lf the annual revenue of the State,
and yet still remains emaciated in spite of the sacrifices made by the
treasury it depletes and the exhaustion of the provinces which supply it
with food.

Always the same alimentary system, the same long lines of people waiting
at, and before, dawn in every quarter of Paris, in the dark, for a long
time, and often to no purpose, subject to the brutalities of the strong
and the outrages of the licentious! On the 9th of Thermidor, the daily
trot of the multitude in quest of food has lasted uninterruptedly for
seventeen months, accompanied with outrages of the worst kind because
there is less terror and less submissiveness, with more obstinacy
because provisions at free sale are dearer, with greater privation
because the ration distributed is smaller, and with more sombre despair
because each household, having consumed its stores, has nothing of its
own to make up for the insufficiencies of public charity.--And to cap
it all, the winter of 1794-1795 is so cold[42137] that the Seine freezes
and people cross the Loire on foot. Rafts no longer arrive and, to
obtain fire-wood, it is necessary "to cut down trees at Boulogne,
Vincennes, Verrieres, St. Cloud, Meudon and two other forests in the
vicinity." Fuel costs "four hundred francs per cord of wood, forty sous
for a bushel of charcoal, twenty sous for a small basket. The needy are
seen in the streets sawing the wood of their bedsteads to cook with and
to keep from freezing." On the resumption of transportation by water
amongst the cakes of ice "rafts are sold as fast as the raftsmen can
haul the wood out of the water, the people being obliged to pass three
nights at the landing to get it, each in turn according to his number."
"On Pluviose 3 at least two thousand persons are at the Louviers
landing," each with his card allowing him four sticks at fifteen sous
each. Naturally, there is pulling, hauling, tumult and a rush; "the
dealers take to flight for fear, and the inspectors come near being
murdered;" they get away along with the police commissioner and
"the public helps itself." Likewise, the following day, there is "an
abominable pillage;" the gendarmes and soldiers placed there to maintain
order, "make a rush for the wood and carry it away together with the
crowd." Bear in mind that on this day the thermometer is sixteen degrees
below zero, that one hundred, two hundred other lines of people likewise
stand waiting at the doors of bak