d responsible by their fellow-citizens. . . . Municipal bodies
have no longer the power to resist anything."

Especially in the rural districts the mayor or syndic, who is a farmer,
makes it his first aim to make no enemies, and would resign his place
if it were to bring him any "unpleasantness" with it. His rule in
the towns, and especially in large cities, is almost as lax and more
precarious, because explosive material is accumulated here to a much
larger extent, and the municipal officers, in their arm-chairs at the
town-hall, sit over a mine which may explode at any time. To-morrow,
perhaps, some resolution passed at a tavern in the suburbs, or some
incendiary newspaper just received from Paris, will furnish the
spark.--No other defense against the populace is at hand than the
sentimental proclamations of the National Assembly, the useless presence
of troops who stand by and look on, and the uncertain help of a National
Guard which will arrive too late. Occasionally these townspeople, who
are now the rulers, utter a cry of distress from under the hands of
the sovereigns of the street who grasp them by the throat. At
Puy-en-Velay,[1307] a town of twenty thousand inhabitants, the
presidial,[1308] the committee of twenty-four commissioners, a body of
two hundred dragoons, and eight hundred men of the guard of burgesses,
are "paralyzed, and completely stupefied, by the vile populace. A
mild treatment only increases its insubordination and insolence." This
populace proscribes whomsoever it pleases, and six days ago a gibbet,
erected by its hands, has announced to the new magistrates the fate that
awaits them.

" What will become of us this winter," they exclaim, "in our
impoverished country, where bread is not to be had! We shall be the prey
of wild beasts!"

III.--Public feeling.--Famine

These people, in truth, are hungry, and, since the Revolution, their
misery has increased. Around Puy-en-Velay the country is laid waste,
and the soil broken up by a terrible tempest, a fierce hailstorm, and
a deluge of rain. In the south, the crop proved to be moderate and even
insufficient.

"To trace a picture of the condition of Languedoc," writes the
intendant,[1309] "would be to give an account of calamities of every
description. The panic which prevails in all communities, and which is
stronger than all laws, stops traffic, and would cause famine even in
the midst of plenty. Commodities are enormously expensive, and