ne speaker proposes "to burn the house of M. d'Espremenil, his wife,
children and furniture, and himself: this is passed unanimously."--No
opposition is tolerated. One of those present having manifested some
horror at such sanguinary motions, "is seized by the collar, obliged to
kneel down, to make an apology, and to kiss the ground. The punishment
inflicted on children is given to him; he is ducked repeatedly in one of
the fountain-basins, after which they him over to the mob, who roll him
in the mud." On the following day an ecclesiastic is trodden under foot,
and flung from hand to hand. A few days after, on the 22nd of June,
there are two similar events. The sovereign mob exercises all the
functions of sovereign authority, with those of the legislator those of
the judge, and those of the judge with those of the executioner.--Its
idols are sacred; if any one fails to show them respect he is guilty of
lese-majeste, and at once punished. In the first week of July, an abbe
who speaks ill of Necker is flogged; a woman who insults the bust of
Necker is stripped by the fishwomen, and beaten until she is covered
with blood. War is declared against suspicious uniforms. "On the
appearance of a hussar," writes Desmoulins, "they shout, 'There goes
Punch!' and the stone-cutters fling stones at him. Last night two
officers of the hussars, MM. de Sombreuil and de Polignac, came to the
Palais-Royal. . . chairs were flung at them, and they would have been
knocked down if they had not run away. The day before yesterday they
seized a spy of the police and gave him a ducking in the fountain. They
ran him down like a stag, hustled him, pelted him with stones, struck
him with canes, forced one of his eyes out of its socket, and finally,
in spite of his entreaties and cries for mercy, plunged him a second
time in the fountain. His torments lasted from noon until half-past
five o'clock, and he had about ten thousand executioners."--Consider
the effect of such a focal center at a time like this. A new power has
sprung up alongside the legal powers, a legislature of the highways
and public squares, anonymous, irresponsible, without restraint. It
is driven onward by coffeehouse theories, by strong emotions and
the vehemence of mountebanks, while the bare arms which have just
accomplished the work of destruction in the Faubourg Saint-Antoine, form
its bodyguard and ministerial cabinet.

V.--Popular mobs become a political force.

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