In every nation there are thousands of the ignorant, degraded, miserable, who have nothing to lose and something to hope from anarchy. The inmates of the dens of crime and infamy, who are only held in check by the strong restraints of law, rejoice in the opportunity to sack the dwellings of the industrious and the wealthy, and to pour the tide of ruin through the homes of the virtuous and the happy. This class of abandoned men and women was appallingly increasing. They flocked to the city from all parts of the kingdom, and Paris was crowded with spectres, emaciate and ragged, whose hideous and haggard features spoke only of vice and misery. Sièyes expressed to Mirabeau his alarm in view of the portentous aspect of affairs. "You have let the bull loose," Mirabeau replied, "and now you complain that he butts with his horns."[217] Much has been said respecting the _motives_ which influenced Mirabeau. Whatever his motives may have been, his conduct was consistent. All his words and actions were in favor of liberty sustained by strong law. He wished for the overthrow of aristocratic insolence and feudal oppression, from which he had so severely suffered. He wished to preserve the monarchical form of government, and to establish a constitution which should secure to all the citizens equality of rights.[218] Feudality was now destroyed, and a free constitution adopted. Still, business was stagnant, the poor destitute of employment and in a state of starvation. As an act of charity, seventeen thousand men were employed by the municipality of Paris digging on the heights of Montmartre at twenty sous a day. The suffering was so great that the office of the municipality was crowded with tradesmen and merchants imploring employment on these terms. "I used to see," writes the mayor, Bailly, "good tradespeople, mercers and goldsmiths, who prayed to be admitted among the beggars employed at Montmartre in digging the ground. Judge what I suffered." The city government sunk two thousand dollars a day in selling bread to the poor at less than cost; and yet there were emissaries of the court buying up this bread and destroying it to increase the public distress.[219] On the 19th day of August the city of Paris contained food sufficient but for a single day. Bailly and La Fayette were in an agony of solicitude. So great was the dismay in Paris, that all the rich were leaving. Sixty thousand passports were signed at the Hôtel de Ville in three months.[220] Armed bands were exploring the country to purchase food wherever it could be found, and convey it to the city. Six hundred of the National Guard were stationed by day and by night to protect the corn-market from attack. It is surprising that when the populace were in such distress so few acts of violence should have been committed.[221]