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Taine, Hippolyte, 1828-1893

"The French Revolution - Volume 3"

" - The inhabitants of towns are
everywhere put on rations, and so small a ration as to scarcely keep
them from dying with hunger. "Since my arrival in Tarbes," writes
another agent,[52] "every person is limited to half a pound of bread a
day, composed one-third of wheat and two-thirds of corn meal." The
next day after the f?te in honor of the tyrant's death there was
absolutely none at all. "A half-pound of bread is also allowed at
Evreux,[53] "and even this is obtained with a good deal of trouble,
many being obliged to go into the country and get it from the farmers
with coin." And even "they have got very little bread, flour or wheat,
for they have been obliged to bring what they had to Evreux for the
armies and for Paris."
It is worse at Rouen and at Bordeaux: at Rouen, in Brumaire, the
inhabitants have only one quarter of a pound per head per diem of
bread; at Bordeaux, " for the past three months," says the agent,[54]
" the people sleep at the doors of the bakeries, to pay high for bread
which they often do not get . . . There has been no baking done to-
day, and to-morrow only half a loaf will be given to each person.
This bread is made of oats and beans .


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