edience of the
national guard, and the risings of the populace; whilst at Paris they
_feted_ the Swiss of Chateauvieux, the mob of Marseilles demanded with
much violence that the Swiss regiment of _Ernst_ should be expelled from
the garrison at Aix, under pretext that they favoured the aristocracy,
and that the security of Provence was thereby menaced. On the refusal of
this regiment to quit the city, the Marseillaise marched upon Aix as the
Parisians had marched upon Versailles in the days of October. They by
violence compelled the national guard to accompany them, who had been
destined to repress them; they surrounded the regiment of Ernst with
cannon, made them lay down their arms, and shamefully drove them before
sedition. The national guard, a force essentially revolutionary, because
it participates, like the people, in the opinions, feelings, and
passions, which, as a civic guard, it ought to repress, followed in
every direction, from weakness or example, the fickle impressions of the
mob. How could men, just leaving clubs, where they had been listening
to, applauding, and frequently exciting sedition in patriotic
discourses,--how could they, changing their feelings and part at the
door of popular societies, take arms against the seditious? Thus they
remained spectators, when they were not accomplices, of insurrections.
The scarcity of colonial produce, the dearness of grain, the rigour of a
hard winter, all contributed to disturb the people: the agitators turned
all these misfortunes of the times into accusations and grounds of
hatred against royalty.

II.

The government, powerless and disarmed, was rendered responsible for the
severities of nature. Secret emissaries, armed bands, went amongst the
towns and cities where markets were held, and there disseminated the
most alarming reports, provoking the people to tax grain and flour,
stigmatising the corn-dealers as monopolists--the perfidious charge of
monopoly being a sure sentence of death. The fear of being accused of
starving the people checked every speculation of business, and tended
much more than actual want to the dearth of the markets. Nothing is so
scarce as a commodity which is concealed. The corn-stores were crimes in
the eyes of consumers of bread. The Maire of Etampes, Simoneau, an
honest man, and an intrepid magistrate, was one victim sacrificed to the
people's suspicions. Etampes was one of the great markets that supplied
Paris. It was theref