4269 (return)
[ Archives des Affaires étrangères, vol.1410. (Reports of August 6 and 7, 1793.)]

4270 (return)
[ Dauban, 144. (Reports of Ventôse 19.)]

4271 (return)
[ Dauban, 199. (Reports of Ventôse 19.)—Dauban, "La Demagogie en 1793," p. 470. "Scarcely had the peasants arrived when harpies in women's clothes attacked them and carried off their goods.... Yesterday, a peasant was beaten for wanting to sell his food at the 'maximum' rate." (October 19, 1793.)—Dauban, "Paris en 1794," 144, 173, 199. (Reports of Ventôse 13, 17 and 19.)—Archives des Affaires étrangères, vol. 1410. (Reports of June 26 and 27, 1793.) Wagons and boats are pillaged for candles and soap.]

4272 (return)
[ Dauban, 45. (Reports of Pluviôse 17.) 222. (Reports of Ventôse 23.)—160. (Reports of Ventôse 15.)—340. (Reports of Germinal 28.)—87. (Reports of Ventôse 5.)]

4273 (return)
[ Archives Nationales, AF., II., 116. (Order of Paganel, Castres, Pluviôse 6 and 7, year II. "The steps taken to obtain returns of food have not fulfilled the object.... The statements made are either false or inexact.") Cf., for details, the correspondence of the other representatives on mission.—Dauban," Paris en 1794." 190. (Speech by Fouquier-Tinville in the Convention, Ventôse 19.) "The mayor of Pont St. Maxence has dared to say that 'when Paris sends us sugar we will then see about letting her have our eggs and butter.'"]

4274 (return)
[ Archives des Affaires étrangères, vol. 1411. (Reports of August 7 and 8, 1793.) "Seven thousand five hundred pounds of bread, about to be taken out, have been stopped at the barriers."—Dauban, 45. (Orders of the day. Pluviôse 17.) Lamps are set up at all the posts, "especially at la Greve and Passy, so as to light up the river and see that no eatables pass outside."—Mercier, I., 355.—Dauban, 181. (Reports of Ventôse 18.)—210. (Reports of Ventôse 21.)—190. Speech by Fouquier, Ventôse 19.) "The butchers in Paris who cannot sell above the maximum carry the meat they buy to the Sèvres butchers and sell it at any price they please. "—257. (Reports of Ventôse 27.) "You see, about ten o'clock in the evening, aristocrats and other egoists coming to the dealers who supply Egalité's mansion (the Duke of Orleans) and buy chickens and turkeys which they carefully conceal under their overcoats."]

4275 (return)
[ Dauban, 255. (Orders of the day by Henriot, Ventôse 27.) "I have to request my brethren in arms not to take any rations whatever. This little deprivation will silence the malevolent who seek every opportunity to humble us."—Ibid.,359. "On Floreal 29, between five and six o'clock in the morning, a patrol of about fifteen men of the Bonnet Rouge section, commanded by a sort of commissary, stop subsistences on the Orleans road and take them to their section."]

4276 (return)
[ Dauban, 341. (Letter of the Commissioner on Subsistences, Germinal 23.) "The supplies are stolen under the people's eyes, or what they get is of inferior quality." The commissioner is surprised to find that, having provided so much, so little reaches the consumers.]

4277 (return)
[ Archives des Affaires étrangères, vol.1411. (Reports of August 11-12 and 31, and Sept. 1, 1793.)—Archives Nationales, F. 7, 31167.) (Reports of Nivôse 7 and 12, year II.)]

4278 (return)
[ Dauban, "Paris" en 1794, 60, 68, 69, 71, 82, 93, 216, 231.—Schmidt, "Tableaux de Paris," 187, 190.—Archives Nationales, F. 7, 31167. (Report of Leharivel, Nivôse 7.)—The gunsmiths employed by the government likewise state that they have for a long time had nothing to eat but bread and cheese.]

4279 (return)
[ Dauban, 231. (Report of Perriére, Ventôse 24.) "Butter of which they make a god."]

4280 (return)
[ Ibid., 68. (Report of Ventôse 2.)]

4281 (return)
[ Archives Nationales, F.7, 31167. (Report of Nivôse 28.)—Dauban, 144. (Report of Nivôse 14.)]

4282 (return)
[ Dauban, 81. (Report of Latour-Lamontagne, Ventôse 4.)]

4283 (return)
[ "Souvenirs et Journal d'un Bourgeois d'Evreux," 83. "Friday, June 15, 1794, a proclamation is made that all who have any provisions in their houses, wheat, barley, rye, flour and even bread, must declare them within twenty four hours under penalty of being regarded as an enemy of the country and declared 'suspect,' put under arrest and tried by the courts."—Schmidt, "Tableaux de la Revolution Française," II.. 214. A seizure is made at Passy of two pigs and forty pounds of butter, six bushels of beans, etc., in the domicile of citizen Lucet who had laid in supplies for sixteen persons of his own household.]

4284 (return)
[ Archives Nationales, AF., II., 68. Orders of the Committee of Public Safety, Pluviôse 23, referring to the law of Brumaire 25, forbidding the extraction of more than fifteen pounds of bran from a quintal of flour. Order directing the removal of bolters from bakeries and mills; he who keeps or conceals these on his property "shall be treated as 'suspect' and put under arrest until peace is declared."—Berryat Saint Prix, 357, 362. At Toulouse, three persons are condemned to death for monopoly. At Montpelier, a baker, two dealers and a merchant are guillotined for having invoiced, concealed and kept a certain quantity of gingerbread cakes intended solely for consumption by anti-revolutionaries.]

4285 (return)
[ "Un Séjour en France," (April 22, 1794).]

4286 (return)
[ Ludovic Sciout, IV., 236. (Proclamation of the representatives on mission in Finisterre.) "Magistrates of the people tell all farmers and owners of land that their crops belong to the nation and that they are simply its depositaries." Archives Nationales, AF., II., 92. (Orders by Bô, representative in Cautal, Pluviôse 8.) "Whereas, as all citizens in a Republic form one family.... all those who refuse to assist their brethren and neighbors under the specious pretext that they have not sufficient supplies must be regarded as 'suspect' citizens."]

4287 (return)
[ Archives Nationales, AF., II., 68. (Orders of the Committee of Public Safety, Prairial 28.) The maximum price is fourteen francs the quintal; after Messidor 30, it is not to be more than eleven francs.]

4288 (return)
[ Ibid., AF., II., 116 and 106, orders of Paganel, Castres, Pluviôse 6 and 7. Orders of Dartigoyte, Floréal 23, 25, and 29.]

4289 (return)
[ Ibid., AF., II., 147. (Orders of Maignet, Avignon, Prairial 2.)]

4290 (return)
[ Moniteur, XXIII., 397 (Speech by Dubois-Crancé, May 5, 1795.) "The Committee on Commerce (and Supplies) had thirty-five thousand employees in its service."]

4291 (return)
[ Archives Nationales, AF., II., 68. (Orders of the Committee of Public Safety, Prairial 28.) Decret of Messidor 8, year II. "All kinds of grain and the hay of the present crop are required by the government." A new estimate is made, each farmer being obliged to state the amount of his crop; verification, confiscation in case of inaccurate declarations, and orders to thrash out the sheaves.—Dauban, 490. (Letter of the national agent of Villefort, Thermidor 19.) Calculations and the reasoning of farmers with a view to avoid sowing and planting: "Not so much on account of the lack of hands as not to ruin oneself by sowing and raising an expensive crop which, they say, affords them small returns when they sell their grain at so low a price." Archives Nationales, AF., II. 106. (Letter of the national agent in Gers and Haute-Garonne, Floréal 25.) "They say here, that as soon as the crop is gathered, all the grain will be taken away, without leaving anything to live on. It is stated that all salt provisions are going to be taken and the agriculturists reduced to the horrors of a famine."]

4292 (return)
[ Moniteur, XXII., 21. (Speech by Lindet, September 7, 1794.) "We have long feared that the ground would not be tilled, that the meadows would be covered with cattle while the proprietors and farmers were kept in prison." Archives Nationales, D., P I, No. I. (Letter from the district of Bar-sur-Seine, Ventôse 14, year III.) "The 'maximum' causes the concealment of grain. The quit-claims ruined the consumers and rendered them desperate. How many wretches, indeed, have been arrested,—attacked, confiscated, fined and ruined for having gone off fifteen or twenty leagues to get grain with which to feed their wives and children?"]

4293 (return)
[ AF., II., 106. (Circular by Dartigoyte, Floréal 25.) "You must apply this rule, that is, make the municipal officers responsible for the non cultivation of the soil." "If any citizen allows himself a different kind of bread, other than that which all the cultivators and laborers in the commune use, I shall have him brought before the courts conjointly with the municipality as being the first culprit guilty of having tolerated it... Reduce, if necessary, three fourths of the bread allowed to non laboring citizens because muscadins and muscadines: have resources and, besides, lead an idle life."]

4294 (return)
[ AF., II., III. (Letters of Ferry, Bourges, Messidor 23, to his "brethren in the popular club," and "to the citoyennes (women) of Indre-et-Cher.")]

4295 (return)
[ Moniteur, XXI., 171. (Letter from Avignon, Messidor 9, and letter of the Jacobins of Arles.]

4296 (return)
[ Moniteur, XXI., 184. (Decree of Messidor 21.)]

4297 (return)
[ Gouverneur Morris. (correspondence with Washington. Letters of March 27 and April 10, 1794.) He says that there is no record of such an early spring. Rye has headed out and clover is in flower. It is astonishing to see apricots in April as large as pigeons' eggs. In the south, where the dearth is most severe, he has good reason to believe that the ground is supplying the inhabitants with food. A frost like that of the year before in the month of May (1793) would help the famine more than all the armies and fleets in Europe.]

4298 (return)
[ Stalin was to test the system and prove Taine right. (SR.)]

4299 (return)
[ Archives Nationales, AF., II., 73. (Letter by the Directory of Calvados, Prairial 26, year III.) "We have not a grain of wheat in store, and the prisons are full of cultivators." Archives Nationales, D., p 1, file No.3. (Warrants of arrest issued by Representative Albert, Pluviôse 19, year III., Germinal 7 and 16.) On the details of the difficulties and annoyances attending the requisitions, cf. this file and the five preceding or following files. (Letter of the National agent, district of Nogent-sur-Seine, Germinal 13.) "I have had summoned before the district court a great many cultivators and proprietors who are in arrears in furnishing the requisitions made on them by their respective municipalities.... A large majority declared that they were unable to furnish in full even if their seed were taken. The court ordered the confiscation of the said grain with a fine equal to the value of the quantity demanded of those called upon.. It is now my duty to execute the sentence. But, I must observe to you, that if you do not reduce the fine, many of them will be reduced to despair. Hence I await your answer so that I may act accordingly." (Another letter from the same agent, Germinal 9.) "It is impossible to supply the market of Villarceaux; seven communes under requisition prevented it through the district of Sozannes which constantly keeps an armed force there to carry grain away as soon as thrashed."—It is interesting to remark the inquisitorial sentimentality of the official agents and the low stage of culture. (Proces verbal of the Magincourt municipality, Ventôse 7.) Of course I am obliged to correct the spelling so as to render it intelligible. The said Croiset, gendarme, went with the national agent into the houses of citizens in arrears, of whom, amongst those in arrears, nobody refused but Jean Mauchin, whom we could not keep from talking against him, seeing that he is wholly egoist and only wants for himself. He declared to us that, if, the day before his harvesting he had any left, he would share it with the citizens that needed it.. .. Alas, yes, how could one refrain from shutting up such an egoist who wants only for himself to the detriment of his fellow citizens? A proof of the truth is that he feeds in his house three dogs, at least one hundred and fifty chickens and even pigeons, which uses up a lot of grain, enough to hinder the satisfaction of all the requisitions. He might do without dogs, as his court is enclosed he might likewise content himself with thirty chickens and then be able to satisfy the requisitions." This document is signed "Bertrand, Agen."—Mauchin, on the strength of it, is incarcerated at Troyes "at his own expense."]

42100 (return)
[ Ibid. Letter from the district of Bar sur Seine, Ventôse 14, year III. Since the abolition of the "maximum," "the inhabitants travel thirty and forty leagues to purchase wheat." (Letter from the municipality of Troyes, Ventôse 15.) "According to the price of grain, which we keep on buying, by agreement, bread will cost fifteen sous (the pound) next decade."]

42101 (return)
[ Schmidt, "Pariser Zustände," 145-220. The re-opening of the Bourse, April 25, 1795; ibid., 322, II., 105.—"Memoirs of Theobald Wolf," vol. I., p.200, (February 3, 1796). At Havre, the louis d'or is then worth five thousand francs, and the ecu of six francs in proportion. At Paris (February 12), the louis d'or is worth six thousand five hundred; a dinner for two persons at the Palais Royal costs one thousand five hundred francs.—Mayer, ("Frankreich in 1796.") He gives a dinner for ten persons which costs three hundred thousand francs in assignats. At this rate a cab ride costs one thousand francs, and by the hour six thousand francs.]

42102 (return)
[ "Correspondance de Mallet du Pan avec la cour de Vienne," I., 253 (July 18, 1795). "It is not the same now as in the early days of the Revolution, which then bore heavily only on certain classes of society; now, everybody feels the scourge, hourly, in every department of civil life. Goods and provisions advance daily (in price) in much greater proportion than the decline in assignats.... Paris is really a city of furnishing shops... The immense competition for these objects raises all goods twenty five per cent. a week.... It is the same with provisions. A sack of wheat weighing three quintals is now worth nine thousand francs, a pound of beef thirty six francs, a pair of shoes one hundred francs. It is impossible for artisans to raise their wages proportionately with such a large and rapid increase."—Cf. "Diary of Lord Malmesbury," III., 290 (October 27, 1796). After 1795, the gains of the peasants, land owners and producers are very large; from 1792 to 1796 they accumulate and hide away most of the current coin. They were courageous enough and smart enough to protect their hoard against the violence of the revolutionary government; "hence, at the time of the depreciation of assignats, they bought land extraordinarily cheap." In 1796 they cultivate and produce a great deal.]

42103 (return)
[ Archives Nationales, AF., II., 72. (Letter of the administrators of the district of Montpelier to the Convention, Messidor 26, year II.) "Your decree of Nivôse 4 last, suppressed the 'maximum,' which step, provoked by justice and the 'maximum,' did not have the effect you anticipated." The dearth ceases, but there is a prodigious increase in prices, the farmer selling his wheat at from four hundred and seventy to six hundred and seventy francs the quintal.]

42104 (return)
[ Archives Nationales, AF., II., 71. (Deliberations of the commune of Champs, canton of Lagny, Prairial 22, year III. Letter of the procureur-syndic of Meaux, Messidor 3. Letter of the municipality of Rozoy, Seine et Marne, Messidor 4.)—Ibid., AF., II., 74. (Letter of the municipality of Emérainville, endorsed by the Directory of Meaux, Messidor 14.) "The commune can procure only oat-bread for its inhabitants, and, again, they have to go a long way to get this. This food, of so poor a quality, far from strengthening the citizen accustomed to agricultural labor, disheartens him and makes him ill, the result being that the hay cannot be got in good time for lack of hands."—At Champs, "the crop of hay is ready for mowing, but, for want of food, the laborers cannot do the work."]

42105 (return)
[ Ibid., AF., II., 73. (Letter from the Directory of the district of Dieppe, Prairial 22.)]

42106 (return)
[ Ibid. (Letter of the administrators of the district of Louviers, Prairial 26.)]

42107 (return)
[ Ibid. (Letter of the procureur-syndic of the Caen district, Caen, Messidor 23.—Letter of Representative Porcher to the Committee of Public Safety, Messidor 26.—Letter of the same, Prairial 24. "The condition of this department seemed to me frightful.... The privations of the department with respect to subsistence cannot be over-stated to you; the evil is at its height."]

42108 (return)
[ Archives Nationales, AF. II., 74. (Letter of the Beauvais administrators, Prairial 15.—Letter of the Bapaume administrator, Prairial 24.—Letter of the Vervier administrator, Messidor 7.—Letter of the commissary sent by the district of Laon, Messidor.)—Cf., I6id., letter from the Abbeville district, Prairial 11. "The quintal of wheat is sold at one thousand assignats, or rather, the farmers will not take assignats any more, grain not to be had for anything but coin, and, as most people have none to give they are hard-hearted enough to demand of one his clothes, and of another his furniture, etc."]

42109 (return)
[ Ibid., AF., II., 71. (Letter of the Rozoy municipality. Seine-et-Marne, Messidor 4, year III.) A bushel of wheat in the vicinity of Rozoy brings three hundred francs.]

42110 (return)
[ Ibid., AF., II., 74. (Letter of the Montreuil-sur-Mer municipality, Prairial 29.)]

42111 (return)
[ Ibid. (Letter of the Vervins administrators, Prairial 11 Letter of the commune of La Chapelle-sur-Somme, Prairial 24.)]

42112 (return)
[ Ibid., AF., II., 70. (Letter of the procureur-syndic of the district of Saint-Germain, Thermidor 10.) This file, which depicts the situation of the communes around Paris, is specially heartrending and terrible. Among other instances of the misery of workmen the following petition of the men employed on the Marly water-works may be given, Messidor 28. "The workmen and employees on the machine at Marly beg leave to present to you the wretched state to which they are reduced by the dearness of provisions. Their moderate wages, which at the most have reached only five livres twelve sous, and again, for four months past, having received but two francs sixteen sous, no longer provide them with half a pound of bread, since it costs fifteen and sixteen francs per pound. We poor people have not been wanting in courage nor patience, hoping that times would mend. We have been reduced to selling most of our effects and to eating bread made of bran of which a sample is herewith sent, and which distresses us very much (nous incommode beaucoup); most of us are ill and those who are not so are in a very feeble state."—Schmidt, "Tableaux de Paris," Thermidor 9. "Peasants on the market square complain bitterly of being robbed in the fields and on the road, and even of having their sacks (of grain) plundered."]

42113 (return)
[ Archives Nationales, D., P I, file 2. (Letter of the Ervy municipality, Floréal 17, year III.) "The indifference of the egoist farmers in the country is at its height; they pay no respect whatever to the laws, killing the poor by refusing to sell, or unwilling to sell their grain at a price they can pay."—(It would be necessary to copy the whole of this file to show the alimentary state of the departments.)]

42114 (return)
[ Ibid., AF., II., 74. (Letter of the district administrators of Bapaume, Prairial 24.—Letter of the municipality of Boulogne-sur-Mer, Prairial 24.)]

42115 (return)
[ Ibid.,, AF., II., 73. (Letter of the municipality of Brionne, district of Bernay, Prairial 7.) The farmers do not bring in their wheat because they sell it elsewhere at the rate of fifteen hundred and two thousand francs the sack of three hundred and thirty pounds.]

42116 (return)
[ Ibid., AF., II., 71. (Letter of the procureur-syndic of the district of Meaux, Messidor 2.) "Their fate is shared by many of the rural communes" and the whole district has been reduced to this dearth "to increase the resources of Paris and the armies."]

42117 (return)
[ Schmidt, "Tableaux de Paris." (Reports of the Police, Pluviôse 6, year III.)—Ibid., Germinal 16. "A letter from the department of Drome states that they are dying of hunger there, bread selling at three francs the pound."]

42118 (return)
[ Archives Nationales, AF., II., 70. (Deliberations of the council-general of Franciade, Thermidor 9, year III.)]

42119 (return)
[ Ibid. (Letter of the procureur-syndic of the district of Saint-Germain, Thermidor 10.)—Delécluze, "Souvenirs de Soixante Années," p. 10. (The Delécluze family live in Mendon in 1794 and for most of 1795. M. Delécluze, senior, and his son go to Meaux and obtain of a farmer a bag of good flour weighing three hundred and twenty five pounds for about ten louis d'or and fetch it home, taking the greatest pains to keep it concealed. Both father and son "after having covered the precious sack with hay and straw in the bottom of the cart, follow it on foot at some distance as the peasant drives along." Madame Delécluze kneads the bread herself and bakes it.]

42120 (return)
[ Archives Nationales, AF., II., 74. The following shows some of the municipal expenditures. (Deliberations of the commune of Annecy, Thermidor 8, year II I.) "Amount received by the commune from the government, 1,200,000 francs. Fraternal subscriptions, 400,000 francs. Forced loan, 2,400,000 francs. Amount arising from grain granted by the government, but not paid for, 400,000 francs." (Letter from the municipality of Lille, Fructidor 7 ) "The deficit, at the time we took hold of the government, which, owing to the difference between the price of grain bought and the price obtained for bread distributed among the necessitous, had amounted to 2,270,023 francs, so increased in Thermidor as to amount to 8,312,956 francs." consequently, the towns ruin themselves with indebtedness to an incredible extent.—Archives Nationales, AF., II., 72. (Letter of the municipality of Tours, Vendémiaire 19, year IV.) Tours has not sufficient money with which to buy oil for its street lamps and which are no longer lit at night. A decree is passed to enable the agent for provisions at Paris to supply its commissaries with twenty quintals of oil which, for three hundred and forty lamps, keeps one hundred agoing up to Germinal 1. The same at Toulouse. (Report of Destrene, Moniteur, June 24, 1798.) On November 26, 1794, Bordeaux is unable to pay seventy two francs for thirty barrels of water to wash the guillotine. (Granier de Cassagnac, I., 13. Extract from the archives of Bordeaux.) Bordeaux is authorized to sell one thousand casks of wine which had formerly been taken on requisition by the government, the town to pay for them at the rate at which the Republic bought them and to sell them as dear as possible in the way of regular trade. The proceeds are to be employed in providing subsistence for its inhabitants. (Archives Nationales, AF., II., 72, orders of Vendémiaire 4, year IV.) As to aid furnished by the assignats granted to towns and departments cf. the same files; 400,000 francs to Poitiers, Pluviôse 18, four millions to Lyons, Pluviôse 17, three millions a month to Nantes, after Thermidor 14, ten millions to the department of Herault in Frimaire and Pluviôse, etc.]

42121 (return)
[ Archives Nationales, II., P 1, file 2. (Deliberations of the commune of Troyes, Ventôse 15, year III.)—"Un Sejour en France." (Amiens, May 9, 1795.) "As we had obtained a few six franc crowns and were able to get a small supply of wheat.... Mr. D and the servants eat bread made of three fourths bran and one fourth flour. When we bake it we carefully close the doors, paying no attention to the door bell, and allow no visitor to come in until every trace of the operation is gone... The distribution now consists of a mixture of sprouted wheat, peas, rye, etc., which scarcely resembles bread." (April 12.) "The distribution of bread (then) was a quarter of a pound a day. Many of those who in other respects were well off, got nothing at all."]

42122 (return)
[ Ibid. (Letters of the municipality of Troyes, Ventôse 15, year III., and Germinal 6.) Letter of the three deputies, sent by the municipality to Paris, Pluviôse, year III. (no date.)]

42123 (return)
[ "Un Sejour en France." (Amiens, Jan. 30, 1795.) Archives Nationales. AF.,II., 74. (Deliberation of the commune of Amiens, Thermidor 8, and Fructidor 7, year III.)]

42124 (return)
[ "Souvenirs et Journal d'un Bourgeois d'Evreux," p. 97. (The women stop carts loaded with wheat, keep them all night, stone and wound Representative Bernier, and succeed in getting, each, eight pounds of wheat.)]

42125 (return)
[ Archives Nationales, AF.,II., 73. (Letter of the municipality of Dieppe, Prairial 22.)—AF.,II., 74. (Letter of the municipality of Vervins, Messidor 7. Letter of the municipality of Lille, Fructidor 7.)]

42126 (return)
[ "Correspondance de Mallet du Pan avec la Cour de Vienne," I., 90. Ibid., 131. One month later a quintal of flour at Lyons is worth two hundred francs and a pound of bread forty-five sous.]

42127 (return)
[ Archives Nationales, AF., II., 13. (Letter of the deputies extraordinary of the three administrative bodies of Chartres, Thermidor 15: "In the name of this commune dying of hunger ")—"The inhabitants of Chartres have not even been allowed to receive their rents in grain; all has been poured into the government storehouses."]

42128 (return)
[ Ibid. (Petition of the commune of La Rochelle, Fructidor 25, that of Painboeuf, Fructidor 9, that of the municipality of Nantes, Thermidor 14, that of Rouen, Fructidor 1.)—Ibid., AF.,II, 72. (Letter of the commune of Bayonne, Fructidor 1.) "Penury of provisions for more than two years.... The municipality, the past six months, is under the cruel necessity of reducing its subjects to half-a-pound of corn-bread per day.... at the rate of twenty-five sous the pound, although the pound costs over five francs." After the suppression of the "maximum" it loses about twenty-five thousand francs per day.]

42129 (return)
[ Ibid. (Letter of Representative Porcher, Caen, Prairial 24, Messidor 3 and 26. Letter of the municipality of Caen, Messidor 3.)]

42130 (return)
[ Ibid. AF.,II., 71. (Letter of the municipality of Auxerre, Messidor 19.) "We have kept alive thus far through all sorts of expedients as if by miracle. It has required incalculable efforts, great expenditure, and really supernatural means to accomplish it. But there is still one month between this and the end of Thermidor. How are we going to live! Our people, the majority of whom are farmers and artisans, are rationed at half-a-pound a day for each person and this will last but ten or twelve days at most."]

42131 (return)
[ Meissner, "Voyage à Paris," 339. "There was not a morsel of bread in our inn. I went myself to five or six bakeries and pastry shops and found them all stripped." He finds in the last one about a dozen of small Savoy biscuits for which he pays fifteen francs.—See, for the military proceedings of the government in relation to bread, the orders of the Committee of Public Safety, most of them by the hand of Lindet, AF., II., 68-74.]

42132 (return)
[ Schmidt, "Tableaux de Paris," vols. II. and III.,passim.]

42133 (return)
[ Archives Nationales, AF.,II., 68. (Orders of Ventôse 20, year III.; Germinal 19 and 20; Messidor 8, etc.)]

42134 (return)
[ ibid. Orders of Nivôse 5 and 22.]

42135 (return)
[ Ibid. Orders of Pluviôse 19, Ventôse 5, Floréal 4 and 24. (The fourteen brewers which the Republic keeps agoing for itself at Dunkirk are excepted.)—The proceedings are the same in relation to other necessary articles,—returns demanded of nuts, rape-seed, and other seeds or fruits producing oil, also the hoofs of cattle and sheep, with requisitions for every other article entering into the manufacture of oil, and orders to keep oil-mills agoing. "All administrative bodies will see that the butchers remove the fat from their meat before offering it for sale, that they do not themselves make candles out of it, and that they do not sell it to soap-factories, etc. "—(Orders of Veridémiaire 28, year III.) The executive committee will collect eight hundred yoke of oxen and distribute them among the dealers in hay in order to transport wood and coal from the woods and collieries to the yards. They will distribute proportionately eight hundred sets of wheels and harness. The wagoners will be paid and guarded the same as military convoys, and drafted as required. To feed the oxen, the district administrators will take by pre-emption the necessary fields and pasturages, etc." (Orders of Pluviôse 10, year III.)]

42136 (return)
[ Moniteur, XXIV., 397.—Schmidt, "Tableaux de Paris." (Reports of Frimaire 16, year IV.) "Citizens in the departments wonder how it is that Paris costs them five hundred and forty six millions per month merely for bread when they are starving. This isolation of Paris, for which all the benefits of the Revolution are exclusively reserved. has the worst effect on the public mind."—Meissner, 345.]

42137 (return)
[ Mercier, "Paris Pendant la Révolution," I., 355-357.—Schmidt, "Pariser Zustande," I., 224. (The Seine is frozen over on November 23 and January 23, the thermometer standing at sixteen degrees (Centigrade) below zero.)—Schmidt, "Tableaux de Paris." (Reports of the Police, Pluviôse 2, 3 and 4.)]

42138 (return)
[ Schmidt, "Pariser Zustande," I., 228, and following pages. (February 25, the distribution of bread is reduced to one and one-half pounds per person; March 17, to one and onehalf pounds for workmen and one pound for others. Final reduction to one-quarter of a pound, March 31.)—Ibid., 251, for ulterior rates.—Dufort de Cheverney, (MS. Mémoires, August, 1795.) M. de Cheverney takes up his quarters at the old Louvre with his friend Sedaine. "I had assisted them with food all I could: they owned to me that, without this, they would have died of starvation notwithstanding their means."]

42139 (return)
[ Schmidt, "Tableaux de Paris." (Reports of Germinal 15 and 27, and Messidor 28, year III., Brumaire 14 and Frimaire 23, year IV.)—Ibid. (Germinal 15, year III.) Butter is at eight francs the pound, eggs seven francs for four ounces.—Ibid., (Messidor 19) bread is at sixteen francs the pound, (Messidor 28) butter at fourteen francs the pound, (Brumaire 29) flour at 14,000 francs the bag of 325 pounds.]

42140 (return)
[ Ibid. (Report of Germinal 12, year III.) "The eating houses and pastry-cooks are better supplied than ever."?"Memoires (manuscript) of M. de Cheverney." "My sister-in-law, with more than forty thousand livres income, registered in the 'Grand Ledger,' was reduced to cultivating her garden, assisted by her two chambermaids. M. de Richebourg, formerly intendant-general of the Post-Office, had to sell at one time a clock and at another time a wardrobe to live on. 'My friends,' he said to us one day, 'I have been obliged to put my clock in the pot.' "—Schmidt. (Report of Frimaire 17, year IV.) "A frequenter of the Stock-Exchange sells a louis at five thousand francs. He dines for one thousand francs and loudly exclaims: 'I have dined at four francs ten sous. They are really superb, these assignats! I couldn't have dined so well formerly at twelve francs.'"]

42141 (return)
[ Schmidt. (Reports of Frimaire 9, year IV.) "The reports describe the sad condition of those who, with small incomes and having sold their clothes, are selling their furniture, being, so to say, at their last piece; and, soon without anything, are reduced to the last extremity by committing suicide."—Ibid., Frimaire 2, "The rentier is ruined, not being able to buy food. Employees are all in the same situation."—Naturally, the condition of employees and rentiters grows worse with the depreciation of assignats. Here are house-keeping accounts at the end of 1795. (Letter of Beaumarchais' sister Julie to his wife, December, 1794. "Beaumarchais et son temps," by De Lomenie, p.486.) "When you gave me those four thousand francs (assignats), my dear friend, my heart went pit-a-pat. I thought that I should go crazy with such a fortune. I put them in my pocket at once and talked about other things so as to get the idea out of my mind. On returning to the house, get some wood and provisions as quick as possible before prices go higher! Dupont (the old domestic) started off and did his best. But the scales fell from my eyes on seeing, not counting food for a month, the result of those 4,275 francs: