CHAPTER I.THE BEGINNINGS OF ANARCHY.
I .-- Dearth the first cause.
Bad crops.

The winter of 1788 and 1789 .-- High price and poor quality of bread .-- In the provinces .-- At Paris.
During the night of July 14-15, 1789, the Duc de la Rochefoucauld-Liancourt caused Louis XVI to be aroused to inform him of the taking of the Bastille.

"It is a revolt, then ?" exclaimed the King.
"Sire!" replied the Duke; "it is a revolution!" The event was even more serious.

Not only had power slipped from the hands of the King, but also it had not fallen into those of the Assembly.

It now lay on the ground, ready to the hands of the unchained populace, the violent and over-excited crowd, the mobs, which picked it up like some weapon that had been thrown away in the street.