from starvation. It accordingly emboldened them to take the matter into their own hands. In January the cahiers were drawn up, which meant that the people had now for the first time formulated their ills. Discussion in the assemblies had excited them. The States - General was going to look to their wrongs, it was true, but the States- General did not meet till May, and meanwhile they were starving. One thing was clear, they must have bread. Accordingly, in defiance of local authorities and guar- dians of the peace, bands ranging up to three or four hun- dred and more formed themselves all over France, seized and plundered granaries, religious houses, stores of all kinds, entered public buildings in the name of the people, destroying all legal documents (justly regarded as the instruments of their servitude) which they could lay their hands on, proclaimed the local dues and taxes abolished, summarily put to death all those who interfered with them in the name of law and order, and, emboldened by success, finally took to the burning of the chateaux and the indiscriminate destruction and appropriation of the houses and property of the wealthy. That the numbers of these bands were augmented not only by the work- men out-of employment in Paris, Rouen, etc., but also by professional thieves, was only to be expected. The local authorities were hopelessly inadequate to cope with the insurgents, and central authority in Paris seemed paralyzed.
Ordinarily readers of the history of the Revolution are apt to forget, in following the course of events in the metropolis, that they were only an enlarged picture of what was going on in hundreds of towns and villages throughout the provinces. Both before and after’ the famous 14th of July, in most of the provinces of France all constituted authority was at an end. No one durst disobey the mandates of the popular insurgents. It would be impossible, and tedious if it were possible, to enumerate all the circumstances of even the principal revolts. The
