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Taine, Hippolyte, 1828-1893

"The French Revolution - Volume 3"

- Transformation of taxation and
insignificance of the returns. - Increased expenditures. - The War-
budget and subsistence after 1793. - Paper money. - Enormous issues
of it. - Credit of the Assignats run down. - Ruin of Public
creditors and of all private credit. - Rate of interest during the
Revolution. - Stoppage of trade and industry. - Bad management of
new land-owners. - Decrease of productive labor. - Only the small
rural land-owner works advantageously. - Why he refuses Assignats. -
He is no longer obliged to sell his produce at once. - High cost of
food. - It reaches a market with difficulty and in small quantities.
- The towns buy at a high price and sell at a low one. - Food becomes
dearer and famine begins. - Prices during the first six months of
1793.
Such is the hardship in France at the moment when the Jacobin conquest
has been completed, a misery of which the Jacobins are the cause due
to the systematic war they have waged against property during the
preceding four years.
From below, they have provoked, excused, amnestied, or tolerated and
authorized all the popular attacks on property,[3] countless
insurrections, seven successive jacqueries, some of them so extensive
as to cover eight or ten departments at the same time.


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