It was this peril which armed France. Villages, peasants, all were united to defend themselves against these terrible brigands. The arsenals of the old castles contained arms. Nerved by despair, the roused multitudes simultaneously besieged all these castles, and demanded and seized the weapons necessary for their defense. It was as a movement of magic. A sudden danger, every where menacing, every where worked the same result. In one short week France sprung up armed and ready for war. Three millions of men had come from the furrow and the shop, and fiercely demanded "Where are the brigands? Lead us to meet our foes, whoever and wherever they may be."[201] The lords in an hour found themselves helpless. The peasants, hitherto so tame and servile, were now soldiers, roused to determination and proud of their newly discovered power. Awful was the retribution. The chateaux blazed--funeral fires of feudality--on every hill and in every valley. One can only be surprised that the hour of retribution should have been delayed for so many ages, and that when it came the infuriated, degraded, brutalized masses did not proceed to even greater atrocities. Though deeds of cruelty were perpetrated which cause the ear that hears to tingle, still, on the whole, mercy predominated. In many cases lords who had treated their serfs kindly were protected by their vassals, as children would protect a father. The Marquis of Montfermail was thus shielded from harm. In Dauphiné a castle was assailed during the absence of the lord. His lady was at home alone with the children. The peasants left the castle and its inmates unharmed, destroying only those feudal charters which were the title-deeds of despotism. These titles, engrossed on fine parchment and embellished with gorgeous seals, were the pride of the noble family--the evidence of their antiquity. They were preserved with great reverence, deposited in costly caskets, which caskets, enveloped in velvet, were safely placed in oaken chests, and those chests, iron-ribbed and with ponderous locks, were guarded in a strong part of the feudal tower. The peasants ever gazed with awe upon the tower of the archives. They understood the significancy of those title-deeds--the badges of their degradation, the authority to which the lords appealed in support of their tyranny, insolence, and nameless outrages.