The Great Panic in France

After fall of bastille, rumor started swirling that reactionary members of the aristocracy were hiring groups of brigands to fan out across the countryside. Local peasants started gathering together to form protective patrols who would arm themselves with whatever was laying around. It didn't take long for the defensive posture of the peasantry to go into a tack moat wherever the great fear spread. People started refusing to pay basically anything they had once been expected to pay.