Old and New Paris: Its History, Its People, and Its Places, v. 2

by H. Sutherland Edwards

THE SEINE AT GRENELLE.

The people of Paris starved like those of the provinces; but not so quietly. On the 3rd of March, 1709, the market-women—the corporation of “Les dames de la Halle”—started for Versailles, in order to exhibit their perishing children and ask for bread. They were stopped at the bridge of Sèvres, and taken back to Paris. But the tradition of that day remained with them, as was only too plainly shown during the disturbances of October, 1789.

When the dauphin went to the opera, or to hunt the wolf at Marly, he was surrounded by starving bands, who cried out for food, and could only be quieted by having money thrown to them. The soldiers of the Versailles garrison went out armed, to beg and to pillage the country.

Sometimes famine was created, or, at least, developed, by artificial means. One ingenious speculator is said to have bought up all the corn he could afford to purchase in France, and to have exported it from the ports of Normandy and Brittany to Jersey and Guernsey, there to remain until famine had declared itself with some severity. Then the corn was re-introduced from the Channel Islands and sold at immense prices. In 1745, the Duke of Orleans walked into the Council Chamber, threw on to the table before the king a loaf made of all kinds of rubbish, and exclaimed: “That is what your subjects have to feed upon.” Louis XV. knew already to what a degree of misery his people were reduced. One day when he was out hunting, he saw a man carrying with evident difficulty a long box on his back. “What are you carrying there?” asked the king. “A dead man,” was the reply. “What did he die of?” “Hunger.” The king turned away, unwilling to continue the conversation. It was not until[{314}] the reign of Louis XVI. that serious endeavours were made to improve the condition of the people. In 1774, fifteen years before the Revolution, Turgot set forth, in a decree adopted by the Council, the most just economical principles: “The more commerce is free, animated, extended, the more the people are promptly, efficaciously, and abundantly provided.” Eighteen months afterwards, in 1776, all dues formerly levied at Paris on wheat, flour, etc., were abolished. “There was in France,” says Michelet, “a miserable prisoner called Wheat, forced by the Government to die and rot where it was born. Each province kept its wheat captive.” Strangely enough, the common people were the first to oppose the new legislation. It seemed to them that the exportation of wheat must be ruinous for the inhabitants of the districts from which it was exported, and insurrections were raised in Brie, Normandy, and the Soissons country, in order to prevent the passage of wheat from one province to another.

Of the famine-promoters, three were especially notorious, Foulon, Bertier, and Pinet; and all three came to a bad end at the time of the Revolution. After the taking of the Bastille, Foulon caused a report of his death to be circulated, celebrated his own funeral, and concealed himself at Viry. He was recognised, however, and brought back to Paris, where, received by an indignant multitude at the Barriers, he was taken to the Place de Grève, and hanged to the famous lamp-post. Then his head, with a handful of hay in the mouth, was carried at the end of a pike. The horrible procession met Bertier, who was made to join it, maltreated, and put to death. This happened on the 22nd of July. On the 29th, Pinet was found in the Vésinet Forest, with his head shattered, but still living. He declared that he had been attacked by assassins, but the general opinion was that in his terror and despair he had attempted to blow his own brains out. Pinet died, and with the death of the three famous promoters the famine came, in a great measure, to an end. The Revolution, however, though it could give liberty, could not give bread; and the distribution of corn throughout the country was constantly impeded by the old provincial spirit. When corn was brought in from English ports (for in those days England produced so much corn that it was able to export largely to France), the cargoes had to run the gauntlet to different provinces as they passed up the Seine. On one occasion, a quantity of wheat bought at Havre for the supply of Paris, and embarked on Seine barges, was stopped by the militia of Louviers, and confiscated for the benefit of that town. Such scenes were renewed everywhere. Once within the limits of a particular province, the corn was seized and allowed to go no farther. In 1794, during a period of scarcity, Barrère proposed in the Assembly to institute a patriotic fast. “Formerly,” he said, “we fasted for some saint in the calendar. Let us now fast for liberty.”

Little by little, under successive Governments, the popular prejudices against free circulation and free trade died out. There are material difficulties, moreover, in the way of such interference as used to be practised with cargoes and convoys in the days before the Revolution, and what, perhaps, is equally important, in the days before steam. In former times it was very easy to stop a heavily-laden, lumbering waggon, creeping along on a bad road. It is more difficult to stay the course of a railway train. Exceptionally high prices are still to be feared, but not famine. If the corn supply is insufficient in France, wheat can be imported from Hungary, Russia, and America.

Nor is it for bread alone that France is indebted to foreign countries—which she, in her turn, supplies abundantly with luxuries, natural and artificial, of all kinds. France receives meat and game from Russia; vegetables, fruit, and even wine from Algeria; oranges from Spain; fresh-water fish from Holland, Switzerland, and Italy; and sea-fish from England.

It is a sound maxim that whatever enters the human body should be genuine; and in connection with the Paris food supply a number of special officials are appointed, whose duty it is to examine the products offered to the public. The functions of these agents are not confined to the markets; they extend to the whole of Paris, to every shop in which eatables are sold; to every cart, every barrow from which the Paris costermonger sells fruit, vegetables, or fish. Wine-shops may be entered by these agents, when, if the wine is found to be adulterated, the casks containing it are emptied of their contents into the public streets. Probably, in good neighbourhoods, food is as little adulterated in London as in Paris. The Paris authorities are, in any case, much more particular on the subject of adulteration. With these agents for the inspection, examination, and analysis of articles of diet may be classed the officials charged with the duty of verifying weights and measures. An excellent law, passed[{315}] in 1839, under the reign of Louis Philippe, prescribes that every dealer on buying a pair of scales, new or second-hand, must at once take them to the office of verification in the district, in order that they may be marked with the stamp of the year.