he exhilarating quality of
the original, undiluted liquid.

Attention was aroused by another menacing fact;--specie disappeared
more and more. The explanations of this fact also displayed wonderful
ingenuity in finding false reasons and in evading the true one. A
very common explanation was indicated in Prudhomme's newspaper, "Les
Revolutions de Paris," of January 17, 1791, which declared that coin
"will keep rising until the people shall have hanged a broker." Another
popular theory was that the Bourbon family were, in some mysterious way,
drawing off all solid money to the chief centers of their intrigues in
Germany. Comic and, at the same time, pathetic, were evidences of the
wide-spread idea that if only a goodly number of people engaged in trade
were hanged, the par value of the _assignats_ would be restored.

Still another favorite idea was that British emissaries were in the
midst of the people, instilling notions hostile to paper. Great efforts
were made to find these emissaries and more than one innocent person
experienced the popular wrath under the supposition that he was engaged
in raising gold and depressing paper. Even Talleyrand, shrewd as he was,
insisted that the cause was simply that the imports were too great and
the exports too little. [28] As well might he explain that fact that,
when oil is mingled with water, water sinks to the bottom, by saying
that this is because the oil rises to the top. This disappearance of
specie was the result of a natural law as simple and as sure in its
action as gravitation; the superior currency had been withdrawn because
an inferior currency could be used. [29] Some efforts were made to remedy
this. In the municipality of Quilleboeuf a considerable amount in specie
having been found in the possession of a citizen, the money was seized
and sent to the Assembly. The people of that town treated this hoarded
gold as the result of unpatriotic wickedness or madness, instead of
seeing that it was but the sure result of a law working in every land
and time, when certain causes are present. Marat followed out this
theory by asserting that death was the proper penalty for persons who
thus hid their money.

Still another troublesome fact began now to appear. Though paper money
had increased in amount, prosperity had steadily diminished. In spite of
all the paper issues, commercial activity grew more and more spasmodic.
Enterprise was chilled and business became more and more s