or, not a sign of
rejoicing; on the contrary, symptoms of general and profound depression,
tottering specters in the streets, mournful shrieks of ravaging hunger
or shouts of rage, almost every one, driven to the last extremity of
misery, welcoming death as a boon."

Such is the aspect of these huge artificial agglomerations, where the
soil, made sterile by habitation, bears only stones, and where twenty,
thirty, fifty and a hundred thousand suffering stomachs have to obtain
from ten, twenty and thirty leagues off their first and last mouthful of
food. Within these close pens long lines of human sheep huddle together
every day bleating and trembling around almost empty troughs, and
only through extraordinary efforts do the shepherds daily succeed
in providing them with a little nourishment. The central government,
strenuously appealed to, enlarges or defines the circle of their
requisitions; it authorizes them to borrow, to tax themselves; it lends
or gives to them millions of assignats;[42120] frequently, in cases
of extreme want, it allows them to take so much grain or rice from its
storehouses, for a week's supply.--But, in truth, this sort of life is
not living, it is only not dying. For one half, and more than one half
of the inhabitants simply subsist on rations of bread obtained by long
waiting for it at the end of a string of people and delivered at
a reduced price. What rations and what bread!"It seems," says the
municipality of Troyes, "that[42121] the country has anathematized the
towns. Formerly, the finest grain was brought to market; the farmer kept
the inferior quality and consumed it at home. Now it is the reverse,
and this is carried still further, for, not only do we receive no wheat
whatever, but the farmers give us sprouted barley and rye, which they
reserve for our commune; the farmer who has none arranges with those who
have, so as to buy it and deliver it in town, and sell his good wheat
elsewhere. Half a pound per day and per head, in Pluviose, to the
thirteen thousand or fourteen thousand indigent in Troyes; then a
quarter of a pound, and, finally, two ounces with a little rice and some
dried vegetables, "which feeble resource is going to fail us."[42122]
Half a pound in Pluviose, to the twenty thousand needy in Amiens, which
ration is only nominal, for "it often happens that each individual gets
only four ounces, while the distribution has repeatedly failed three
days in succession,'' and this