The last one
let loose on all France a universal and lasting brigandage, the
arbitrary rule of paupers, vagabonds and ruffians; every species of
robbery, from a refusal to pay rents and leases to the sacking of
chateaux and ordinary domiciles, even to the pillage of markets and
granaries. Free scope was given to mobs which, under a political
pretext, tax and ransom the "suspects " of all classes at pleasure,
not alone the noble and the rich but the peaceable farmer and well-to-
do artisan. In short, the country reverted back to a natural state,
the sovereignty of appetites, greed and lust, to mankind's return to a
savage, primitive life in the forests. Only a short time before, in
the month of February, 1793, through Marat's recommendation, and with
the connivance of the Jacobin municipality, the Paris riff-raff had
broken into twelve hundred groceries and divided on the spot, either
gratis or at the price it fixed, sugar, soap, brandy and coffee.
From above, they had undertaken, carried out and multiplied the worst
assaults on property, vast spoliations of every sort; the suppression
of hundreds of millions of incomes and the confiscation of billions of
capital; the abolition without indemnity of tithes and quitrents; the
expropriation of the property of the clergy, of emigr?s, that of the
order of Malta, that of the pious, charitable and educational
associations and endowments, even laic; seizures of plate, of the
sacred vessels and precious ornaments of the churches.
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