46] ANNUAL REGISTER, 1790. 
of deliberate and unheard-of cru- 
elty, without regard to age or fex. 
We are forry, for the honour of 
humanity, that thefe cruelties are 
zeprefented as not being in any de- 
gree confined to fuch perfons as had 
previoufly rendered themfelves odi- 
ous by their pride or oppreffion ; but 
that onthe contrary, the moft kind 
and benevolentlandlords and matters, 
the moft humane and charitable to 
their neighbours and the poor, were 
expofed to the fame fate with thofe 
of the moft oppofite difpofitions, A 
blind rage for indifcriminate plun- 
der, mixed with a paflion for mi 
chief, and native cruelty, feemed to 
have been the moft operative mo- 
tives in many of thefe violences ; it 
is not, however, to be doubted, but 
that a fpirit of revenge, founded on 
a ftrong fenfe of paft injury and op- 
preffion, might have operated in a 
dull greater number. There may 
be fome degree of juitice in obferv- 
ing, that as ruffians of every order 
and denomination throughout the 
kingdom, robbers, galley-flaves, and 
murderers, lured by the unexpected 
‘profpect of fafe and general pillage, 
now held out, had feized this occa- 
fion of mixing with the peafants, it 
is notto be doubted but that they 
prompted them to the commillion of 
many of their moft atrocious and 
bloody deeds. 
Although the fpirit of revolt ap- 
peared in various and remote parts. _ 
of the kingdom at nearly the fame 
inftant, yet the degrees of violence 
ang cruelty with which it was at- 
tended, were widely different in dif- 
ferent parts. ‘The northern pro- 
vinces, and particularly Normandy, 
were much more temperate than the 
central and fouthern. The excefles 
at Lyons, and in the country which 
bears its name, rivalled thote of Pa- 
ris in violence and fury... The pros 
vince of Dauphiny was in the mott 
violent ferment, and the whole peo- 
ple up in arms. Franche Compte, 
and part of Burgundy, feemed par- 
ticularly marked as {cenes of defo- 
lation. The Bretons, long trained 
in hottility with their lords, were in a 
ftate ofabfolute rebellion and anarchy. 
At Straiburg, the Hotel de Ville, or 
Town Houte, was totally demolithed 
by the mob, being firft plundered 
of all that appeared to them valua- 
ble, the court papers, records, and 
public archives being carefully de- 
itroyed, to the future diitrefs and 
ruin of numberlefs families in the 
furrounding country, as well as in 
that city. : 
In a few piaces, the gentlemen 
and other land proprietors had the 
fpirit and fenfe to unite and ftand 
fuccefsfully on their defence. This 
was the cafe, though too late, in the 
Maconnois and Beaujolois, where 
the banditti, amounting to fix or fe- 
ven thoufand, and headed by a vil- 
lage attorney, had already fpread 
deftruction along the fertile banks 
of the Saone, having in a few days 
burnt feventy - two gentlemen’s 
houfes, and plundered all the 
churches and fmall towns in their 
way. A battle took place, in which 
the enraged proprietaries, with their 
friends and fervants, defeated the 
plunderers with great flaughter. 
‘They then inftituted a kind of tem- 
porary tribunal at Macon, for try- 
ing the ringleaders of the banditti, 
by whom twenty or thirty of them 
were fentenced to execution. The 
democratic. publications in Paris 
cried out loudly againft this pro- 
‘ceeding, as being highly illegal and 
arbitrary, although not a word of 
condemnation had been uttered 
againft the rufians who had plun- 
dered 
