In the wine-growing countryside outside of Mâcon, in southern Burgundy, on the 26th of July 1789, church bells rang out to summon the inhabitants of Igé for a meeting. A water fountain to which the villagers claimed title was enclosed within the seigneurial park, and despite drought conditions that spring and summer the lord continued to refuse them access. The inhabitants went as a crowd to the castle, tore a hole in the wall around the park, entered the castle, and terrorized the lord and his family before leaving. The next day, villagers from nearby Verzé tore down fences that the lord had erected around land that was disputed between the lord and the village, and they refused to pay seigneurial dues. Within days, the whole Mâconnais was in open revolt against local lords. Like most collective violence in early modern Europe, this antiseigneurial revolt was controlled and directed against specific, often symbolic, targets. Groups of peasants generally attacked castles, most of which contained only servants and seigneurial agents, since the lords and their families had left for the city. Crowds of angry peasants often forced lords to hand over their archives, which they then burned. They also frequently attacked symbols of seigneurial authority, like pigeon houses and weathervanes.

The violent stage of antiseigneurial revolt in the region lasted only about a week, and the repression was swift and harsh, with about thirty hangings.