PETER LOEWENBERG
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believed to be stalking the countryside, burning, pillaging, and raping. It
was a delusion, a symbolic representation, and a projection. Says Lefeb–
vre: "Anxiety is self-explanatory. One has everything to fear from an ad–
versary as one imagines him to be."
The characteristic response of a village to the arrival of the news
was pamc:
Mass hysteria would break out among the peasant women: in their
imagination, it was already too late - they were raped, then murdered,
their children slaughtered, their homes burnt to the ground; weeping
and wailing, they fled into the woods and fields, a few provisions and
bits of clothing clutched to their bosoms. Sometimes, the men fol–
lowed close behind once they had buried anything of value and set
the animals loose in the open country. Most often, though, whether
through common decency , a genuine bravery or fear of authority, they
responded to the appeal of the
syndic,
the
cure
or the
seig/leur.
Prepa–
rations would be made for the defense of the village under the direc–
tion of the
seigne/lr
himself or some old soldier. Everyone armed up
at the entrance of the village or at the bridge; scouting parties were
sent out. At nightfall patrols were kept up and everyone stayed on the
alert. In the towns, there was a sort of general mobilization: it was
like being in a city under siege. Provisions were requisitioned, gun–
powder and munitions co llected, the ramparts repaired, and the ar–
tillery placed in position .
When nothing materialized they went off to castle or abbey to as–
sert new rights. A comparison with those areas of France that did not
experience the Great Fear is instructive. Some areas, such as Brittany,
were immune to the Great Fear. The crucial variable is that the authori–
ties were able to assert their control and exercised a calming influence on
the population. In Brittany the local councils took competent measures
to restrain both the aristocracy and the lower orders, acting in a confi–
dence-inspiring way, thus giving the people a sense of order and control.
As a social-psychological phenomenon the Great Fear is a manifestation
of the anxiety caused by loss of authority, the absence of the security of
control and mastery, of not having a firm hand at the helm. After the
upheaval in Paris on July 14th, the old order was perceived as gone, and
the peasantry, in those areas subject to the Great Fear, was adrift with no
social order and therefore subject to its own unrestrained wishes and
fears .
The news of the purported coming of the brigands, sometimes from
all
directions at once, traveled with great speed. Lefebvre documents the
velocity of the rumor as it traveled day and night:
