n
or twelve had violated the woman, they tried to make her and the
children eat some of the body; then killed them, put them to an evil
death.

"These wicked people pillaged and burned everything; they killed, and
forced, and violated all the women and maidens, without pity or mercy,
as if they were mad dogs.

"Quite in the same manner did lawless people conduct themselves between
Paris and Noyon, between Paris and Soissons and Ham in Vermandois, all
through the land of Coucy. There were the great violators and
malefactors; and, in the county of Valois, in the bishopric of Laon, of
Soissons, and of Noyon, they destroyed upwards of a hundred chateaux
and goodly houses of knights and squires, and killed and robbed all
they met. But _God_, by his grace, found a fit remedy, for which all
praise be given to him."

People simply substituted for God, Monseigneur le Prince-President.
They could do no less.

Now that eight months have elapsed, we know what to think of this
"Jacquerie;" the facts have at length been brought to light. Where?
How? Why, before the very tribunals of M. Bonaparte. The sub-prefects
whose wives had been violated were single men; the cures who had been
roasted alive, and whose hearts Jacques had eaten, have written to say
that they are quite well; the gendarmes, round whose bodies others had
danced have been heard as witnesses before the courts-martial; the
public coffers, said to have been rifled, have been found intact in the
hands of M. Bonaparte, who "saved" them; the famous deficit of five
thousand francs, at Clamecy, has dwindled down to two hundred expended
in orders for bread. An official publication had said, on the 8th of
December: "The cure, the mayor, and the sub-prefect of Joigny, besides
several gendarmes, have been basely massacred." Somebody replied to
this in a letter, which was made public; "Not a drop of blood was shed
at Joigny; nobody's life was threatened." Now, by whom was this letter
written? This same mayor of Joigny who had been _basely massacred_, M.
Henri de Lacretelle, from whom an armed band had extorted two thousand
francs, at his chateau of Cormatin, is amazed, to this day, not at the
extortion, but at the fable. M. de Lamartine, whom another band had
intended to plunder, and probably to hang on the lamp-post, and whose
chateau of Saint-Point was burned, and who "had written to demand
government assistance," knew nothing of the matter until he saw it in
the papers!