While political strife was raging at Paris, in the provinces the people, impatient for relief, were taking upon themselves the work of redressing their wrongs. Since the meeting of the States riots had broken out by scores over the face of the country. Taxes were refused, barriers for the collection of custom and excise duties burnt, the collectors driven off, markets pillaged, municipal officers forced at peril of their lives to fix a price for corn and bread. The news of the great insurrection of July 14 gave courage to agitators, and added fuel to the flame. In Paris, street mobs, goaded by hunger, were not easily restrained from hanging objects of suspicion on the nearest lamp-post. Foulon, an officer of the Government, accused truly or falsely of having said that the people if hungry might eat grass, was savagely murdered. His son-in-law, Berthier, suffered a like fate. Many other persons escaped but narrowly with their lives. Nevertheless, owing to the exertions of the new municipality and the national guard, life and property were more secure in the capital than in many provinces. Risings accompanied by pillage and murder took place in Strasbourg, Rouen, Besançon, Lyons, and other provincial towns. In the east, through Alsace, Franche-Comté, Lorraine, Burgundy and Dauphiny, the rural population sought to settle the question of feudal services by burning together the residences and the title-deeds of the seigneurs. In the Maconnais and Beaujolais, bands of peasants sacked and burned seventy-two country-houses in a fortnight. A panic spread through the country on the report that brigands, instigated by the enemies of the revolution, were on the march to destroy the crops. A general cry was raised for arms; the example set by Paris was followed; the middle classes combined to restore order; provisional municipalities were established and national guards instituted. The order obtained, however, was still most precarious. Municipal officers were in constant danger of falling victims to mob violence, while in country districts national guards often made common cause with the rioters. Thus the result of the insurrection of July 14, and of the risings in the provinces, was the utter disorganisation of all the old machinery of government. Royal officers where they remained could not exercise authority. The army was in mutiny; the people were armed. New popular authorities had, as it were, of themselves sprung up over the face of the country, and the National Assembly, in place of the royal council, became the centre of government, so far as any government existed. ♦Decrees of August 4.♦