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Since the investment of the capital, they have taken their 1fr. 50c. and their rations for their families, and done hardly anything except drill, gossip, and about once a week go on the ramparts. So fond they are of this idle existence, that although workshops offer 6fr. a day to men, they cannot obtain hands.
An orator, whose patriotic enthusiasm attained almost to frenzy, declared that as for himself he scorned hams and sausages in plenty, and that he preferred to live on the air of liberty. We still pay, he says, the budget of the clergy, as though Bonaparte were still on the throne, instead of having rationed the large appetites and forced every one to live on 1fr. 50c. a day.
The men of the poorer classes, as a rule, preferred to idle away their time on the 1fr. 50c. which they received from the Government, rather than gain 4 or 5fr. a day by working at their trades; consequently if they drank more and ate less than was good for them, they have had only themselves to thank for it. Their wives and children have been very miserable.
Only one kind is allowed to be manufactured; it is dark in colour, heavy, pasty, and gritty. There is as little corn in it as there is malt in London beer when barley is dear. The misery among the poorer classes is every day on the increase. Most of the men manage to get on with their 1fr. 50c. a day.
The Rue Chasson, in which he lives, is utterly demoralised. La Villette, with Belleville and Montmartre, must save Paris. How can it be otherwise? Everything is being done to make it necessary. We, the National Guard, who receive 1fr. 50c. a-day, are called the indigent. What do the robbers and the beggars who thus insult us do? They indulge in orgies in the fashionable restaurants.
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