butchers and bakers, Toulon, for instance, incurs a debt of 2,500 livres
a day.
In this state of disorder, woe to those who are under suspicion of
having contributed, directly or indirectly, to the evils, which the
people endure! At Toulon a demand is made for the head of the mayor, who
signs the tax-list, and of the keeper of the records. They are trodden
under foot, and their houses are ransacked. At Manosque, the Bishop
of Sisteron, who is visiting the seminary, is accused of favoring
a monopolist. On his way to his carriage, on foot, he is hooted and
menaced. He is first pelted with mud, and then with stones. The consuls
in attendance, and the sub-delegate, who come to his assistance, are
mauled and repulsed. Meanwhile, some of the most furious begin, before
his eyes, "to dig a ditch to bury him in." Protected by five or six
brave fellows, amidst a volley of stones, and wounded on the head and
on many parts of his body, he succeeds in reaching his carriage. He is
finally only saved because the horses, which are likewise stoned, run
away. Foreigners, Italians, bandits, are mingled with the peasants and
artisans, and expressions are heard and acts are seen which indicate a
jacquerie.[1130] "The most excited said to the bishop, 'we are poor and
you are rich, and we mean to have all your property.'"[1131] Elsewhere,
"the seditious mob exacts contributions from all people in good
circumstances. At Brignolles, thirteen houses are pillaged from top to
bottom, and thirty others partly half.--At Aupt, M. de Montferrat, in
defending himself, is killed and "hacked to pieces."--At La Seyne, the
mob, led by a peasant, assembles by beat of drum. Some women fetch a
bier, and set it down before the house of a leading bourgeois, telling
him to prepare for death, and that "they will have the honor of burying
him." He escapes; his house is pillaged, as well as the bureau of
the flour-tax. The following day, the chief of the band "obliges the
principal inhabitants to give him a sum of money to indemnify, as he
states it, the peasants who have abandoned their work," and devoted the
day to serving the public.--At Peinier, the Président de Peinier, an
octogenarian, is "besieged in his chateau by a band of a hundred and
fifty artisans and peasants," who bring with them a consul and a notary.
Aided by these two functionaries, they force the president "to pass an
act by which he renounces his seignorial rights of every description
"--At Sollier they destroy the mills belonging to M. de Forbin-Janson.
They sack the house of his business agent, pillage the château, and
demolish the roof, chapel, altar, railings, and escutcheons. They enter
the cellars, stave in the casks, and carry away everything that can
be carried, "the transportation taking two days;" all of which cause
damages of a hundred thousand crowns to the marquis.--At Riez they
surround the episcopal palace with fagots, threatening to burn it, "and
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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