ebate of 150
francs.[23]

Nothing could well be more illuminating than the following curious
picture contributed by a journal whose representative made a special
inquiry into the whole question of the cost of living.[24] "I was dining
the other day at a restaurant of the Bois de Boulogne. There was a long
queue of people waiting at the door, some sixty persons all told, mostly
ladies, who pressed one another closely. From time to time a voice
cried: 'Two places,' whereupon a door was held opened, two patients
entered, and then it was loudly slammed, smiting some of those who stood
next to it. At last my turn came, and I went in. The guests were sitting
so close to one another that they could not move their elbows. Only the
hands and fingers were free. There sat women half naked, and men whose
voices and dress betrayed newly acquired wealth. Not one of them
questioned the bills which were presented. And what bills! The _hors
d'oeuvre_, 20 francs. Fish, 90 francs. A chicken, 150 francs. Three
cigars, 45 francs. The repast came to 250 francs a person at the very
lowest." Another journalist commented upon this story as follows: "Since
the end of last June," he said, "445,000 quintals of vegetables, the
superfluous output of the Palatinate, were offered to France at nominal
prices. And the cost of vegetables here at home is painfully notorious.
Well, the deal was accepted by the competent Commission in Paris.
Everything was ready for despatching the consignment. The necessary
trains were secured. All that was wanting was the approval of the French
authorities, who were notified. Their answer has not yet been given and
already the vegetables are rotting in the magazines."

The authorities pleaded the insufficiency of rolling stock, but the
press revealed the hollowness of the excuse and the responsibility of
those who put it forward, and showed that thousands of wagons, lorries,
and motor-vans were idle, deteriorating in the open air. For instance,
between Cognac and Jarnac the state railways had left about one
thousand wagons unused, which were fast becoming unusable.[25] And this
was but one of many similar instances.

It would be hard to find a parallel in history for the rapacity combined
with unscrupulousness and ingenuity displayed during that fateful period
by dishonest individuals, and left unpunished by the state. Doubtless
France was not the only country in which greed was insatiable and its
manifestations disast