Rejoice, poor housewives, who, on days of poverty, were obliged to
carry to the Mont-de-Piété[80] the discoloured remains of your wedding
dress, or your husband’s Sunday coat; rejoice, artisans, who, after a
day of toil, thought your bed so hard since your last mattress was
taken to the Rue des Blancs-Manteaux, to rejoin your last pair of
sheets. The Commune has decreed that “all objects in pawn at the
Mont-de-Piété, for a sum not exceeding twenty francs, shall be given
back gratuitously to all persons who shall prove their legitimate right
to the said objects.” Thanks to this benevolent decree, you may now
hope that things you have pawned will be restored to you before three
or four hundred days!
Count on your fingers; the number of articles to which the decree
applies is at least 1,200,000. As there are only three offices for the
claimants to apply to, and considering the forms which have to be
observed, I do not think more than three thousand objects can be given
back daily; the Commune says four thousand, but the Commune does not
know what it is talking about. However, even if we calculate four
thousand a-day, the whole would take up ten or twelve months.
During this time men and women, whom poverty had long ere this taught
the road to the Mont-de-Piété, would have to get up early, neglect the
daily work by which they live, and go and stand awaiting their turn at
the office, frozen in winter, baked in summer, thankful to obtain a
moment’s rest upon one of the wooden benches in the great bare hall;
and when they have been there a long, weary time, to see their number,
drawn by lot, put off to the next day or the day after, or the week or
the month following perhaps.
Still we must not blame the Commune for the sad disappointment of this
long delay, it would be impossible to shorten it. One thing, which is
less impossible, is to indemnify the administration of the
Mont-de-Piété for this gratuitous restitution. Citizen Jourde, delegate
of the finances, says, “I will give 100,000 francs a-week.” Without
stopping to consider where this able political economist means to get
his weekly 100,000 francs, I will be content with remarking that this
sum would in no wise cover the loss to the Mont-de-Piété, and that the
Commune will only be giving alms out of other people’s purses. If,
however, thanks to this decree, some few poor creatures are enabled to
get back those goods and chattels which they were obliged to dispose of
in the hour of need, there will not be much cause to complain. The
Mont-de-Piété usually does a very good business, and there will always
be enough misery in Paris for it to grow rich upon. Besides, the
Commune owes the poor wounded, mutilated, dying fellows who have been
brought from Neuilly and Issy, at least a mattress to die in some
little comfort upon.