Revolution, by Turgot, just as
brilliantly as it was met a hundred years later in the United States
by James A. Garfield and his compeers. This was the doctrine that all
currency, whether gold, paper, leather or any other material, derives
its efficiency from the official stamp it bears, and that, this being
the case, a government may relieve itself of its debts and make itself
rich and prosperous simply by means of a printing press:--fundamentally
the theory which underlay the later American doctrine of "fiat money."

There came mutterings and finally speeches in the Jacobin Club, in the
Assembly and in newspaper articles and pamphlets throughout the country,
taking this doctrine for granted. These could hardly affect thinking
men who bore in mind the calamities brought upon the whole people,
and especially upon the poorer classes, by this same theory as put in
practice by John Law, or as refuted by Turgot, but it served to swell
the popular chorus in favor of the issue of more _assignats_ and plenty
of them. [27]

The great majority of Frenchmen now became desperate optimists,
declaring that inflation is prosperity. Throughout France there came
temporary good feeling. The nation was becoming inebriated with paper
money. The good feeling was that of a drunkard just after his draught;
and it is to be noted as a simple historical fact, corresponding to a
physiological fact, that, as draughts of paper money came faster the
successive periods of good feeling grew shorter.

Various bad signs began to appear. Immediately after each new issue came
a marked depreciation; curious it is to note the general reluctance to
assign the right reason. The decline in the purchasing power of paper
money was in obedience to the simplest laws in economics, but France had
now gone beyond her thoughtful statesmen and taken refuge in unwavering
optimism, giving any explanation of the new difficulties rather than the
right one. A leading member of the Assembly insisted, in an elaborate
speech, that the cause of depreciation was simply the want of knowledge
and of confidence among the rural population and he suggested means of
enlightening them. La Rochefoucauld proposed to issue an address to
the people showing the goodness of the currency and the absurdity of
preferring coin. The address was unanimously voted. As well might they
have attempted to show that a beverage made by mixing a quart of wine
and two quarts of water would possess all t