Drunken men shouted about the public thoroughfares, "Bread! cheap bread!" Burgundy had always been restless and easily excited.

It was at Dijon that the insurrection began; on the 20th of April, the peasantry moved upon the town and smashed the furniture of a councillor in the Maupeou Parliament, who was accused of monopoly; they were already overflowing the streets; exasperated by the cruel answer of the governor, M.de la Tour du Pin: "You want something to eat?
Go and graze; the grass is just coming up." The burgesses trembled in their houses; the bishop threw himself in the madmen's way and succeeded in calming them with his exhortations.

The disturbance had spread to Pontoise; there the riot broke out on the 1st of May, the market was pillaged; and the 2d, at Versailles, a mob collected under the balcony of the castle.

Everywhere ruffians of sinister appearance mingled with the mob, exciting its passions and urging it to acts of violence: the same men, such as are only seen in troublous days, were at the same time scouring Brie, Soissonnais, Vexin, and Upper Normandy; already barns had been burned and wheat thrown into the river; sacks of flour were ripped to pieces before the king's eyes, at Versailles.

In his excitement and dismay he promised the mob that the bread-rate should for the future be fixed at two sous; the rioters rushed to Paris.
M.Turgot had been confined to his bed for some months by an attack of gout; the Paris bakers' shops had already been pillaged; the rioters had entered simultaneously by several gates, badly guarded; only one bakery, the owner of which had taken the precaution of putting over the door a notice with shop to let on it, had escaped the madmen.