"In many places, to avoid the trouble of removing the woods, they are burnt, and the people content themselves with carrying off the ashes." -- After the decrees of August 4th, and in spite of the law which licenses the proprietor only to hunt on his own grounds, the impulse to break the law becomes irresistible. Every man who can procure a gun begins operations;[29] the crops which are still standing are trodden under foot, the lordly residences are invaded and the palings are scaled; the King himself at Versailles is wakened by shots fired in his park. Stags, fawns, deer, wild boars, hares, and rabbits, are slain by thousands, cooked with stolen wood, and eaten up on the spot. There is a constant discharge of musketry throughout France for more than two months, and, as on an American prairie, every living animal belongs to him who kills it. At Choiseul, in Champagne, not only are all the hares and partridges of the barony exterminated, but the ponds are exhausted of fish; the court of the chateau even is entered, to fire on the pigeon-house and destroy the pigeons, and then the pigeons and fish, of which they have too many, are offered to the proprietor for sale -- It is "the patriots" of the village with "smugglers and bad characters"belonging to the neighborhood who make this expedition; they are seen in the front ranks of every act of violence, and it is not difficult to foresee that, under their leadership, attacks on public persons and public property will be followed by attacks on private persons and private property.
VII.
Attack upon private individuals and private property. - Aristocrats denounced to the people as their enemies. - Effect of news from Paris.- Influence of the village attorneys. - Isolated acts of violence. - A general rising of the peasantry in the east. - War against the castles, feudal estates, and property. - Preparations for other Jacqueries.
Indeed, an outlawed class already exists, they are called "aristocrats." This deadly term, applied at first to the nobles and prelates in the States-General who declined to take part in the reunion of the three orders, is extended so as to embrace all whose titles, offices, alliances, and manner of living distinguish them from the multitude. That which entitled them to respect is that which marks them out as objects of ill-will; while the people, who, though suffering from their privileges, did not regard them personally with hatred, are now taught to consider them as their enemies. Each, on his own estate, is held accountable for the evil designs attributed to his brethren at Versailles, and, on the false report of a plot at the center, the peasants classify him as one of the conspirators.[30] Thus does the peasant jacquerie commence, and the fanatics who have fanned the flame in Paris are to do the same in the provinces. "You wish to know the authors of the agitation,"writes a sensible man to the committee of investigation; "you will find them amongst the deputies of the Third-Estate," and especially among the attorneys and advocates. "These dispatch incendiary letters to their constituents, which letters are received by municipal bodies alike composed of attorneys and of advocates....
they are read aloud in the public squares, while copies of them are distributed among all the villages. In these villages, if any one knows how to read besides the priest and the lord of the manor, it is the legal practitioner," the born enemy of the lord of the manor, whose place he covets, vain of his oratorical powers, embittered by his power, and never failing to blacken everything.[31] It is highly probable that he is the one who composes and circulates the placards calling on the people, in the King's name, to resort to violence. -- At Secondigny, in Poitou, on the 23rd of July,[32] the laborers in the forest receive a letter "which summons them to attack all the country gentlemen round about, and to massacre without mercy all those who refuse to renounce their privileges....
