counting
the feeble and the infirm who are unable to stand in a line, whose
sufferings are visible, who gradually waste away and die without
a murmur at home, "one encounters in the streets and markets" only
famished and eager visages, "an immense crowd of citizens running
and dashing against each other," crying out and weeping, "everywhere
presenting an image of despair."[4282]

V. Revolutionary Remedies.

Revolutionary remedies.--Rigor against the refractory.
--Decrees and orders rendering the State the only depositary
and distributor of food.--Efforts made to establish a
conscription of labor.--Discouragement of the Peasant.--He
refuses to cultivate.--Decrees and orders compelling him to
harvest.--His stubbornness.--Cultivators imprisoned by
thousands.--The Convention is obliged to set them at
liberty.--Fortunate circumstances which save France from
extreme famine.

This penury only exists, say the Jacobins, because the laws against
monopoly, and sales above the "maximum" prices are not being obeyed to
the letter of the law. The egoism of the cultivator and the cupidity of
dealers are not restrained by fear and delinquents escape too frequently
from the legal penalty. Let us enforce this penalty rigorously; let us
increase the punishment against them and their instruments; let us
screw up the machine and give them a new wrench. A new estimate and
verification of the food supply takes place, domiciliary searches,
seizures of special stores regarded as too ample,[4283] limited rations
for each consumer, a common and obligatory mess table for all prisoners,
brown, egalite bread, mostly of bran, for every mouth that can chew,
prohibition of the making of any other kind, confiscation of boulters
and sieves,[4284] the "individual," personal responsibility of every
administrator who allows the people he directs to resist or escape
providing the demanded supplies, the sequestration of his property,
imprisonment, fines, the pillory and the guillotine to hurry up
requisitions, or stop free trading,--every terrifying method is driven
to the utmost against the farmers and cultivators of the soil.

After April, 1794,[4285] crowds of this class are found filling the
prisons to overflowing; the Revolution has struck them also. They stroll
about in the court yard, and wander through the corridors with a sad,
stupefied expression, no longer comprehending the way things are goin