uins of the prosperity of all
men of meagre means a class of debauched speculators, the most
injurious class that a nation can harbor,--more injurious, indeed, than
professional criminals whom the law recognizes and can throttle; how
it stimulates overproduction at first and leaves every industry flaccid
afterward; how it breaks down thrift and develops political and social
immorality. All this France had been thoroughly taught by experience.
Many then living had felt the result of such an experiment--the issues
of paper money under John Law, a man who to this day is acknowledged
one of the most ingenious financiers the world has ever known; and there
were then sitting in the National Assembly of France many who owed the
poverty of their families to those issues of paper. Hardly a man in the
country who had not heard those who issued it cursed as the authors of
the most frightful catastrophe France had then experienced. [6]

It was no mere attempt at theatrical display, but a natural impulse,
which led a thoughtful statesman, during the debate, to hold up a piece
of that old paper money and to declare that it was stained with the
blood and tears of their fathers.

And it would also be a mistake to suppose that the National Assembly,
which discussed this matter, was composed of mere wild revolutionists;
no inference could be more wide of the fact. Whatever may have been the
character of the men who legislated for France afterward, no thoughtful
student of history can deny, despite all the arguments and sneers
of reactionary statesmen and historians, that few more keen-sighted
legislative bodies have ever met than this first French Constitutional
Assembly. In it were such men as Sieyes, Bailly, Necker, Mirabeau,
Talleyrand, DuPont de Nemours and a multitude of others who, in various
sciences and in the political world, had already shown and were destined
afterward to show themselves among the strongest and shrewdest men that
Europe has yet seen.

But the current toward paper money had become irresistible. It was
constantly urged, and with a great show of force, that if any nation
could safely issue it, France was now that nation; that she was fully
warned by her severe experience under John Law; that she was now a
constitutional government, controlled by an enlightened, patriotic
people,--not, as in the days of the former issues of paper money, an
absolute monarchy controlled by politicians and adventurers; that
she wa