Escorts dispatched from Paris to meet
convoys;[133] requisition "all the carts and all the horses whatever
to effect transportation in preference to any other work or service."
All communes traversed by a highway are ordered to put rubble and
manure on the bad spots and cover the whole way with a layer of soil,
so that the horses may drag their loads in spite of the slippery road.
The national agents are ordered to draft the necessary number of men
to break the ice around the water-mills.[134] A requisition is made
for "all the barley throughout the length and breadth of the Republic,
" this must be utilized to produce "the mixture for making bread,"
while the brewers are forbidden to use barley in the manufacture of
beer; the starch makers are forbidden to convert potatoes into starch,
with penalty of death against all offenders "as destroyers of
alimentary produce;" the breweries and starch-factories[135] are to be
closed until further notice. Paris must have grain, no matter of what
kind, no matter how, and at any cost, not merely in the following
week, but to-morrow, this very day, because hunger chews and swallows
everything, and it will not wait.
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