Collot d'Herbois wrote from Lyons on November 6, 1793: "There is not two days' supply of provisions here." On the following day: "The present population of Lyons is one hundred and thirty thousand souls at least, and there is not sufficient subsistence for three days." Again the day after: "Our situation in relation to food is deplorable." Then, the next day: "Famine is beginning."4245—Near by, in the Montbrison district, in February, 1794, "there is no food or provisions left for the people;" all has been taken by requisition and carried off, even seed for planting, so that the fields lie fallow.4246—At Marseilles, "since the maximum, everything is lacking; even the fishermen no longer go out (on the sea) so that there is no supply of fish to live on."4247—At Cahors, in spite of multiplied requisitions, the Directory of Lot and Representative Taillefer4248 state that "the inhabitants, for more than eight days, are reduced wholly to maslin bread composed of one-fifth of wheat and the rest of barley, barley-malt and millet."—At NÎmes,4249 to make the grain supply last, which is giving out, the bakers and all private persons are ordered not to sift the meal, but to leave the bran in it and knead and bake the "dough such as it is."—At Grenoble,4250 "the bakers have stopped baking; the country people no longer bring wheat in; the dealers hide away their goods, or put them in the hands of neighborly officials, or send them off."—"It goes from bad to worse," write the agents of Huningue;4251 one might say even, that they would give this or that article to their cattle rather than sell it in conformity with the tax."—The inhabitants of towns are everywhere put on rations, and so small a ration as to scarcely keep them from dying with hunger. "Since my arrival in Tarbes," writes another agent,4252 "every person is limited to half a pound of bread a day, composed one-third of wheat and two-thirds of corn meal." The next day after the fÊte in honor of the tyrant's death there was absolutely none at all. "A half-pound of bread is also allowed at Evreux,4253 "and even this is obtained with a good deal of trouble, many being obliged to go into the country and get it from the farmers with coin." And even "they have got very little bread, flour or wheat, for they have been obliged to bring what they had to Evreux for the armies and for Paris."

It is worse at Rouen and at Bordeaux: at Rouen, in Brumaire, the inhabitants have only one quarter of a pound per head per diem of bread; at Bordeaux, "for the past three months," says the agent,4254 "the people sleep at the doors of the bakeries, to pay high for bread which they often do not get... There has been no baking done to-day, and to-morrow only half a loaf will be given to each person. This bread is made of oats and beans... On days that there is none, beans, chestnuts and rice are distributed in very small quantities," four ounces of bread, five of rice or chestnuts. "I, who tell you this, have already eaten eight or ten meals without bread; I would gladly do without it if I could get potatoes in place of it, but these, too, cannot be had." Five months later, fasting still continues, and it lasts until after the reign of Terror, not alone in the town, but throughout the department. "In the district of Cadillac, says Tallien,4255 "absolute dearth prevails; the citizens of the rural districts contend with each other for the grass in the fields; I have eaten bread made of dog-grass." Haggard and worn out, the peasant, with his pallid wife and children, resorts to the marsh to dig roots, while there is scarcely enough strength in his arms to hold the plough.—The same spectacle is visible in places which produce but little grain, or where the granaries have been emptied by the revolutionary drafts. "In many of the Indre districts," writes the representative on missions,4256 "food is wanting absolutely. Even in some of the communes, many of the inhabitants are reduced to a frightful state of want, feeding on acorns, bran and other unhealthy food.... The districts of ChÂtre and Argenton, especially, will be reduced to starvation unless they are promptly relieved.... The cultivation of the ground is abandoned; most of the persons in the jurisdiction wander about the neighboring departments in search of food."—And it is doubtful whether they find it. In the department of Cher, "the butchers can no longer slaughter; the dealers' stores are all empty." In Allier, "the slaughterhouses and markets are deserted, every species of vegetable and aliment having disappeared; the inns are closed." In one of the LozÈre districts, composed of five cantons, of which one produces an extra quantity of rye, the people live on requisitions imposed on Gard and the Upper Loire; the extortions of the representatives in these two departments "were distributed among the municipalities, and by these to the most indigent: many entire families, many of the poor and even of the rich, suffered for want of bread during six or eight days, and this frequently."4257 Nevertheless they do not riot; they merely supplicate and stretch forth their hands "with tears in their eyes. "—Such is the diet and submission of the stomach in the provinces. Paris is less patient. For this reason, all the rest is sacrificed to it,4258 not merely the public funds, the Treasury from which it gets one or two millions per week,4259 but whole districts are starved for its benefit, six departments providing grain, twenty six departments providing pork,4260 at the rate of the maximum, through requisitions, through the prospect of imprisonment and of the scaffold in case of refusal or concealment, under the predatory bayonets of the revolutionary army. The capital, above all, has to be fed. Let us see, under this system of partiality, how people live in Paris and what they feed on.

"Frightful crowds" at the doors of the bakeries, then at the doors of the butchers and grocers, then at the markets for butter, eggs, fish and vegetables, and then on the quay for wine, firewood and charcoal—such is the steady refrain of the police reports.4261—And this lasts uninterruptedly during the fourteen months of revolutionary government: long lines of people waiting in turn for bread, meat, oil, soap and candles, "queues for milk, for butter, for wood, for charcoal, queues everywhere!"4262 "There was one queue beginning at the door of a grocery in the Petit Carreau stretching half way up the rue Montorgueil."4263 These queues form at three o'clock in the morning, one o'clock and at midnight, increasing from hour to hour. Picture to yourself, reader, the file of wretched men and women sleeping on the pavement when the weather is fine4264 and when not fine, standing up on stiff tottering legs; above all in winter, "the rain pouring on their backs," and their feet in the snow, for so many weary hours in dark, foul, dimly lighted streets strewed with garbage; for, for want of oil, one half of the street lamps are extinguished, and for lack of money, there is no repaving, no more sweeping, the offal being piled up against the walls.4265 The crowd draggles along through it, likewise, nasty, tattered and torn, people with shoes full of holes, because the shoemakers do no more work for their customers, and in dirty shirts, because no more soap can be had to wash with, while, morally as well as physically, all these forlorn beings elbowing each other render themselves still fouler.—Promiscuousness, contact, weariness, waiting and darkness afford free play to the grosser instincts; especially in summer, natural bestiality and Parisian mischievousness have full play. "Lewd women"4266 pursue their calling standing in the row; it is an interlude for them; "their provoking expressions, their immoderate laughter," is heard some distance off and they find it a convenient place: two steps aside, on the flank of the row, are "half open doors and dark alleys" which invite tÊte-À-tÊte; many of these women who have brought their mattresses "sleep there and commit untold abominations." What an example for the wives and daughters of steady workmen, for honest servants who hear and see! Men stop at each row and choose their dulcinea, while others, less shameless, pounce on the women like bulls and kiss them one after the other." Are not these the fraternal kisses of patriotic Jacobins? Do not Mayor Pache's wife and daughter go to the clubs and kiss drunken sans-culottes? And what says the guard?—It has enough to do to restrain another blind and deaf animal instinct, aroused as it is by suffering, anticipation and deception.

On approaching each butcher's stall before it opens "the porters, bending under the weight of a side of beef, quicken their steps so as not to be assailed by the crowd which presses against them, seeming to devour the raw meat with their eyes." They force a passage, enter the shop in the rear, and it seems as if the time for distributing the meat had come; the gendarmes, spurring their horses to a gallop, scatter the groups that are too dense; "rascals, in pay of the Commune," range the women in files, two and two, "shivering" in the cold morning air of December and January, awaiting their turn. Beforehand, however, the butcher, according to law, sets aside the portion for the hospitals, for pregnant women and others who are confined, for nurses, and besides, notwithstanding the law, he sets aside another portion for the revolutionary committee of the section, for the assistant commissioner and superintendent, for the pashas and semi pashas of the quarter, and finally for his rich customers who pay him extra.4267 To this end, "porters with broad shoulders form an impenetrable rampart in front of the shop and carry away whole oxen;" after this is over, the women find the shop stripped, while many, after wasting their time for four mortal hours," go away empty handed.—With this prospect before them the daily assemblages get to be uneasy and the waves rise; nobody, except those at the head of the row, is sure of his pittance those that are behind regard enviously and with suppressed anger the person ahead of them. First come outcries, then jeering and then scuffling; the women rival the men in struggling and in profanity,4268 and they hustle each other. The line suddenly breaks; each rushes to get ahead of the other; the foremost place belongs to the most robust and the most brutal, and to secure it they have to trample down their neighbors.

There are fisticuffs every day. When an assemblage remains quiet the spectators take notice of it. In general "they fight,4269 snatch bread out of each other's hands; those who cannot get any forcing whoever gets a loaf weighing four pounds to share it in small pieces. The women yell frightfully.... Children sent by their parents are beaten," while the weak are pitched into the gutter. "In distributing the meanest portions of food4270 it is force which decides," the strength of loins and arms; "a number of women this morning came near losing their lives in trying to get four ounces of butter.—More sensitive and more violent than men, "they do not, or will not, listen to reason,4271 they pounce down like harpies" on the market wagons; they thrash the drivers, strew the vegetables and butter on the ground, tumble over each other and are suffocated through the impetuosity of the assault; some, "trampled upon, almost crushed, are carried off half dead." Everybody for himself. Empty stomachs feel that, to get anything, it is important to get ahead, not to await for the distribution, the unloading or even the arrival of the supplies.—"A boat laden with wine having been signaled, the crowd rushed on board to pillage it and the boat sunk," probably along with a good many of its invaders.4272 Other gatherings at the barriers stop the peasants' wagons and take their produce before they reach the markets. Outside the barriers, children and women throw stones at the milkmen, forcing them to get down from their carts and distribute milk on the spot. Still further out, one or two leagues off on the highways, gangs from Paris go at night to intercept and seize the supplies intended for Paris. "This morning," says a watchman, "all the Faubourg St. Antoine scattered itself along the Vincennes road and pillaged whatever was on the way to the city; some paid, while others carried off without paying.... The unfortunate peasants swore that they would not fetch anything more," the dearth thus increasing through the efforts to escape it.

In vain the government makes its requisitions for Paris as if in a state of siege, and fixes the quantity of grain on paper which each department, district, canton, and commune, must send to the capital.—Naturally, each department, district, canton and commune strives to retain its own supplies, for charity begins at home.4273 Especially in a village, the mayor and members of a municipality, themselves cultivators, are lukewarm when the commune is to be starved for the benefit of the capital. They declare a less return of grain than there really is; they allege reasons and pretexts. They mystify or suborn the commissioner on provisions, who is a stranger, incompetent and needy; they make him drink and eat, and, now and then, fill his pocket book. He slips over the accounts, he gives the village receipts on furnishing three-quarters or a half of the demand, often in spoilt or mixed grain or poor flour, while those who have no rusty wheat get it of their neighbors. Instead of parting with a hundred quintals they part with fifty, while the quantity of grain in the Paris markets is not only insufficient, but the grain blackens or sprouts and the flour grows musty. In vain the government makes clerks and depositaries of butchers and grocers, allowing them five or ten per cent. profit on retail sales of the food it supplies them with at wholesale, and thus creates in Paris, at the expense of all France, an artificial drop in prices. Naturally, the bread4274 which, thanks to the State, costs three sous in Paris, is furtively carried out of Paris into the suburbs, where six sous are obtained for it. There is the same furtive leakage for other food furnished by the State on the same conditions to other dealers; the tax is a burden which forces them to go outside their shops. Food finds its level like water, not alone outside of Paris, but in Paris itself.

* Naturally, "the grocers peddle their goods" secretly, "sugar, candles, soap, butter, dried vegetables, meat pies and the rest," amongst private houses, in which these articles are bought at any price.

* Naturally, the butcher keeps his large pieces of beef and choice morsels for the large eating houses, and for rich customers who pay him whatever profit he asks.

* Naturally, whoever is in authority, or has the power, uses it to supply himself first, largely, and in preference; we have seen the levies of the revolutionary committees, superintendents and agents; as soon as rations are allotted to all mouths, each potentate will have several rations delivered for his mouth alone; in the meantime4275 the patriots who guard the barriers appropriate all provisions that arrive, and the next morning, should any scolding appear in the orders of the day, it is but slight.

Such are the two results of the system: not only is the food which is supplied to Paris scant and poor, but the regular consumers of it, those who take their turn to get it, obtain but a small portion, and that the worst.4276 A certain inspector, on going to the corn market for a sample of flour, writes "that it cannot be called flour;4277 it is ground bran," and not a nutritive substance; the bakers are forced to take it, the markets containing for the most part no other supply than this flour."—Again, three weeks later, "Food is still very scarce and poor in quality. The bread is disagreeable to the taste and produces maladies with which many citizens are suffering, like dysentery and other inflammatory ailments." The same report, three months later during the month of NivÔse: "Complaints are constantly made of the poor quality of flour, which, it is said, makes a good many people ill; it causes severe pain in the intestines, accompanied with a slow fever.—During VentÔse, "the scarcity of every article is extremely great,"4278 especially of meat. Some women in the Place Maubert, pass six hours in a line waiting for it, and do not get the quarter of a pound; in many stalls there is none at all, not "an ounce" being obtainable to make broth for the sick. Workmen do not get it in their shops and do without their soup; they live on "bread and salted herrings." A great many people groan over "not having eaten bread for a fortnight;" women say that "they have not had a dish of meat and vegetables (pot au feu) for a month." Meanwhile "vegetables are astonishingly scarce and excessively dear.... two sous for a miserable carrot, and as much for two small leeks." Out of two thousand women who wait at the central market for a distribution of beans, only six hundred receive any. Potatoes increase in price in one week from two to three francs a bushel, and oatmeal and ground peas triple in price. "The grocers have no more brown sugar, even for the sick," and sell candles and soap only by the half pound.—A fortnight later candles are wholly wanting in certain quarters, except in the section storehouse, which is almost empty, each person being allowed only one. A good many households go to rest at sundown for lack of lights and do not cook any dinner for lack of coal. Eggs, especially, are "honored as invisible divinities," while the absent butter "is a god."4279 "If this lasts," say the workmen, "we shall have to cut each other's throats, since there is nothing left to live on."4280 "Sick women,4281 children in their cradles, lie outstretched in the sun," in the very heart of Paris, in rue Vivienne, on the Pont-Royal, and remain there "late in the night, demanding alms of the passers-by." "One is constantly stopped by beggars of both sexes, most of them healthy and strong," begging, they say, for lack of work. Without counting the feeble and the infirm who are unable to stand in a line, whose sufferings are visible, who gradually waste away and die without a murmur at home, "one encounters in the streets and markets" only famished and eager visages, "an immense crowd of citizens running and dashing against each other," crying out and weeping, "everywhere presenting an image of despair."4282