358 Travels in France 



bought by them, has arisen greatly; for instance^ the cloth of 

 Abbeville, a French commodity, has risen from 30 livres to 42 

 livres the aulne ; and copper, a foreign commodity, has increased, 

 it is asserted in the petition of the Js^orman manufacturers to the 

 National Assembly, 70 per cent. Such a fabric may suffer; but 

 if their pins sell proportionably with other things the evil, it must 

 be admitted, tends to correct itself. 



Finances. — The prominent feature is the immensitj- of the 

 debt, which increases every hour. That which bears interest 

 may be about 5,000,000.000 livres; and assignats, or the debt not 

 bearing interest, may be grossly estimated at 1,500,000,000 livres ; 

 in all 6,500,000,000 livres or £284,375,000 sterling: a debt of 

 such enormity that nothing but the most regular and well paid 

 revenue could enable the kingdom to support it. The annual 

 deficit may be reckoned about 250,000,000 livres at present, but 

 improvable by a better collection of the revenue. The follow- 

 ing is the account for the month of February 1792. 



Recette ....... 20,000,000 



Depenses extraordinaire de 1792 . . . 12,000,000 



Id. pour 1 791 ...... 2,000,000 



Avances au depart, de Paris . . . 1,000,000 



Deficit ....... 43,000,000 



58,000,000 



I am afraid that any attempt to support such infinite burthens 

 must continue to deluge the kingdom with paper till, like Congress 

 dollars in America, circulation ceases altogether. There seems 

 to be no remedy but a bankruptcy, which is the best, easiest, and 

 most beneficial measure to the nation that can be embraced ; it 

 is also the most just and the most honourable; all shifting 

 expedients are, in fact, more mischievous to the people, and yet 

 leave government as deeply involved, as if no recourse had been 

 made to them. If the milice bourgeoise of Paris is so interested 

 in the funds as to render this too dangerous, there does not 

 appear to be any other rule of conduct than one great and last 

 appeal to the nation, declaring, that they must either destroy 

 PUBLIC CREDIT, OR BE DESTROYED BY IT. If the National 

 Assembly have not virtue and courage enough thus to extricate 

 France, she must at all events remain, however free, in a state 

 of political debility. 



The impossibility of levying the economistes'' land tax is found 

 in France to be as great in practice as the principles of it were 



