It is said that one deputy, Duport, a magistrate of the parliament of Paris, had 400,000 francs to spend in raising the country against the nobles at the precise moment of their weakness. The money was scarcely needed, for the rioters were made to believe that they were acting in obedience to the law. One of their victims wrote, August 3, to Clermont Tonnerre that they were really sorry to behave in that way against good masters, but they were compelled by imperative commands from the king. He adds that seven or eight castles in his neighbourhood were attacked by their vassals, all believing that the king desired it. The charters and muniments were the main object of pillage and destruction, for it was believed that claims which could not be authenticated could not be enforced. Often the castle itself was burnt with the parchments it contained, and some of the owners perished. The disorders raged in many parts of France. A district east and south-east of the centre suffered most. Those provinces had continued long to be parts of the Empire; and we shall see hereafter what that implies. The peasants of Eastern France rose up in arms to overthrow the ancient institutions of society, which the peasants of the West gave their lives to restore. Rumours of all this desolation soon penetrated to the Assembly, and on August 3 it was officially reported that property was at the mercy of gangs of brigands, that no castle, no convent, no farm-house was safe. A committee moved to declare that no pretext could justify the refusal to pay the same feudal dues as before. Duport proposed that the motion be sent back to the Bureaux. The Assembly came to no conclusion. In truth, the thing proposed was impossible. The Commons, who now prevailed, could not, after sitting three months, re-impose, even provisionally, burdens which were odious, which their Instructions condemned, and which they all knew to be incapable of defence. There had been time to provide: the crisis now found them unprepared. The Court advised the nobles that nothing could save them but a speedy surrender. They also were informed, by Barere; that some of his friends intended to move the abolition of fiscal and feudal privilege. They replied that they would do it themselves. Virieu, who afterwards disappeared in a sortie, during the siege of Lyons, said to a friend: "There are only two means of calming an excited populace, kindness and force. We have no force; we hope to succeed by kindness." They knew that precious time had been lost, and they resolved that the surrender should be so ample as to be meritorious. It was to be not the redress of practical grievances, but the complete establishment of the new principle, equality.