sequently, military posts are spaced out around Paris, up to eighteen
leagues off, on all the highways; permanent patrols in correspondence
with each other to urge on the wagoners and draft relays of horses
on the spot. Escorts dispatched from Paris to meet convoys;[42133]
requisition "all the carts and all the horses whatever to effect
transportation in preference to any other work or service." All communes
traversed by a highway are ordered to put rubble and manure on the bad
spots and cover the whole way with a layer of soil, so that the horses
may drag their loads in spite of the slippery road. The national agents
are ordered to draft the necessary number of men to break the ice
around the water-mills.[42134] A requisition is made for "all the
barley throughout the length and breadth of the Republic, "this must be
utilized to produce "the mixture for making bread," while the brewers
are forbidden to use barley in the manufacture of beer; the starch
makers are forbidden to convert potatoes into starch, with penalty of
death against all offenders "as destroyers of alimentary produce;" the
breweries and starch-factories[42135] are to be closed until further
notice. Paris must have grain, no matter of what kind, no matter how,
and at any cost, not merely in the following week, but to-morrow, this
very day, because hunger chews and swallows everything, and it will not
wait.--Once the grain is obtained, a price must be fixed which people
can pay. Now, the difference between the selling and cost price is
enormous; it keeps on increasing as the assignat declines and it is
the government which pays this. "You furnish bread at three sous,"
said Dubois-Crance, Floreal 16, year III,[42136] "and it costs you four
francs. Paris consumes 8,000 quintals of meal daily, which expenditure
alone amounts to 1,200 millions per annum." Seven months later, when
a bag of flour brings 13,000 francs, the same expenditure reaches
546 millions per month.--Under the ancient regime, Paris, although
overgrown, continued to be an useful organism; if it absorbed much, it
elaborated more; its productiveness compensated for what it consumed,
and, every year, instead of exhausting the public treasury it poured
77 millions into it. The new regime has converted it into a monstrous
canker in the very heart of France, a devouring parasite which, through
its six hundred thousand leeches, drains its surroundings for a distance
of forty leagues, consumes one-ha