rits.[4219] He is sure that henceforth his crop will
no longer be eaten up by the levies of the seignior, of the decimateur
and of the King, that it will belong to him, that it will be wholly his,
and that the worse the famine in the towns, the dearer he will sell his
produce. Hence, he has ploughed more vigorously than ever; he has even
cleared waste ground; getting the soil gratis, or nearly so, and
having to make but few advances, having no other use for his advances,
consisting of seed, manure, the work of his cattle and of his own
hands, he has planted, reaped and raised grain with the greatest energy.
Perhaps other articles of consumption will be scarce; it may be that,
owing to the ruin of other branches of industry, it will be hard to get
dry-goods, shoes, sugar, soap, oil, candles, wine and brandy; it
may happen that, owing to the bungling way in which agricultural
transformations have been effected, all produce of the secondary order,
meat, vegetables, butter and eggs, may become scarce. In any event,
French foodstuffs par excellence is on hand, standing in the field or
stored in sheaves in the barns; in 1792 and 1793, and even in 1794,
there is enough grain in France to provide every French inhabitant with
his daily bread.[4220]

But that is not enough. In order that each Frenchman may obtain his bit
of bread every day, it is still essential that grain should reach the
markets in sufficient quantities, and that the bakers should every day
have enough flour to make all the bread that is required; moreover, the
bread offered for sale in the bakeries should not exceed the price which
the majority of consumers can afford to pay. Now, in fact, through
a forced result of the new system, neither of these conditions is
fulfilled.--In the first place, wheat, and hence bread, is too dear.
Even at the old rate, these would still be too dear for the innumerable
empty or half-empty purses, after so many attacks on property, industry
and trade, now that so many hundreds of workmen and employees are out of
work, now that so many land-owners and bourgeois receive no rents, now
that incomes, profits, wages and salaries have diminished by hundreds of
thousands. But wheat, and, consequently, bread, has not remained at
old rates. Formerly a sack of wheat in Paris was worth 50 francs. In
February, 1793, it is worth sixty-five francs; in May, 1793, one hundred
francs and then one hundred and fifty; and hence bread, in Paris, early