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[70] 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,[71] 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.[72] 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.[73] 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[74] 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[75] 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.