Chapter III: I.--Anarchy from July 14th to October 6th, 1789 (2)

These are their very words. In Franche-Comte[1339] the inhabitants of eight communes come and declare to the Bernardins of Grâce-Dieu and of Lieu-Croissant "that, being of the Third-Estate, it is time now for the people to rule over abbots and monks, considering that the domination of the latter has lasted too long," and thereupon they carry off all the titles to property and to rentals belonging to the abbey in their commune. In Upper Dauphiny, during the destruction of M. de Murat's chateau, a man named Ferréol struck the furniture with a big stick, exclaiming, "Hey, so much for you, Murat; you have been master a good while, now it's our turn!"[1340] Those who rifle houses, and steal like highway robbers, think that they are defending a cause, and reply to the challenge, "Who goes there?" "We are for the brigand Third-Estate!"--Everywhere the belief prevails that they are clothed with authority, and they conduct themselves like a conquering horde under the orders of an absent general. At Remiremont and at Luxeuil they produce an edict, stating that "all this brigandage, pillage, and destruction" is permitted. In Dauphiny, the leaders of the bands say that they possess the King's orders. In Auvergne, "they follow imperative orders, being advised that such is his Majesty's will." Nowhere do we see that an insurgent village exercises personal vengeance against its lord. If the people fire on the nobles they encounter, it is not through personal hatred. They are destroying the class, and do not pursue individuals. They detest feudal privileges, holders of charters, the cursed parchments by virtue of which they are made to pay, but not the nobleman who, when he resides at home, is of humane intentions, compassionate, and even often beneficent. At Luxeuil, the abbot, who is forced with uplifted ax to sign a relinquishment of his seignorial rights over twenty-three estates, has dwelt among them for forty-six years, and has been wholly devoted to them.[1341] In the canton of Crémieu, "where the havoc is immense," all the nobles, write the municipal officers, are "patriots and benevolent." In Dauphiny, the engineers, magistrates, and prelates, whose chateaux are sacked, were the first to espouse the cause of the people and of public liberties against the ministers. In Auvergne, the peasants themselves "manifest a good deal of repugnance to act in this way against such kind masters." But it must be done; the only concession which can be made in consideration of the kindness which had been extended to them is, not to burn the chateau of the ladies of Vanes, who had been so charitable; but they burn all their title-deeds, and torture the business agent at three different times by fire, to force him to deliver a document which he does not possess; they then only withdraw him from the fire half-broiled, because the ladies, on their knees, implore mercy for him. They are like the soldiers on a campaign who execute orders with docility, for which necessity is the only plea, and who, without regarding themselves as brigands, commit acts of brigandage.

But here the situation is more tragic, for it is war in the midst of peace, a war of the brutal and barbaric multitude against the highly cultivated, well-disposed and confiding, who had not anticipated anything of the kind, who had not even dreamt of defending themselves, and who had no protection. The Comte de Courtivron, with his family, was staying at the watering-place of Luxeuil with his uncle, the Abbé of Clermont-Tonnerre, an old man of seventy years. On the 19th of July, fifty peasants from Fougerolle break into and demolish everything in the houses of an usher and a collector of the excise. Thereupon the mayor of the place intimates to the nobles and magistrates who are taking the waters, that they had better leave the house in twenty-four hours, as "he had been advised of an intention to burn the houses in which they were staying," and he did not wish to have Luxeuil exposed to this danger on account of their presence there. The following day, the guard, as obliging as the mayor, allows the band to enter the town and to force the abbey: the usual events follow, renunciations are extorted, records and cellars are ransacked, plate and other effects are stolen. M. de Courtivron escaping with his uncle during the night, the alarm bell is sounded and they are pursued, and with difficulty obtain refuge in Plombières. The bourgeoisie of Plombières, however, for fear of compromising themselves, oblige them to depart. On the road two hundred insurgents threaten to kill their horses and to smash their carriage, and they only find safety at last at Porentruy, outside of France. On his return, M. de Courtivron is shot at by the band which has just pillaged the abbey of Lure, and they shout out at him as he passes, "Let's massacre the nobles!" Meanwhile, the chateau of Vauvilliers, to which his sick wife had been carried, is devastated from top to bottom; the mob search for her everywhere, and she only escapes by hiding herself in a hay-loft. Both are anxious to fly into Burgundy, but word is sent them that at Dijon "the nobles are blockaded by the people," and that, in the country, they threaten to set their houses on fire.--There is no asylum to be had, either in their own homes nor in the homes of others, nor in places along the roads, fugitives being stopped in all the small villages and market-towns. In Dauphiny[1342] "the Abbess of St. Pierre de Lyon, one of the nuns, M. de Perrotin, M. de Bellegarde, the Marquis de la Tour-du-Pin, and the Chevalier de Moidieu, are arrested at Champier by the armed population, led to the Côte Saint-André, confined in the town-hall, whence they send to Grenoble for assistance," and, to have them released, the Grenoble Committee is obliged to send commissioners. Their only refuge is in the large cities, where some semblance of a precarious order exists, and in the ranks of the City Guards, which march from Lyons, Dijon, and Grenoble, to keep the inundation down. Throughout the country scattered chateaux are swallowed up by the popular tide, and, as the feudal rights are often in plebeian hands, it insensibly rises beyond its first overflow.--There is no limit to an insurrection against property. This one extends from abbeys and chateaux to the "houses of the bourgeoisie."[1343] The grudge at first was confined to the holders of charters; now it is extended to all who possess anything. Well-to-do farmers and priests abandon their parishes and fly to the towns. Travelers are put to ransom. Thieves, robbers, and returned convicts, at the head of armed bands, seize whatever they can lay their hands on. Cupidity becomes inflamed by such examples; on domains which are deserted and in a state of confusion, where there is nothing to indicate a master's presence, all seems to lapse to the first comer. A small farmer of the neighborhood has carried away wine and returns the following day in search of hay. All the furniture of a chateau in Dauphin is removed, even to the hinges of the doors, by a large reinforcement of carts.--" It is the war of the poor against the rich," says a deputy, "and, on the 3rd of August, the Committee on Reports declares to the National Assembly "that no kind of property has been spared." In Franche-Comté, "nearly forty chateaux and seignorial mansions have been pillaged or burnt."[1344] From Lancers to Gray about three out of five chateaux are sacked. In Dauphin twenty-seven are burned or destroyed; five in the small district of Viennese, and, besides these, all the monasteries--nine at least in Auvergne, seventy-two, it is said, in Mâconnais and Beaujolais, without counting those of Alsace. On the 31st of July, Lally-Tollendal, on entering the tribune, has his hands full of letters of distress, with a list of thirty-six chateaux burnt, demolished, or pillaged, in one province, and the details of still worse violence against persons:[1345]

"in Languedoc, M. de Barras, cut to pieces in the presence of his wife who is about to be confined, and who is dead in consequence; in Normandy, a paralytic gentleman left on a burning pile and taken off from it with his hands burnt; in Franche-Comté, Madame de Bathilly compelled, with an ax over her head, to give up her title-deeds and even her estate; Madame de Listenay forced to do the same, with a pitchfork at her neck and her two daughters in a swoon at her feet; Comte de Montjustin, with his wife, having a pistol at his throat for three hours; and both dragged from their carriage to be thrown into a pond, where they are saved by a passing regiment of soldiers; Baron de Montjustin, one of the twenty-two popular noblemen, suspended for an hour in a well, listening to a discussion whether he shall be dropped down or whether he should die in some other way; the Chevalier d'Ambly, torn from his chateau and dragged naked into the village, placed on a dung-heap after having his eyebrows and all his hair pulled out, while the crowd kept on dancing around him."

In the midst of a disintegrated society, under the semblance only of a government, it is manifest that an invasion is under way, an invasion of barbarians which will complete by terror that which it has begun by violence, and which, like the invasions of the Normans in the tenth and eleventh centuries, ends in the conquest and dispossession of an entire class. In vain the National Guard and the other troops that remain loyal succeed in stemming the first torrent; in vain does the Assembly hollow out a bed for it and strive to bank it in by fixed boundaries. The decrees of the 4th of August and the regulations which follow are but so many spiders' webs stretched across a torrent. The peasants, moreover, putting their own interpretation on the decrees, convert the new laws into authority for continuing in their course or beginning over again. No more rents, however legitimate, however legal!

"Yesterday,"[1346] writes a gentleman of Auvergne, we were notified that the fruit-tithe (percières) would no longer be paid, and that the example of other provinces was only being followed which no longer, even by royal order, pay tithes." In Franche-Comté "numerous communities are satisfied that they no longer owe anything either to the King or to their lords. . . . The villages divide amongst themselves the fields and woods belonging to the nobles."--

It must be noted that charter-holding and feudal titles are still intact in three-fourths of France, that it is the interest of the peasant to ensure their disappearance, and that he is always armed. To secure a new outbreak of jacqueries, it is only necessary that central control, already thrown into disorder, should be withdrawn. This is the work of Versailles and of Paris; and there, at Paris as well as at Versailles, some, through lack of foresight and infatuation, and others, through blindness and indecision--the latter through weakness and the former through violence--all are laboring to accomplish it.

*****

[Footnote 1301: Dusaulx, 374. "I remarked that if there were a few among the people at that time who dared commit crime, there were several who wished it, and that every one endured it."--" Archives Nationales," DXXIX, 3. (Letter of the municipal authorities of Crémieu, Dauphiny, November 3, 1789.) "The care taken to lead them first to the cellars and to intoxicate them, can alone give a conception of the incredible excesses of rage to which they gave themselves up in the sacking and burning of the chateaux."]

[Footnote 1302: Mercure de France, January 4, 1792. ("Revue politique de l'année 1791," by Mallet du Pan.)]

[Footnote 1303: Albert Babeau, I. 206. (Letter of the deputy Camuzet de Belombre, August 22, 1789.) The executive power is absolutely gone to-day."--Gouverneur Morris, letter of July 31, 1789: "This country is now as near in a state of anarchy as it is possible for a community to be without breaking up."]

[Footnote 1304: "Archives Nationales," H. 1453. Letter of M. Amelot, July 24th; H. 784, of M. de Langeron, October 16th and 18th.--KK. 1105. correspondence of M. de Thiard, October 7th and 30th, September 4th.--Floquet, VII. 527, 555.--Guadet, "Histoire des Girondins" (July 29, 1789).]

[Footnote 1305: M. de Rochambeau, "Mémoires," I. 353 (July 18th).--Sauzay, "Histoire de la Persécution Révolutionnaire dans le Département de Doubs," I. 128 (July 19th.)--"Archives Nationales," F7, 3253. (Letter of the deputies of the provincial commission of Alsace, September 8th.) D. XXIX. I. note of M. de Latour-du-Pin, October 28, 1789.--Letter of M. de Langeron, September 3rd; of Breitman, garde-marteau, Val Saint-Amarin (Upper Alsace), July 26th.]

[Footnote 1306: Léonce de Lavergne, 197. (Letter of the intermediate commission of Poitou, the last month in 1789.)--Cf. Brissot (Le patriote français, August, 1789). "General insubordination prevails in the provinces because the restraints of executive power are no longer felt. What were but lately the guarantees of that power? The intendants, tribunals, and the army. The intendants are gone, the tribunals are silent, and the army is against the executive power and on the side of the people. Liberty is not a nourishment for unprepared stomachs."]

[Footnote 1307: "Archives Nationales," D. XXIX. I. (Letter of the clergy, consuls, présidial-councillors and principal merchants of Puy-en-Velay, September 16, 1789.)--H. 1453. (letter of the Intendant or Alençon, July 18th). "I must not leave you in ignorance of the multiplied outbreaks we have in all parts of my jurisdiction. The impunity with which they flatter themselves, because the judges are afraid of irritating the people by examples of severity, only emboldens them. Mischief-makers, confounded with honest folks, spread false reports about particular persons whom they accuse of concealing grain, or of not belonging to the Third-Estate, and, under this pretext, they pillage their houses, taking whatever they can find, the owners only avoiding death by flight."]

[Footnote 1308: A body of magistrates forming one of the lower tribunals.]

[Footnote 1309: "Archives Nationales," H. 942. (Observations of M. de Ballainvilliers, October 30, 1789.)]

[Footnote 1310: "Archives Nationales," D, XXIX. 1. Letter of the municipal assembly of Louviers, the end of August, 1789.--Letter of the communal assembly of Saint-Bris (bailiwick of Auxerre), September 25th.--Letter of the municipal officers of Ricey-Haut, near Bar-sur-Seine, August 25th; of the Chevalier d'Allouville, September 8th.]

[Footnote 1311: "Archives Nationales," D, XXIX. I. Letter of M. Briand-Delessart (Angoulême, August 1st).--Of M. Bret, Lieutenant-General of the provostship of Mardogne, September 5th.--Of the Chevalier de Castellas (Auvergue), September 15th (relating to the night between the 2nd and 3rd of August).--Madame Campan, II. 65.]

[Footnote 1312: Arthur Young, "Voyages in France," July 24th and 31st, August 13th and 19th.]

[Footnote 1313: De Bouillé, 108.--"Archives Nationales," KK. 1105. Correspondence of M. deThiard, September 20, 1789 (apropos of one hundred guns given to the town of Saint-Brieuc). "They are not of the slightest use, but this passion for arms is a temporary epidemic which must be allowed to subside of itself. People are determined to believe in brigands and in enemies, whereas neither exist."--September 25th, "Vanity alone impels them, and the pride of having cannon is their sole motive."]

[Footnote 1314: "Archives Nationales," H. 1453. Letters of M. Amelot, July 17th and 24th. "Several wealthy private persons of the town (Auxonne) have been put to ransom by this band, of which the largest portion consists of ruffians."--Letter of nine cultivators of Breteuil (Picardy) July 23rd (their granaries were pillaged up to the last grain the previous evening). "They threaten to pillage our crops and set our barns on fire as soon as they are full. M. Tassard, the notary, has been visited in his house by the populace, and his life has been threatened." Letter of Moreau, Procureur du Roi at the Senechal's Court at Bar-le-Duc, September 15, 1789, D, XXIX, 1. "On the 27th of July the people rose and most cruelly assassinated a merchant trading in wheat. On the 27th and 28th his house and that of another were sacked," etc.]

[Footnote 1315: Chronicle of Dominick Schmutz ("Revue d'Alsace," V. III. 3rd series). These are his own expressions: Gesindel, Lumpen-gesindel.--De Rochambeau, "Mémoires," I. 353.--Arthur Young (an eye-witness), July 21st.--Of Dampmartin (eye-witness), I. 105. M. de Rochambeau shows the usual indecision and want of vigor: whilst the mob are pillaging houses and throwing things out of the windows, he passes in front of his regiments (8,000 men) drawn up for action, and says, "My friends, my good friends, you see what is going on. How horrible! Alas! these are your papers, your titles and those of your parents." The soldiers smile at this sentimental prattle.]

[Footnote 1316: Dumouriez (an eye-witness), book III. ch. 3.--The trial was begun and judgment given by twelve lawyers and an assessor, whom the people, in arms, had themselves appointed.--Hippeau, IV. 382.]

[Footnote 1317: "Archives Nationales," F7 3248. (Letter of the mayor, M. Poussiaude de Thierri, September 11th.)]

[Footnote 1318: Floquet, VII. 551.]

[Footnote 1319: De Goncourt, "La Société française pendant la Révolution," 37.]

[Footnote 1320: "Archives Nationales," D. XXIX. 1. Letter of the officers of the bailiwick of Dôle, August 24th.--Sauzay I. 128.]

[Footnote 1321: There is a similar occurrence at Strasbourg, a few days after the sacking of the town-hall. The municipality having given each man of the garrison twenty sous, the soldiers abandon their post, set the prisoners free at the Pont-Couvert, feast publicly in the streets with the women taken out of the penitentiary, and force innkeepers and the keepers of drinking-places to give up their provisions. The shops are all closed, and, for twenty-four hours, the officers are not obeyed. (De Dampmartin, I. 105.)]

[Footnote 1322: Albert Babeau, I. 187-273.--Moniteur, II. 379. (Extract from the provost's verdict of November 27, 1789.)]

[Footnote 1323: Moniteur, ibid. Picard, the principal murderer, confessed "that he had made him suffer a great deal; that the said sieur Huez did not die until they came near the Chaudron Inn; that he nevertheless intended to make him suffer more by stabbing him in the neck at the corner of each street, (and) by contriving it so that he might do it often, as long as there was life in him; that the day on which M. Huez died yielded him ten francs, together with the neck-buckle of M. Hues, found on him when he was arrested in his flight."]

[Footnote 1324: Mercure de France,, September 26, 1789. Letters of the officers of the Bourbon regiment and of members of the general committee of Caen.--Floquet, VII. 545.]

[Footnote 1325: "Archives Nationales," H. 1453.--Ibid. D. XXIX. I. Note of M. de la Tour-du-Pin, October 28th.]

[Footnote 1326: Decree, February 5, 1789, enforced May 1st following.]

[Footnote 1327: "Archives Nationales," D. XXIX. I. Letter of the count de Montausier, August 8th, with notes by M. Paulian, director of the excise (an admirable letter, modest and liberal, and ending by demanding a pardon for people led astray).--H. 1453. Letter of the attorney of the election district of Falaise, July 17th, etc.--Moniteur, I. 303, 387, 505 (sessions of August 7th and 27th and of September 23rd). "The royal revenues are diminishing steadily."--Buchez and Roux, III. 219 (session of October 24, 1789). Discourse of a deputation from Anjou: "Sixty thousand men are armed; the barriers have been destroyed, the clerks' horses have been sold by auction; the employees have been told to withdraw from the province within eight days. The inhabitants have declared that they will not pay taxes so long as the salt-tax exists.]

[Footnote 1328: "Archives Nationales," F7 3253 (Letter of September 8, 1789).]

[Footnote 1329: Arthur Young, September 30th. "It is being said that every rusty gun in Provence is at work, killing all sorts of birds; the shot has fallen five or six times in my chaise and about my ears."--Beugnot, I.142.--"Archives Nationales," D. XXIX. I. Letter of the Chevalier d'Allonville, September 8, 1789 (Near Bar-sur-Aube). "The peasants go in armed bands into the woods belonging to the Abbey of Trois-Fontaines, which they cut down. They saw up the oaks and transport them on wagons to Pont-Saint-Dizier, where they sell them. In other places they fish in the ponds and break the embankments."]

[Footnote 1330: "Archives Nationales," D. XXIX. 1. Letter of the assessor of the police of Saint-Flour, October 3, 1789. On the 31st of July, a rumor is spread that the brigands are coming. On the 1st of August the peasants arm themselves. "They amuse themselves by drinking, awaiting the arrival of the brigands; the excitement increases to such an extent as to make them believe that M. le Comte d'Espinchal had arrived in disguise the evening before at Massiac, that he was the author of the troubles disturbing the province at this time, and that he was concealed in his chateau." On the strength of this shots are fired into the windows, and there are searches, etc.]

[Footnote 1331: "Archives Nationales," D, XXIX, I, Letter of Etienne Fermier, Naveinne, September 18th (it is possible that the author, for the sake of caution, took a fictitious name).--The manuscript correspondence of M. Boullé, deputy of Pontivy, to his constituents, is a type of this declamatory and incendiary writing.--Letter of the consuls, priests, and merchants of Puy-en-Velay, September 16th.--" The Ancient Régime," p. 396.]

[Footnote 1332: "Archives Nationales," D. XXIX. 1. Letter of M. Despretz-Montpezat, a former artillery officer, July 24th (with several other signatures). On the same day the alarm bell is sounded In fifty villages on the rumor spreading that 7,000 brigands, English and Breton, were invading the country.]

[Footnote 1333: "Archives Nationales," D. XXIX. I. Letter of Briand-Delessart, August 1st (domiciliary visits to the Carmelites of Angoulême where it is pretended that Mme. de Polignac has just arrived.--Beugnot, I. 140.--Arthur Young, July 20th, etc.--Buchez and Roux, IV. 166. Letter of Mamers, July 24th; of Mans, July 26th.]

[Footnote 1334: Montjoie, ch. LXXII, p. 93 (according to acts of legal procedure). There was a soldier in the band who had served under M. de Montesson and who wanted to avenge himself for the punishments he had undergone in the regiment.]

[Footnote 1335: Mercure de France, August 20th (Letter from Vésoul, August 13th).]

[Footnote 1336: M. de Memmay proved his innocence later on, and was rehabilitated by a public decision after two years' proceedings (session of June 4, 1791; Mercure of June 11th).]

[Footnote 1337: Journal des Débats et Décrets, I. 258. (Letter of the municipality of Vésoul, July 22nd.--Discourse of M. de Toulougeon, July 29th.)]

[Footnote 1338: De Rochambeau, "Mémoires," I. 353.--"Archives Nationales," F7, 3253. (Letter of M. de Rochamheau, August 4th.)--Chronicle of Schmutz (ibid. ), p. 284. "Archives Nationales," D. XXIX. I. (Letter of Mme. Ferrette, of Remiremont, August 9th.)]

[Footnote 1339: Sauzay, I. 180. (Letters of monks, July 22nd and 26th.)]

[Footnote 1340: "Archives Nationales," D. XXIX. I. (Letter of M. de Bergeron, attorney to the présidial of Valence, August 28th, with the details of the verdict stated.) Official report of the militia of Lyons, sent to the president of the National Assembly, August 10th. (Expedition to Serrière, in Dauphiny, July 31st.)]

[Footnote 1341: Letter of the Count of Courtivron, deputy substitute (an eye-witness).--"Archives Nationales," D. XXIX. I. Letter of the municipal officers of Crémieu (Dauphiny), November 3rd. Letter of the Vicomte de Carbonnière (Auvergne), August 3rd.--Arthur Young, July 30th (Dijon) says, apropos of a noble family which escaped almost naked from its burning chateau, "they were esteemed by the neighbors; their virtues ought to have commanded the love of the poor, for whose resentment there was no cause."]

[Footnote 1342: "Archives Nationales," XXIX. I. (Letter of the commission of the States of Dauphiny, July 31st.)]

[Footnote 1343: "Désastres du Mâconnais," by Puthod de la Maison-Rouge (August, 1789). "Ravages du Mâconnais."--Arthur Young, July 27th.--Buchez and Roux, IV. 215, 214.--Mercure de France, September 12, 1789. (Letter by a volunteer of Orleans.) "On the 15th of August, eighty-eight ruffians, calling themselves reapers, present themselves at Bascon, in Beauce, and, the next day, at a chateau in the neighborhood, where they demand within an hour the head of the son of the lord of the manor, M. Tassin, who can only redeem himself by a contribution of 1,600 livres and the pillaging of his cellars.]

[Footnote 1344: Letter of the Count de Courtivron.--Arthur Young, July 31st.--Buchez and Roux, II. 243.--Mercure de France, August 15, 1789 (sitting of the 8th, discourse of a deputy from Dauphiné.)--Mermet, "Histoire de la Ville de Vienne," 445--" Archives Nationales," ibid. (Letter of the commission of the States of Dauphiny, July 31st.)--"The list of burnt or devastated chateaux is immense." The committee already cites sixteen of them.--Puthod de la Maison-Rouge, ibid.: "Were all devastated places to be mentioned, it would be necessary to cite the whole province" (Letter from Mâcon). "They have not the less destroyed most of the chateaux and bourgeois dwellings, either burning them and or else tearing them down."]

[Footnote 1345: Lally-Tollendal, "Second Letter to my Constituents," 104.]

[Footnote 1346: Doniol, "La Révolution et la Féodalité," p.60 (a few days after the 4th of August).--"Archives Nationales," H. 784. Letters of M. de Langeron, military commander at Besançon, October 16th and 18th.--Ibid. , D. XXIX. I. Letter of the same, September 3rd.--Arthur Young (in Provence, at the house of Baron de la Tour-d'Aignes). "The baron is an enormous sufferer by the Revolution; a great extent of country which belonged in absolute right to his ancestors, has been granted for quit-rents, ceus, and other feudal payments, so that there is no comparison between the lands retained and those thus granted by his family. . . . The solid payments which the Assembly have declared to be redeemable are every hour falling to nothing, without a shadow of recompense. . . The situation of the nobility in this country is pitiable; they are under apprehensions that nothing will be left them, but simply such houses as the mob allows to stand unburned; that the small farmers will retain their farms without paying the landlord his half of the produce; and that, in case of such a refusal, there is actually neither law nor authority in the country to prevent it. This chateau, splendid even in ruins, with the fortune and lives of the owners, is at the mercy of an armed rabble."]