These are the customs prevalent during the great famines of
feudal times; and, from one end of France to the other, to say
nothing of the out-breaks of the famished in the large towns,
similar outrages or attempts at recovery are constantly occurring.
- " The armed population of Nantua, Saint-Claude, and Septmoncel,"
says a dispatch,[12] "have again cut off provisions from the Gex
region; there is no wheat coming there from any direction, all the
roads being guarded. Without the aid of the government of Geneva,
which is willing to lend to this region eight hundred Cuttings of
wheat, we should either die of starvation or be compelled to take
grain by force from the municipalities which keep it to themselves."
Narbonne starves Toulon; the navigation of the Languedoc canal is
intercepted; the people on its banks repulse two companies of
soldiers, burn a large building, and want to destroy the canal
itself." Boats are stopped, wagons are pillaged, bread is forcibly
lowered in price, stones are thrown and guns discharged; the
populace contend with the National Guard, peasants with townsmen,
purchasers with dealers, artisans and laborers with farmers and
land-owners, at Castelnaudary, Niort, Saint-Etienne, in Aisne, in
Pas-de-Calais, and especially along the line stretching from
Montbrison to Angers - that is to say, for almost the whole of the
extent of the vast basin of the Loire, - such is the spectacle
presented by the year 1790.
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