The imagination is unable to calculate the multiplicity of objects which to-morrow must enter its gates, to prevent the life of its inhabitants from terminating in famine, riot, or pillage.

And yet at this moment all are asleep, without feeling one moment's uneasiness, from the contemplation of this frightful possibility.

On the other side, we see eighty departments who have this day labored, without concert, without mutual understanding, for the victualing of Paris.

How can each day bring just what is necessary, nothing less, nothing more, to this gigantic market?
What is the ingenious and secret power which presides over the astonishing regularity of such complicated movements, a regularity in which we all have so implicit, though thoughtless, a faith; on which our comfort, our very existence depends?
This power is an _absolute principle_, the principle of freedom in exchanges.

We have faith in that inner light which Providence has placed in the heart of all men; confiding to it the preservation and amelioration of our species; _interest_, since we must give its name, so vigilant, so active, having so much forecast when allowed its free action.