Formerly, the finest grain was brought to
market; the farmer kept the inferior quality and consumed it at home.
Now it is the reverse, and this is carried still further, for, not
only do we receive no wheat whatever, but the farmers give us sprouted
barley and rye, which they reserve for our commune; the farmer who has
none arranges with those who have, so as to buy it and deliver it in
town, and sell his good wheat elsewhere. Half a pound per day and per
head, in Pluvi?se , to the thirteen thousand or fourteen thousand
indigent in Troyes; then a quarter of a pound, and, finally, two
ounces with a little rice and some dried vegetables, "which feeble
resource is going to fail us."[122] Half a pound in Pluvi?se , to the
twenty thousand needy in Amiens, which ration is only nominal, for "it
often happens that each individual gets only four ounces, while the
distribution has repeatedly failed three days in succession,'' and
this continues. Six months later, Fructidor 7, Amiens has but sixty
nine quintals of flour in its market storehouse, "an insufficient
quantity for distribution this very day; to morrow, it will be
impossible to make any distribution at all, and the day after to
morrow the needy population of this commune will be brought down to
absolute famine.
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