consequently, the towns ruin
themselves with indebtedness to an incredible extent.--Archives
Nationales, AF., II., 72. (Letter of the municipality of Tours,
Vendemiaire 19, year IV.) Tours has not sufficient money with which to
buy oil for its street lamps and which are no longer lit at night. A
decree is passed to enable the agent for provisions at Paris to supply
its commissaries with twenty quintals of oil which, for three hundred
and forty lamps, keeps one hundred agoing up to Germinal 1. The same at
Toulouse. (Report of Destrene, Moniteur, June 24, 1798.) On November 26,
1794, Bordeaux is unable to pay seventy two francs for thirty barrels
of water to wash the guillotine. (Granier de Cassagnac, I., 13. Extract
from the archives of Bordeaux.) Bordeaux is authorized to sell one
thousand casks of wine which had formerly been taken on requisition
by the government, the town to pay for them at the rate at which the
Republic bought them and to sell them as dear as possible in the way of
regular trade. The proceeds are to be employed in providing subsistence
for its inhabitants. (Archives Nationales, AF., II., 72, orders of
Vendemiaire 4, year IV.) As to aid furnished by the assignats granted
to towns and departments cf. the same files; 400,000 francs to Poitiers,
Pluviose 18, four millions to Lyons, Pluviose 17, three millions a month
to Nantes, after Thermidor 14, ten millions to the department of Herault
in Frimaire and Pluviose, etc.]

[Footnote 42121: Archives Nationales, II., P 1, file 2. (Deliberations
of the commune of Troyes, Ventose 15, year III.)--"Un Sejour en France."
(Amiens, May 9, 1795.) "As we had obtained a few six franc crowns and
were able to get a small supply of wheat.... Mr. D and the servants eat
bread made of three fourths bran and one fourth flour. When we bake it
we carefully close the doors, paying no attention to the door bell,
and allow no visitor to come in until every trace of the operation is
gone... The distribution now consists of a mixture of sprouted wheat,
peas, rye, etc., which scarcely resembles bread." (April 12.) "The
distribution of bread (then) was a quarter of a pound a day. Many of
those who in other respects were well off, got nothing at all."]

[Footnote 42122: Ibid. (Letters of the municipality of Troyes, Ventose
15, year III., and Germinal 6.) Letter of the three deputies, sent by
the municipality to Paris, Pluviose, year III. (no date.)]

[Footnote 42123: "Un Sejour en