The Bourse de Commerce transferred to the sidewalk and into cafes

The government and the police chief said to themselves: “It’s about preventing the rise. But the official price is the fall and the rise. If we remove the courses, there is no more increase. Let’s close the Bourse de Commerce!”

Because it's quite obvious, isn't it? that before the invention of the thermometer there was neither hot nor cold.

Basically, the government did what we do in certain mountain hotels, where we attach the needle of the aneroid with a platinum wire, so that it always marks the beautiful point... It doesn't stop the storm. But it reassures tourists until the day they fall victim to their too easy confidence. Thus the removal of official prices did not prevent transactions from taking place at risky prices.

Wednesday afternoon, fifty meters from the Bourse de Commerce, in the rue du Louvre, we saw people taking small packages from their pockets, the contents of which they poured into the hand of an interlocutor. It was wheat, oats, bran... Customers examined the goods at the curb, weighed them, blew on them to see the proportion of waste remaining mixed with the grain. The deals were concluded, the sales slips were signed there. All that was missing, to recall the time of Law and Rue Quincampoix, was a hunchback who offered his back as a desk... In the neighboring cafes, overflowing with people, sellers, brokers and customers moved around chatting between the tables , among the boys panicked by this unusual crowd. And what did not happen on the Stock Exchange regularly, happened here, in fever and hubbub. Trade prohibited by higher orders gave way to speculation...

Undoubtedly, the police intervened, not without brutality, and brave peasants, who were taking out their little packages onto the public highway, were completely stunned to see themselves taken to the neighboring police station, after having exchanged, despite themselves, their sample of oats or wheat against a sample of tobacco... No doubt, in an excess of zeal, agents rudely invited to circulate... the special commissioner of the Bourse de Commerce himself, who watched over the grain, but did not sell any. The smart ones were left to go do business a little further away, worrying about the suppression of the odds, which were official as a joke...

And as most of the sellers had left, and free competition no longer existed, wheat, which was still trading at 103 the day before, was traded at 106, and oats, which sold last week at 68, rose to 74. .

When the stock market reopens, wheat will be at 110 or more. And we will go straight to the bread for 1 fr. 30 while waiting for better.

J.P.