In the months that followed, life was fairly "quiet." Of course, "quiet" was relative to those days when the Bastille was under siege.
Order in the better neighborhoods of Paris had been more or less restored. The newly formed National Guard patrolled day and night, so petty thieves hardly dared cause trouble there. By now, the poor had mostly been driven out of the National Guard, since they had to spend most of their time earning a living rather than receiving military training.
But once you left those neighborhoods and, without thinking, wandered into the districts where the poor lived, you immediately discovered that the return of order was an illusion. Things were even more chaotic here than before the Revolution.
According to Aunt Sophie, the streets were now crawling with thieves and bandits.
"I wouldn't dare carry a loaf of bread down the street." When Joseph suggested that Aunt Sophie take some bread from him to bring home to her children, that was what she said.
"Mr. Bonaparte, you have no idea how chaotic it is outside the neighborhoods these days! Good heavens, a woman like me carrying bread down the street—my God, that's more dangerous than walking through a forest full of tigers. And it's not just me. Even a big fellow like you, if you were alone, I'm sure you'd be robbed before you'd gone a hundred steps with bread in those places. If it were young Lucien, he wouldn't make it ten steps before he got shot. And little Louis—ah, he'd vanish without a trace, along with the bread!"
"If that's the case, how do you bring home the bread you buy?" Joseph asked.
"Why, several neighbors go together, of course," Aunt Sophie said. "You men brought all this on us, with your Estates-General and your