CHAP. 1793. 60. number of Paris during Nor was the state of the prisons in Paris and over France a less extraordinary and memorable monument of the Reign of Terror. When the Girondists were overOfficial ac- thrown, on the 31st May 1793, the number of prisoners count of the in the different jails of Paris was about 1150; but, before prisoners in three months of the Reign of Terror had elapsed, their the Reign of number was doubled, and it gradually rose to an average of six, seven, and at last eight thousand, constantly in captivity in the metropolis alone. The whole prisons in the capital being filled by this prodigious crowd, the castle of Vincennes was surveyed with a view to additional accommodation, and the Jacobins boasted it could contain six or seven thousand more. The official bulletins,+ Terror. *"Courez à Vincennes. On pourrait y loger six à sept mille détenus."— Note de PAYAN; Papiers trouvés chez ROBESPIERRE, ii. 403. Immense as these numbers are, we have the authority of an unexceptionable XIV. 1793. published weekly, of the number of prisoners in the jails CHAP. of Paris, is one of the most interesting monuments of the Revolution, and Leveaux's Journal de la Montagne, the Jacobin organ of Paris, set up on the 2d June 1793, has at least done one service to humanity by having preserved the dismal record. It is equalled only by the catalogue of the executions, which, long averaging from seven to ten, at length rose to forty and fifty, and, on the fall of Robespierre, had at times reached eighty a-day. Apply these numbers to the remainder of France,-which, considering the enormous accumulation of prisoners at Lyons, Toulon, and la Vendée, and the revolutionary tribunals at work in almost every considerable town, especially Nantes, Toulon, Bordeaux, Lyons, Strassburg, and Arras, seems not beyond the bounds of probability, and call the population of Paris 650,000, or about a fortieth part of the whole population of France, which at that period contained about 26,000,000 souls, and we shall arrive at the result, that at the commencement of the Reign of Terror, the number of persons in jail, almost all for political offences, was over all France forty-five thousand, and in its latter stages had risen to three hundred thousand, of whom, for a month before the fall of Robespierre, from two to three thousand were daily put to death by the guillotine;—at least a hundred times the number of prisoners, and a thousand times the number of executions, that, since the witness for the fact, that, during the last five months of the period, they were in reality at least 1000 greater every week than these returns exhibit.-Déposition de LECOINTRE; Procès de FoUQUIER-TINVILLE, No. XV.-One reason of this was, that from the date of the decree in June 1794, directing state prisoners from the departments in many cases to be forwarded to Paris, the prisoners in the Conciergerie, one of the largest jails in that city, to which these foreign detachments were sent, were not included in the returns, and so several of them are imperfect. How applicable to Paris at this period are the lines of Corneille : "Le séjour de votre potentat, Qui n'a que ses fureurs pour maximes d'état, Sertorius, Act iii. scene 2. CHAP. atrocious era of the revocation of the edict of Nantes, had disgraced the worst period of the monarchy. XIV. 1793. 61. quisitions of grain, horses, and carriages. and 17. The forced requisitions of horses, ammunition, proviForced re- sions, and stores of every sort from the people, soon proved the source of infinite and most vexatious burdens. In August 1793, eighteen commissioners were nominated by August 16 the Convention, with powers to require from the primary assemblies, in every part of France, unlimited supplies of men, horses, provisions, and ammunition. The principle founded on was, that the men and animals indispensable for the purposes of agriculture should alone be preserved, and that all the remainder might be seized for the purposes of the Republic. All the horses of draught and burden, not absolutely required by the cultivators or manufacturers, were seized for the state; all the arms of every description appropriated by the government commissioners; the great hotels of the emigrants confiscated to the use of the state, and converted into vast workshops for the manufacture of arms, clothing, or equipment for the armies, or magazines for the storing of subsistence for the use of the people. The principal manufactory of arms was established at Paris, and the whole workmen in iron and jewellery were pressed into its service. It soon became capable of sending forth a thousand muskets a-day. To such a length did the dictators carry their principle of managing every thing of their own authority, that they compelled a return of the whole subsistence in every part of the country, and endeavoured to purchase it all, and distribute it either to the armies, or at a low price to the imperious citizens of the towns. This system of forced requisitions gave the government the command of a large proportion of the agricultural produce of the kingdom, and it was enforced with merciless severity. Not only grain, but horses, carriages, and conveyances of every sort, were forcibly taken from the cultivators; and as the payment they received was wholly in assignats, it in truth amounted to nothing. These exactions excited XIV. 1793. the most violent discontent, but no one ventured to give CHAP. it vent to have expressed dissatisfaction, would immediately have led to denunciation at the nearest revolutionary committee, and put the complainer in imminent. hazard of his life. To complete the burden, the demo- 1 Decree, cratic power, incessant clamour, and destitute situation of Aug. 16 and the people in the great towns, rendered it indispensable teur, Aug. to adopt some general measures for their relief; and the 18. Hist. only method which was found effectual, was to put them 463, 464. on the same footing with the armies, and give the agents 188. Hist. of government the right of making forced requisitions for iii. 237, 245. their support.1 17. Moni Parl. xxi. Th. v. 141, de la Conv. 62. bery for the the populace of the cities. The maintenance of such immense bodies of men as the idle revolutionists in the great cities composed, ere long Public robcame to be of itself equal to the whole administration of an support of ordinary government. A board was appointed of five directors, who soon had ten thousand persons in daily pay, incessantly occupied in enforcing these requisitions for their support. This corps of commissaries for Paris was of itself an army. No less than 636,000 persons daily received rations at the public offices, the entire amount being eighteen hundred and ninety-seven sacks of meal; and the attention of government was incessantly directed towards keeping the citizens in good-humour by regularity in the distribution. The losses sustained by the agriculturists in providing for this daily consumption were enormous; the cost of producing their grain had augmented tenfold from the depreciation of paper, and yet they were only paid the former price by the requisitionists. The farmers were obliged to pay ten francs a-day to their labourers, instead of one franc, as in 1790, and every thing else in the same proportion; yet they were compelled to part with their grain at the price fixed by the maximum, which was calculated on the scale of prices before the Revolution, to the imperious and needy multitudes in the towns. In other words, nine-tenths of the subsistence daily consumed in Paris was extorted without payment from the XIV. 1793. 1 Moniteur, CHAP. cultivators in the country, and the cries of the sufferers were stifled by the prospect of the guillotine-a striking instance of the grinding oppression exercised even over Oct. 14, their own class by the sovereign people, when they once vii.233,237. obtain the ascendency, and the state of subjection to Conv. iii. which, in the progress of revolutions, the inhabitants of the country invariably fall to the citizens of towns.1 1793. Th. Hist. de la 180, 240. 63. The im mense bur ed on the state, and forced loans from the opulent classes. The necessity of feeding the multitude entailed other expenses of a more serious kind on the Convention, and den it entail- occasioned a large part of their never-ending financial embarrassments. Government bought grain from foreigners for twenty-one francs the quintal, and retailed it to the populace for fourteen; the cessation of agricultural labour in a great part of the country rendered it indispensable to carry on this ruinous commerce to a great extent, and the losses thence accruing to the state were stated by Cambon as enormous. The expense of feeding the inhabitants of Paris soon nearly equalled that of the maintenance of the fourteen armies. The Convention introduced the ruinous system of distributing every day, to every citizen of the capital, as the only means of keeping them quiet, a pound of bread, at the price of three sous in assignats-a burden which, from the fall in the value of paper, soon became almost as great as that of supporting them altogether. As provisions, in consequence of these prodigious efforts made in favour of the metropolis, were far cheaper there than in the surrounding districts, smuggling from the one to the other went on to a vast extent, and continual complaints were made of the great fortunes which the rich were making by exporting quantities of bread out of the metropolis. At the commencement of the Reign of Terror, the government adopted the plan of a forced loan from the opulent classes. This tax was imposed on an ascending scale, increasing according to the fortunes of the individuals; and out of an income of 50,000 francs, or £2000 a-year, they took, in 1792, 36,000 |