M. Amelot, June 1st.]

[Footnote 3216: "Archives Nationales," F7, 3185, 3186. Letter of the President of the Tribunal of the district of Laon, February 8, 1792.]

[Footnote 3217: "Archives Nationales F7, 3268. Procés-verbal and observations of the two commissioners sent to Étampes September 22-25, 1791.]

[Footnote 3218: "Archives Nationales F7, 3265. The following document, among many others, shows the expedients and conceptions of the popular imagination. Petition of several inhabitants of the commune of Forges (Seine Inférieure) "to the good and incorruptible Minister of the Interior" (October 16, 1792). After three good crops in succession, the famine still continues. Under the ancient régime wheat was superabundant; hogs were fed with it, and calves were fattened with bread. It is certain, therefore, that wheat is diverted by monopolists and the enemies of the new regime. The farms are too large; let them he divided. There is too much pasture-ground: sow it with wheat. Compel each farmer and land-owner to give a statement of his crop: let the quantity be published at the church service, and in case of falsehood let the man be put to death or imprisoned, and his grain he confiscated. Oblige all the cultivators of the neighborhood to sell their wheat at Forges only, etc."]

[Footnote 3219: "Archives Nationales," F7, 3268. Report of the commissioners sent by the department, March 11, 1792 (apropos of the insurrection of March 4).--Mortimer-Ternaux, I. 381.]

[Footnote 3220: "Archives Nationales," F7, 3268. Letters of several mayors, district administrators, cultivators of Velizy, Villacoublay, La celle-Saint-Cloud, Montigny, etc. November 12, 1791.--Letter of M. de Narbonne, January 13, 1792; of M. Sureau, justice of the peace in the canton of Étampes, September 17, 1791.--Letter of Bruyères-le-Châtel, January 28, 1792.]

[Footnote 3221: A term applied to brigands at this epoch who demand money and objects of value, and force their delivery by exposing the soles of the feet of their victims to a fire.--32TR.]

[Footnote 3222: "Archives Nationales," F7, 3203. Letter of the Directory of Cher, August 25, 1791.--F7, 3240. Letter of the Directory of Haute Marne, November 6, 1791.--F7, 3248. Minutes of the meeting of the members of the department of the Nord, March 18, 1791.--F7, 3250. Minutes of the meeting of the municipal officers of Montreuil-sur-Mer, October 16, 1791.--F7, 3265. Letter of the Directory of Seine Infereure, July 22, 1791.--D, XXIX. 4. Remonstrances of the municipalities assembled at Tostes, July 21, 1791.--Petition, of the municipal officers of the districts of Dieppe, Cany, and Caudebec, July 22, 1791.]

[Footnote 3223: "Archives Nationales," F7, 3268 and 3269, passim.]

[Footnote 3224: "Archives Nationales," F7, 3268 and 3269, passim. Deliberations of the Directory of Seine-et-Oise, September 20, 1791 (apropos of the insurrection. September 16, at Étampes).--Letter of Charpentier, president of the district, September 19.--Report of the Department Commissioners, March 11, 1792 (on the insurrection at Brunoy, March 4.)--Report of the Department Commissioners, March 4, 1792 (on the insurrection at Montlhéry, February 13 to 20).--Deliberation of the Directory of Seine-et-Oise, September 16, 1791 (on the insurrection at Corbeil).--Letters of the mayors of Limours, Lonjumeau, etc.]

[Footnote 3225: "Archives Nationales," F7, 3268 and 3269, passim.--Minutes of the meeting of the Municipality of Montlhéry, February 28, 1792: "We cannot enter into fuller details without exposing ourselves to extremities which would be only disastrous to us."--Letter of the justice of the peace of the canton, February 25: "Public outcry teaches me that if I issue writs of arrest against those who massacred Thibault, the people would rise."]

[Footnote 3226: "Archives Nationales," F7, 3268 and 3269, passim. Reports of the gendarmerie, February 24, 1792, and the following days.--Letter of the sergeant of Limours, March 2; of the manager of the farm of Plessis-le-Comte, February 23.]

[Footnote 3227: "Archives Nationales," F7, 3268 and 3269, passim.--Memorandum to the National Assembly by the citizens of Rambouillet, September 17, 1792.]

[Footnote 3228: "Archives Nationales," F7 3268 and 3269, Passim. Minutes of the meeting of the Municipality of Montlhéry, February 27, 1792.--Buchez and Roux, XIII. 421, (March, 1792); and XIII., 317.--Mercure de France, February 25, 1792. (Letters of M. Dauchy, President of the Directory of the Department; of M. de Gouy, messenger sent by the minister, etc.)--Moniteur, sitting of February 15, 1792.]

[Footnote 3229: Decree of September 3, 1792.]

[Footnote 3230: "Archives Nationales," F7, 3268 and 3269. Petition of the citizens of Montfort-l'Amaury, Saint-Léger, Gros-Rouvre, Gelin, Laqueue, and Méré, to the citizens of Rambouillet.]

[Footnote 3231: "Archives Nationales," F7, 3230. Letter of an administrator of the district of Vendôme, with the deliberation of the commune of Vendôme, November 24, 1792.]

[Footnote 3232: "Archives Nationales," F7, 3255. Letter of the administrators of the Department of Seine-Inférieure, Octobers 23, 1792.--Letters of the Special Committee of Rouen, October 22 and 23, 1792: "The more the zeal and patriotism of the cultivators is stimulated, the more do they seem determined to avoid the market-places, which are always in a State of absolute destitution."]

[Footnote 3233: "Archives Nationales," F7, 3265. Letter of David, a cultivator, October 20, 1792.--Letter of the Department Administrators, October 13, 1792, etc.--Letter (printed) of the minister to the convention, November 4.--Proclamation of the Provisional Executive council, October 31, 1792. (The setier of grain of two hundred and forty pounds is sold at 60 francs in the south, and at half that sum in the north.)]

[Footnote 3234: "Archives Nationales," F7, 3255. Letters of Bonnemant, September 11, 1792; of Laussel, September 22, 1792.]

[Footnote 3235: "Archives Nationales," H, 1453. Correspondence of M. de Bercheny, July 28, October 24 and 26, 1790.--The same disposition lasted. An insurrection occurred in Issoudun after the three days of July, 1830, against the combined imposts. Seven or eight thousand wine growers burnt the archives and tax-offices and dragged an employee through the streets, shouting out at each street-lamp, "Let him be hung!" The general sent to repress the outbreak entered the town only through a capitulation; the moment he reached the Hôtel-de-Ville a man of the Faubourg de Rome put his pruning-book around his neck, exclaiming, "No more clerks where there is nothing to do!"]

[Footnote 3236: "Archives Nationales," F7, 3203. Letter of the Directory of Cher, April 9, 1790.--Ibid, F7, 3255. Letter of August 4, 1790. Verdict of the présidial, November 4, 1790.--Letter of the Municipality of Saint-Etienne, August 5, 1790.]

[Footnote 3237: "Archives Nationales," F7, 3248. Letter of M. Sénac de Mejlhan, April 10, 1790.--Letter of the grands baillis, June 30, 1790.]

[Footnote 3238: Buchez and Roux, VI. 403. Report of Chabroud on the insurrection at Lyons, July 9 and 10, 1790.--Duvergier, "Collection des Décrets." Decrees of August 4 and 15, 1790.]

[Footnote 3239: "Archives Nationales," F7, 3255. Letter of the Minister, July 2, 1790, to the Directory of Rhône-et-Loire. "The King is informed that, throughout your department, and especially in the districts of Saint-Etienne and Montbrison, license is carried to the extreme; that the judges dare not prosecute; that in many places the municipal officers are at the head of the disturbances; and that, in others, the National Guard do not obey requisitions."--Letter of September 5, 1790. "In the bourg of Thisy, brigands have invaded divers cotton-spinning establishments and partially destroyed them and after having plundered them, they have sold the goods by public auction."]

[Footnote 3240: Buchez and Roux, VI. 345. Report of M. Muguet, July 1, 1790.]

[Footnote 3241: Minutes of the meeting of the National Assembly. (Sitting of October 24, 1789.)--Decree of September 27, 1789, applicable the 1st of October. There are other alleviations applicable on the 1st of January, 1790.]

[Footnote 3242: Mercure de France, February 27, 1790. (Memorandum of the garde des sceaux, January 16.)--Observations of M. Necker on the report made by the Financial committee, at the sitting of March 12, 1790.]

[Footnote 3243: "Archives Nationales," H, 1453. Correspondence of M. de Bercheny, April 24, May 4 and 6, 1790: "It is much to be feared that the tobacco-tax will share the fate of the salt-tax."]

[Footnote 3244: Mercure de France, July 31, 1790 (sitting of July 10.) M. Lambert, Comptroller General of the Finances, informs the Assembly of "the obstacles which continual outbreaks, brigandage, and the maxims of anarchical freedom impose, from one end of France to the other, on the collection of the taxes. On one side, the people are led to believe that, if they stubbornly refuse a tax contrary to their rights, it abolition will be secured. Elsewhere, smuggling is openly carried on by force; the people favor it, while the National Guards refuse to act against the nation. In other places hatred is excited, and divisions between the troops and the overseers at the toll-houses: the latter are massacred, the bureaus are pillaged, and the prisons are forced open."--Memorandum from M. Necker to the National Assembly, July 21, 1790.]

[Footnote 3245: Decrees of March 21 and 22, 1790, applicable April 21 following.--Decrees of February 19 and March 2, 1791, applicable May 1 following.]

[Footnote 3246: De Goncourt, "La Societé Française pendant la Révolution," 204.--Maxime Du Camp, "Paris, sa vie et ses organes," VI. 11.]

[Footnote 3247: "Compte des Revenus et Dépenses au 1er Mai, 1789."--Memorandum of M. Necker, July 21, 1790.--Memoranda presented by M. de Montesquiou, September 9, 1791.--Comptes-rendus by the minister, Clavières, October 5, 1792, February 1, 1792.--Report of Cambon, February, 1793.]

[Footnote 3248: Boivin-Champeaux, 231.]

[Footnote 3249: Mercure de France, May 28, 1791. (Sitting of May 22.)--Speech of M. d'Allarde: "Burgundy has paid nothing belonging to 1790."]

[Footnote 3250: Moniteur, sitting of June 1, 1790. Speech by M. Freteau.--Mercure de France. November 26, 1791. Report by Lafont-Ladebat.]

[Footnote 3251: "Archives Nationales," H, 2453. correspondence of M. de Bercheny, June 5, 1790, etc.--F7, 3226. Letters of Chenantin, cultivator, November 7, 1792, also of the prosecuting attorney, November 6.--F7, 3269. Minutes of the meeting of the municipality of Clugnac, August 5th, 1792.--F7, 3202. Letter of the Minister of Justice, Duport, January 3, 1792. "The utter absence of public force in the district of Montargis renders every operation of the Government and all execution of the laws impossible. The arrears of taxes to be collected is here very considerable, while all proceedings of constraint are dangerous and impossible to execute, owing to the fears of the bailiffs, who dare not perform their duties, and the violence of the tax-payers, on whom there is no check."]

[Footnote 3252: Report of the Committee on Finances, by Ramel, 19th Floréal, year II (The Constituent Assembly had fixed the real tax of a house at one-sixth of its letting value.)]

[Footnote 3253: Mercure de France, December 12, 1789.--"Archives Nationales," F7, 3268. Memorandum from the officers in command of the detachment of the Paris National Guard stationed at Conflans-Sainte-Honorine (April, 1790). Certificate of the Municipal Officers of Poissy, March 31.]

[Footnote 3254: Mercure de France, March 12 and 26, 1791.--"Archives Nationales," H, 1453. Letter of the police-lieutenant of Blois, April 22, 1790.--Mercure de France, July 24, 1790. Two of the murderers exclaimed to those who tried to save one of the keepers, "Hanging is well done at Paris! Bah, you are aristocrats! We shall be talked about in the gazettes of Paris." (Deposition of witnesses.)--Decrees and proclamations regarding the protection of the forests, November 3 and December 11, 1789.--Another in October, 1790.--Another June 29, 1791.]

[Footnote 3255: "Archives Nationales," F7, 3219. Letter of the bailli de Virieu, January 26, 1792.]

[Footnote 3256: Mercure de France, December 3, 1791. (Letter from Sarreluis, November 15, 1791.)--"Archives Nationales," F7, 3223. Letter of the Municipal Officers of Montargis. January 8, 1792.]

[Footnote 3257: "Archives Nationales," F7, 3268. Letter of the overseer of the national domains at Rambouillet, October 31, 1792.--Report of the minister Clavières, February 1. 1793.]

[Footnote 3258: Decrees of August 14, 1792, June 10, 1793.--"Archives Nationales," Missions des Représentants, D, § 7. (Deliberation of the district of Troyes, 2 Ventose, an. III.)--At Thunelières, the drawing took place on the 10th Fructidor, year II, and was done over again in behalf of a servant of Billy, an influential municipal officer who "was the soul of his colleagues."--Ibid. Abstract of operations in the district of Arcis-sur-Aube, 30 Pluviose, year III. "Two-thirds of the communes hold this kind of property. Most of them have voted on and effected the partition, or are actually engaged on it."]

[Footnote 3259: Mercure de France, January 7, 1790. (Chateau of Auxon in Haute-Saone.)--"Archives Nationales," F7, 3255. (Letter of the minister to the Directory of Rhone-et-Loire, July 2, 1790.)--Mercure de France, July 17, 1790. (Report of M. de Broglie, July 13, and decree of July 13-18.)--"Archives Nationales," H, 1453. (Correspondence of M. de Bercheny, July 21, 1790.)]

[Footnote 3260: Mercure de France, March 19, 1790. Letter from Amien, February 28. (Mallet du Pan publishes in the Mercure only letters which are signed and authentic.)]

[Footnote 3261: "Archives Nationales," KK, 1105. (Correspondence of M. de Thiard; letters of Chevalier de Bévy, December 26, 1789, and others up to April 5, 1790.)--Moniteur, sitting of February 9, 1790.--Mercure de France, February 6 and March 6, 1790 (list of chateaux).]

[Footnote 3262: "Archives Nationales," KK, 1105. (correspondence of M. de Thiard.) Letters of the Mayor of Nantes, February 16,!790, of the Municipality of Redon, February 19, etc.]

[Footnote 3263: Mercure de France, February 6 and 27, 1790. (Speech of M. de Foucault, sittings of February 2 and 5)--Moniteur (same dates). (Report of Grégoire, February 9; speeches by MM. Sallé de Chaux and de Noailles, February 9.)--Memorandum of the deputies of the town of Tulle, drawn up by the Abbé Morellet (from the deliberations and addresses of eighty-three boroughs and cities in the province).]

[Footnote 3264: In allusion to the feudal custom of paying seignorial dues on the first of May around a maypole. See further on. 32TR]

[Footnote 3265: Criminal Courts without appeal.--32TR.]

[Footnote 3266: Moniteur, sitting of March 4, 1790.--Duvergier, decrees of March 6, 1790, and August 6-10 1790]

[Footnote 3267: The address is dated February 11, 1793. This singularly comic document would alone suffice to make the history of the Revolution perfectly comprehensible.]

[Footnote 3268: "Archives Nationales," F7, 3203. (Letters of the royal commissioner, April 30 and May 9, 1790.)--Letter of the Duc de Maillé, May 6.--Report from the administrators of the department, November 12, 1790.--Moniteur VI. 515.]

[Footnote 3269: "Archives Nationales," F7, 3225. Letter of the Directory from Ille-et-Vilaine, January 30, 1791, and letter from Dinan, January 29--Mercure de France, April 2 and 16, 1791. Letters from Rennes, March 20th; from Redon, March 12.]

[Footnote 3270: So expressed in the minutes of the meeting.]

[Footnote 3271: Moniteur, sitting of December 15, 1790. (Address of the department of Lot, December 7.)--Sitting of December 20 (Speech by M. de Foucault.)--Mercure de France, December 18, 1790. (Letter from Belves, in Perigord, December 7.)--Ibid., January 22, 29, 1791. (Letter from M. de Clarac, January 18.)]

[Footnote 3272: December 17, 1790.]

[Footnote 3273: January 7, 1791.]

[Footnote 3274: Revolutionary archives of the department of Creuse, by Duval. (Letter of the administrators of the department, March 31, 1791.)--"Archives Nationales," F7, 3209. (Deliberation of the Directory of the Department, May 12, 1791--Minutes of the meeting of the municipality of La Souterraine, August 23, 1791.)]

[Footnote 3275: "Archives Nationales", F7, 3269.--Order of the directory of the district of Ribérac, August 5, 1791, and requisitions of the prosecuting attorney of the department, August 24, and September 11.--Letter of the king's commissioner, August 22.]

[Footnote 3276: A sort of export duty.--32TR.]

[Footnote 3277: "Archives Nationales," P7, 3204.--Letter, from the Directory of the Department, June 2, 1791; September 8 and 22.--Letter from the Minister of Justice, May 15, 1791.--Letter from M. de Lentilhac, September 2.--Letter from M. Melon-Padon, Royal Commissioner, September.--Mercure de France, May 14, 1791. (Letter of an eye-witness, M.de Loyac, April 25, 1791.)]

[Footnote 3278: "Archives Nationales," F7. 3204. Letters from M. de Saint-Victour, September 25, October 2 and 10, 1791.--Letter from the steward of his estate, September 18.]