lieu or Louvois
might hover with envy round the Committee of Public Welfare, and regret
the undaring moderation of their own politics.

How shall I explain to an Englishman the doctrine of universal
requisition? I rejoice that you can imagine nothing like it.--After
establishing, as a general principle, that the whole country is at the
disposal of government, succeeding decrees have made specific claims on
almost every body, and every thing. The tailors, shoemakers,* bakers,
smiths, sadlers, and many other trades, are all in requisition--carts,
horses, and carriages of every kind, are in requisition--the stables and
cellars are put in requisition for the extraction of saltpetre, and the
houses to lodge soldiers, or to be converted into prisons.

* In order to prevent frauds, the shoemakers were obliged to make
only square-toed shoes, and every person not in the army was
forbidden to wear them of this form. Indeed, people of any
pretentions to patriotism (that is to say, who were much afraid) did
not venture to wear any thing but wooden shoes; as it had been
declared anti-civique, if not suspicious, to walk in leather.

--Sometimes shopkeepers are forbidden to sell their cloth, nails, wine,
bread, meat, &c. There are instances where whole towns have been kept
without the necessaries of life for several days together, in consequence
of these interdictions; and I have known it proclaimed by beat of drum,
that whoever possessed two uniforms, two hats, or two pair of shoes,
should relinquish one for the use of the army! Yet with all these
efforts of despotism, the republican troops are in many respects ill
supplied, the produce being too often converted to the use of the agents
of government, who are all Jacobins, and whose peculations are suffered
with impunity, because they are too necessary, or perhaps too formidable
for punishment.

These proceedings, which are not the less mischievous for being absurd,
must end in a total destruction of commerce: the merchant will not import
what he may be obliged to sell exclusively to government at an arbitrary
and inadequate valuation.--Those who are not imprisoned, and have it in
their power, are for the most part retired from business, or at least
avoid all foreign speculations; so that France may in a few months depend
only on her internal resources. The same measures which ruin one class,
serve as a pretext to oppress and levy contributions