estate at Issy the preceding winter. The peasants destroy the dike which conducts water to his communal mill; condemned by the parliament to restore it, they declare that not only will they not obey. Should M. de Talaru try to rebuild it they will return with three hundred armed men, and tear it away the second time. For those who are most compromised Paris is the nearest refuge. For the poorest and most exasperated, the door of nomadic life stands wide open. Bands rise up around the capital, just as in countries where human society has not yet been formed, or has ceased to exist. During the first two weeks of May[1204] near Villejuif a band of five or six hundred vagabonds strive to force Bicêtre and approach Saint-Cloud. They arrive from thirty, forty, and sixty leagues off, from Champagne, from Lorraine, from the whole circuit of country devastated by the hailstorm. All hover around Paris and are there engulfed as in a sewer, the unfortunate along with criminals, some to find work, others to beg and to rove about under the injurious prompting of hunger and the rumors of the public thoroughfares. During the last days of April,[1205] the clerks at the tollhouses note the entrance of "a frightful number of poorly clad men of sinister aspect." During the first days of May a change in the appearance of the crowd is remarked. There mingle in it "a number of foreigners, from all countries, most of them in rags, armed with big sticks, and whose very aspect announces what is to be feared from them." Already, before this final influx, the public sink is full to overflowing. Think of the extraordinary and rapid increase of population in Paris, the multitude of artisans brought there by recent demolition and constructions. Think of all the craftsmen whom the stagnation of manufactures, the augmentation of octrois, the rigor of winter, and the dearness of bread have reduced to extreme distress. Remember that in 1786 "two hundred thousand persons are counted whose property, all told, has not the intrinsic worth of fifty crowns." Remember that, from time immemorial, these have been at war with the city watchmen. Remember that in 1789 there are twenty thousand poachers in the capital and that, to provide them with work, it is found necessary to establish national workshops. Remember "that twelve thousand are kept uselessly occupied digging on the hill of Montmartre, and paid twenty sous per day. Remember that the wharves and quays are covered with them, that the Hôtel-de-Ville is invested by them, and that, around the palace, they seem to be a reproach to the inactivity of disarmed justice." Daily they grow bitter and excited around the doors of the bakeries, where, kept waiting a long time, they are not sure of obtaining bread. You can imagine the fury and the force with which they will storm any obstacle to which their attention may be directed. II. The Press. Excitement of the press and of opinion.--The people make their choice.