enevolent action at the risk of soiling a coat or tearing a ruffle.

Distrust of the assignats, and scarcity of bread, have occasioned a law
to oblige the farmers, in every part of the republic, to sell their corn
at a certain price, infinitely lower than what they have exacted for some
months past. The consequence of this was, that, on the succeeding market
days, no corn came to market, and detachments of dragoons are obliged to
scour the country to preserve us from a famine. If it did not convey an
idea both of the despotism and want with which the nation is afflicted,
one should be amused by the ludicrous figures of the farmers, who enter
the town preceded by soldiers, and reposing with doleful visages on their
sacks of wheat. Sometimes you see a couple of dragoons leading in
triumph an old woman and an ass, who follow with lingering steps their
military conductors; and the very ass seems to sympathize with his
mistress on the disaster of selling her corn at a reduced price, and for
paper, when she had hoped to hoard it till a counter-revolution should
bring back gold and silver.

The farmers are now, perhaps, the greatest aristocrates in the country;
but as both their patriotism and their aristocracy have been a mere
calculation of interest, the severity exercised on their avarice is not
much to be regretted. The original fault is, however, in an usurped
government, which inspires no confidence, and which, to supply an
administration lavish beyond all example, has been obliged to issue such
an immense quantity of paper as nearly destroys its credit. In
political, as in moral, vices, the first always necessitates a second,
and these must still be sustained by others; until, at length, the very
sense of right and wrong becomes impaired, and the latter is not only
preferred from habit, but from choice.

Thus the arbitrary emission of paper has been necessarily followed by
still more arbitrary decrees to support it. For instance--the people
have been obliged to sell their corn at a stated price, which has again
been the source of various and general vexations. The farmers, irritated
by this measure, concealed their grain, or sold it privately, rather than
bring it to market.--Hence, some were supplied with bread, and others
absolutely in want of it. This was remedied by the interference of the
military, and a general search for corn has taken place in all houses
without exception, in order to discover if any wa