And, finally, as to the general development of the theory and practice
which all this history records: my subject has been Fiat Money in
France; How it came; What it brought; and How it ended.

It came by seeking a remedy for a comparatively small evil in an evil
infinitely more dangerous. To cure a disease temporary in its
character, a corrosive poison was administered, which ate out the
vitals of French prosperity.

It progressed according to a law in social physics which we may call
the "_law of accelerating issue and depreciation._" It was
comparatively easy to refrain from the first issue; it was exceedingly
difficult to refrain from the second; to refrain from the third and
those following was practically impossible.

It brought, as we have seen, commerce and manufactures, the mercantile
interest, the agricultural interest, to ruin. It brought on these the
same destruction which would come to a Hollander opening the dykes of
the sea to irrigate his garden in a dry summer.

It ended in the complete financial, moral and political prostration of
France-a prostration from which only a Napoleon could raise it.

But this history would be incomplete without a brief sequel, showing
how that great genius profited by all his experience. When Bonaparte
took the consulship the condition of fiscal affairs was appalling.
The government was bankrupt; an immense debt was unpaid. The further
collection of taxes seemed impossible; the assessments were in
hopeless confusion. War was going on in the East, on the Rhine, and
in Italy, and civil war, in La Vendée. All the armies had long been