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A Residence in France, During the Years 1792, 1793, 1794, and 1795
A Residence in France During the Years 1792 1793 1794 and 1795 Author:Helen Maria Williams Purchase of this book includes free trial access to www.million-books.com where you can read more than a million books for free. This is an OCR edition with typos. Excerpt from book: isr frkANCEi . 49 dbly) by a ftate of revolution—the ftrarige remedies devifed to obviate them—the alternate heglecT: and feverity with which the laws are fe... more »xecutedthe mixture of want and profufion that diftiriguifh the lower claffes of people— and the diftrefs and humiliation of the higher all offer fcenes fo new and unaccountable, as hot to be imagined by a perfon who has lived 'Only under a regular government where the limits of authority are defined, the heceflaries tof life plentiful, and the people rational and fub- brdinate. The conferences of a general fpirit tof monopoly, which I formerly defcribed, have lately been fo oppreffive, that the Convention thought it neceffary to interfere and in fo extraordinary a way, that I doubt if (as ufual) ' the diftemper of their remedies" will not make us regret the original difeafe. Almoft every article, by having paffed through a variety of hands, had become enormoufly dear; whichj operating with a real fcarcity of many things, occafioned by the war, had excited uni- verfal murmurings and inquietude. The Convention, who know the real fource of the evil (the difcredit of afiignats) to be unattainable, and' more felicitous to divert the clamours of the peoplej than to fupply their wantSj have adopted a meafure which, according to the Vol. ir. E prefentprefent appearances, will, ruin one half of the nation, and ftarve the other. A maximum, or higheft price, beyond which nothing is to be fold, is now promulgated under very fevere penalties for all who fhall infringe it. Such a regulation as this muft in its nature be highly complex, and by way of fimplifying it, the price of every kind of merchandize is fixed at a third above what it bore in 1791 : but as no diftinction is made between the produce of the country, and articles importe...« less