interest of the citizens to the public good."

The report appealed to the patriotism of the French people with the
following exhortation: "Let us show to Europe that we understand our
own resources; let us immediately take the broad road to our
liberation instead of dragging ourselves along the tortuous and
obscure paths of fragmentary loans." It concluded by recommending an
issue of paper money carefully guarded, to the full amount of four
hundred million _livres_, and the argument was pursued until the
objection to smaller notes faded from view. Typical in the debate on
the whole subject, in its various phases, were the declarations of
M. Matrineau. He was loud and long for paper money, his only fear
being that the Committee had not authorized enough of it; he declared
that business was stagnant, and that the sole cause was a want of more
of the circulating medium; that paper money ought to be made a legal
tender; that the Assembly should rise above prejudices which the
failures of John Law's paper money had caused, several decades before.
Like every supporter of irredeemable paper money then or since, he
seemed to think that the laws of Nature had changed since previous
disastrous issues. He said: "Paper money under a despotism is
dangerous; it favors corruption; but in a nation constitutionally
governed, which itself takes care in the emission of its notes, which
determines their number and use, that danger no longer exists." He
insisted that John Law's notes at first restored prosperity, but that
the wretchedness and ruin they caused resulted from their overissue,
and that such an overissue is possible only under a despotism.[3]

M. de la Rochefoucauld gave his opinion that "the _assignats_ will
draw specie out of the coffers where it is now hoarded.[4]