Note 277 — Chapter VIII
Reading edition
Moniteur, 18th Nov., 1810. At Hamburg, in 1811, under the bloody government of Davoust, an unhappy father was shot for having introduced into his house a small sugar-loaf, of which his family stood in need: yet at that very moment Napoleon was probably signing a licence for the importation of a million of such loaves. Smuggling on a small scale was punished with death; but the government carried it on upon the greatest scale. The same regulations filled the prisons with victims and the imperial coffers with revenue. Note by Alison, vol. xi. p. 173, from Bourrienne, vol. vii. p. 233.