The same havoc is committed in the mayor's town-house, also in his country-house a league off.

"Not a window, not a door, not one article or eatable," is preserved; their work, moreover, is conscientiously done, without stopping a moment, "from ten in the evening up to ten in the morning on the following day." In addition to this the mayor, who has served for thirty-four years, resigns his office at the solicitation of the well-disposed but terrified people, and leaves the country .-- At Rouen, after the 24th of July,[1318] a written placard shows, by its orthography and its style, what sort of intellects composed it and what kind of actions are to follow it: "Nation, you have here four heads to strike off, those of Pontcarry (the first president), Maussion (the intendant), Godard de Belboeuf (the attorney-general), and Durand (the attorney of the King in the town).
Without this we are lost, and if you do not do it, people will take you for a heartless nation." Nothing could be more explicit.

The municipal body, however, to whom the Parliament denounces this list of proscriptions, replies, with its forced optimism, that "no citizen should consider himself or be considered as proscribed; he may and must believe himself to be safe in his own dwelling, satisfied that there is not a person in the city who would not fly to his rescue." This is equal to telling the populace that it is free to do as it pleases.

On the strength of this the leaders of the riot work on in security for ten days.

One of them is a man named Jourdain, a lawyer of Lisieux, and, like most of his brethren, a demagogue in principles; the other is a strolling actor from Paris named Bordier, famous in the part of harlequin,[1319] a bully in a house of ill-fame, "a night-rover and drunkard, and who, fearing neither God nor devil," has taken up patriotism, and comes down into the provinces to play tragedy, and that, tragedy in real life.