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DEPORTATION BY ÉTAPE
385
the black bread, the fish-pies, or the cold boiled meat that they had purchased from the provision venders. The evening meal is sometimes an exceedingly scanty one, on account
of the failure of the peasant women to bring to the étape for sale an adequate supply of food. They are not obliged to furnish subsistence to convicts on the road, and the exile administration attempts no regulation of the commissariat