According to Gamp's Law of Elemental Transfiguration, food could not be conjured out of thin air, nor could other things be turned into food, even if you ate them.
After the Bastille was stormed, gunfire rang out across France like raindrops. Stags, does, wild boars, wild hares, doves, even the pigeons in castle dovecotes—none escaped. For a time, the country became a prairie in Africa or the Americas, and any animal belonged to whoever killed it.
People began forming gangs and looting openly by force. A judge once said, "In this place without bread, what will we become? We will become food for beasts."
If no looting occurred, 1,600 sacks of flour could have been delivered into the city. But after the looting began, only 61 sacks reached their destination safely, worsening the miserable situation. Worse still, all sorts of rumors spread with eager encouragement. Some claimed that "someone" was dumping sack after sack of flour into the Seine. Others said cavalry horses were deliberately being allowed to eat the young shoots in wheat fields, that Brittany had been exporting grain all along, that people were hoarding it abroad, and so on.
Such rumors easily invaded the minds of people with empty stomachs. The populace searched everywhere for imaginary enemies, charging wildly across the "prairie" as though guided by Nemesis through the night.
At such a time, there should have been public authority, and people should have obeyed it. Yet when there were several public authorities, and they not only refused to cooperate but actively undermined one another, endless speeches, decrees, directives, and clamor filled people's ears.
The old fool said people should sympathize with the living. Yet in such chaotic times, people quickly grew accustomed to death. The belief keeping them moving became, *I will not be the next