The result was deplorable; the severe resolution, of the council was placarded beside the proclamation of the Parliament; the magistrates were summoned to Versailles.

The prosecution of offenders was forbidden them; it was intrusted to the provost's department.

"The proceedings of the brigands appear to be combined," said the keeper of the seals; "their approach is announced; public rumors indicate the day, the hour, the places at which they are to commit their outrages.

It would seem as if there were a plan formed to lay waste the country-places, intercept navigation, prevent the carriage of wheat on the high-roads, in order to starve out the large towns, and especially the city of Paris." The king at the same time forbade any "remonstrance." I rely," said he on dismissing the court, "upon your placing no obstacle or hinderance in the way of the measures I have taken, in order that no similar event may occur during the period of my reign." The troubles were everywhere subsiding, the merchants were recovering their spirits.

M.Turgot had at once sent fifty thousand francs to a trader whom the rioters had robbed of a boat full of wheat which they had flung into the river; two of the insurgents were at the same time hanged at Paris on a gallows forty feet high; and a notice was sent to the parish priests, which they were to read from the pulpit in order to enlighten the people as to the folly of such outbreaks and as to the conditions of the trade in grain.