errorist associate of Robespierre,
St. Just, in view of the steady rise in prices of the necessaries of
life, had proposed a scheme by which these prices should be established
by law, at a rate proportionate to the wages of the working classes.
This plan lingered in men's minds, taking shape in various resolutions
and decrees until the whole culminated on September 29, 1793, in the Law
of the _Maximum_.

While all this legislation was high-handed, it was not careless. Even
statesmen of the greatest strength, having once been drawn into this
flood, were borne on into excesses which, a little earlier, would have
appalled them. Committees of experts were appointed to study the whole
subject of prices, and at last there were adopted the great "four rules"
which seemed to statesmen of that time a masterly solution of the whole
difficulty. [48]

_First_, the price of each article of necessity was to be fixed at one
and one-third its price in 1790. _Secondly_, all transportation was to
be added at a fixed rate per league. _Thirdly_, five per cent was to be
added for the profit of the wholesaler. _Fourthly_, ten per cent was
to be added for the profit of the retailer. Nothing could look more
reasonable. Great was the jubilation. The report was presented and
supported by Barrere,--"the tiger monkey,"--then in all the glory
of his great orations: now best known from his portrait by Macaulay.
Nothing could withstand Barrere's eloquence. He insisted that France
had been suffering from a "_Monarchical_ commerce which only sought
wealth," while what she needed and what she was now to receive was a
"_Republican_ commerce--a commerce of moderate profits and virtuous." He
exulted in the fact that "France alone enjoys such a commerce,--that it
exists in no other nation." He poured contempt over political economy as
"that science which quacks have corrupted, which pedants have obscured
and which academicians have depreciated." France, he said, has something
better, and he declared in conclusion, "The needs of the people will
no longer be spied upon in order that the commercial classes may
arbitrarily take advantage." [49]

The first result of the _Maximum_ was that every means was taken to
evade the fixed price imposed, and the farmers brought in as little
produce as they possibly could. This increased the scarcity, and the
people of the large cities were put on an allowance. Tickets were issued
authorizing the bearer to obtain at the