the balance with the existing
quantity of merchandise and other property, the more paper there was
offered against purchasable objects the more rapid the increase became.
Cloth which heretofore brought fifteen to eighteen francs a yard rose to
one hundred twenty-five francs a yard. In a cook-shop a "Mississippian,"
bidding against a nobleman for a fowl, ran the price up to two hundred
francs.

From this instant the shares suffered their first decline, and a heavy
uneasiness began to spread abroad. The extent of the fall was not
measured by those whom it menaced; but people wondered, doubted, and
began to be alarmed. The shares declined to fifteen thousand francs.
However, the bank-notes were not yet distrusted. The bank was, in fact,
entirely distinct from the company, and their fate, up to this time,
appeared in no way dependent the one on the other. The notes had not
undergone any fictitious and extraordinary advance. Large amounts had
been issued, certainly, but for gold and silver, and upon the deposit of
shares. The portion which had been issued upon the deposit of shares
partook of the danger of the shares themselves; but no one thought of
that, and the bank-notes still possessed the entire confidence of the
public; only they no longer had the same advantage over specie since the
latter had been so much sought by the "realizers." The notes already
began to be presented at the bank for coin, and the vast reserve which
it had possessed began to diminish perceptibly.

Law did then what governments do so often, and always with ill-success:
he resorted to forced measures. He declared, in the first place, by
decree, that the bank-notes should always be worth 5 per cent. more than
coin.

In consideration of this superiority in value the prohibition which
forbade the deposits of gold and silver for bills, at Paris, was taken
off, so that notes could be procured at the bank for coin. This
permission was simply ridiculous, for no one now wished to exchange
specie for paper, even at par. But this was not all; the decree declared
that thereafter silver should not be used in payments of over one
hundred francs nor gold in those over three hundred francs. This was
forcing the circulation of notes in large payments, and that of specie
in small, and was designed to accomplish by violence what could only be
expected from the natural success of the bank.

These measures did not bring any more gold and silver to the bank. The
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