XXXIII
HUMANE INSTITUTIONS—continued SOUP ESTABLISHMENTS
During the last winter (1801–1802) the distress of the lower orders rose to such a height that it became necessary to open subscriptions for the distribution of soup to the poor. A committee was formed for the purpose, and this committee distributed 164,000 rations of soups, besides what was sold from different furnaces, established by voluntary contributions.
The committee commenced their useful labours with the names of only one hundred subscribers. The price of each subscription is eighteen francs or fifteen shillings and ninepence sterling, and any person is at liberty to take as many subscriptions as he thinks proper. In consideration of every subscription the subscriber receives 240 bonuses of soup from any establishment he may prefer, or he may leave the disposal of them to the committee.
Madame Bonaparte, the wife of the First Consul, who is a most benevolent, charitable and kind-hearted woman, gave 600 francs towards the establishment of a furnace in her division.
The committee solicited the generosity of the public functionaries, “Not because they are wealthy, but because as the greater part of them were known for their philanthropy, their example would encourage others to subscribe.” The result of this appeal to these rich philanthropists who fatten upon the blood of the people was somewhat ludicrous, considering the small subscriptions it drew forth. The Senate granted a subsidy of 1500 livres, or £60 sterling; the Council of State took forty-six subscriptions, about £35; the Bank of France, 60, about £40; the Mont de Piété, 20, about £14; and the officers of the Consular Guard, 84, making a total of about £252!
The First Consul generously put down his name for a 1000 subscription, which would have amounted to £787 sterling. But there was no security for his payment except his inclination; his servile vassals, however, boasted of his magnificence, and the Commissioners who drew up the report on the distribution of the soup broke forth into the following apostrophe:—“Our eyes are turned with complacency on the 1000 subscription of the First Consul. The Conqueror of Marengo has made humanity the companion of glory. His triumphant hand has repaired the edifice of social happiness; this hero, who seemed to have attained the summit of perfection and grandeur, has proved that a good action may make him still mount, and lift him above sublimity itself!”
Unluckily for the trumpeters of this “astonishing man” this hero who has made humanity the companion of glory has not to this hour paid one sou of the thousand subscription to which he signed his name and entered into a solemn engagement.
In the report made by Cadet de Vaux to the Minister of the Interior it is stated—“Of all the branches of polite economy the least advanced among us is public beneficence. Formerly there was an organised system of charity, but now unhappily this branch of our administration is defective. When there were clergy resident in every parish, their profession gave them the privilege of asking charity from the rich and of penetrating into the secret wants of the poor, and they therefore possessed much greater opportunities of doing good than does the present Board of Public Assistance, notwithstanding its activity and zeal. Among the religious orders some corporations were distinguished for their zeal in affording relief to the poor, particularly the Sisters of Charity, who devoted their whole lives to the most fatiguing details of charitable benevolence!”
These respectable Associations no longer exist, but it is under consideration to permit the re-assembling of the dispersed communities.
In France at this time there are neither parochial rates nor workhouses such as we have in England. For idle, disorderly or viciously disposed persons no midway exists between the high road and the prison, and no kind of provision exists which affords employment to persons who, from sickness, misfortune, or lack of employment, have been thrown out of work. Hence the poverty of a French pauper is the consummation of wretchedness; rags, filth and disease waste his constitution and destroy his body, while despair for ever settles on his soul. If he have strength enough to carry a musket he is instantly transported into a soldier; and if this means of subsistence fail, his only alternative is to steal or to become a beast of burden, performing labour that in other countries is only executed by horses and asses.
But miserable as he is, the lot of the female beggar is infinitely worse. Objects of loathsome corruption and horrible aspect, they seem planted in the streets of this capital, only to laugh to scorn the Revolution, and to rebuke the greedy and the sumptuous magnificence of the upstart. As you traverse the streets they follow you, conjuring you in the name of God, and, with entreaties which would melt a heart of flint, implore you to give them a little charity.
The charitable are deprived of the power of discriminating; they must attend to the cries of beggary or submit to be pursued for half a mile by the same forlorn wretch, imploring for mercy and pity. This is indeed a wretched state of society, yet we are told the Revolution was the work of philosophers, made for the benefit of the people to dispel the darkness of their prejudices, and to remove all the moral and physical evils under which they groaned before the advent of freedom.