yer, and this weight, already excessive, goes on
increasing, through another effect of the revolutionary institution,
until it becomes ten-fold and even a hundred-fold.--The only money, in
fact, which private individuals possess melts away in their hands,
and, so to say, destroys itself. When the guillotine stops working, the
assignat, losing its official value, falls to its real value. In August,
1794, the loss on it is sixty six per cent., in October, seventy two per
cent., in December, seventy eight per cent., in January, 1795, eighty
one per cent., and after that date the constant issues of enormous
amounts, five hundred millions, then a billion, a billion and a half,
and, finally, two billions a month, hastens its depreciation.[42101]
The greater the depreciation of the assignats the greater the amount the
government is obliged to issue to provide for its expenses, and the more
it issues the more it causes their depreciation, so that the decline
which increases the issue increases the depreciation, until, finally,
the assignat comes down to nothing. On March II, 1795, the louis d'or
brings two hundred and five francs in assignats, May 11, four hundred
francs, June 12, one thousand francs, in the month of October, one
thousand seven hundred francs, November 13, two thousand eight hundred
and fifty francs, November 21 three thousand francs, and six months
later, nineteen thousand francs. Accordingly, an assignat of one hundred
francs is worth in June, 1795, four francs, in August three francs,
in November fifteen sous, in December ten sous, and then five sous.
Naturally, all provisions rise proportionately in price. A pound of
bread in Paris, January 2, 1796, costs fifty francs, a pound of meat
sixty francs, a pound of candles one hundred and eighty francs, a bushel
of potatoes two hundred francs, a bottle of wine one hundred francs.
The reader may imagine, if he can, the distress of people with small
incomes, pensioners and employees, mechanics and artisans in the towns
out of work,[42102] in brief, all who have nothing but a small package
of assignats to live on, and who have nothing to do, whose indispensable
wants are not directly supplied by the labor of their own hands in
producing wine, candles, meat, potatoes and bread.

Immediately after the abolition of the "maximum,"[42103] the cry of
hunger increases. From month to month its accents become more painful
and vehement in proportion to the increased dearness o