are confided to them, and carry them off."[3256] If some tribunal is disposed to enforce the law, it is to no purpose; it takes the risk, either of not being allowed to give judgment, or of being constrained to reverse its decision. At Paris the judgment prepared against the incendiaries of the tax-offices could not be given. At Montargis, the sentence pronounced against the marauders who had stolen cartloads of wood in the national forests had to be revised, and by the judges themselves. The moment the tribunal announced the confiscation of the carts and horses which had been seized, there arose a furious outcry against it; the court was insulted by those present; the condemned parties openly declared that they would have their carts and horses back by force. Upon this "the judges withdrew into the council-chamber, and when soon after they resumed their seats, that part of their decision which related to the confiscation was canceled." And yet this administration of justice, ludicrous and flouted as it may be, is still a sort of barrier. When it falls, along with the Government, everything is exposed to plunder, and there is no such thing as public property.--After August 10, 1792, each commune or individual appropriates whatever comes in its way, either products or the soil itself. Some of the plunderers go so far as to say that, since the Government no longer represses them, they act under its authority.[3257] "They have destroyed even the recent plantation of young trees." "One of the villages near Fontainebleau cleared off and divided an entire grove. At Rambouillet, from August 10th to the end of October," the loss is more than 100,000 crowns; the rural agitators demand with threats the partition of the forest among the inhabitants. "The destruction is enormous" everywhere, prolonged for entire months, and of such a kind, says the minister, as to dry up this source of public revenue for a long time to come.--Communal property is no more respected than national property. In each commune, these bold and needy folk, the rural populace, are privileged to enjoy and make the most of it. Not content with enjoying it, they desire to acquire ownership of it, and, for days after the King's fall, the Legislative Assembly, losing its footing in the universal breaking up, empowers the indigent to put in force the agrarian law. Henceforth it suffices in any commune for one-third of its inhabitants of both sexes, servants, common laborers, shepherds, farm-hands or cowherds, and even paupers, to demand a partition of the communal possessions. All that the commune owns, save public edifices and woods, is to be cut up into as many equal lots as there are heads, the lots to be drawn for, and each individual to take possession of his or her portion.[3258] The Operation is carried out, for "those who are least well off are infinitely flattered by it." In the district of Arcis-sur-Aube, there are not a dozen communes out of ninety in which