The French Revolution (Vol.1-3). Taine Hippolyte

to use it against their chiefs.—It is of no use to assure the people that the latter are patriots; that the recently welcomed Necker with enthusiastic shouts; that the priests, the monks, and canons were the first to adopt the national cockade; that the nobles of the city and its environs are the most liberal in France; that, on the 20th of July, the burgess guard saved the town; that all the wealthy give to the national workshops; that Mayor Huez, "a venerable and honest magistrate," is a benefactor to the poor and to the public. All the old leaders are objects of distrust.—On the 8th of August, a mob demands the dismissal of the dragoons, arms for all volunteers, bread at two sous the pound, and the freedom of all prisoners. On the 19th of August the National Guard rejects its old officers as aristocrats, and elects new ones. On the 27th of August, the crowd invade the town-hall and distribute the arms amongst themselves. On the 5th of September, two hundred men, led by Truelle, president of the new committee, force the salt depot and have salt delivered to them at six sous per pound.—Meanwhile, in the lowest quarters of the city, a story is concocted to the effect that if wheat is scarce it is because Huez, the mayor, and M. de St. Georges, the old commandant, are monopolists, and now they say of Huez what they said five weeks before of Foulon, that "he wants to make the people eat hay." The many-headed brute growls fiercely and is about to spring. As usual, instead of restraining him, they try to manage him.

      "You must put your authority aside for a moment," writes the deputy of Troyes to the sheriffs," and act towards the people as to a friend; be as gentle with them as you would be with your equals, and rest assured that they are capable of responding to it."

      Thus does Huez act, and he even does more, paying no attention to their menaces, refusing to provide for his own safety and almost offering himself as a sacrifice.

      "I have wronged no one," he exclaimed; "why should any one bear me ill-will?"

      His sole precaution is to provide something for the unfortunate poor when he is gone: he bequeaths in his will 18,000 livres to the poor, and, on the eve of his death, sends 100 crowns to the bureau of charity. But what avail self-abnegation and beneficence against blind, insane rage! On the 9th of September, three loads of flour proving to be unsound, the people collect and shout out,

      "Down with the flour-dealers! Down with machinery! Down with the mayor! Death to the mayor, and let Truelle be put in his place!"

Huez, on leaving his court-room, is knocked down, murdered by kicks and blows, throttled, dragged to the reception hall, struck on his head with a wooden-shoe and pitched down the grand staircase. The municipal officers strive in vain to protect him; a rope is put around his neck and they begin to drag him along. A priest, who begs to be allowed at least to save his soul, is repulsed and beaten. A woman jumps on the prostrate old man, stamps on his face and repeatedly thrusts her scissors in his eyes. He is dragged along with the rope around his neck up to the Pont de la Selle, and thrown into the neighboring ford, and then drawn out, again dragged through the streets and in the gutters, with a bunch of hay crammed in his mouth.1323

In the meantime, his house as well as that of the lieutenant of police, that of the notary Guyot, and that of M. de Saint-Georges, are sacked; the pillaging and destruction lasts four hours; at the notary's house, six hundred bottles of wine are consumed or carried off; objects of value are divided, and the rest, even down to the iron balcony, is demolished or broken; the rioters cry out, on leaving, that they have still to burn twenty-seven houses, and to take twenty-seven heads. "No one at Troyes went to bed that fatal night."—During the succeeding days, for nearly two weeks, society seems to be dissolved. Placards posted about the streets proscribe municipal officers, canons, divines, privileged persons, prominent merchants, and even ladies of charity; the latter are so frightened that they throw up their office, while a number of persons move off into the country; others barricade themselves in their dwellings and only open their doors with saber in hand. Not until the 26th does the orderly class rally sufficiently to resume the ascendancy and arrest the miscreants.—Such is public life in France after the 14th of July: the magistrates in each town feel that they are at the mercy of a band of savages and sometimes of cannibals. Those of Troyes had just tortured Huez after the fashion of Hurons, while those of Caen did worse; Major de Belzance, not less innocent, and under sworn protection,1324 was cut to pieces like Laperouse in the Fiji Islands, and a woman ate his heart.

VI.—Taxes are no longer paid.

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      Devastation of the Forests.—The new game laws.

It is, under such circumstances, possible to foretell whether taxes come in, and whether municipalities that sway about in every popular breeze will have the authority to collect the odious revenues.—Towards the end of September,1325 I find a list of thirty-six committees or municipal bodies which, within a radius of fifty leagues around Paris, refuse to ensure the collection of taxes. One of them tolerates the sale of contraband salt, in order not to excite a riot. Another takes the precaution to disarm the employees in the excise department. In a third the municipal officers were the first to provide themselves with contraband salt and contraband tobacco.

At Peronne and at Ham, the order having come to restore the toll-houses, the people destroy the soldiers' quarters, conduct all the employees to their homes, and order them to leave within twenty-four hours, under penalty of death. After twenty months' resistance Paris will end the matter by forcing the National Assembly to give in and by obtaining the final suppression of its octroi.1326—Of all the creditors whose hand each one felt on his shoulders, that of the exchequer was the heaviest, and now it is the weakest; hence this is the first whose grasp is to be shaken off; there is none which is more heartily detested or which receives harsher treatment. Especially against collectors of the salt-tax, custom-house officers, and excisemen the fury is universal. These, everywhere,1327 are in danger of their lives and are obliged to fly. At Falaise, in Normandy, the people threaten to "cut to pieces the director of the excise." At Baignes, in Saintonge, his house is devastated and his papers and effects are burned; they put a knife to the throat of his son, a child six years of age, saying, "Thou must perish that there may be no more of thy race." For four hours the clerks are on the point of being torn to pieces; through the entreaties of the lord of the manor, who sees scythes and sabers aimed at his own head, they are released only on the condition that they "abjure their employment."—Again, for two months following the taking of the Bastille, insurrections break out by hundreds, like a volley of musketry, against indirect taxation. From the 23rd of July the Intendant of Champagne reports that "the uprising is general in almost all the towns under his command." On the following day the Intendant of Alençon writes that, in his province, "the royal dues will no longer be paid anywhere." On the 7th of August, M. Necker states to the National Assembly that in the two intendants' districts of Caen and Alençon it has been necessary to reduce the price of salt one-half; that "in an infinity of places" the collection of the excise is stopped or suspended; that the smuggling of salt and tobacco is done by "convoys and by open force" in Picardy, in Lorraine, and in the Trois-Évêchés; that the indirect tax does not come in, that the receivers-general and the receivers of the taille are "at bay" and can no longer keep their engagements. The public income diminishes from month to month; in the social body, the heart, already so feeble, faints; deprived of the blood which no longer reaches it, it ceases to propel to the muscles the vivifying current which restores their waste and adds to their energy.

"All controlling power is slackened," says Necker, "everything is a prey to the passions of individuals." Where is the power to constrain them and to secure to the State its dues?—The clergy, the nobles, wealthy townsmen, and certain brave artisans and farmers, undoubtedly pay, and even sometimes give spontaneously. But in society those who possess intelligence, who are in easy circumstances and conscientious, form a small