[No date given.]
Were I a mere spectator, without fear for myself or compassion for others, the situation of this country would be sufficiently amusing. The effects produced (many perhaps unavoidably) by a state of revolution—the strange remedies devised to obviate them—the alternate neglect and severity with which the laws are executed—the mixture of want and profusion that distinguish the lower classes of people—and the distress and humiliation of the higher; all offer scenes so new and unaccountable, as not to be imagined by a person who has lived only under a regular government, where the limits of authority are defined, the necessaries of life plentiful, and the people rational and subordinate. The consequences of a general spirit of monopoly, which I formerly described, have lately been so oppressive, that the Convention thought it necessary to interfere, and in so extraordinary a way, that I doubt if (as usual) "the distemper of their remedies" will not make us regret the original disease. Almost every article, by having passed through a variety of hands, had become enormously dear; which, operating with a real scarcity of many things, occasioned by the war, had excited universal murmurings and inquietude. The Convention, who know the real source of the evil (the discredit of assignats) to be unattainable, and who are more solicitous to divert the clamours of the people, than to supply their wants, have adopted a measure which, according to the present appearances, will ruin one half of the nation, and starve the other. A maximum, or highest price, beyond which nothing is to be sold, is now promulgated under very severe penalties for all who shall infringe it. Such a regulation as this, must, in its nature, be highly complex, and, by way of simplifying it, the price of every kind of merchandise is fixed at a third above what it bore in 1791: but as no distinction is made between the produce of the country, and articles imported—between the small retailer, who has purchased perhaps at double the rate he is allowed to sell at, and the wholesale speculator, this very simplification renders the whole absurd and inexecutable.—The result was such as might have been expected; previous to the day on which the decree was to take place, shopkeepers secreted as many of their goods as they could; and, when the day arrived, the people laid siege to them in crowds, some buying at the maximum, others less ceremonious, and in a few hours little remained in the shop beyond the fixtures. The farmers have since brought neither butter nor eggs to market, the butchers refuse to kill as usual, and, in short, nothing is to be purchased openly. The country people, instead of selling provisions publicly, take them to private houses; and, in addition to the former exorbitant prices, we are taxed for the risk that is incurred by evading the law. A dozen of eggs, or a leg of mutton, are now conveyed from house to house with as much mystery, as a case of fire-arms, or a treasonable correspondence; the whole republic is in a sort of training like the Spartan youth; and we are obliged to have recourse to dexterity and intrigue to procure us a dinner.
Our legislators, aware of what they term the "aristocratie marchande,"— that is to say, that tradesmen would naturally shut up their shops when nothing was to be gained—provided, by a clause in the above law, that no one should do this in less time than a year; but as the injunction only obliged them to keep the shops open, and not to have goods to sell, every demand is at first always answered in the negative, till a sort of intelligence becomes established betwixt the buyer and seller, when the former, if he may be trusted, is informed in a low key, that certain articles may be had, but not au maximum.—Thus even the rich cannot obtain the necessaries of life without difficulty and submitting to imposition—and the decent poor, who will not pillage nor intimidate the tradesmen, are more embarrassed than ever.
The above species of contraband commerce is carried on, indeed, with great circumspection, and no avowed hostilities are attempted in the towns. The great war of the maximum was waged with the farmers and higlers, as soon as it was discovered that they took their commodities privily to such people as they knew would buy at any price, rather than not be supplied. In consequence, the guards were ordered to stop all refractory butter-women at the gates, and conduct them to the town-house, where their merchandize was distributed, without pity or appeal, au maximum, to those of the populace who could clamour loudest.
These proceedings alarmed the peasants, and our markets became deserted. New stratagems, on one side, new attacks on the other. The servants were forced to supply themselves at private rendezvous in the night, until some were fined, and others arrested; and the searching all comers from the country became more intolerable than the vexations of the ancient Gabelle.—Detachments of dragoons are sent to scour the farm-yards, arrest the farmers, and bring off in triumph whatever the restive housewives have amassed, to be more profitably disposed of.
In this situation we remain, and I suppose shall remain, while the law of the maximum continues in force. The principle of it was certainly good, but it is found impossible to reduce it to practice so equitably as to affect all alike: and as laws which are not executed are for the most part rather pernicious than nugatory, informations, arrests, imposition, and scarcity are the only ends which this measure seems to have answered.
The houses of detention, before insupportable, are now yet more crouded with farmers and shopkeepers suspected of opposing the law.—Many of the former are so ignorant, as not to conceive that any circumstances ought to deprive them of the right to sell the produce of their farms at the highest price they can get, and regard the maximum much in the same light as they would a law to authorize robbing or housebreaking: as for the latter, they are chiefly small dealers, who bought dearer than they have sold, and are now imprisoned for not selling articles which they have not got. An informer by trade, or a personal enemy, lodges an accusation against a particular tradesman for concealing goods, or not selling au maximum; and whether the accusation be true or false, if the accused is not in office, or a Jacobin, he has very little chance of escaping imprisonment.—It is certain, that if the persecution of these classes of people continue, and commerce (already nearly annihilated by the war) be thus shackled, an absolute want of various articles of primary consumption must ensue; but if Paris and the armies can be supplied, the starving the departments will be a mere pleasurable experiment to their humane representatives!