ich will not take place for
two months. The provinces the best off are not able to help the others.
Each bourgeois in each town is obliged to feed one or two poor persons
and provide them with fourteen pounds of bread per week. In the little
town of Chatellerault, (of 4,000 inhabitants), 1800 poor, this winter,
are in that situation. . . . The poor outnumber those able to live
without begging. . . while prosecutions for unpaid dues are carried on
with unexampled rigor. The clothes of the poor, their last measure of
flour and the latches on their doors are seized, etc. .. . The abbess of
Jouarre told me yesterday that, in her canton, in Brie, most of the land
had not been planted." It is not surprising that the famine spreads even
to Paris. "Fears are entertained of next Wednesday. There is no more
bread in Paris, except that of the damaged flour which is brought in
and which burns (when baking). The mills are working day and night at
Belleville, regrinding old damaged flour. The people are ready to rebel;
bread goes up a sol a day; no merchant dares, or is disposed, to bring
in his wheat. The market on Wednesday was almost in a state of revolt,
there being no bread in it after seven o'clock in the morning. . . .
The poor creatures at Bicetre prison were put on short rations, three
quarterons (twelve ounces), being reduced to only half a pound. A
rebellion broke out and they forced the guards. Numbers escaped and they
have inundated Paris. The watch, with the police of the neighborhood,
were called out, and an attack was made on these poor wretches with
bayonet and sword. About fifty of them were left on the ground; the
revolt was not suppressed yesterday morning."

Ten years later the evil is greater.[5108]

"In the country around me, ten leagues from Paris, I find increased
privation and constant complaints. What must it be in our wretched
provinces in the interior of the kingdom?. . . My curate tells me that
eight families, supporting themselves on their labor when I left, are
now begging their bread. There is no work to be had. The wealthy are
economizing like the poor. And with all this the taille is exacted with
military severity. The collectors, with their officers, accompanied by
locksmiths, force open the doors and carry off and sell furniture for
one-quarter of its value, the expenses exceeding the amount of the
tax. . . "--"I am at this moment on my estates in Touraine. I encounter
nothing but frightful priva