[The Origins of Contemporary France Volume 2 (of 6) by Hippolyte A. Taine]@TWC D-Link bookThe Origins of Contemporary France Volume 2 (of 6) CHAPTER I 29/51
It is they who serve as the directors and executioners of public or private malice.
Near Uzes twenty-five masked men, with guns and clubs, enter the house of a notary, fire a pistol at him, beat him, wreck the premises, and burn his registers along with the title-deeds and papers which he has in keeping for the Count de Rouvres.
Seven of them are arrested, but the people are on their side, and fall on the constabulary and free them.[1124]--They are known by their acts, by their love of destruction for the sake of destruction, by their foreign accent, by their savage faces and their rags.
Some of them come from Paris to Rouen, and, for four days, the town is at their mercy.[1125] The stores are forced open, train wagons are discharged, wheat is wasted, and convents and seminaries are put to ransom.
They invade the dwelling of the attorney-general, who has begun proceedings against them, and want to tear him to pieces.
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