And first, I object to the very word _multitude_; that is to say, in the extensive meaning which some persons would give it. To see the insolence with which such persons treat a great population, one would think that we are still in the thirteenth century; that the feudal aristocracy is now in its pride of place; and that it looks down haughtily from the height of its towers on bands of serfs scattered over its domains, or trembling bourgeois coming humbly to solicit permission to rebuild the walls of their poor town, as a defence against robbers. These persons are mistaken: society is not thus formed; there is no longer an abyss separating the higher classes from the mass of the people. The descent from the summit of the social order to its base is by means of close steps, covered with men only slightly different from those above and beneath them. This is true as regards property, industry, education, knowledge, and influence; and although some momentary confusion may be occasioned by the ruins of the old regime, the new form of society is fixed for ever in France. It is necessary to keep this in view, in order to comprehend the effects of legislation and the acts of power, since it is not for the age of Philip-Augustus, but for our own, that we have a government and laws. But let us see how things were managed formerly in the event of political crimes occurring out of the upper region of society, and in what way the governing power proceeded. On the part of the people plots were rare--the aristocracy had that privilege. This is easily conceivable; for the latter alone could gain by or succeed in them. How could the citizens or peasants conceive the idea of changing the government and seizing the authority? When plots were on foot, they marched in the train of the great, either compelled or seduced. Neither the initiative, nor the direction, nor the fortunate chances of such enterprises, belonged to them. However, they sometimes troubled the established order. This was by seditions, and general or local revolts, according to the causes which created them--whether oppression, famine, or occasionally new religious creeds. Then the insurrections were frightful: a frenzied multitude quitted their wretched homes, and wandered about in bands, killing, pillaging, and devastating--brutalised in their passions, blind and implacable in their vengeance, ferocious and licentious in their freedom. Such was the war of the peasants of Suabia in Germany, the insurrection of Wat Tyler in England, the Jacquerie in France, and everywhere, from age to age, a crowd of similar risings, less important, but not less hideous.