1CtfHjRxn4UzNinEgUJgCCSV98yAZ6zVrZ (24100) ·
1.) The 3rd chapter of 'Money Dethroned - A Journey through Ashes', details the rise and fall of the Assignat paper currency in Revolutionary France. Dickson White's sources prove that three generations were enough to forget the threat of hyperinflation.
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1CtfHjRxn4UzNinEgUJgCCSV98yAZ6zVrZ (24100) ·
2.) Burdened by debt, plans were drafted by the revolutionaries to confiscate Church property and issue currency "backed" by income from this land. Conservatives published pamphlets warning of the upcoming degeneracy long before it descended on France.
1CtfHjRxn4UzNinEgUJgCCSV98yAZ6zVrZ (24100) ·
3.) One was Nicolas Bergasse: 'I saw them, these perverted and detestable men that ignorance and intrigue have elected in the provinces. I have heard these frenzied orators, I have seen all the evils that their stinking voices will spread on my Homeland.'
1CtfHjRxn4UzNinEgUJgCCSV98yAZ6zVrZ (24100) ·
4.) The plan proceeded; jubilant revolutionaries wrote of the happiness about to return to their country. It was, after all, not a large initial paper issue, and France being now a republic, The People would surely treat the money better than past tyrants.
1CtfHjRxn4UzNinEgUJgCCSV98yAZ6zVrZ (24100) ·
5.) After the State had spent this 1st issue, and as the economy "improved" due to an illusion of an abundance of money and capital, talks of a 2nd issue commenced. Only now, perhaps, did a few attentively consider what so suddenly seemed to be happening.
1CtfHjRxn4UzNinEgUJgCCSV98yAZ6zVrZ (24100) ·
6.) The wounds of inflation always have to afflict someone, in the end. This hangover caused factories in France to close, one after the other, as the owners realized that the true purchasing power of their customers decreased at an alarming rate.
1CtfHjRxn4UzNinEgUJgCCSV98yAZ6zVrZ (24100) ·
7.) These new signs of trouble worried the revolutionaries. It was thought that a lack of patriotism, and foreign sabotage, were causes. Faltering trust in the assignats were countered by harsher edicts, but silver rose steadily while paper depreciated.
1CtfHjRxn4UzNinEgUJgCCSV98yAZ6zVrZ (24100) ·
8.) The public, the Church and the King, were forced to hand over gold and silver to central mints to "stimulate the economy". Ever louder whispers in previously obscure newspapers argued that only the hanging of merchants could solve the price increases.
1CtfHjRxn4UzNinEgUJgCCSV98yAZ6zVrZ (24100) ·
9.) Of course, the more authoritarian and revolting measures taken by the State, the less trust would the public have in its new money. Nevertheless, what had already been a bad situation to begin with, soon became much worse.
1CtfHjRxn4UzNinEgUJgCCSV98yAZ6zVrZ (24100) ·
10.) Bertrand Barére, later known as the "Anacreon of the Guillotine" due to the eloquence with which he advocated for mass murder of dissidents, praised the "Republican commerce - a commerce of moderate profits and virtuous". Conservatives emigrated.
1CtfHjRxn4UzNinEgUJgCCSV98yAZ6zVrZ (24100) ·
11.) Of course, no amount of death threats could force prices to stay put forever, and paper continued to fall despite The Law of the Maximum. The Criminal Tribunal at Strasbourg initiated the burning of houses of anyone found guilty of a price crime.
1CtfHjRxn4UzNinEgUJgCCSV98yAZ6zVrZ (24100) ·
12.) Get the book to learn more about how this paper money experiment ended. Or go to the original source to read the full account; Dickson White's work is free on http://archive.org. It is instrumental to understand how these things can go horribly wrong.