in 1790 with 321,000 _livres_, found his property in 1796 worth 14,000
_francs_. [76]

For this general distress arising from the development and collapse of
"fiat" money in France, there was, indeed, one exception. In Paris and
a few of the other great cities, men like Tallien, of the heartless,
debauched, luxurious, speculator, contractor and stock-gambler class,
had risen above the ruins of the multitudes of smaller fortunes.
Tallien, one of the worst demagogue "reformers," and a certain number
of men like him, had been skillful enough to become millionaires, while
their dupes, who had clamored for issues of paper money, had become
paupers.

The luxury and extravagance of the currency gamblers and their families
form one of the most significant features in any picture of the social
condition of that period. [77]

A few years before this the leading women in French society showed a
nobility of character and a simplicity in dress worthy of Roman matrons.
Of these were Madame Boland and Madame Desmoulins; but now all was
changed. At the head of society stood Madame Tallien and others like
her, wild in extravagance, daily seeking new refinements in luxury, and
demanding of their husbands and lovers vast sums to array them and to
feed their whims. If such sums could not be obtained honestly they must
be had dishonestly. The more closely one examines that period, the more
clearly he sees that the pictures, given by Thibaudeau and Challamel and
De Goncourt are not at all exaggerated. [78]

The contrast between these gay creatures of the Directory period and the
people at large was striking. Indeed much as the vast majority of the
wealthy classes suffered from impoverishment, the laboring classes,
salaried employees of all sorts, and people of fixed income and of small
means, especially in the cities, underwent yet greater distress. These
were found, as a rule, to subsist mainly on daily government rations of
bread at the rate of one pound per person. This was frequently unfit
for food and was distributed to long lines of people, men, women and
children, who were at times obliged to wait their turn even from dawn
to dusk. The very rich could, by various means, especially by bribery,
obtain better bread, but only at enormous cost. In May, 1796, the market
price of good bread was, in paper, 80 _francs_ (16 dollars) per pound
and a little later provisions could not be bought for paper money at any
price. [79]

And here it