d'oeuvre_, 20 francs. Fish, 90 francs. A chicken, 150 francs. Three
cigars, 45 francs. The repast came to 250 francs a person at the very
lowest." Another journalist commented upon this story as follows: "Since
the end of last June," he said, "445,000 quintals of vegetables, the
superfluous output of the Palatinate, were offered to France at nominal
prices. And the cost of vegetables here at home is painfully notorious.
Well, the deal was accepted by the competent Commission in Paris.
Everything was ready for despatching the consignment. The necessary
trains were secured. All that was wanting was the approval of the French
authorities, who were notified. Their answer has not yet been given and
already the vegetables are rotting in the magazines."

The authorities pleaded the insufficiency of rolling stock, but the
press revealed the hollowness of the excuse and the responsibility of
those who put it forward, and showed that thousands of wagons, lorries,
and motor-vans were idle, deteriorating in the open air. For instance,
between Cognac and Jarnac the state railways had left about one
thousand wagons unused, which were fast becoming unusable.[25] And this
was but one of many similar instances.

It would be hard to find a parallel in history for the rapacity combined
with unscrupulousness and ingenuity displayed during that fateful period
by dishonest individuals, and left unpunished by the state. Doubtless
France was not the only country in which greed was insatiable and its
manifestations disastrous. From other parts of the Continent there also
came bitter complaints of the ruthlessness of profiteers, and in Italy
their heartless vampirism contributed materially to the revolutionary
outbreaks throughout that country in July. Even Britain was not exempt
from the scourge. But the presence of whole armies of well-paid,
easy-going foreign troops and officials on French soil stimulated greed