第360章

Meanwhile, hands are laid on the badly defended landed property of this feeble creditor. - It is always difficult for rude brains to form any conception of the vague, invisible, abstract entity called the State, to regard it as a veritable personage and a legitimate proprietor, especially when they are persistently told that the State is everybody. The property of all is the property of each, and as the forests belong to the public, the first-comer has a right to profit by them. In the month of December, 1789,[53] bands of sixty men or more chop down the trees in the Bois de Boulogne and at Vincennes. In April, 1790, in the forest of Saint-Germain, "the patrols arrest all kinds of delinquents day and night:" handed over to the National Guards and municipalities in the vicinity, these are "almost immediately released, even with the wood which they have cut down against the law." iii There is no means of repressing "the reiterated threats and insults of the low class of people." A mob of women, urged on by an old French guardsman, come and pillage under the nose of the escort a load of faggots confiscated for the benefit of a hospital; and in the forest itself, bands of marauders fire upon the patrols. - At Chantilly, three game-keepers are mortally wounded;[54] both parks are devastated for eighteen consecutive days; the game is all killed, transported to Paris and sold. - At Chambord the lieutenant of the constabulary writes to announce his powerlessness; the woods are ravaged and even burnt; the poachers are now masters of the situation; breaches in the wall are made by them, and the water from the pond is drawn off to enable them to catch the fish. - At Claix, in Dauphiny, an officer of the jurisdiction of woods and forests, who has secured an injunction against the inhabitants for cutting down trees on leased ground, is seized, tortured during five hours, and then stoned to death. - In vain does the National Assembly issue three decrees and regulations, placing the forests under the supervision and protection of administrative bodies, - he latter are too much afraid of their charge. Between the central power, which is weak and remote, and the people, present and strong, they always decide in favor of the latter. Not one of the five municipalities surrounding Chantilly is disposed to assist in the execution of the laws, while the directories of the district and department respectively, sanction their inertia. - Similarly, near Toulouse,[55] where the magnificent forest of Larramet is devastated in open day and by an armed force, where the wanton destruction by the populace leaves nothing of the underwood and shrubbery but "a few scattered trees and the remains of trunks cut at different heights," the municipalities of Toulouse and of Tournefeuille refuse all aid. And worse still, in other provinces, as for instance in Alsace, "whole municipalities, with their mayors at the head, cut down woods which are confided to them, and carry them off."[56] If some tribunal is disposed to enforce the law, it is to no purpose; it takes the risk, either of not being allowed to give judgment, or of being constrained to reverse its decision. At Paris the judgment prepared against the incendiaries of the tax-offices could not be given. At Montargis, the sentence pronounced against the marauders who had stolen cartloads of wood in the national forests had to be revised, and by the judges themselves. The moment the tribunal announced the confiscation of the carts and horses which had been seized, there arose a furious outcry against it; the court was insulted by those present; the condemned parties openly declared that they would have their carts and horses back by force. Upon this "the judges withdrew into the council-chamber, and when soon after they resumed their seats, that part of their decision which related to the confiscation was canceled."And yet this administration of justice, ludicrous and flouted as it may be, is still a sort of barrier. When it falls, along with the Government, everything is exposed to plunder, and there is no such thing as public property. - After August 10, 1792, each commune or individual appropriates whatever comes in its way, either products or the soil itself. Some of the plunderers go so far as to say that, since the Government no longer represses them, they act under its authority.[57] "They have destroyed even the recent plantation of young trees." "One of the villages near Fontainebleau cleared off and divided an entire grove. At Rambouillet, from August 10th to the end of October," the loss is more than 100,000 crowns; the rural agitators demand with threats the partition of the forest among the inhabitants. "The destruction is enormous" everywhere, prolonged for entire months, and of such a kind, says the minister, as to dry up this source of public revenue for a long time to come. -Communal property is no more respected than national property. In each commune, these bold and needy folk, the rural populace, are privileged to enjoy and make the most of it. Not content with enjoying it, they desire to acquire ownership of it, and, for days after the King's fall, the Legislative Assembly, losing its footing in the universal breaking up, empowers the indigent to put in force the agrarian law. Henceforth it suffices in any commune for one-third of its inhabitants of both ***es, servants, common laborers, shepherds, farm-hands or cowherds, and even paupers, to demand a partition of the communal possessions. All that the commune owns, save public edifices and woods, is to be cut up into as many equal lots as there are heads, the lots to be drawn for, and each individual to take possession of his or her portion.[58] The Operation is carried out, for "those who are least well off are infinitely flattered by it." In the district of Arcis-sur-Aube, there are not a dozen communes out of ninety in which more than two-thirds of the voters had the good sense to pronounce against it.