opinion in favor of their measures; and then proposes, seriously, a
change in various matters of detail, thinking that this would prove a
sufficient remedy for an evil which had its roots far down in the
whole system of irredeemable currency. As well might a physician
prescribe a pimple wash for a diseased liver.[34]

Now began to be seen more plainly some of the many ways in which an
inflation policy robs the working class. As these knots of plotting
schemers at the city centers were becoming bloated with sudden wealth,
the producing classes of the country, though having in their
possession more and more currency, grew lean. In the schemes and
speculations put forth by stock-jobbers and stimulated by the printing
of more currency, multitudes of small fortunes were absorbed and lost
while a few swollen fortunes were rapidly aggregated in the larger
cities. This crippled a large class in the country districts, which
had employed a great number of workmen.

In the leading French cities now arose a luxury and license which was
a greater evil even than the plundering which ministered to it. In
the country the gambling spirit spread more and more. Says the same
thoughtful historian whom I have already quoted: "What a prospect for
a country when its rural population was changed into a great band of
gamblers!"[35]

Nor was this reckless and corrupt spirit confined to business men; it
began to break out in official circles, and public men who, a few
years before, had been thought above all possibility of taint, became
luxurious, reckless, cynical and finally corrupt. Mirabeau, himself,
who, not many months previous, had risked imprisonment and even death
to establish constitutional government, was now--at this very