14 Julia Cfewiit Stoddard 



convoys of grain were often prevented from passing - out of a 

 province. Wagons loaded with wheat and flour were pillaged 

 almost daily, first in one place and then in another. 1 On the 

 29th of July, Bailly complains of being exposed to the greatest 

 danger by the pillage of a government convoy on the way from 

 Rouen. 2 And again about a month later, the wagons were pil- 

 laged first by mobs on the road, and again by bakers in the sub- 

 urbs of Paris. 3 Duquesnoy's journal for the 3d of October con- 

 tains the statement that "The city of Rouen has just stopped 

 the last convoy of subsistence destined for Paris. Everything is 

 in the most frightful distress there." 4 



Since early spring France had been given up more and more 

 to a spirit of lawlessness and revolution. Disturbances broke out 

 on all sides so simultaneously that it appeared that a "vast num- 

 ber of criminals, without visible leaders, had agreed among them- 

 selves to commit the same excesses." 5 Young wrote on the 10th 

 of June, "Accounts arrive every moment from the provinces of 

 riots and disturbances." And on the 21st of July, "The spirit 

 of revolt has gone forth into various parts of the kingdom. The 

 price of bread prepares for violence. At Lyons . . . com- 

 motions furious as at Paris. Dauphine is in arms and Bretagne 

 in absolute rebellion." The same night there occurred a riot 

 in Strasbourg which Young himself witnessed. 7 



A report was spread all over France that an army of brigands 

 was overrunning the country plundering and burning. There 

 was no truth in the report, but many chateaux had been burnt 

 and the peasants everywhere were terror-stricken. It was the 

 "Great fear." Citizens in cities and workmen in the fields, on 

 hearing that the brigands were coming, left their work and made 

 haste to arm themselves to meet the foe. 8 On the 4th of August 



1 Gomel, Histoire financiere de Passemblee constituante, 289. 



' 2 Bailly, Mcmoircs, II, 171. 



s I6id., II, 305. 



4 Duquesnoy, Journal, I, 393. 



5 Taine, L^ancien regime, 8, quotation from Moutjoie. 



6 Young, Travels in France, 104. 



ilbid., 141 ff. 



8 Bailly, Memoires, II, 160, 161. 



280' 



