The French Revolution, vol 1 | Page 5

Hippolyte A. Taine
of expedients, involve itself in debt, and expend over forty
millions of francs to furnish France with wheat. In vain do individuals,
princes, noblemen, bishops, chapters, and communities multiply their
charities. The Archbishop of Paris incurring a debt of 400,000 livres,
one rich man distributing 40,000 francs the morning after the hailstorm,
and a convent of Bernardines feeding twelve hundred poor persons for
six weeks[2]. But it had been too devastating. Neither public measures
nor private charity could meet the overwhelming need. In Normandy,
where the last commercial treaty had ruined the manufacture of linen
and of lace trimmings, forty thousand workmen were out of work. In
many parishes one-fourth of the population[3] are beggars. Here,
"nearly all the inhabitants, not excepting the farmers and landowners,
are eating barley bread and drinking water;" there, "many poor
creatures have to eat oat bread, and others soaked bran, which has
caused the death of several children." -- "Above all," writes the Rouen
Parliament, "let help be sent to a perishing people . . .. Sire, most of
your subjects are unable to pay the price of bread, and what bread is
given to those who do buy it " -- Arthur Young,[4] who was traveling
through France at this time, heard of nothing but the high cost of bread
and the distress of the people. At Troyes bread costs four sous a pound
-- that is to say, eight sous of the present day; and unemployed artisans
flock to the relief works, where they can earn only twelve sous a day.
In Lorraine, according to the testimony of all observers, "the people are
half dead with hunger." In Paris the number of paupers has been trebled;
there are thirty thousand in the Faubourg Saint-Antoine alone. Around
Paris there is a short supply of grain, or it is spoilt[5]. In the beginning
of July, at Montereau, the market is empty. "The bakers could not have
baked" if the police officers had not increased the price of bread to five
sous per pound; the rye and barley which the intendant is able to send
"are of the worst possible quality, rotten and in a condition to produce
dangerous diseases. Nevertheless, most of the small consumers are
reduced to the hard necessity of using this spoilt grain." At Villeneuve-
le-Roi, writes the mayor, "the rye of the two lots last sent is so black
and poor that it cannot be retailed without wheat." At Sens the barley
"tastes musty" to such an extent that buyers of it throw the detestable
bread, which it makes in the face of the sub-delegate. At Chevreuse the

barley has sprouted and smells bad; the " poor wretches," says an
employee, "must be hard pressed with hunger to put up with it." At
Fontainebleau "the barley, half eaten away, produces more bran than
flour, and to make bread of it, one is obliged to work it over several
times." This bread, such as it is, is an object of savage greed; "it has
come to this, that it is impossible to distribute it except through
wickets." And those who thus obtain their ration, "are often attacked on
the road and robbed of it by the more vigorous of the famished people."
At Nangis "the magistrates prohibit the same person from buying more
than two bushels in the same market." In short, provisions are so scarce
that there is a difficulty in feeding the soldiers; the minister dispatches
two letters one after another to order the cutting down of 250,000
bushels of rye before the harvest[6]. Paris thus, in a perfect state of
tranquility, appears like a famished city put on rations at the end of a
long siege, and the dearth will not be greater nor the food worse in
December 1870, than in July 1789.
"The nearer the 14th of July approached," says an eyewitness,[7] "the
more did the dearth increase." Every baker's shop was surrounded by a
crowd, to which bread was distributed with the most grudging economy.
This bread was generally blackish, earthy, and bitter, producing
inflammation of the throat and pain in the bowels. I have seen flour of
detestable quality at the military school and at other depots. I have seen
portions of it yellow in color, with an offensive smell; some forming
blocks so hard that they had to be broken into fragments by repeated
blows of a hatchet. For my own part, wearied with the difficulty of
procuring this poor bread, and disgusted with that offered to me at the
tables d'hôte, I avoided this kind of food altogether. In the evening I
went to the Café du Caveau, where, fortunately, they were kind enough
to reserve for me two of those rolls which are called flutes, and this is
the only bread I
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