书城公版The Origins of Contemporary France
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第837章

[145] Schmidt, ibid. (Report of Fructidor 3, year III.)[146] Schmidt, ibid., vols. II. and III. (Reports of the police at the dates designated.)[147] Meissner, " Voyage à Paris," 132. Ibid., 104. " Bread is made with coarse, sticky black flour, because they put in potatoes, beans, Indian corn and millet, and moreover it is badly baked." - Granier de Cassagnac, "Histoire du Directoire," I., 51. (Letter of M. Andot to the author.) "There were three-quarter pound days, one-half pound and one-quarter pound days and many at two ounces. I was achild of twelve and used to go and wait four hours in the morning in a line, rue de l'Ancienne Comédie. There was a fourth part of bran in the bread, which was very tender and very soft. . . . and it contained one-fourth excess of water. I brought back eight ounces of bread a day for the four persons in our household."[148] Dauban, 586.

[149] Schmidt, ibid. (Reports of Brumaire 24, and Frimaire 13, year IV.)[150] This state of misery is prolonged far beyond this epoch in Paris and the provinces. ~f. Schmidt, "Tableaux de Paris," vol. III.-Felix Rocquam, "L'Etat de la France au 18e Brumaire," p.156. (Report by Fourcroy, Niv?se 5, year IX.) Convoys of grain fail to reach Brest because the English are masters at sea, while the roads on land are impassable. "we are assured that the people of Brest have long been on half-rations and perhaps on quarter-rations."[151] 1st It is difficult to arrive at even approximate figures, but the following statements will render the idea clear. I. Wherever Ihave compared the mortality of the Revolution with that of the ancient regime I have found the former greater than the latter, even in those parts of France not devastated by the civil war; and the increase of this mortality is enormous, especially in years II. and III. - At Troyes, with 25,282 inhabitants (in 1790), during the five years of 1786, 1787, 1788, 1789 and 1792 (1790 and 1791 are missing), the average annual mortality is 991 deaths, or 39 per thousand inhabitants; during the years II, III, IV, this average is 1,166 or 47per thousand inhabitants; the increase is then 7 deaths per year, nearly one fifth. (Documents provided by M. Albert Babeau.) - At Rheims, the average mortality from 1780 to 1789 is 1,350, which, for a population of 35,597, (1790), gives 41 deaths per annum to every thousand inhabitants. In the year II., there are 1,836 deaths which gives for each of the two years 64 deaths to every thousand persons;the increase is 23 deaths a year, that is to say more than one-half above the ordinary rate. (Statistics communicated by M. Jadart, archiviste at Rheims.) - At Limoges, the yearly average of mortality previous to 1789 was 825 to 20,000 inhabitants, or at the rate of 41to a thousand. From January 1, 1792, to September 22, 1794, there are 3,449 deaths, that is to say, a yearly average of 63 deaths to one thousand inhabitants, that is to say, 22 extra per annum, while the mortality bears mostly on the poor, for out of 2,073 persons who die between January 17, 1793, and September 22, 1794, over one-half, 1,100, die in the hospital. - (Louis Guibert, "Ancien registre des paroisses de Limoges," pp. 40, 45, 47.) - At Poitiers, in year IX., the population is 18,223, and the average mortality of the past ten years was 724 per annum. But in year II., there are 2,094 deaths, and in year III. 2,032, largely in the hospitals. Thus, even on comparing the average mortality of the ten years of the Revolution with the mortality of years II. and III., the average rate has almost trebled. - The same applies to Loudens, where the average death-rate being 151, in year II., it rises to 425. Instead of the triple for Chatellerault, it is double, where, the average rate being 262, the death-rate rises to 482, principally in the military hospitals.