TWO HANGED IN PARIS AS KING’S TROOPS CHECK THE BREAD DISTURBANCES

PARIS, 1775-05-11. — Two men condemned for their part in the recent bread disturbances were hanged to-day in the Place de Grève. Their execution gives a terrible public expression to the Crown’s determination to restore obedience after disorders which have troubled Paris, Versailles, and numerous places supplying the capital with grain. Troops have been employed, arrests made, and the protection of markets and provisions strengthened. Yet punishment, however exemplary the ministers intend it to be, cannot of itself settle the question which has brought the crowds into the streets: whether working households can obtain sufficient bread at a price their earnings will bear.

The disturbances have not proceeded from one assembly or followed the direction of a single acknowledged chief. In market towns, upon roads, and at places where grain is stored or flour prepared, crowds have intervened against the ordinary conduct of trade. Some have seized provisions; others have compelled their sale at prices fixed by the purchasers rather than the owners. Such proceedings are not everywhere simple pillage. Those taking part have sometimes offered payment, maintaining that they seek a just price rather than goods without charge. To merchants whose property and bargains are thus placed at the crowd’s disposal, that distinction affords little security.

Among the places overtaken by disorder late in April was Beaumont-sur-Oise, in the country north of Paris. The movement subsequently reached Versailles on 2 May and the capital on the following day. Its passage through the districts upon which Paris depends has made it a concern greater than an ordinary quarrel at a baker’s door. Grain must travel before it becomes the city’s bread; a crowd stopping a consignment in one town may deprive another of its expected supply. Thus each local intervention threatens to enlarge the very scarcity which those engaged in it profess to remedy.

The immediate hardship follows the poor harvest of last year and the subsequent dearness of grain. Bread is no small article in the expenditure of an artisan’s family, to be surrendered while other comforts remain. An advance in its price reaches at once into the household purse, leaving less for fuel, lodging, and every other necessity. Those whose employment is irregular have still less defence against it. The present anger therefore cannot safely be dismissed as an invention of persons who delight in tumult. There is genuine distress beneath the violence, even where the means adopted to relieve it are unlawful.

Against this distress stands a deliberate alteration in the government of the grain trade. Last September, under M. Turgot, the Controller-General, the Crown restored freedom to the internal commerce in grain. The minister’s principle is that dealers must be permitted to purchase, move, and sell their stocks without the customary obstacles which divide one district from another. The expression “liberté du commerce des grains” states the policy upon which his administration has embarked. Its supporters contend that the prospect of a lawful return brings supplies towards places where they are wanted, whereas restrictions discourage trade and leave abundance in one province useless to scarcity in another.

The crowd’s understanding is very different. Grain passing out of a neighbourhood may appear not as commerce but as the removal of its inhabitants’ subsistence. A merchant holding stocks against a later sale may be regarded not as a necessary intermediary but as a man enriching himself upon hunger. The old cry of a “pacte de famine”—a supposed compact to profit by starving the people—gives these suspicions their most alarming form. Such accusations are not proof of any compact. Their importance lies in the readiness with which hardship makes them credible, and in the danger they present to dealers, officials, and the authority protecting them.

The government has answered with military force as well as measures directed towards provisioning. Soldiers have been brought to bear upon the disturbed districts, and the movement of supplies has become a matter of public security. The numerous arrests and to-day’s executions announce that popular interference with markets will not be accepted as a lawful correction of prices. But this policy requires the authorities to distinguish between the hungry purchaser, the participant in a disorderly gathering, and the person guilty of violence. Where a multitude acts together and then disperses, that distinction is difficult; the consequences of failing to make it are grave.

For the markets, the essential question is whether protection will restore confidence sufficiently to keep grain moving. A proprietor who fears that his stock will be seized has reason to withhold it from an exposed market; a carrier who expects his load to be stopped has reason to refuse the journey. These dangers may aggravate shortage without adding a single mouth to be fed. Conversely, the mere presence of troops cannot produce an additional harvest. No sound account of the present troubles can promise an immediate and general fall in prices simply because gatherings have been broken up or offenders punished.

The political trial is correspondingly severe. Louis XVI has occupied the throne for barely a year, and the disputed policy belongs to one of the chief ministers of his reign. To abandon it under pressure would encourage the belief that crowds may prescribe the conditions of commerce. To maintain it without relieving distress risks persuading the King’s subjects that the protection of property counts for more than their subsistence. Magistrates and local officers must conduct their business between these opposing expectations. The dispute concerns not merely the cost of a loaf, but the old question of what protection the people may demand from their sovereign.

To-day’s punishment may deter fresh assemblies, but it would be premature to pronounce the country quiet or the difficulty ended. The capital still depends upon the arrival of provisions, and the grain districts remain exposed to the suspicions which have interrupted their trade. The immediate test of the royal measures will be found in markets supplied, roads kept open, and households able to purchase bread—not in executions alone. M. Turgot’s system is now being defended by the force of the Crown. Whether that defence can reconcile public order with the necessities of the poor remains the pressing question before the government.