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 food[4270] 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 bread[4274] 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 meantime[4275] 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]
V. Revolutionary Remedies.
Revolutionary remedies.—Rigor against the refractory.
—Decrees and orders rendering the State the only depositary
and distributor of food.—Efforts made to establish a
conscription of labor.—Discouragement of the Peasant.—He
refuses to cultivate.—Decrees and orders compelling him to
harvest.—His stubbornness.—Cultivators imprisoned by
thousands.—The Convention is obliged to set them at
liberty.—Fortunate circumstances which save France from
extreme famine.