The things we do!

One day, preceded by a drummer, he marches
outside the walls, makes proclamation of "his agrarian laws," and
proceeds at once to the partition of the territory, and, by virtue
of the ancient communal or church property rights, to assign to
himself a portion of it. All this is done in public and
consciously, the notary and the scrivener being called in to draw up
the official record of his acts; he is satisfied that human society
has come to an end, and that each local group has the right to begin
over again and apply in its own way the Constitution which it has
accorded to itself without reference to anybody else. - This man,
undoubtedly, talks too loudly, an proceeds too quickly; and first
the bailiwick, next the Ch?telet, and afterwards the National
Assembly temporarily put a stop to his proceedings; but his
principle is a popular one, and the forty thousand communes of
France are about to act like so many distinct republics, under the
sentimental and constantly more powerless reprimands of the central
authority.


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