the most frightful catastrophe France had then experienced.[6]

It was no mere attempt at theatrical display, but a natural impulse,
which led a thoughtful statesman, during the debate, to hold up a
piece of that old paper money and to declare that it was stained with
the blood and tears of their fathers.

And it would also be a mistake to suppose that the National Assembly,
which discussed this matter, was composed of mere wild revolutionists;
no inference could be more wide of the fact. Whatever may have been
the character of the men who legislated for France afterward, no
thoughtful student of history can deny, despite all the arguments and
sneers of reactionary statesmen and historians, that few more
keen-sighted legislative bodies have ever met than this first French
Constitutional Assembly. In it were such men as Sieyès, Bailly,
Necker, Mirabeau, Talleyrand, DuPont de Nemours and a multitude of
others who, in various sciences and in the political world, had
already shown and were destined afterward to show themselves among the
strongest and shrewdest men that Europe has yet seen.

But the current toward paper money had become irresistible. It was
constantly urged, and with a great show of force, that if any nation
could safely issue it, France was now that nation; that she was fully
warned by her severe experience under John Law; that she was now a
constitutional government, controlled by an enlightened, patriotic
people,--not, as in the days of the former issues of paper money, an
absolute monarchy controlled by politicians and adventurers; that she
was able to secure every _livre_ of her paper money by a virtual
mortgage on a landed domain vastly greater in value than the entire
issue; that, with men like Bailly, Mirabeau and Necker at her head,