Rural unrest in the last weeks of July 1789 in Revolutionary France was fueled by rumours surrounding the King and his court at Versailles. After the fall off the Bastille – a hated prison and symbol of the Ancien Régime – Louis XVI withdrew troops surrounding Paris, thus bowing to the National Assembly (and popular resistance). His acquiescence was considered a signal that emboldened the King’s subjects who thought they could act on their own against enemies so considered. Hungry and suspicious peasants took to burning manor houses, destroying in their wake the feudal registers that recorded tithes and dues owed to local lords. However, peasants came to believe that aristocrats were uniting forces to attack peasants: it was this ‘Great Fear’ that never actually happened. It was all rumour, but the result was that even more peasants took up arms to fight those believed serving the aristocracy. As the following letter reveals, civil militia were eventually organized to counter these marauders and peasant ‘bandits’.
Letter from
the Commissioners of the Estates of Dauphine to the Committee of Twelve (July
31, 1789)
Our province has been most violently agitated
for the last several days; bourgeois militia have been formed in all the
cities, towns, and villages because the fear of bandits has spread everywhere;
the watch is carried out with care and all suspicious-looking persons are
stopped.
An alliance from the side of the cultivated
lands has spread a general terror throughout the province. On Monday the 2th, a bandit no one knew came
to announce to Aoste that the village of Morestel was being attacked and
burned; at the same time, other bandits announced to Morestel that the village
of Aoste was being looted and burned.
The warning drew closer and closer, and the alarm was rung in all the
villages; fear seized every heart and it was rumored that twenty thousand
troops entered Dauphiné from the side of Bugey.
A letter written from Monferra to the lord of
Voiron, giving him news of the arrival of these supposed twenty thousand men,
was carried village to village and on to Grenoble, arriving there at eleven
o’clock at night; it was supposed that it was only a couple of bandits chased
from around Lyon by the city’s troops, so it was possible to dispel the fright
caused by this letter. But because the
same warning had been given in every vicinity, even in St. Marcellin, all the
people of the countryside quickly armed themselves with guns, pitchforks, and
scythes, and ran to where it had been announced that the troops were to
enter. Several couriers followed one
another through the night to bring the same news to Grenoble.
The commission convened very early in the
morning; the municipality of Grenoble joined them along with several notables,
citizens, to deliberate on the means of defense against this supposed invasion;
it was decided that it was necessary to create a state of preparedness and to
beg the commander to obtain rifles; Mr. Dufort sadly agreed to allow arms to be
placed in the people’s hands; the conditions according to which they promised
to return six thousand guns which caused
this abusive project to fail.
Tuesday was calm enough, thanks to the
precautions of the village watch, which had sounded the alarm in the night, to
announce that it was a false alert.
On Wednesday morning, the courier brought the
most deplorable news that he had seen the château of Montferra,
whose portal had already been destroyed; the people of the château handed over the wine cellar to the arsonists, who contented
themselves with burning a businessman’s house.
A troop of these bandits went to the château of Césarges, which they also wanted to burn; they were
stopped by the same means used at Montferra; but they urged suspicion of the
villagers of the plain, who were supposed to come to loot the following day; the
event itself proved the truth of this advice; Césarges has been looted and
stripped with the help of carts; everything was taken, right down to the hinges
of the doors; there was money there that did not escape the thieves’ foraging;
the inhabitants of the neighboring village were themselves accomplices to the
looting, mingling with the bandits; only some papers were saved.
The châteaux of Loras and
Belaceuil were pillaged or burned as well; that of M. de Meyrieu was ruined;
the furniture was broken or carried away but the fear of setting the village on
fire saved the building from flames.
In light of this horrible disorder, the
Parlement proposed to the Commission on the 29th to join with it …
and to include some deputies from the municipality, to confer together on means
to reestablish the public peace.…
Courier followed upon courier throughout the
day of Thursday the 30th to bring news of châteaux that had been burned or ruined; the list is immense….
All good citizens hastened to volunteer to stop
the disorder. The committee requested M.
de Durfort’s troops; consequently one hundred men of the Swiss regiment set out
on the night of 30-31, as well as a similar number of bourgeois militia taken
from the grenadiers and chasseurs. These
two companies were considerably augmented by young nobles and by the best
bourgeois, who were put in step under the orders of M. de Frimont, who commands
the attachment….
Meanwhile, couriers have been dispatched to
Vienne, Lyon, and Valence to bring troops of the artillery and to surround the
bandits.
The city of Lyon, having taken the same
precautions of those of Grenoble, sent two hundred bourgeois militia with
troops in pursuit of these incendiary thieves; M. Reynaud, Major of Sonnenberg,
in the detachment from Lyon, has just told M. de Durfort that thirteen of these
bandits were killed, nineteen taken prisons; they were taken to the prisons of
Lyon; the provost conducting their trial there; they will be executed there or
a reliable guard of troops will escort them.
A consul of the community and residents of the area have been found
among the convicts.[1]
[1] Laura Mason and Tracey Rizzo, eds. and trs., The French Revolution: A Document Collection (New York: Houghton Mifflin, 1999), pp. 67, 68. Translated by Laura Mason.
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