saved only by the National Guard of Ussel. His farmers and domestics hesitate, for the time being, whether or not to cultivate the ground, and come and ask the steward if they could sow the seeds. There is no recourse to the proper authorities: the administrators and judges, even when their own property is concerned, "dare not openly show themselves," because "they do not find themselves protected by the shield of the law. "--Popular will, traversing both the old and the new law, obstinately persists in its work, and forcibly attains its ends. Thus, whatever the grand terms of liberty, equality, and fraternity may be, with which the Revolution graces itself, it is, in its essence, a transfer of property; in this alone consists its chief support, its enduring energy, its primary impulse and its historical significance.--Formerly, in antiquity, similar movements were accomplished, debts were abolished or lessened, the possessions of the rich were confiscated, and the public lands were divided; but this operation was confined to a city and limited to a small territory. For the first time it takes place on a large scale and in a modern State.--Thus far, in these vast States, when the deeper foundations have been disturbed, it has ever been on account of foreign domination or on account of an oppression of conscience. In France in the fifteenth century, in Holland in the sixteenth and in England in the seventeenth century, the peasant, the mechanic, and the laborer had taken up arms against an enemy or in behalf of their faith. On religious or patriotic zeal has followed the craving for prosperity and comfort, and the new motive is as powerful as the others; for in our industrial, democratic, and utilitarian societies it is this which governs almost all lives, and excites almost all efforts. Kept down for centuries, the passion recovers itself by throwing off government and privilege, the two great weights which have borne it down. At the present time this passion launches itself impetuously with its whole force, with brutal insensibility, athwart every kind of proprietorship that is legal and legitimate, whether it be public or private. The obstacles it encounters only render it the more destructive, beyond property it attacks proprietors, and completes plunder with proscriptions. ***** [Footnote 3201: The expression is that of Jean Bon Saint-André to Mathieu Dumas, sent to re-establish tranquillity in Montauban (1790): "The day of vengeance, which we have been awaiting for a hundred years, has come!"] [Footnote 3202: De Dampmartin, I. 187 (an eye-witness).] [Footnote 3203: "Archives Nationales," F7, 3223 and 3216. Letters of M. de Bouzols, major general, residing at Montpellier, May 21, 25, 28, 1790.] [Footnote 3204: Mary Lafon, "Histoire d'une Ville Protestante ".(with original documents derived from the archives of Montauban).]