Accordingly, the first principle of liberty
they were taught from the new code was, that they had a right to assemble
in arms, to force the surrender of title-deeds; and their first
revolutionary notions of equality and property seem to have been
manifested by the burning of chateaux, and refusing to pay their rents.
They were permitted to intimidate their landlords, in order to force them
to emigration, and either to sell their estates at a low price, or leave
them to the mercy of the tenants.
At a time when the necessities of the state had been great enough to be
made the pretext of a dreadful revolution, they were not only almost
exempt from contributing to its relief, but were enriched by the common
distress; and while the rest of their countrymen beheld with unavailing
regret their property gradually replaced by scraps of paper, the peasants
became insolent and daring by impunity, refused to sell but for specie,
and were daily amassing wealth. It is not therefore to be wondered at,
that they were partial to the new order of things. The prisons might
have overflowed or been thinned by the miseries of those with whom they
had been crowded--the Revolutionary Tribunal might have sacrificed half
France, and these selfish citizens, I fear, would have beheld it
tranquilly, had not the requisition forced their labourers to the army,
and the "maximum" lowered the price of their corn.
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