1 68 Travels in France 



a sovereign prince^ for Mr. Taylor has left him, is a diflRculty 

 apparently insurmountable. — 22I miles. 



21st. I have spent some time this morning at the cabinet 

 liter aire, reading the gazettes and journals that give an account 

 of the transactions at Paris : and I have had some conversation 

 with several sensible and intelligent men on the present revolu- 

 tion. The spirit of revolt is gone forth into various parts of the 

 kingdom; the price of bread has prepared the populace every- 

 where for all sorts of violence; at Lyons there have been com- 

 motions as furious as at Paris and the same at a great many 

 other places: Dauphine is in arms and Bretagne in absolute 

 rebellion. The idea is, that the people will, from hunger, be 

 driven to revolt; and when once they find any other means of 

 subsistence than that of honest labour, everything will be to be 

 feared. Of such consequence it is to a country, and indeed to 

 every country, to have a good police of corn; a police that shall, 

 by securing a high price to the farmer, encourage his culture 

 enough to secure the people at the same time from famine. My 

 anxiety about Carlsruhe is at an end; the Margrave is at Spaw; 

 I shall not therefore think of going. — Night- — I have been witness 

 to a scene curious to a foreigner but dreadful to Frenchmen 

 that are considerate. Passing through the square of the hotel 

 de ville, the mob were breaking the windows with stones, not- 

 withstanding an officer and a detachment of horse was in the 

 square. Perceiving that their numbers not only increased, but 

 that they grew bolder and bolder every moment, I thought it 

 worth staying to see what it would end in, and clambered on to 

 the roof of a row of low stalls opposite the building against 

 which their malice was directed. Here I beheld the whole com- 

 modiously. Perceiving that the troops would not attack them, 

 except in words and menaces, they grew more violent, and 

 furiously attempted to beat the doors in pieces with iron crows, 

 placing ladders to the windows. In about a quarter of an hour, 

 which gave time for the assembled magistrates to escape by a 

 back door, they burst all open, and entered like a torrent with 

 a universal shout of the spectators. From that minute a shower 

 of casements, sashes, shutters, chairs, tables, sofas, books, 

 papers, pictures, etc., rained incessantly from all the windows 

 of the house, which is 70 or 80 feet long, and which was then 

 succeeded by tiles, skirting boards, bannisters, frame-work, and 

 every part of the building that force could detach. The troops, 

 both horse and foot, were quiet spectators. They were at first 

 too few to interpose, and, when they became more numerous, 



