The things we do!

They threaten to do the
same thing on the following market-day: but the farmers do not
return, the storehouse remains empty. Now soldiers must be at hand,
or the inhabitants of Bray will be pillaged. At Bagnols, in
Languedoc, on the 1st and 2nd of April, the peasants, armed with
cudgels and assembled by tap of drum, "traverse the town,
threatening to burn and destroy everything if flour and money are
not given to them." They go to private houses for grain, divide it
amongst themselves at a reduced price, "promising to pay when the
next crop comes round," and force the Consuls to put bread at two
sous the pound, and to increase the day's wages four sous. --
Indeed this is now the regular thing; it is not the people who obey
the authorities, but the authorities who obey the people. Consuls,
sheriffs, mayors, municipal officers, town-clerks, become confused
and hesitating in the face of this huge clamor; they feel that they
are likely to be trodden under foot or thrown out of the windows.


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