From a variety of motives all who could pressed into the service of the State. It was the one means of avoiding the proscription, the surest means of avoiding imprisonment, the surest means of acquiring wealth. The Government offices were flooded with incapable clerks. Municipal officers and administrators, charged with the care and sale of national property, had abundant opportunities of benefiting themselves and their relatives at the expense of the State. The multitude of agents who were employed in making requisitions for the army could, with small danger of exposure, enrich themselves by extortion and by breach of the maximum laws. ♦Formation of a revolutionary army.♦ The maximum laws prevented prices from rising in the open market, but they could not assure abundance. It was possible to search a tradesman’s cellars, and to force him to offer his existing stock of goods for sale at a definite price; but it was impossible to make him continue to carry on his trade at a loss to himself. It was easier for the farmer than for the tradesman to break the law; but this did not benefit the inhabitants of towns. The farmer would often choose to risk his head by concealing his corn or by sending it out of the country, sooner than send it to Paris or any other large town, where the maximum law was most rigidly enforced, and its breach attended with greatest danger to himself. Since the spring the Commune had been compelled to take upon itself the entire task of providing for the city’s consumption of bread. Its agents went into the surrounding departments and purchased all the corn and meal they could obtain, often giving a higher price than that prescribed by the law; but it was nevertheless only with extreme difficulty that the necessary provision was made. In order to maintain popularity with the working classes, the Commune was, however, compelled to provide that the daily supply of bread did not fail. It was compelled also to give satisfaction to that idle and ruffianly portion of the population by aid of which it was enabled to impose its will upon the Convention and the Committee of Public Safety. At the demand of the Commune the Convention passed a law declaring that Paris, like the armies, should be supplied by requisitions, and ordering the formation of a special paid force, or so-called ‘revolutionary army,’ of 7,000 men, which was to go into the departments and compel farmers to part with their corn at the maximum price. By these means the Commune obtained command of a new force, and found means of living for the destitute thieves and beggars with whom the city swarmed. This army was simply a horde of villains, let loose upon the neighbouring departments, who went from village to village, plundering, imprisoning, and torturing the inhabitants. Meanwhile, scarcity increased at Paris to such an extent that to put an end to the crowding at the bakers’ doors, the Commune ordered that tickets should