Paper Currency. 



nents of the measure were partially silenced by the relief obtained, and 

 the general public thought it an easy way to pay debts. There was a 

 call for more. Mirabeau, who had declared paper money to be the 

 nursery of tyrants, corruption and delusion, ran his eye over the situ- 

 atiou, saw that the movement was popular with the people, changed 

 his course and expressed himself as follows: 



" Paper money, we are told, will become superabundant. Of what 

 paper do you speak ? If of a paper without a solid basis, undoubt- 

 edly; if of one based on the firm foundation of landed property, never. 



* * There cannot be a greater error than the fear, so generally 

 prevalent, as to the over-issue of assignats. It is thus alone you will 

 clear off our debts, pay our troops, advance the revolution. Re-absorbed 

 progressively in the purchase of the national domains, the paper 

 money can nerer become redundant, any more than the humidity of 

 the atmosphere can become excessive, which descends in rills, finds 

 the rivers, and is at length lost in the mighty ocean." 



The debate was most vigorous, but the tide of public opinion was 

 running toward favoring the adoption of the bill. All the opposition 

 could do was to have a stipulation inserted that no further issues should 

 be made. In September, 1790, the Assembly, by a vote of 508 to 423 

 passed the bill for a further issue of eight hundred million francs. 

 Notwithstanding the stipulation that there should be no further issues, 

 the paper money infatuation had such control over the people that, 

 during the next year, six hundred millions more were issued. 



There must inevitably be an end to every debauch. One writer de- 

 scribes the situation as follows: " What the bigotry of Louis XIV, and 

 the shiftlessness of Louis XV could not do in nearly a century, was 

 accomplished by this tampering with the currency in a few months. 

 Every thing which tariffs and custom-houses could do was done. Still 

 the great manufactories of Normandy were closed; those of the rest of 

 the kingdom speedily followed, and vast numbers of workingmen in 

 a" parts of the country were thrown out of employment. " 



"In the 



spring of 1791, no one knew whether a piece of paper money 



^presenting one hundred francs, would, a month later, have i 

 basing power of one hundred francs, or ninety francs, or eighty, or 

 s,x ty. The result was that capitalists declined to embark their means 

 ln basi ness. Enterprise received a mortal blow. Demand for labor 

 *as still further diminished. The business of France dwindled to a 

 mere livi ng from hand to mouth. This state of things, too, while it 

 °re heavily against the interests of the moneyed classes, was still more 

 ruinous to those in moderate, and most of all to those in straightened 

 circumstances." 



