exclaimed.

"I think I see within their homes saddened families.

No one complains, but how many weep in silence!" "The farmer," he added, "was accustomed each year to treasure up in coin a part of his product; now he prefers to keep his grain rather than amass paper.'

Barbaroux thought that the war had already taken 300,000 men from the fields, with the loss in productive power equal to forty days. Another loss of forty days he attributed to the decrease in the number of cattle, mules, and horses, which had been bought for the army. His conclusion was somber. "Famine," said he, "this great destroyer of all laws and all authority, is advancing with mighty strides." Barbaroux was not a believer in violent remedies and his suggestions are interesting, especially the plan to form local associations to collect and circulate information about the crops. In other words for coercion he would substitute co-operation, believing that the French citizens, farmers and merchants included, would not turn a deaf ear to an appeal for common action against the oncoming peril.

The ablest exposition of the theory of economic liberty as the only assurance of an adequate supply was made by CreuzéLatouche. He showed that the measures of coercion which had been proposed were a return to practices of the ancient monarchy in its worst periods. He also showed that it was not the traders, but the lack of them, which was the cause of such startling inequalities of price in different parts of the country. The Convention yielded to these arguments and made an attempt to re-establish the grain trade. To secure its freedom the new law threatened with death those who should oppose with violence the carriage of grain from place to place. This was the last victory of the Economists. When the question came up the next time, in April, 1793, the advocates of force had the floor.

The reasons for the change lay outside the domain of argument. The center of gravity of French politics was shifting. Power had passed into the hands of the Paris radicals. The moderate deputies

Saint-Just's speech is of much interest, especially because of the contrast between his line of argument and the highly abstract reasoning of Robespierre. See Arch. Parl., LIII, 662-66.

2 Ibid., LIV, 676 f.

who had refused to vote for the death of Louis XVI were treated by the regicides as conspirators, secret advocates of a reaction and a restoration of the monarchy. Their arguments, even upon practical matters like the food question, were heard with impatience. The national peril was also greater than in December. The King's death had been the signal for war with England, Holland, and Spain. The defeat of Dumouriez in March, and his treason in April, opened the northern frontier to invasion. Violent quarrels broke out in the Convention. A Revolutionary Tribunal and a Committee of Public Safety were hastily organized. Cries of treason and demands for proscription punctuated the debates. At the same time, to meet the mounting expense of war and government, new millions of paper money were issued. Prices were rising rapidly. The food situation required attention.

The initiative came from Paris. On April 18 a petition was presented by the board of the department asking the establishment of a maximum price and the destruction of what was left of the grain trade. The severest penalties should be meted out against any farmer who either kept his grain in his barn or sold it to commission merchants instead of taking it to market. The interests of commerce were swept aside with a definition, and Robespierre was distanced by the assertion that "the fruits of the earth, like the atmosphere, belong to all men." The law officer who presented the petition closed with the customary threat of an uprising in Paris. Vergniaud, the great Girondin orator, attempted to discuss the petition. At first the cries of the galleries smothered his voice, but he finally silenced his interrupters and made his point. He chose an illustration from Paris itself. "The communes which surround Paris do not produce enough for her supply, and much must be drawn from Picardy. Will the consumer go and get it? No. Will the farmer bring it to Paris? No. If you destroy commerce, you decree famine." The Convention did not venture to destroy commerce even at the dictation of Paris, but its measures had that consequence.

The occasion was urgent, but the discussion in the Committee of Agriculture and the Convention lasted two weeks and the debate 1 Arch. Parl., LXII, 621.

at times became academic in its thorough exposition of theory. One report contained 7,000 words, and Marat cried out, "You are passing your time listening to food encyclopedias." The freedom of the grain trade still had its defenders, but the number and violence of the attacking party had increased. One deputy declared that "when despots wished to famish France they had transported grain from Bordeaux to Dunkirk and from Dunkirk to Bordeaux." Another said that since the introduction of the "fatal science of the Economists" governments had been able to create a famine at pleasure. The same group attacked the farmer, especially the northern farmer, who had rented or owned large tracts of land. He was called an enemy of the Republic, and a character hard and pitiless, and with tactics so adroit that he was able to cause a continual rise in the price of grain.

The Convention finally decided, on May 4, to adopt the principle of a maximum price. The question was what should be its basis. The Paris authorities had urged a flat rate for the whole country, to hold good for a year, irrespective of local differences in the cost of production. They combined with this the forced sale of a third of each farmer's remaining supply on June 15, a second third on August 15, and the rest of the old crop on October 15. The vice-president of the department argued that if the maximum was generous enough farmers would compete with one another and make the actual price lower. Moreover the maximum price would apply only to the best grain. A few deputies felt some misgiving as to the effect of the maximum upon the value of the public lands, which was the security behind the paper money. The Convention, like other legislative bodies in times of great national emergency, was unable to harmonize its systems. It should be added, in view of the later developments of price regulation, that even the champions of a grain maximum repudiated the idea that the plan should be extended to include other necessaries of life.1

The law of May 4 was aimed principally at the farmer. It is true that all sorts of precautionary restrictions were thrown about

The complete text is found in Caron, Le Commerce des Céréales (Recueil de textes et notes), pp. 46-49. For discussion in the Committee of Agriculture, see ProcèsVerbaux, III, 110 f.

the grain trade, or, rather, about what was left of it. In dealing with the farmer the plan went back to practices characteristic of the ancient bureaucracy in periods of scarcity. A rigid survey was to be made of his stock of grain, and the local authorities, from the governing board of the department down, were empowered to use all means necessary to compel him to keep the markets supplied. The Convention concluded to fix a maximum price for each department instead of a single price for the whole country. The basis was the average cost of grain on the local markets from January to May. As prices had risen during that time from twelve to thirty per cent, this meant a substantial reduction. It was the business of the department to collect the information promptly, to print tables of prices, and to send them to the communes. In order to leave the farmer no hope of a better price later in the year, the maximum was to be lowered one-tenth on June 1, one-twentieth on July 1, one-thirtieth on August 1, and one-fortieth on September 1.

This scheme, judged from the point of view of modern experience, had two bad features. The first was the failure to guarantee the farmer a reasonable profit, and so encourage him to put more acres under cultivation and raise larger crops. Should his labors slacken and his crops become small, no amount of energy in insisting upon a fair distribution of the product would keep the people from going hungry. The scheme not only failed to encourage the farmer, it threatened him with ruin. His expenses for tools, draft animals, and wages were steadily rising, but his profits were cut down, with the prospect of further losses every succeeding month.

The second blunder was the obverse of this; it was the assumption that force could be used successfully with the largest body of producing workmen the country had. The agents utilized to apply the force, when the last links in the chain of authority were reached, would be the farmers themselves, for the communal officers were either farmers or men dependent upon them.

Creuzé-Latouche told the Convention that not only farmers, but more than three-fourths of the other citizens, poor and rich alike, municipal officers, judges, indeed all public officials, would be tempted, nay compelled, to break the law. He said it was of no use to multiply penalties, to encourage delation, to establish

legions of subaltern tyrants; the chief result would be to reduce the citizens to despair. He also thought that such legislation, by throwing the country into a panic, would increase the evils which it was intended to correct. When the laws give the alarm, said he, it is not surprising that every family exaggerates its needs. To enter the farmer's barns, survey his crop, and force him to sell, would, he thought, simply lead to hoarding. The individual hoards might be small, but their total would bring about an artificial scarcity.1

If the question be asked, Did this first scheme of a maximum price for grain work? it must be confessed that it did not have a satisfactory trial. Circumstances were against it. Before the month of May closed Paris was again in uproar. Revolutionary multitudes once more marched on the Tuileries, this time not to dethrone a king but to intimidate the deputies and to compel them to order under arrest twenty-nine of the Girondin leaders as well as the ministers of finance and foreign affairs. The Committee of Public Safety intervened feebly, was discredited, and in another month was purged of members obnoxious to the triumphant Commune and the radicals of the Mountain party. An insurrection had also taken place in Lyons, but there it was the conservatives who won, and Lyons refused to recognize the authority of a Rump Convention. Several departments also rose against the Convention, and although these partial movements were soon checked, the turmoil was fatal to efficient administration. To add to the trouble, the northern departments were invaded by the Austrians and several important towns captured.

The Convention did not create any new central machinery to enforce the law of May 4. The Minister of the Interior was responsible in such matters. Roland had resigned in January and was succeeded by Garat, who had been in the Ministry of Justice long enough to have had the unhappy duty of reading his death sentence to Louis XVI. Garat was a literary man of enough reputation to be made a senator by Napoleon. His political critics described him as the "feeble Garat." He had a weakness for fine words as a cover for dubious acts. When in June it became evident that the majority of the departments were in no haste to comply 1 Arch. Parl., LXIII, 508 f.