" To conquer the people easily they have determined to
reduce them in advance by extreme suffering and by the length of
their fast, and hence they monopolize "wheat, rye, and meal, soap,
sugar, and brandy."[18] - Similar reports suffice to excite a
suffering crowd to acts of violence, and it must inevitably accept
for its leaders and advisers those who urge it forward on the side
to which it is inclined. The people always require leaders, and
they are chosen wherever they can be found, at one time amongst the
elite, and at another amongst the dregs. Now that the nobles are
driven out, the bourgeoisie in retirement, the large cultivators
under suspicion, while animal necessities exercise their blind and
intermittent despotism, the appropriate popular ministers consist of
adventurers and of bandits. They need not be very numerous, for in
a place full of combustible matter a few firebrands suffice to start
the conflagration. "About twenty, at most, can be counted in the
towns of ?tampes and Dourdan, men with nothing to lose and
everything to gain by disturbances; they are those who always
produce excitement and disorder, while other citizens afford them
the means through their indifference.
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