STATE PAPERS. 
It is in your power, on the con- 
trary, to raise the one through the 
other, and to breathe thus new life 
through all the ramifications of the 
body politic, robust in itself, but 
weakened and dried up through 
the want ef circulation. _ ; 
There are those, however, who 
seem to descry in this paper the 
annihiletion of the assignats. This 
is an error to which stock-jobbers 
will labour ro give credit as wishing 
to monopolize this representative 
sign, and to possess themselves of 
the pubiic fortune. But it is evi- 
dent, that on the contrary stock- 
jobbing will fod its death in the 
compulsive circulation of — this 
paper, and that in twenty-four 
hours the government will triple 
the value of assignais. 
The assignat is now at the three 
hundredth part of its nominal va- 
lue. When the mandats shall be 
at par with money, the assignats 
are to be exchanged at every office 
in the republic for the hundredth 
part of their nominal rate. Thus 
is their value tripled. In a word, 
the assignats thus exchanged are to 
be burned, until there shail be no 
more than 3 milliards in circula- 
tion. The circylation will then be 
brought back to its usual course, 
and the paper to its natural propor- 
tion to the land which it represents. 
The mandat being on a par with 
money, and the reijation of the 
assignats with the former being 
prescribed by the laws, stock- 
Jobbing can no longer maintain its 
round. Je dies; and France is 
Sclivered from a scourge more hor. 
rible than all the infliciions of her 
combined enemies. 
This proportion of one to an 
hundred between the mandat and 
the assignat appears to.be more suit 
[269 
able for the present. It accords 
with the measures which have been 
taken for raising the forced loan. 
Tt leaves to the nation the resources 
which may be necessary for its 
occasions, until the system of con- 
tribution shall be settled, and the 
receipts collected regularly. In 
propertion as the circulating mass 
of assignats shall be diminished by 
burning those which are exchanged, 
the relative value of one hundred 
for one may be gradually ameli- 
orated until the equilibrium shall be 
restored, withoutany shock between 
the remaining* assignats and the 
demesnes. which form their se. 
curity. 
But it.is necessary Sor this pur. 
pose, that severe penalties shall be, 
decreed against those who attempt 
to make the smallest alteration in 
the relative value of republican 
money. ‘Lhose who | exchange 
mandats against money otherwise 
than at par, must be rigorously 
punished. It was by relaxing from 
this essential point that assignats 
have fzllen into their present state 
of depreciation, and that ir is im. 
possible to raise them suddenly to 
their primitive value, without 
passing beyond the value of the 
security, and stripping the nation 
of its last resource. 
It is solely from your firmness 
and fidelity in the adoption and 
execution of these, measures, that 
France can be saved and revivified, 
and that she can rise free, glorious, 
and happy, after ail the storms of 
the revolution. 1 
We invite you, therefore, citizens 
legislators, to give this message an 
immediate consideration, 
(Signed) Letourneur, Presi, 
LecarpeE, Sec. 
oie @ 
Proclamation 
