. . On days that there is
none, beans, chestnuts and rice are distributed in very small
quantities," four ounces of bread, five of rice or chestnuts. "I, who
tell you this, have already eaten eight or ten meals without bread; I
would gladly do without it if I could get potatoes in place of it, but
these, too, cannot be had." Five months later, fasting still
continues, and it lasts until after the reign of Terror, not alone in
the town, but throughout the department. "In the district of
Cadillac, says Tallien,[55] "absolute dearth prevails; the citizens of
the rural districts contend with each other for the grass in the
fields; I have eaten bread made of dog-grass." Haggard and worn out,
the peasant, with his pallid wife and children, resorts to the marsh
to dig roots, while there is scarcely enough strength in his arms to
hold the plough. - The same spectacle is visible in places which
produce but little grain, or where the granaries have been emptied by
the revolutionary drafts. "In many of the Indre districts," writes
the representative on missions,[56] "food is wanting absolutely. Even
in some of the communes, many of the inhabitants are reduced to a
frightful state of want, feeding on acorns, bran and other unhealthy
food.
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