pecially
severe; and finally it was enacted that any persons "who by their
discourse or writing shall decry the _mandats_ shall be condemned to a
fine of not less than one thousand _francs_ or more than ten thousand;
and in case of a repetition of the offence, to four years in irons." It
was also decreed that those who refused to receive the _mandats_ should
be fined,--the first time, the exact sum which they refuse; the second
time, ten times as much; and the third time, punished with two years in
prison. But here, too, came in the action of those natural laws which
are alike inexorable in all countries. This attempt proved futile in
France just as it had proved futile less than twenty years before in
America. No enactments could stop the downward tendency of this new
paper "fully secured," "as good as gold"; the laws that finally govern
finance are not made in conventions or congresses. [74]

From time to time various new financial juggles were tried, some of them
ingenious, most of them drastic. It was decreed that all _assignats_
above the value of one hundred _francs_ should cease to circulate after
the beginning of June, 1796. But this only served to destroy the
last vestige of, confidence in government notes of any kind. Another
expedient was seen in the decree that paper money should be made to
accord with a natural and immutable standard of value and that one franc
in paper should thenceforth be worth ten pounds of wheat. This also
failed. On July 16th another decree seemed to show that the authorities
despaired of regulating the existing currency and it was decreed that
all paper, whether _mandats_ or _assignats_, should be taken at its
real value, and that bargains might be made in whatever currency people
chose. The real value of the _mandats_ speedily sank to about two per
cent of their nominal value and the only effect of this legislation
seemed to be that both _assignats_ and _mandats_ went still lower. Then
from February 4 to February 14, 1797, came decrees and orders that the
engraving apparatus for the _mandats_ should be destroyed as that for
the _assignats_ had been, that neither _assignats_ nor _mandats_ should
longer be a legal tender and that old debts to the state might be paid
for a time with government paper at the rate of one per cent of their
face value. [75] Then, less than three months later, it was decreed that
the twenty-one billions of _assignats_ still in circulation should be
annulled.