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The inhabitants of the house regard each other with looks of fearful interrogation all the precautions hitherto taken appear insufficient every one recollects something yet to be secreted a prayer-book, an unburied silver spoon, or a few assignats "a face royale," are hastily scrambled together, and if the visit prove nothing more than an amicable domiciliary one, in search of arms and corn, it forms matter of congratulation for a week after.
Our only currency here consists of assignats of 5 livres, 50, 100, 200, and upwards: therefore in making purchases, you must accommodate your wants to the value of your assignat, or you must owe the shopkeeper, or the shopkeeper must owe you; and, in short, as an old woman assured me to-day, "C'est de quoi faire perdre la tete," and, if it lasted long, it would be the death of her.
The Church, as we have seen, owned at least a fifth of the soil of France, and it was now resolved to seize these rich church lands, and to utilize them as security for the issue of paper money the assignats. As partial indemnity for the wholesale confiscation, the state was to undertake the payment of fixed salaries to the clergy.
It ceased to force people to take assignats upon pain of death; but it paid nobody. Our soldiers, without arms and without bread, were beaten instead of being victorious." The ambition of Napoleon found in this situation a fitting opportunity. The legislative branch of the government consisted of a Senate, or Council of Ancients, and a Council of Five Hundred.
On the 18th of May, 1796, a young man complained to the National Convention that his elder brother, who had been acting as administrator of his deceased father's estate, had paid the heirs in assignats, and that he had received scarcely one three-hundredth part of the real value of his share. To meet cases like this, a law was passed establishing a "scale of proportion."
The discredit into which paper money had fallen, was the cause of his failure. He had issued notes to the amount of twenty millions, and owed almost as much at Lyons. Fourteen millions were given to him in assignats, in order to draw him out of his difficulties. It is pretended that he found means to gain much by his bankruptcy, but this seems doubtful. The winter at length passed away.
If sixteen millions sterling of these assignats, forced on the people, leave the wants of the state as urgent as ever issue, says one, thirty millions sterling of assignats says another, issue fourscore millions more of assignats. The only difference among their financial factions is on the greater or the lesser quantity of assignats to be imposed on the public sufferance.
No financier seriously believes that the issue of bonds authorized by the treaty for the credit of the Reparations Commission has now any probability of success. Germany's monetary circulation system is falling to the stage of assignats, and the time is not distant when, if intelligent provision is not made, Germany will not be in a position to pay any indemnity.
* The opinion that prevailed at this time that a restoration of the monarchy was intended by the Convention, had rendered every one solicitous to amass assignats issued during the late King's reign. Royal assignats of five livres were exchanged for six, seven, and eight livres of the republican paper.
The farmers who have yet been able to conceal any, refuse to dispose of it for assignats; and the poor, who have neither plate nor money, exchange their best clothes or linen for a loaf, or a small quantity of flour.
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