l82 HISTORY OF THE WHEEL AND ALLIANCE. 



life-blood of the community. The task was overwhelming. 

 Money was to be found to meet not only the demands of 

 the bank, but the necessities, both public and private, of 

 every rank in society. It was essential to enable the 

 manufacturers to work, lest their workmen, driven to 

 desperation, should fling themselves amongst the most 

 violent enemies of public order. It was essential to pro- 

 vide money for the food of Paris, for the pay of troops, 

 and for the daily support of the industrial establishments 

 of the nation. A failure on any one point would have 

 led to a fresh convulsion, but the panic had been followed 

 by so great a scarcity of the metallic currency, that a few 

 days latter, out of a payment of 26,000,000 fallen due, 

 only 47,000 francs could be recorded in silver.' 



u ' In this extremity, when the bank alone retained 

 any available sums of money, the Government came to 

 the rescue, and on the night of the i5th of March, the 

 notes of the bank were, by a decree, made a legal tender, 

 the issue of these notes being limited in all to 350,000,000, 

 but the amount of the lowest of them reduced for the 

 public convenience to 100 francs. One of the great 

 difficulties mentioned in the report was to print these 

 loo-franc notes fast enough for the public consumption. 

 In ten days the amount issued in this form had reached 

 80,000,000 francs. 



' ' * To enable the manufacturing interests to weather 

 the storm at a moment when all the sales were inter- 

 rupted, a decree of the National Assembly had directed 

 warehouses to be opened for the reception of all kinds of 

 goods, and provided that the registered invoice of the 

 goods so deposited should be made negotiable by in- 

 dorsement. The Bank of France discounted these 

 receipts. In Havre alone 18,000,000 were thus 

 advanced on colonial produce, and, in Paris, 14,000,000 

 on merchandise; in all, 60,000,000 were made available 

 for the purposes of trade. Thus the great institution had 

 placed itself, as it were, in direct contact with every 

 interest of the community, from the Minister of the 

 Treasury down to the trader in a distant outport. Like 

 a huge hydraulic machine, it employed its colossal 

 powers to pump a fresh stream into the exhausted arteries 



