Our friend said much more, notably with regard to rat and horseflesh; and then he wound up: "But what is the good? Those who might benefit by my advice are not here, and, if they were, they would probably scorn it; I mean the very poor. The only item of animal food which cannot be adequately replaced by something else yielding as much or nearly as much nourishment is milk. But, unless an adult be in delicate health or suffering from ailments to the alleviation and cure of which milk is absolutely necessary, he may very well go without it for six months. Not so children. I am only showing you that the poor, with their slender resources—and Heaven knows they are slender enough—might do better than they are doing, for cats and rats must still be very plentiful, only they won't touch them."
The reference to the very poor and their slender resources recurred more than once that evening, but I knew that the authorities were trying to do all they could in the way of relieving general and individual distress, and that they were admirably seconded by private charity, which not only placed comparatively large sums at their disposal, but bestirred itself by means of specially appointed committees and visitors. The rations of meat (horsemeat) and bread distributed were not sufficient. The first had already fallen to forty-five grammes per day per head, the second to three hundred and fifty grammes;[87] they were to fall much lower. Tickets were also distributed for set meals, with and without meat. There was, furthermore, a distribution of fuel, albeit that there was really no more fuel to distribute. All the wooden seats in the public thoroughfares, the scaffoldings before the half-finished buildings had disappeared. At one of my friend's apartments there was none but the outer door left, all the others had been replaced by curtains. They had been chopped up to keep his family warm. The fear of the terrible landlord may have prevented the poor from imitating this proceeding. At any rate, I noticed no absent doors in my visits to any of them. A further supply of meat or bread, even if they had the money, was out of the question for them; because, though some shops remained open and their owners were compelled to sell according to the tariff set forth by the municipality, they had nothing to sell. I remember being in the Rue Lafayette one morning, near one of those shops, when I saw the whole of the crowd, that had been waiting there for hours probably, turn away disappointed. The assistant had just told them that "this morning we have nothing to sell but preserved truffles."
At the same time, I am bound to note the fact that, at the slightest rumours of peace, the usually empty windows became filled with artistically arranged pyramids of "canned" provisions, at prices considerably below those charged twenty-four hours before, and even below those mentioned in the municipal tariff. Frequent attempts were made by the police to discover the hiding-places for this stock, but they failed in every instance. Those hiding-places were far away from the shops, and the shopkeepers themselves were too wary to be caught napping. A stranger might have safely gone in and offered a hundred francs for half a dozen tins of their wares. They would have looked a perfect blank, and told him they had none to sell: and no wonder; their detection would have meant certain death; no earthly power could have saved them from the legitimate fury of the populace. And even those who bought the hidden food at abnormal prices were compelled to preserve silence, at the risk of seeing their supplies cut off. One thing is certain, and I can unhesitatingly vouch for it. My name had become known in connection with several committees for the relief of the poor. On the 25th of January, at 11 a.m., when the negotiations between Bismarck and M. Jules Favre could have been but in the preliminary stage, I received a note, brought by hand, from a grocer in the Faubourg Montmartre, asking me to call personally, as he had something to communicate which might be to the advantage of my protégés. An hour later, I was at his establishment, and he offered to sell me five hundred tins of various provisions and two hundred and fifty boxes of sardines at two francs each. It was something like double the ordinary price. A little more than three weeks before that date, I had sent a letter to the same man, asking him for a similar quantity of goods, which I intended to distribute as New Year's gifts. The reply was, that he had none, but that he might possibly procure them at the rate of five francs a tin and box. I found out afterwards, that the excellent grocer had a son at the Ministry for Foreign Affairs. I need not point out the logical deduction.
I am equally certain that there were large quantities of horseflesh, salted or fresh, hidden somewhere; for, as I have already noted, it was officially, or at any rate semi-officially stated, that, on the day of the conclusion of the armistice, there were thirty thousand live horses in Paris, and the greater part of these would have been slaughtered by order of the Government, if the measure had been thought expedient, for there is scarcely any need to say that the pretext of their being wanted for military purposes would not hold water. A sixth part of them, or less, would have been amply sufficient for that. In reality, M. Favre and his colleagues were, by this time, fully convinced that all further resistance was useless, but they had not the courage to say so frankly, and they wished to convert the advocates of "resistance to death" to their side by aggravating the scarcity of the food supply, as if it were not bad enough already. The horses confiscated by the Government for food were paid for by them at the rate of between one and two francs per pound, yet there was no possibility of buying a single pound of horseflesh, beyond what was distributed at the municipal canteens, for less than seven or eight francs. Whence this difference?
Butter could be bought for thirty to thirty-five francs per pound, but such butter! Anything worth eating commanded sixty francs. There was a kind of grease that fetched two francs per pound, but even the poorest shrank from it, and preferred to eat dry bread, which was composed as follows:—
| (For a Loaf of 300 Grammes.) | ||
| 75 | grammes of | wheat. |
| 15 | " | rye, barley, or peas. |
| 60 | " | rice. |
| 90 | " | oats. |
| 30 | " | chopped straw mixed with starch. |
| 30 | " | bran. |
As for the rest, here are some of the prices—at which, however, things were not always to be had:—
| frs. | |
| A dog or a cat | 20 |
| A rat, crow, or sparrow | 3 or 4 |
| 1 lb. of bear's flesh | 12 |
| 1 lb. of venison | 14 |
| 1 lb. of wolf's flesh, or porcupine's | 8 |
| A rabbit | 40 |
| A fowl | 40 |
| A pigeon | 25 |
| A goose | 80 |
| A turkey | 100 |
| 1 lb. of ham (very rare) | 10 |
| 1 lb. of bacon (not so rare) | 6 |
| Eggs (each) | 5 |
| Haricot beans (per litre) | 8 |
| Cabbages (each) | 16 |
| Leeks (each) | 1 |
| Bushel of carrots (2-3/4 gallons) | 75 |
| Bushel of potatoes | 35 |
| Bushel of onions | 80 |
Still, until the very last, there occurred, as far as I know, no case of actual starvation, and I was pretty well posted up in that respect. The very young and very old suffered most: for the milk that was sold at two francs per litre was simply disgraceful, three-fourths of it was water; and beef-tea, or that worthy of the name, was not to be had at any price. Both commodities were distributed to the poor at the municipal canteens, on the certificate of a doctor; but the latter, though by no means hard-hearted, and thoroughly sympathetic with the ills he was scarcely able to alleviate, had to draw the line somewhere. Of bedding, bed-linen, and warm underclothing there was little or no lack; but the cold, for several days, at frequent intervals was severe to a degree.
Our ex-lieutenant's reference to the poor and their slender resources recurred frequently to my mind for several days after the scene described above, and set me wondering how far the poor had parted, finally or temporarily, with their household goods and small valuables in order to obtain some of the quasi-luxuries I have just enumerated. In order to get at the truth of the matter, I determined to pay a visit to the central pawnbroking office in the Rue des Blancs Manteaux. I provided myself with a letter of introduction to the director, who placed an official at my disposal. This was towards the latter end of December.