4291 ([return])
[ Archives Nationales, AF., II., 68. (Orders of the Committee of Public Safety, Prairial 28.) Decret of Messidor 8, year II. "All kinds of grain and the hay of the present crop are required by the government." A new estimate is made, each farmer being obliged to state the amount of his crop; verification, confiscation in case of inaccurate declarations, and orders to thrash out the sheaves.—Dauban, 490. (Letter of the national agent of Villefort, Thermidor 19.) Calculations and the reasoning of farmers with a view to avoid sowing and planting: "Not so much on account of the lack of hands as not to ruin oneself by sowing and raising an expensive crop which, they say, affords them small returns when they sell their grain at so low a price." Archives Nationales, AF., II. 106. (Letter of the national agent in Gers and Haute-Garonne, Floréal 25.) "They say here, that as soon as the crop is gathered, all the grain will be taken away, without leaving anything to live on. It is stated that all salt provisions are going to be taken and the agriculturists reduced to the horrors of a famine.">[
4292 ([return])
[ Moniteur, XXII., 21. (Speech by Lindet, September 7, 1794.) "We have long feared that the ground would not be tilled, that the meadows would be covered with cattle while the proprietors and farmers were kept in prison." Archives Nationales, D., P I, No. I. (Letter from the district of Bar-sur-Seine, Ventôse 14, year III.) "The 'maximum' causes the concealment of grain. The quit-claims ruined the consumers and rendered them desperate. How many wretches, indeed, have been arrested,—attacked, confiscated, fined and ruined for having gone off fifteen or twenty leagues to get grain with which to feed their wives and children?">[
4293 ([return])
[ AF., II., 106. (Circular by Dartigoyte, Floréal 25.) "You must apply this rule, that is, make the municipal officers responsible for the non cultivation of the soil." "If any citizen allows himself a different kind of bread, other than that which all the cultivators and laborers in the commune use, I shall have him brought before the courts conjointly with the municipality as being the first culprit guilty of having tolerated it... Reduce, if necessary, three fourths of the bread allowed to non laboring citizens because muscadins and muscadines: have resources and, besides, lead an idle life.">[
4294 ([return])
[ AF., II., III. (Letters of Ferry, Bourges, Messidor 23, to his "brethren in the popular club," and "to the citoyennes (women) of Indre-et-Cher.")]
4295 ([return])
[ Moniteur, XXI., 171. (Letter from Avignon, Messidor 9, and letter of the Jacobins of Arles.]