What did 19,000 tons of grain mean?
A Rouen ocean-going cargo ship could carry 200 tons. A hundred such large ships would be enough to hold it all. At 100 kilograms per metric quintal, 19,000 tons amounted to 200,000 quintals—only one-tenth of the grain Godoy had promised to sell to France.
Cargo from Rouen to Paris could only be carried by small boats, taking roughly eight days to reach Paris. These small boats carried around thirty tons each, so more than six hundred would be needed. Rouen was near Normandy, where vessels came in all sizes and shapes—single-masted, three-masted, and everything in between. Leaving Rouen, they had to follow the Seine to Paris, and the sight was utter chaos. By comparison, Nantes's grain boats were built to a uniform standard, each with only one mast and one square sail. Five or six of them lined up neatly abreast and traveled along the Loire River to Orléans. From the first vessel to the last, the sails decreased in size in sequence. There was never any showing off or acting on a whim; they looked like ducklings swimming behind their mother.
The inland waterways carried more than grain. There were building materials, fuel, wine, and other supplies as well. To make way for the grain boats, every other vessel had moved aside. The docks were a mess. Goods had to be unloaded, weighed on the public scales, and only then loaded onto waiting carts. The whole process created congestion and bottlenecks. In short, it looked extraordinarily frantic.
Marseille bordered the Mediterranean. Grain shipped from southern Russia would travel up the Rhône River to Orléans, but according to data left behind by the old dynasty, traffic on the Seine far exceeded that of the Rhône and the Loire. In other words, Rouen was