Giving over
all hopes from a general immediate sale, another project seems to have
succeeded. They proposed to take stock in exchange for the Church lands.
In that project great difficulties arose in equalizing the objects to be
exchanged. Other obstacles also presented themselves, which threw them
back again upon some project of sale. The municipalities had taken an
alarm. They would not hear of transferring the whole plunder of the
kingdom to the stockholders in Paris. Many of those municipalities had
been (upon system) reduced to the most deplorable indigence. Money was
nowhere to be seen. They were therefore led to the point that was so
ardently desired. They panted for a currency of any kind which might
revive their perishing industry. The municipalities were, then, to be
admitted to a share in the spoil, which evidently rendered the first
scheme (if ever it had been seriously entertained) altogether
impracticable. Public exigencies pressed upon all sides. The Minister of
Finance reiterated his call for supply with, a most urgent, anxious, and
boding voice. Thus pressed on all sides, instead of the first plan of
converting their bankers into bishops and abbots, instead of paying the
old debt, they contracted a new debt, at three per cent, creating a new
paper currency, founded on an eventual sale of the Church lands. They
issued this paper currency to satisfy in the first instance chiefly the
demands made upon them by the _bank of discount_, the great machine or
paper-mill of their fictitious wealth.
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