Amidst outcries and reproaches some one in the crowd makes a push; the proprietor or dealer is hustled and knocked down.

The shop is invaded, the commodity is in the hands of the buyers and of the famished, each one grabbing for himself, pay or no pay, and running away with the booty .-- Sometimes a party is made up beforehand[1117] At Bray-sur-Seine, on the 1st of May, the villagers for four leagues around, armed with stones, knives, and cudgels, to the number of four thousand, compel the metayers and farmers, who have brought grain with them, to sell it at 3 livres, instead of 4 livres 10 sous the bushel.
They threaten to do the same thing on the following market-day: but the farmers do not return, the storehouse remains empty.

Now soldiers must be at hand, or the inhabitants of Bray will be pillaged.

At Bagnols, in Languedoc, on the 1st and 2nd of April, the peasants, armed with cudgels and assembled by tap of drum, "traverse the town, threatening to burn and destroy everything if flour and money are not given to them." They go to private houses for grain, divide it amongst themselves at a reduced price, "promising to pay when the next crop comes round," and force the Consuls to put bread at two sous the pound, and to increase the day's wages four sous .-- Indeed this is now the regular thing; it is not the people who obey the authorities, but the authorities who obey the people.

Consuls, sheriffs, mayors, municipal officers, town-clerks, become confused and hesitating in the face of this huge clamor; they feel that they are likely to be trodden under foot or thrown out of the windows.