g
on in the world. In vain are efforts made to explain to them that
"their crops are national property and that they are simply its
depositaries;"[4286] never had this new principle entered into, nor will
it enter, their rude brains; always, through habit and instinct, will
they work against it.--Let them be spared the temptation. Let us (the
Jacobins) relieve them from, and, in fact, take their crops; let the
State in France become the sole depositary and distributor of grain;
let it solely buy and sell grain at a fixed rate. Consequently, at
Paris,[4287] the Committee of Public Safety first puts "in requisition
all the oats that can be found in the Republic; every holder of oats
is required to deposit his stock on hand within eight days, in the
storehouse indicated by the district administration "at the maximum"
price; otherwise he is "a 'suspect' and must be punished as such." In
the meantime, through still more comprehensive orders issued in the
provinces, Paganel in the department of Tarn, and Dartigoyte in those
of Gers and the Upper-Garonne,[4288] enjoin each commune to establish
public granaries. "All citizens are ordered to bring in whatever produce
they possess in grain, flour, wheat, maslin, rye, barley, oats, millet,
buckwheat" at the "maximum" rate. Nobody shall keep on hand more than
one month's supply, fifty pounds of flour or wheat for each person;
in this way, the State, which holds in its hands the keys of the
storehouses, may "carry out the salutary equalization of provisions"
between department and department, district and district, commune and
commune, individual and individual. A storekeeper will look after each
of these well filled granaries; the municipality will itself deliver
rations and, moreover, "take suitable steps to see that beans and
vegetables, as they mature, be economically distributed under its
supervision," at so much per head, and always at the rate of the
"maximum." Otherwise, dismissal, imprisonment and prosecution "in the
extraordinary criminal tribunal. "-This being accomplished, and the
fruits of labor duly allotted, there remains only the allotment of labor
itself. To effect this, Maignet,[4289] in Vaucluse, and in the Bouches
du Rhone, prescribes for each municipality the immediate formation
of two lists, one of day laborers and the other of proprietors. "All
proprietors in need of a cultivator by the day," are to appear and ask
for one at the municipality, which will assign