issues after the establishment of a republic this emblem had been
discarded. This change led to a difference in value between the
earlier and the later paper money. The wild follies of fanatics and
demagogues had led to an increasing belief that the existing state of
things could not last; that the Bourbons must ere long return; that in
such case, while a new monarch would repudiate all the vast mass of
the later paper issued by the Republic, he would recognize that first
issue bearing the face and therefore the guarantee of the king. So it
was that this first issue came to bear a higher value than those of
later date. To meet this condition of things it was now proposed to
repudiate an that earlier issue. In vain did sundry more thoughtful
members of the Convention plead that this paper money, amounting to
five hundred and fifty-eight millions of _francs_, bore the solemn
guarantee of the nation, as well as of the king; the current was
irresistible. All that Cambon, the great leader of finance at that
time, could secure was a clause claiming to protect the poor, to the
effect that this demonetization should not extend to notes below a
hundred _francs_ in value; and it was also agreed that any of the
notes, large or small, might be received in payment of taxes and for
the confiscated property of the clergy and nobility. To all the
arguments advanced against this breach of the national faith Danton,
then at the height of his power, simply declared that only aristocrats
could favor notes bearing the royal portrait, and gave forth his
famous utterance: "Imitate Nature, which watches over the preservation
of the race but has no regard for individuals." The decree was passed
on the 31st of July, 1793, yet its futility was apparent in less than
two months, when the Convention decreed that there should be issued
two thousand millions of _francs_ more in _assignats_ between the
values of ten _sous_ and four hundred _francs_, and when, before the
end of the year, five hundred millions more were authorized.[47]