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.


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_.

Upon this material, mainly, was based a course of lectures then given
to my students, first at the University of Michigan and later at
Cornell University, and among these lectures, one on "Paper Money
Inflation in France."

This was given simply because it showed one important line of facts in
that great struggle; and I recall, as if it were yesterday, my feeling
of regret at being obliged to bestow so much care and labor upon a
subject to all appearance so utterly devoid of practical value. I am