sent to a perishing people . . .. Sire, most of your subjects
are unable to pay the price of bread, and what bread is given to
those who do buy it " -- Arthur Young,[4] who was traveling through
France at this time, heard of nothing but the high cost of bread and
the distress of the people. At Troyes bread costs four sous a pound
-- that is to say, eight sous of the present day; and unemployed
artisans flock to the relief works, where they can earn only twelve
sous a day. In Lorraine, according to the testimony of all
observers, "the people are half dead with hunger." In Paris the
number of paupers has been trebled; there are thirty thousand in the
Faubourg Saint-Antoine alone. Around Paris there is a short supply
of grain, or it is spoilt[5]. In the beginning of July, at
Montereau, the market is empty. "The bakers could not have baked"
if the police officers had not increased the price of bread to five
sous per pound; the rye and barley which the intendant is able to
send "are of the worst possible quality, rotten and in a condition
to produce dangerous diseases. Nevertheless, most of the small
consumers are reduced to the hard necessity of using this spoilt
grain." At Villeneuve- le-Roi, writes the mayor, "the rye of the two
lots last sent is so black and poor that it cannot be retailed
without wheat." At Sens the barley "tastes musty" to such an extent
that buyers of it throw the detestable bread, which it makes in the
face of the sub-delegate. At Chevreuse the barley has sprouted and
smells bad; the " poor wretches," says an employee, "must be hard
pressed with hunger to put up with it." At Fontainebleau "the
barley, half eaten away, produces more bran than flour, and to make
bread of it, one is obliged to work it over several times." This
bread, such as it is, is an object of savage greed; "it has come to
this, that it is impossible to distribute it except through
wickets." And those who thus obtain their ration, "are often