Chapter II: Food and Provisions (4)

[Footnote 4287: 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.]

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

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

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

[Footnote 4291: 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."]

[Footnote 4292: 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?"]

[Footnote 4293: 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."]

[Footnote 4294: 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.")]

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

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

[Footnote 4297: 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.]

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

[Footnote 4299: 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."]

[Footnote 42100: 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."]

[Footnote 42101: 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.]

[Footnote 42102: "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.]

[Footnote 42103: 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.]

[Footnote 42104: 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."]

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

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

[Footnote 42107: 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."]

[Footnote 42108: 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."]

[Footnote 42109: 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.]

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

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

[Footnote 42112: 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."]

[Footnote 42113: 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.)]

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

[Footnote 42115: 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.]

[Footnote 42116: 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."]

[Footnote 42117: 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."]

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

[Footnote 42119: 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.]

[Footnote 42120: 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.]

[Footnote 42121: 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."]

[Footnote 42122: 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.)]

[Footnote 42123: "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.)]

[Footnote 42124: "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.)]

[Footnote 42125: 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.)]

[Footnote 42126: "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.]

[Footnote 42127: 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."]

[Footnote 42128: 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.]

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

[Footnote 42130: 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."]

[Footnote 42131: 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.]

[Footnote 42132: Schmidt, "Tableaux de Paris," vols. II. and III.,passim.]

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

[Footnote 42134: ibid. Orders of Nivôse 5 and 22.]

[Footnote 42135: 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.)]

[Footnote 42136: 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.]

[Footnote 42137: 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.)]

[Footnote 42138: 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."]

[Footnote 42139: 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.]

[Footnote 42140: 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.'"]

[Footnote 42141: 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:

1 load of wood 1460 francs
9 pounds of candles, from 8 to 100 francs per pound 900
4 pounds of sugar, at 100 francs per pound 400
3 measures of grain, at 40 francs 120
7 pounds oil, at 100 francs 700
12 wicks, at 5 francs 60
1 1/2 bushels potatoes, at 200 francs per bushel 300
1 month's washing 215
1 pound ground powder 70
2 ounces pomatum (formerly 3 sous, now 25 francs) 50
Sub-total 4,275 francs

There remains the month's supply of butter and eggs,
as you know, 200 francs, meat 25 or 30 francs, and
other articles in proportion 507

There was no bread for two days... I have bought only
four pounds the last two days, at 45 francs 180

Total 5,022 francs.

"When I think of this royal outlay, as you call it, which makes me spend from18,000 to 20,000 francs for nothing, I wish the devil had the system.... 10,000 francs which I have scattered about the past fortnight, alarm and trouble me so much that I do not know how to calculate my income in this way. In three days the difference (in the value of assignats) has sent wood up from 4,200 to 6,500 francs, and extras in proportion so that, as I wrote you, a load piled up and put away costs me 7,100 francs. Every week now, the pot-au-feu and other meats for ragouts, without any butter, eggs and other details, cost from seven to eight hundred francs. Washing also goes up so fast that eight thousand francs do not suffice. All this puts me out of humor, while in all this expenditure I declare on my honor (je jure par la saine vérité de mon coeur) that for two years I have indulged no fancy of my own or spent anything except on household expenses. Nevertheless, I have urgent need of some things for which I should require piles of assignats."--We see by Beaumarchais' correspondence that one of his friends travels around in the environs of Paris to find bread. "It is said here (he writes from Soizy, June 5, 1795) that flour may be had at Briare. If this were so I would bargain with a reliable man there to carry it to you by water-carriage between Briare and Paris... In the mean time I do not despair of finding a loaf."--Letter of a friend of Beaumarchais: "This letter costs you at least one hundred francs, including paper, pen, ink, and lamp-oil. For economy's sake I write it in your house."]

[Footnote 42142: Cf. Schmidt, "Tableaux de Paris," vols. II. and III. (Reports of the Police, at the dates designated.)]

[Footnote 42143: Dauban, "Paris en 1794," pp.562, 568, 572.]

[Footnote 42144: Mallet-Dupan, "Correspondance avec la cour de Vienne," I., 254. (July 18, 1795.)]

[Footnote 42145: Schmidt, ibid. (Report of Fructidor 3, year III.)]

[Footnote 42146: Schmidt, ibid., vols. II. and III. (Reports of the police at the dates designated.)]

[Footnote 42147: Meissner, "Voyage à Paris," 132. Ibid., 104. "Bread is made with coarse, sticky black flour, because they put in potatoes, beans, Indian corn and millet, and moreover it is badly baked."--Granier de Cassagnac, "Histoire du Directoire," I., 51. (Letter of M. Andot to the author.) "There were three-quarter pound days, one-half pound and one-quarter pound days and many at two ounces. I was a child of twelve and used to go and wait four hours in the morning in a line, rue de l'Ancienne Comédie. There was a fourth part of bran in the bread, which was very tender and very soft.... and it contained one-fourth excess of water. I brought back eight ounces of bread a day for the four persons in our household."]

[Footnote 42148: Dauban, 586.]

[Footnote 42149: Schmidt, ibid. (Reports of Brumaire 24, and Frimaire 13, year IV.)]

[Footnote 42150: This state of misery is prolonged far beyond this epoch in Paris and the provinces. ~f. Schmidt, "Tableaux de Paris," vol. III.-Felix Rocquam, "L'Etat de la France au 18e Brumaire," p.156. (Report by Fourcroy, Nivôse 5, year IX.) Convoys of grain fail to reach Brest because the English are masters at sea, while the roads on land are impassable. "we are assured that the people of Brest have long been on half-rations and perhaps on quarter-rations."]

[Footnote 42151: 1st It is difficult to arrive at even approximate figures, but the following statements will render the idea clear. I. Wherever I have compared the mortality of the Revolution with that of the ancient regime I have found the former greater than the latter, even in those parts of France not devastated by the civil war; and the increase of this mortality is enormous, especially in years II. and III.--At Troyes, with 25,282 inhabitants (in 1790), during the five years of 1786, 1787, 1788, 1789 and 1792 (1790 and 1791 are missing), the average annual mortality is 991 deaths, or 39 per thousand inhabitants; during the years II, III, IV, this average is 1,166 or 47 per thousand inhabitants; the increase is then 7 deaths per year, nearly one fifth. (Documents provided by M. Albert Babeau.)--At Rheims, the average mortality from 1780 to 1789 is 1,350, which, for a population of 35,597, (1790), gives 41 deaths per annum to every thousand inhabitants. In the year II., there are 1,836 deaths which gives for each of the two years 64 deaths to every thousand persons; the increase is 23 deaths a year, that is to say more than one-half above the ordinary rate. (Statistics communicated by M. Jadart, archiviste at Rheims.)--At Limoges, the yearly average of mortality previous to 1789 was 825 to 20,000 inhabitants, or at the rate of 41 to a thousand. From January 1, 1792, to September 22, 1794, there are 3,449 deaths, that is to say, a yearly average of 63 deaths to one thousand inhabitants, that is to say, 22 extra per annum, while the mortality bears mostly on the poor, for out of 2,073 persons who die between January 17, 1793, and September 22, 1794, over one-half, 1,100, die in the hospital.--(Louis Guibert, "Ancien registre des paroisses de Limoges," pp. 40, 45, 47.)--At Poitiers, in year IX., the population is 18,223, and the average mortality of the past ten years was 724 per annum. But in year II., there are 2,094 deaths, and in year III. 2,032, largely in the hospitals. Thus, even on comparing the average mortality of the ten years of the Revolution with the mortality of years II. and III., the average rate has almost trebled.--The same applies to Loudens, where the average death-rate being 151, in year II., it rises to 425. Instead of the triple for Chatellerault, it is double, where, the average rate being 262, the death-rate rises to 482, principally in the military hospitals. ("Statistique de la Vienne," by Cochon, préfet, year IX.)--At Niort, population 11,000, the annual mortality of the ten years preceding 1793 averaged 423, or 38 per thousand. In year II., there are 1,872, or 170 per thousand inhabitants, the number being more than quadrupled. In year III., there are 1,122 deaths, or 122, which is almost the triple. ("Statistique des Deux-Sèvres," by Dupin, prefet, 2nd memorial, year IX.)--At Strasbourg, ("Recueil des Pièces Authentiques," etc., vol. I., p.32, declaration of the Municipality,) "twice as many died last year (year II.) as during any of the preceding years."--According to these figures and the details we have read, the annual mortality during years II. and III. and most of year IV., may be estimated as having increased one-half extra. Now, previous to 1789, according to Moheau and Necker, (Peuchet, "Statistique elementaire de la France," 1805, p.239,) the yearly mortality in France was one person to every thirty, that is to say, 866,666 deaths to a population of 26 millions. One-half in addition to this for two and a half years gives, consequently, one million and eighty thousand deaths.]

2nd. During the whole of the Directory episode, privation lasted and the rate of mortality rose very high, especially for sick children, the infirm and the aged, because the convention had confiscated the possessions of the hospitals and public charity was almost null. For example, at Lyons, "The Asylums having been deprived of sisters of charity during years II., III. and IV., and most of year V., the children gathered into them could neither be fed nor suckled and the number that perished was frightful." ("Statistique du Rhone," by Vernier, prefet, year X.)--In Necker's time, there were about eight hundred asylums, hospitals and charitable institutions, with one hundred thousand or one hundred and ten thousand inmates. (Peuchet, ibid., 256.) For lack of care and food they die in myriads, especially foundlings, the number of which increases enormously: in 1790, the figures do not exceed 23,000; in year IX., the number surpasses 62,000, (Peuchet, 260): "It is a 'perfect deluge,'" say the reports; in the department of Aisne, there are 1,097 instead of 400; in that of Lot-et-Garonne, fifteen hundred, (Statistiques des préfets de l'Aisne, Gers, Lot-et-Garonne), and they are born only to die. In that of Eure, after a few months, it is six out of seven; at Lyons, 792 out of 820; (Statistique des Prefets du Rhone et de l'Eure). At Marseilles, it is ´600 out of 618; at Toulon, 101 out of 104; in the average, 19 out of 20. (Rocquam, "Etat de France au 18e Brumaire," p.33. Report of François de Nantes.) At Troyes, out of 164 brought in in year IV., 134 die; out of 147 received in year VII., 136 die. (Albert Babeau, II., 452.) At Paris, in year IV., out of 3,122 infants received 2,907 perish. (Moniteur, year V., No. 231.)--The sick perish the same. "At Toulon, only seven pounds of meat are given each day to eighty patients; I saw in the civil Asylum," says François de Nantes, "a woman who had just undergone a surgical operation to whom they gave for a restorative a dozen beans on a wooden platter." (Ibid., 16, 31, and passim, especially for Bordeaux, Caen, Alençon, St. Lô, etc.)--As to beggars, these are innumerable: in year IX., it is estimated that there are 3 or 4,000 by department, at least 300,000 in France. "In the four Brittany departments one can truly say that a third of the population live at the expense of the other two-thirds, either by stealing from them or through compelling assistance." (Rocquain, "Report by Barbé-Marbois," p.93.)]

3rd. In year IX., the Consells-generaux are called upon to ascertain whether the departments have increased or diminished in population since 1789. ("Analyse des procés-verbaux des Conseils-Generaux de l'an XI." In four volumes.) Out of 58 which reply, 37 state that the population with them has diminished; 12, that it has increased; 9, that it remains stationary. Of the 22 others, 13 attribute the maintenance or increase of population, at least for the most part, to the multiplication of early marriages in order to avoid conscription and to the large number of natural children.--Consequently, the average rate of population is kept up not through preserving life, but through the substitution of new lives for the old ones that are sacrificed. Bordeaux, nevertheless, lost one-tenth of its population, Angers one-eighth, Pau one-seventh, Chambery one-fourth, Rennes one-third. In the departments where the civil-war was carried on, Argenton-Château lost two-thirds of its population, Bressuire fell from 3,000 to 630 inhabitants; Lyons, after the siege, fell from a population of 140,000 thousand to 80,000. ("Analyse des procés-verbaux des Conseils-Generaux" and Statistiques des Prefets.")]

[Footnote 42152: Lareveillère-Lepeaux, "Mémoires." I, 248. (He belongs to the Committee and is an eye-witness.)]

BOOK FIFTH. THE END OF THE REVOLUTIONARY GOVERNMENT.