Fiat Money Inflationin France
FIAT MONEY INFLATION
IN FRANCE
SPECIAL EDITION FOR
BANK OF NEW YORK & TRUST COMPANY
Established 1784
Title Page
FIAT MONEY INFLATION
IN FRANCE
How It Came, What It Brought, and
How It Ended
BY
ANDREW DICKSON WHITE, LL.D., Ph.D., D.C.L.
Late President and Professor of History at Cornell University; Sometime United States Minister to Russia and Ambassador to Germany; Author of “A History of the Warfare of Science with Theology,” etc.
D. APPLETON-CENTURY COMPANY
Copyright Page
Copyright, 1896, by
D. APPLETON AND COMPANY
Copyright, 1923, by
MRS. ANDREW D. WHITE
All rights reserved. This book, or parts
thereof, must not be reproduced in any
form without permission of the publisher.
Printed in the United States of America
INTRODUCTION
As far back as just before our Civil War I made, in France and elsewhere, a large collection of documents which had appeared during the French Revolution, including newspapers, reports, speeches, pamphlets, illustrative material of every sort, and, especially, specimens of nearly all the Revolutionary issues of paper money,—from notes of ten thousand livres to those of one sou.
FOREWORD
I am greatly indebted to the generosity of Mr. Andrew D. White, the distinguished American scholar, author and diplomatist, for permission to print and to circulate privately a small edition of his exceedingly valuable account of the great currency-making experiment of the French Revolutionary Government. The work has been revised and considerably enlarged by Mr. White for the purpose of the present issue.
I.
HOW IT CAME, WHAT IT BROUGHT AND HOW IT ENDED 1
I.EARLY in the year 1789 the French nation found itself in deep financial embarrassment: there was a heavy debt and a serious deficit.
II.
EVEN worse than this was the breaking down of the morals of the country at large, resulting from the sudden building up of ostentatious wealth in a few large cities, and from the gambling, speculative spirit spreading from these to the small towns and rural districts. From this was developed an even more disgraceful result,—the decay of a true sense of national good faith.
III.
THE first new expedient of the Directory was to secure a forced loan of six hundred million francs from the wealthier classes; but this was found fruitless. Ominous it was when persons compelled to take this loan found for an assignat of one hundred francs only one franc was allowed. Next a National Bank was proposed; but capitalists were loath to embark in banking while the howls of the mob against all who had anything especially to do with money resounded in every city. At last the Directory bethought themselves of another expedient. This was by no means new.
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