Nangis 153 



making hay; and I have had the marquis, Monsieur I' Abbe, 

 and some others on the stack to show them how to make and 

 tread it : such hot pohticians !— it is well they did not set the 

 stack on fire. Nangis is near enough to Paris for the people to 

 be politicians; the perruquier that dressed me this morning tells 

 me that everybody is determined to pay no taxes, should the 

 National Assembly so ordain. But the soldiers will have some- 

 thing to say. No, Sir, never:— be assured as we are, that the 

 French soldiers will never fire on the people : but, if they should, 

 it is better to be shot than starved. He gave me a frightful 

 account of the misery of the people; whole families in the utmost 

 distress ; those that work have a pay insufficient to feed them — 

 and many that find it difficult to get work at all. I inquired of 

 Monsieur de Guerchy concerning this, and found it true. By 

 order of the magistrates no person is allowed to buy more than 

 two bushels of wheat at a market, to prevent monopolising.^ It 

 is clear to common sense that all such regulations have a direct 

 tendency to increase the evil, but it is in vain to reason with 

 people whose ideas are immovably fixed. Being here on a 

 market-day, I attended, and saw the wheat sold out under this 

 regulation, with a party of dragoons drawn up before the market- 

 cross to prevent violence. Th^ people quarrel with the bakers, 

 asserting the prices they demand for bread are be^^ond the pro- 

 portion of wheat, and proceeding from words to scuffling, raise a 

 riot, and then run away with bread and wheat for nothing: 

 that has happened at Nangis, and many other markets; the 

 consequence was, that neither farmers nor bakers would supply 

 them till they were in danger of starving, and, when they did 

 come^ prices under such circumstances must necessarily rise 

 enormously, which aggravated the mischief, till troops became 

 really necessary to give security to those who supplied the 

 markets. I have been sifting jMadam.e de Guerchy on the 

 expenses of living; our friend Monsieur I'Abbe joined the con- 

 versation, and I collect from it, that to live in a chateau like this, 

 with six men-servants, five maids, eight horses, a garden, and a 

 regular table, with company, but never to go to Paris, might 

 be done for looo louis a year. It would in England cost 2000; 

 the mode of living (not the price of things) is therefore cent, per 

 cent, different. — There are gentlemen (noblesse) that live in this 

 country on 6000 or 8000 livres (£262 to £350), that keep two men, 

 two maids, three horses, and a cabriolet; there are the same in 

 England, but they are fools. Among the neighbours that visited 

 Nangis was Monsieur Trudaine de Montigny, with his new and 



