t take assignats any more, grain not to be had
for anything but coin, and, as most people have none to give they are
hard-hearted enough to demand of one his clothes, and of another his
furniture, etc."]

[Footnote 42109: Ibid., AF., II., 71. (Letter of the Rozoy municipality.
Seine-et-Marne, Messidor 4, year III.) A bushel of wheat in the vicinity
of Rozoy brings three hundred francs.]

[Footnote 42110: Ibid., AF., II., 74. (Letter of the Montreuil-sur-Mer
municipality, Prairial 29.)]

[Footnote 42111: Ibid. (Letter of the Vervins administrators, Prairial
11 Letter of the commune of La Chapelle-sur-Somme, Prairial 24.)]

[Footnote 42112: Ibid., AF., II., 70. (Letter of the procureur-syndic of
the district of Saint-Germain, Thermidor 10.) This file, which depicts
the situation of the communes around Paris, is specially heartrending
and terrible. Among other instances of the misery of workmen the
following petition of the men employed on the Marly water-works may be
given, Messidor 28. "The workmen and employees on the machine at Marly
beg leave to present to you the wretched state to which they are reduced
by the dearness of provisions. Their moderate wages, which at the most
have reached only five livres twelve sous, and again, for four months
past, having received but two francs sixteen sous, no longer provide
them with half a pound of bread, since it costs fifteen and sixteen
francs per pound. We poor people have not been wanting in courage nor
patience, hoping that times would mend. We have been reduced to selling
most of our effects and to eating bread made of bran of which a sample
is herewith sent, and which distresses us very much (nous incommode
beaucoup); most of us are ill and those who are not so are in a very
feeble state."--Schmidt, "Tableaux de Paris," Thermidor 9. "Peasants on
the market square complain bitterly of being robbed in the fields and on
the road, and even of having their sacks (of grain) plundered."]

[Footnote 42113: Archives Nationales, D., P I, file 2. (Letter of the
Ervy municipality, Floreal 17, year III.) "The indifference of the
egoist farmers in the country is at its height; they pay no respect
whatever to the laws, killing the poor by refusing to sell, or unwilling
to sell their grain at a price they can pay."--(It would be necessary
to copy the whole of this file to show the alimentary state of the
departments.)]

[Footnote 42114: Ibid., AF., II., 74. (Letter of the district