" There are no means of
resistance. The National Guard, when it is convoked, does not
respond; the volunteers when called upon turn their muskets down,
and the crowd, assembled beneath the windows, shouts out its
huzzahs. So much the worse for the law when it opposes popular
passion: "We will not obey it," they say; "people make laws to
please themselves." - By way of practical illustration, at Tortes,
in Seine-Inf?rieure, six thousand armed men belonging to the
surrounding parishes form a deliberative armed body; the better to
establish their rights, they bring two cannon with them fastened by
ropes on a couple of carts; twenty-two companies of the National
Guard, each under its own banner, march beside them, while all
peaceable inhabitants are compelled to fall in "under penalty of
death," the municipal officers being at their head. This improvised
parliament promulgates a complete law in relation to grain, which,
as a matter of form, is sent for acceptance to the department, and
to the National Assembly; and one of its articles declares that all
husbandmen shall be forbidden "to sell their wheat elsewhere than on
the market-places.
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