e rarely sufficient to
meet the requirements of the succeeding twelve months. The capitalist
who could pay cash for it, and who had the means of storing it, was
therefore nearly certain of a moderate profit, and, if famine occurred,
of an extravagant one. That capitalist of necessity belonged to the
privileged classes. Frequently religious communities embarked in these
ventures, and used their commodious buildings as granaries. Syndicates
were formed in which all varieties of speculators entered, from the
bourgeois shopkeeper of the provincial town to the courtier and even
the King. But popular resentment, the bitter cry of the starving,
applied the same name to all of them: from Louis XV to the
inconspicuous monk they were all _accapareurs de ble_, cornerers of
wheat. And their profits rose as did hunger and starvation. The
computation has been put forward that in the year 1789 one-half of the
population of France had known from experience the meaning of the {28}
word hunger; can it be wondered if the curse of a whole people was
attached to any man of whom it might be said that he was an _accapareur
de ble_?

The privileged person, king or seigneur, bishop or abbot, levied feudal
dues along the roads and waterways, so that a boatload of wine
proceeding from Provence to Paris was made to pay toll no less than
forty times en route. He owned the right of sitting as judge in town
or village, and of commanding the armed force that made judgment
effective. Where he did not own the freehold of the farm, he held
oppressive feudal rights over it, and in the last resort reappeared in
official guise as one of an army of officials whose chief duty it was
not so much to ensure justice, good government, or local improvement,
as to screw more money out of the taxpayer. Chief of all these
officials were the King's intendants, working under the authority of
the Controleur-General des Finances.

The Controleur was the most important of the King's ministers, and had
charge of nearly all the internal administration of the kingdom. He
not only collected the revenue, but had gradually subordinated every
other function of government to that one. So he took charge {29} of
public works, of commerce and of agriculture, and directed the
operations of an army of police, judicial and military officials--and
all for the more splendid maintenance of Versailles, Trianon, and the
courtiers.

In the provinces he was represented by the i