General maximum

The General Maximum, or Law of the Maximum, was a law during the French Revolution, as an extension of the Law of Suspects on 29 September 1793. It succeeded the 4 May 1793 loi du maximum that also set price limits, deterred price gouging, and allowed for the continued flow of food supply to the French people.

Competing theories exist as to the causes of the conditions the General Maximum was intended to ameliorate.

Eugene White, in his 1995 publication "The French Revolution and the Politics of Government Finance, 1770–1815", views that years of revolution, international conflicts, and poor climate conditions had led to an economic environment with massive inflation and food shortages throughout France.

Andrew Dickson White, Professor of History at Cornell, suggests that the ever-greater and ultimately uncontrolled issuance of paper money authorised by the National Assembly was at the root of France's economic failure and most certainly the cause of its increasingly rampant inflation

Although it varied according to region, the maximum price for first necessity goods was about a third higher than the 1790 prices, and the legal maximum fixed to the wages was about half higher than the average level in 1790. Committee members feared new and more radical revolutionaries were being created by the crisis.The fear was intensified on 5 September 1793, when the sans-culottes invaded the National Convention demanding "Food- and to have it, force for the law."

On 29 September 1793, the Law of Suspects was extended to include the General Maximum. The Law of Suspects was initially created to deal with counter-revolutionaries, but hunger and poverty were seen by the Committee of Public Safety as dangerous to both the national interest and their positions within the government.

The law set forth uniform price ceilings on grain, flour, meat, oil, onions, soap, firewood, leather, and paper; their sale were regulated a third over the maximum price set in 1790.

Written into the text of the law were regulations and fines. Merchants had to post their maximum rates in a conspicuous location for all consumers to see and were subject to repeated inspections by police and local officials. Furthermore, the law gave legal protection to consumers who reported violations of the Maximum to local officials. If the consumer did not have a role in the infraction and gave report to the proper authorities denouncing the merchant, fines would be levied against only shop owners.

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