In Auvergne, "they follow imperative orders, being advised that such is his Majesty's will." Nowhere do we see that an insurgent village exercises personal vengeance against its lord.

If the people fire on the nobles they encounter, it is not through personal hatred.

They are destroying the class, and do not pursue individuals.

They detest feudal privileges, holders of charters, the cursed parchments by virtue of which they are made to pay, but not the nobleman who, when he resides at home, is of humane intentions, compassionate, and even often beneficent.

At Luxeuil, the abbot, who is forced with uplifted ax to sign a relinquishment of his seignorial rights over twenty-three estates, has dwelt among them for forty-six years, and has been wholly devoted to them.[1341] In the canton of Cremieu, "where the havoc is immense," all the nobles, write the municipal officers, are "patriots and benevolent." In Dauphiny, the engineers, magistrates, and prelates, whose chateaux are sacked, were the first to espouse the cause of the people and of public liberties against the ministers.