All rights reserved. Dickens both respects and fears mob rule, whether in England or in France.
Shopkeepers show their fear of looting by closing their businesses.
After the mock funeral, the mob's hostilities spread into general disorder, including harassing mourners and destroying for the sheer pleasure of it. The London mob, however, stops short of murder. Unfortunately, the Paris uprising lacks such restraint. Every living creature there held life as of no account, and was demented with a passionate readiness to sacrifice it. In addition to destroying public and private property, the Paris mob captures and kills people, some guilty and some innocent, but all without due process of law.