They have broken the windows of some magistrates who are no favourites; and a great mob of them is at this moment assembled, demanding clamorously to have meat at five sous a pound. They have a cry among them that will conduct them to good lengths: '_Point d'impôt et vivent les états!_' I have spent some time at the _Cabinet Littéraire_ reading the gazettes and journals that give an account of the transactions at Paris; and I have had some conversation with several sensible and intelligent men in the present revolution. The spirit of revolt is gone forth into various parts of the kingdom; the price of bread has prepared the populace everywhere for all sorts of violence; at Lyons there have been commotions as furious as at Paris, and likewise at a great many other places. Dauphiné is in arms, and Bretagne in absolute rebellion. The idea is that hunger will drive the people to revolt, and that when once they find any other means of subsistence than honest labour everything will have to be feared. Of such consequence it is to a country to have a policy on the subject of corn: one that shall, by securing a high price to the farmer, encourage his culture sufficiently to secure the people from famine. I have been witness to a scene curious to a foreigner, but dreadful to those Frenchmen who consider. Passing through the square of the _Hôtel de Ville_, the mob were breaking the windows with stones, notwithstanding that an officer and a detachment of horse were on the spot. Observing not only that their numbers increased, but that they grew bolder and bolder every moment, I thought it worth staying to see how the thing would end, and clambered on to the roof of a row of low stalls opposite the building against which their malice was directed. Here I could view the whole scene. Perceiving that the troops would not attack them except in words and menaces, they grew more violent, and furiously attempted to beat the door in pieces with iron crows, placing ladders to the windows. In about a quarter of an hour, which gave time for the assembled magistrates to escape by a back door, they burst everything open, and entered like a torrent, amid a universal shout of triumph. From that minute a medley of casements, sashes, shutters, chairs, tables, sofas, books, papers, pictures, etc., rained down incessantly from all the windows of the house, which is seventy or eighty feet long; this being succeeded by a shower of tiles, skirting-boards, banisters, framework, and whatever parts of the building force could detach. The troops, both horse and foot, were quiet spectators. They were at first too few to interpose, and when they became more numerous the mischief was too far advanced to admit of any other course than that of guarding every avenue around, permitting no fresh arrivals on the scene of action, but letting everyone that pleased retire with his plunder; guards at the same time being placed at the doors of the churches and all public buildings.