But if this first expedient shows how naturally a "fiat" money system
runs into despotism, the next is no less instructive in showing how
easily it becomes repudiation and dishonor.

As we have seen, the first issue of the _assignats_,--made by the
National Assembly, bore a portrait of the king; but on the various
issues after the establishment of a republic this emblem had been
discarded. This change led to a difference in value between the earlier
and the later paper money. The wild follies of fanatics and demagogues
had led to an increasing belief that the existing state of things could
not last; that the Bourbons must ere long return; that in such case,
while a new monarch would repudiate all the vast mass of the later paper
issued by the Republic, he would recognize that first issue bearing the
face and therefore the guarantee of the king. So it was that this first
issue came to bear a higher value than those of later date. To meet this
condition of things it was now proposed to repudiate an that earlier
issue. In vain did sundry more thoughtful members of the Convention
plead that this paper money, amounting to five hundred and fifty-eight
millions of _francs_, bore the solemn guarantee of the nation, as well
as of the king; the current was irresistible. All that Cambon, the great
leader of finance at that time, could secure was a clause claiming to
protect the poor, to the effect that this demonetization should not
extend to notes below a hundred _francs_ in value; and it was also
agreed that any of the notes, large or small, might be received in
payment of taxes and for the confiscated property of the clergy and
nobility. To all the arguments advanced against this breach of the
national faith Danton, then at the height of his power, simply declared
that only aristocrats could favor notes bearing the royal portrait, and
gave forth his famous utterance: "Imitate Nature, which watches over the
preservation of the race but has no regard for individuals." The decree
was passed on the 31st of July, 1793, yet its futility was apparent in
less than two months, when the Convention decreed that there should be
issued two thousand millions of _francs_ more in _assignats_ between the
values of ten _sous_ and four hundred _francs_, and when, before the end
of the year, five hundred millions more were authorized. [47]

The third outgrowth of the vast issue of fiat money was the _Maximum_.
As far back as November, 1792, the T