was no less than $4,200,000,000 in face value of _assignats_ and
_mandats_ outstanding; the loss, as always, falling mostly upon the
poor and the ignorant.

(2) In the attempt to maintain fixed values for the paper currency the
Government became involved in an equally futile attempt to maintain a
tariff of legal prices for commodities. Here again penalties of
fines, of imprisonments and of death were powerless to accomplish the
end in view.

(3) An wholesale demoralisation of society took place under which
thrift, integrity, humanity, and every principle of morality were
thrown into the welter of seething chaos and cruelty.

(4) The real estate upon which the paper currency was secured
represented confiscations by the State of the lands of the Church and
of the Emigrant Noblemen. These lands were appraised, according to
Mr. White's narrative and other authorities, at $1,000,000,000. Here
was a straight addition to the State's resources of $1,000,000,000.
It is ominously significant that within one hundred years under the
"Peace of Frankfort" signed on the 10th May, 1871, the French nation
agreed to pay a war indemnity to victorious Germany of exactly the
same sum, namely, $1,000,000,000 in addition to the surrender of the
province of Alsace and a considerable part of Lorraine. The great
addition to the national wealth, therefore, effected by the immoral
confiscation of the lands in question disappeared with compound
territorial interest added under the visitation of relentless
retribution.

Public opinion in our own country is so far sound on the question of