In this formidable state of things, the next measure adopted was worthy of the violent and shortsighted administration from which it emanated. A forced loan of 600 millions was raised from the richest classes, to be paid either in coin, or in assignats at the hundredth part of their nominal value. So that if the current paper was 20,000 millions, a payment of 200 millions would be sufficient to ex tinguish the whole. The government however refused to sanction this principle as against itself; for in paying the public creditor, it gave the assignat the tenth part of its nominal value. The land-tax and the duties in farm were required to be paid half in kind and half in assignats; the custom-duties, half in corn and half in assignats. In the meantime, until the funds produced by this loan, which was enforced with great severity, could be at the disposition of the state, the government went on issuing assignats till they had absolutely lost all value, and had become waste-paper. It therefore anticipated to resources by issuing promissory notes payable In specie. when the forced loan should be collected, and with difficulty prevailed on bankers to discount them to the amount of 60 millions. At this time the Directory gave up the task of supply ing Paris with bread, and allowed the shops to be opened as before : an exception being made in favour of the indigent, and of fundholders and public functionaries whose annual incomes were not more than 5000 francs. The payment of the loan, however, went on slowly, the produce of the government bills was exhausted, and fresh funds were required. Again the resource of assignats was re sorted to, and in two months the currency had been raised to 36,000 millions by the issue of 20,000 millions, which even to the government were not worth the 200th part of their nominal value.
By this time some new financial ex pedient became necessary. It was expected that, by payments of taxes and of the forced loan to the government, the paper in circulation would soon be reduced to 24,000 millions. It was therefore de termined to make a new issue of paper, under the name of mandate, to the amount of 2400 millions. Of this sum 800 mil lions were to be employed in extinguish ing 34,000 millions of assignats, which were to be taken at a thirtieth part of their legal value : 600 millions were to be allotted to the public service, and the other 1200 millions retained in the public coffers. These mandate were to enable any person who was willing to pay the estimated value of any of the national lands to enter at once into possession ; and therefore they furnished a somewhat better security than the assignats, as these could only be offered in payment at sales by auction ; and consequently the price of the lands rose in proportion to the de preciation of the paper. The estimate of
the lands having been made in 1790, was not true in 1795, at which time they had in some cases lost a half, in others two thirds or three-fourths of their former value. The mandat of 100 francs, how ever, at its first issue, was worth only fifteen francs in silver ; and the new paper was soon so much discredited, that it never got into general circulation, and was not able to drive out the coined money, which was now almost universally em ployed in transactions between indi viduals. The only holders of mandats were speculators, who took them from the government and sold them to pur chasers of national lands. By this entire discredit of the government-paper the prosperity of individuals had been in some measure restored, and trade revived a little from its long sleep. The govern ment was destitute of all resource ; its agents received nothing but worthless paper, and refused any longer to do their duties. The armies of the interior were in a state of extreme misery; while those of Germany and Italy were maintained only from the countries where they were quartered. The military hospitals were shut, the gens-d'armes were not paid or equipped, and the high roads were in fested with bands of robbers, who some times even ventured into the towns.
In a short time the government were forced to abandon the mandats, as they had abandoned the assiguats, and to de clare that they should be received in pay ment of taxes and national lands only at their real value. Having fallen to near a seventieth of their ostensible value, they were, in the course of 1796, returned to the government in payment of taxes and for the purchase of lands ; and with them ended the revolutionary system of paper-money, which probably produced more wide-spreading misery, more sudden changes from comfort to poverty, more iniquity in transactions both between in dividuals and the government, more loss to all persons engaged in every depart ment of industry and trade, more discon tent, disturbance, profligacy, and outrage, than the massacres in September, the war in La Vendde, the proscriptions in the provinces, and all the sanguinary violence of the Reign of Terror.
From the extinction of the mandate to the present time the legal currency of France has been exclusively metallic. (Thiers, vol. viii. pp. 85-9, 103-19, 158 62, 177, 183-91, 334-44, 4234 ; Store', Cours d'Econ. Pol. vol. iv. p. 164.)