the price of
bread to five sous per pound; the rye and barley which the intendant
is able to send "are of the worst possible quality, rotten and in a
condition to produce dangerous diseases. Nevertheless, most of the small
consumers are reduced to the hard necessity of using this spoilt grain."
At Villeneuve-le-Roi, writes the mayor, "the rye of the two lots last
sent is so black and poor that it cannot be retailed without wheat." At
Sens the barley "tastes musty" to such an extent that buyers of it throw
the detestable bread, which it makes in the face of the sub-delegate. At
Chevreuse the barley has sprouted and smells bad; the "poor wretches,"
says an employee, "must be hard pressed with hunger to put up with it."
At Fontainebleau "the barley, half eaten away, produces more bran than
flour, and to make bread of it, one is obliged to work it over several
times." This bread, such as it is, is an object of savage greed; "it
has come to this, that it is impossible to distribute it except through
wickets." And those who thus obtain their ration, "are often attacked on
the road and robbed of it by the more vigorous of the famished people."
At Nangis "the magistrates prohibit the same person from buying more
than two bushels in the same market." In short, provisions are so
scarce that there is a difficulty in feeding the soldiers; the minister
dispatches two letters one after another to order the cutting down
of 250,000 bushels of rye before the harvest[1106]. Paris thus, in
a perfect state of tranquility, appears like a famished city put on
rations at the end of a long siege, and the dearth will not be greater
nor the food worse in December 1870, than in July 1789.

"The nearer the 14th of July approached," says an eyewitness,[1107] "the
more did the dearth increase. Every baker's shop was surrounded by a
crowd, to which bread was distributed with the most grudging economy.
This bread was generally blackish, earthy, and bitter, producing
inflammation of the throat and pain in the bowels. I have seen flour of
detestable quality at the military school and at other depots. I have
seen portions of it yellow in color, with an offensive smell; some
forming blocks so hard that they had to be broken into fragments
by repeated blows of a hatchet. For my own part, wearied with the
difficulty of procuring this poor bread, and disgusted with that offered
to me at the tables d'hote, I avoided this kind of food altogether. In
the eveni