The people,
expecting great changes, refused to pay the customary taxes and
imposts, and the king, for fear of the National Assembly and of a
popular uprising, hesitated to compel tax collection by force of arms.
The local officials did not know whether they were to obey the Assembly
or the king. In fact, the Assembly was for a time so busy with
constitutional questions that it neglected to provide for local
government, and the king was always timorous. So, during the summer of
1789, the institutions of the "old regime" disappeared throughout
France, one after another, because there was no popular desire to
maintain them and no competent authority to enforce them. The
insurrection in Paris and the fall of the Bastille was the signal in
July for similar action elsewhere: other cities and towns substituted
new elective officers for the ancient royal or gild agents and
organized National Guards of their own. At the same time the direct
action of the people spread to the country districts. In most provinces
the oppressed peasants formed bands which stormed and burned the
chateaux of the hated nobles, taking particular pains to destroy feudal
or servile title-deeds.
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