- Steps taken by the government to feed
the capital. - Monthly cost to the Treasury. - Cold and hunger in
the winter of 1794-1795. - Quality of the bread. - Daily rations
diminished. - Suffering, especially of the populace. - Excessive
physical suffering, despair, suicides, and deaths from exhaustion in
1795. - Government dinners and suppers. - Number of lives lost
through want and war. - Socialism as applied, and its effects on
comfort, well-being and mortality.
Anything that a totalitarian government may do to ensure that the
capital is supplied with food is undertaken and carried out by this
one, for here is its seat, and one more degree of dearth in Paris
would overthrow it. Each week, on reading the daily reports of its
agents,[132] it finds itself on the verge of explosion; twice, in
Germinal and Prairial, a popular outbreak does overthrow it for a few
hours, and, if it maintains itself, it is on the condition of either
giving the needy a piece of bread or the hope of getting it.
Consequently, military posts are spaced out around Paris, up to
eighteen leagues off, on all the highways; permanent patrols in
correspondence with each other to urge on the wagoners and draft
relays of horses on the spot.
Pages:
848
849
850
851
852
853
854
855
856
857
858
859
860
861
862
863
864
865
866
867
868
869
870
871
872