ere so pressed with work from six o'clock in the morning
until eight in the evening that they struck for higher wages and were
successful. [43]

The consequences of these overissues now began to be more painfully
evident to the people at large. Articles of common consumption became
enormously dear and prices were constantly rising. Orators in the
Legislative Assembly, clubs, local meetings and elsewhere now endeavored
to enlighten people by assigning every reason for this depreciation save
the true one. They declaimed against the corruption of the ministry, the
want of patriotism among the Moderates, the intrigues of the emigrant
nobles, the hard-heartedness of the rich, the monopolizing spirit of the
merchants, the perversity of the shopkeepers,---each and all of these as
causes of the difficulty. [44]

This decline in the government paper was at first somewhat masked by
fluctuations. For at various times the value of the currency _rose_. The
victory of Jemappes and the general success of the French army against
the invaders, with the additional security offered by new confiscations
of land, caused, in November, 1792, an appreciation in the value of the
currency; the franc had stood at 57 and it rose to about 69; but
the downward tendency was soon resumed and in September, 1793,
the _assignats_ had sunk below 30. Then sundry new victories and
coruscations of oratory gave momentary confidence so that in December,
1793, they rose above 50. But despite these fluctuations the downward
tendency soon became more rapid than ever. [45]

The washerwomen of Paris, finding soap so dear that they could hardly
purchase it, insisted that all the merchants who were endeavoring to
save something of their little property by refusing to sell their goods
for the wretched currency with which France was flooded, should be
punished with death; the women of the markets and the hangers-on of the
Jacobin Club called loudly for a law "to equalize the value of paper
money and silver coin." It was also demanded that a tax be laid
especially on the rich, to the amount of four hundred million _francs_,
to buy bread. Marat declared loudly that the people, by hanging
shopkeepers and plundering stores, could easily remove the trouble. The
result was that on the 28th of February, 1793, at eight o'clock in the
evening, a mob of men and women in disguise began plundering the
stores and shops of Paris. At first they demanded only bread; soon they
insis