The governors of France are compelled to put
on the brake, if only for an instant, at the last moment, at sight of
the yawning abyss, of approaching and actual famine; France was then
gliding into it, and, if not engulfed, it is simply a miracle.
Four fortunate circumstances, at the last hour, concur to keep her
suspended on the hither brink of the precipice. - The winter chances
to be exceptionally mild.[97] The vegetables which make up for the
absence of bread and meat provide food for April and May, while the
remarkably fine harvest, almost spontaneous, is three weeks in
advance. - Another, and the second piece of good fortune, consists in
the great convoy from America, one hundred and sixteen vessels loaded
with grain, which reached Brest on the 8th of June, 1794, in spite of
English cruisers, thanks to the sacrifice of the fleet that protected
it and which, eight days previously, had succumbed in its behalf. The
third stroke of fortune is the entry of a victorious army into the
enemies country and feeding itself through foreign requisitions, in
Belgium, in the Palatinate and on the frontier provinces of Italy and
Spain. - Finally, most fortunate of all, Robespierre, Saint Just and
Couthon, the Paris commune and the theorist Jacobins, are guillotined
on the 23rd of July, and with them falls despotic socialism.
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