The primary possession, food, is violated in hundreds of places, and is everywhere menaced and precarious.

The local officials everywhere call for aid, declare the constabulary incompetent, and demand regular troops.

And mark how public authority, everywhere inadequate, disorganized, and tottering, finds stirred up against it not only the blind madness of hunger, but, in addition, the evil instincts which profit by every disorder and the inveterate lusts which every political commotion frees from restraint.
IV .-- Intervention of ruffians and vagabonds.
We have seen how numerous the smugglers, dealers in contraband salt, poachers, vagabonds, beggars, and escaped convicts[1122] have become, and how a year of famine increases the number.

All are so many recruits for the mobs, and whether in a disturbance or by means of a disturbance each one of them fills his pouch.

Around Caux,[1123] even up to the environs of Rouen, at Roncherolles, Quevrevilly, Preaux, Saint-Jacques, and in the entire surrounding neighborhood bands of armed bandits force their way into the houses, particularly the parsonages, and lay their hands on whatever they please.