l
equally vain. [86] All thoughtful men had lost confidence. All men were
_waiting_; stagnation became worse and worse. At last came the collapse
and then a return, by a fearful shock, to a state of things which
presented something like certainty of remuneration to capital and labor.
Then, and not till then, came the beginning of a new era of prosperity.

Just as dependent on the law of cause and effect was the _moral_
development. Out of the inflation of prices grew a speculating class;
and, in the complete uncertainty as to the future, all business became
a game of chance, and all business men, gamblers. In city centers came a
quick growth of stock-jobbers and speculators; and these set a debasing
fashion in business which spread to the remotest parts of the country.
Instead of satisfaction with legitimate profits, came a passion for
inordinate gains. Then, too, as values became more and more uncertain,
there was no longer any motive for care or economy, but every motive for
immediate expenditure and present enjoyment. So came upon the nation
the _obliteration of thrift_. In this mania for yielding to present
enjoyment rather than providing for future comfort were the seeds of
new growths of wretchedness: luxury, senseless and extravagant, set in:
this, too, spread as a fashion. To feed it, there came cheatery in
the nation at large and corruption among officials and persons holding
trusts. While men set such fashions in private and official business,
women set fashions of extravagance in dress and living that added to the
incentives to corruption. Faith in moral considerations, or even in
good impulses, yielded to general distrust. National honor was thought
a fiction cherished only by hypocrites. Patriotism was eaten out by
cynicism.

Thus was the history of France logically developed in obedience to
natural laws; such has, to a greater or less degree, always been the
result of irredeemable paper, created according to the whim or interest
of legislative assemblies rather than based upon standards of value
permanent in their nature and agreed upon throughout the entire world.
Such, we may fairly expect, will always be the result of them until
the fiat of the Almighty shall evolve laws in the universe radically
different from those which at present obtain. [87]

And, finally, as to the general development of the theory and practice
which all this history records: my subject has been Fiat Money in
France; How it cam