There is not one of these
persons whose capital, or income payable in assignats, is not at once
crippled in proportion to the decline in value of assignats, so that
not only the State falls into bankruptcy but likewise every creditor
in France, legally bankrupt along with it through its fault.
In such a situation how can any enterprise be commenced or maintained?
Who dares take a risk, especially when disbursements are large and
returns remote? Who dares lend on long credits - ? If loans are still
made they are not for a year but for a month, while the interest
which, before the Revolution was six, five or even four per cent. per
annum, is now two per cent. a month on securities." It soon runs up
higher and, at Paris and Strasbourg we see it rising, as in India and
the Barbary States, to four, five, six and even seven per cent. a
month.[14]
What holder of raw material, or of manufactured goods, would dare make
entries on his books as usual and allow his customer the indispensable
credit of three months? What large manufacturer would presume to make
goods up, what wholesale merchant would care to make shipments, what
man of wealth or with a competence would build, drain and construct
dams and dykes, repair, or even maintain them with the positive
certainty of delays in getting back only one-half his outlays and with
the increasing certainty of getting nothing?
During a few years the large establishments collapsed in droves:
* After the ruin of the nobles and the departure of wealthy
foreigners, every craft dependent on luxurious tastes, those of Paris
and Lyons, which were the standard for Europe, all the manufactories
of rich fabrics and furniture, and other artistic, elegant and
fashionable articles.
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