XIV. 1793. 1 Hist. Parl. 452. Hist. francs, or £1440. This immense burden was calcu- CHAP. lated as likely to produce at once a milliard of francs, or £40,000,000 sterling; and, as a security for this advance, the persons taxed received assignats, or were xxviii. 451, inscribed as public creditors on the grand livre of the de la Conv. French funds a security, in either case, depending Th. vii. 137, entirely on the success of the Revolution, and which 203, proved in the end almost elusory.1 iii. 250, 300. 64. Lac. the old and The public creditors of every description continued to be paid in assignats at par, notwithstanding their having Confusion of fallen to a tenth of their nominal value; in other words, Revolutionthey received only a tenth part of what was really due ary debt. to them. To perpetuate still further the dependence of the moneyed classes on the fortunes of the Revolution, the plan was projected by Cambon, and adopted by the Convention, of compelling all holders of stock to surrender Aug. 15. to government their titles to it, and, in lieu of every other written right, they were merely inscribed on the grand livre of the French debt; and an extract of that inscription constituted thereafter the sole title of the proprietor. Most severe laws were enacted to compel the surrender of the older titles to the stock, which were immediately burned, and if a year elapsed without this being done, the capital was forfeited. All the capital sums owing by the state were converted into perpetual annuities, at the rate of five per cent; so that a stock of 1000 francs was inscribed on the book for a perpetual annuity of fifty francs, and government was for ever relieved of the burden of discharging the principal sums. "In this manner," said Cambon, "the debt contracted by despotism becomes undistinguishable from that contracted since the Revolution; and I defy despotic power, should it ever revive, to distinguish its ancient creditors from those of the new régime. As soon as this operation is completed, you will see the capitalist who now desires the restoration of a King, because he has a king for a debtor, and who fears that he will lose his fortune if he is not re-esta XIV. 1793. 1 Cambon, le Grand CHAP. blished, desire equally vehemently the preservation of the Republic, when his private interests are irrecoverably wound up in its preservation." The whole creditors, Rapport sur both royal and republican, were paid only in assignats, Livre, Aug. which progressively fell to a fifth, a tenth, a hundredth, and at last, in 1797, to a two hundred and fiftieth part of their nominal value; so that in the space of a few years the payment was entirely elusory, and a national bankruptcy had in fact existed many years before it was formally declared by the Directory.1 15. Hist. Parl. xxxi. 446, 459. Hist. de la 290, 319. 65. fall of the All the measures of government, however, how vigorous Continued and despotic soever, proved inadequate to sustain the assignats. falling value of the assignats, or keep down the money against fore- price of provisions, or articles of daily consumption, stallers and which necessarily rose with such prodigious additions to companies. the circulating medium. To effect the object, they had Severe laws all public 5th Sept.. Sept. 5. Sept. 20. recourse to new and still more oppressive regulations. To destroy the competition of rival companies, which prevented the direction of capital towards the purchase of the national domains, they abolished, by decree, all life insurance societies, and all companies of every description of which the shares were transferable from hand to hand; they declared traitors to their country all those who placed their funds in any investments in countries with which the Republic was at war; and condemned to twenty years in irons every person convicted of refusing to receive payment of any debt in assignats, or being concerned in any transaction in which they were received at less than their nominal value. Any person found guilty of buying or selling assignats was to be punished with death, by a decree of 5th September. They ordered that the bells of the churches should every where be melted down into sou-pieces, to answer the immediate wants of the peasantry; and passed a second decree, which ranked forestalling with capital crimes. By this last law, it was declared that every one was to be considered as a forestaller, who withdrew from circulation merchandise of CHAP. XIV. 1793. primary necessity, without immediately exposing it to public sale. The articles which had been previously declared to be of primary necessity, were bread, wine, butcher-meat, grain, oats, vegetables, fruits, coal, wood, butter, cheese, linen, cotton stuffs, and dress of every description, except silks. For all these articles a tariff of prices was fixed, far below what they could be purchased for or produced by the retail dealers, manufacturers, or farmers. To carry into execution this iniquitous decree, the most inquisitorial powers were conferred on the commissaries named by the commune. Every merchant was obliged, at their summons, to give a statement of the goods contained in his warehouses; these declarations were liable to be checked at any hour by domiciliary visits; and any fraud or concealment was declared punishable with death. Commissioners appointed by the communes were authorised to fix the price at which all these articles were to be sold; and if the necessary cost of the manufacture was such as to render the price beyond the reach of the people, they were still to be exposed to sale, at such a reduced price as might bring them within their means-an atrocious edict, pressing with unparalleled severity upon the industrious classes, merely to gratify the needy and clamorous multitude in Decree, towns, on whom the government depended, and which, it had subsisted long in force, would have destroyed all the industry of France, and handed over the people the unmitigated horrors of actual famine.1 These extravagant measures had not been many 66. months in operation, before they produced the most disas- Direful trous effects. A great proportion of the shops in Paris these laws. and all the principal towns were shut; business of every sort was at a stand; the laws of the maximum, and against forestallers, had spread terror and distrust as much among the middle classes, who had commenced the Revolution, as the guillotine had among the nobles and priests, who had been its earliest victims. The retail Sept. 29. if Hist. Parl. xxix. 12, 15, and 42. Th. v. 204, to 207. effects of 1793. CHAP. dealers, who had purchased the articles in which they dealt XIV. from wholesale merchants before the law of the maximum, at a price higher than that allowed by the new tariff, were compelled, by the terror of death, to sell at a loss to themselves, and saw their fortunes gradually melting away in their daily transactions. Even those who had laid in their stock after the imposition of the maximum, were in no better situation, for that regulation had only fixed their price when retailed to the public; but as it had not fixed the price at which the previous manufacture was to be accomplished, nor the needful expense of transport and storing it in their warehouses effected, and as their operations were necessarily paid in proportion to the depreciated value of the currency, the subsequent sale at the prices fixed by the maximum entailed ruinous losses on the tradesmen. The consequence was, that the greater part of the shops were every where closed, and those who continued to do business, did so only by fraud; the worst articles alone were exposed to public sale at the legal price, and the best reserved for those who were willing in secret to pay their real value. A sepulchral silence reigned in the once gay and joyous capital. In many streets hardly a shop was open; not a light was to be seen in the windows at night; and the doors were all barricaded, to give the inhabitants the means of escape by the back windows, if the commissaries of the Convention came to their abodes.1* 1 Deux Amis, xii. 146, 147. Th. v. 399, 400. 67. Excessive violence of The people, who perceived these frauds, and witnessed the closing of so great a number of shops, were transthe people ported with fury, and besieged the Convention with the from the rise most violent petitions, insisting that the dealers should be compelled to reopen their shops, and continue to sell as usual, in spite of any loss they might sustain. They of prices. * "Au lieu de ce tumulte, de cette vie animée, de cet éclat imposant, qui autrefois distinguait Paris, un silence sépulcral règne dans tous les quartiers; toutes les boutiques sont déja fermées, chacun s'empresse de se barricader chez soi; et l'on dirait que le crêpe de la mort est étendu sur tout ce qui respire."-- Voyage de 48 heures à Paris dans le mois de Septembre 1793; given in Deux Amis, xii. 146, 147. XIV. 1793. denounced the butchers, who were accused of selling CHAP. unwholesome meat; the bakers, who furnished coarse bread for the poor, and fine for the rich; the winemerchants, who diluted their liquors by the most noxious drugs; the salt-merchants, the grocers, the confectioners, who conspired together to adulterate the articles in which they dealt in a thousand different ways. Chaumette, the procureur-general, supported their demands in a violent speech. "We sympathise," said he, "with the evils of the Sept. 4 people, because we are the people ourselves; the whole and 10. council is composed of Sans-culottes; it is the sovereign multitude. We care not though our heads fall, provided posterity will deign to collect our skulls. It is not the Gospel which I invoke-it is Plato. He that strikes with the sword should be struck with the sword; he that strikes with poison should be struck with poison; he that famishes the people should die of famine. If subsistence and articles of merchandise are wanting, from whom shall the people seize them? From the Convention? No. From the constituted authorities? No. They will take them from the shopkeepers and merchants. It is arms, and not gold, which are wanted to set in motion our manufactories; the world must know that the giant people 26,32. Th. can crush all its mercantile speculations. Rousseau has Hist. de la said, when the people have nothing else to eat, they will eat 409, 437. the rich."1 1 Parl. xxix. v. 403. Conv. iii. measures of the munici tion. Intimidated by such formidable petitioners, the Con- 68. vention and the municipality adopted still more rigorous Renewed measures. Hitherto they had only fixed the price of severity by articles of necessity in a manufactured state, now they pality and resolved to fix the price of the raw material; and the idea the Convenwas even entertained of seizing the material and the workmen alike for the service of the state, and converting all France into one vast manufactory in the employment of government. The communes declared that every merchant who had been engaged in business for above a year, who either abandoned or diminished it, should be |