At Chevreuse the barley has sprouted and smells bad; the "poor wretches," says an employee, "must be hard pressed with hunger to put up with it." At Fontainebleau "the barley, half eaten away, produces more bran than flour, and to make bread of it, one is obliged to work it over several times." This bread, such as it is, is an object of savage greed; "it has come to this, that it is impossible to distribute it except through wickets." And those who thus obtain their ration, "are often attacked on the road and robbed of it by the more vigorous of the famished people." At Nangis "the magistrates prohibit the same person from buying more than two bushels in the same market." In short, provisions are so scarce that there is a difficulty in feeding the soldiers; the minister dispatches two letters one after another to order the cutting down of 250,000 bushels of rye before the harvest[1106].

Paris thus, in a perfect state of tranquility, appears like a famished city put on rations at the end of a long siege, and the dearth will not be greater nor the food worse in December 1870, than in July 1789.
"The nearer the 14th of July approached," says an eyewitness,[1107] "the more did the dearth increase.

Every baker's shop was surrounded by a crowd, to which bread was distributed with the most grudging economy.
This bread was generally blackish, earthy, and bitter, producing inflammation of the throat and pain in the bowels.

I have seen flour of detestable quality at the military school and at other depots.

I have seen portions of it yellow in color, with an offensive smell; some forming blocks so hard that they had to be broken into fragments by repeated blows of a hatchet.