For these editions there was an added reason in the fact that the utterances of sundry politicians at that time pointed clearly to issues of paper money practically unlimited. These men were logical enough to see that it would be inconsistent to stop at the unlimited issue of silver dollars which cost really something when they could issue unlimited paper dollars which virtually cost nothing. In thus exhibiting facts which Bishop Butler would have recognized as confirming his theory of "The Possible Insanity of States," it is but just to acknowledge that the French proposal was vastly more sane than that made in our own country. Those French issues of paper rested not merely "on the will of a free people," but on one-third of the entire landed property of France; on the very choicest of real property in city and country--the confiscated estates of the Church and of the fugitive aristocracy--and on the power to use the paper thus issued in purchasing this real property at very low prices. I have taken all pains to be exact, revising the whole paper in the light of the most recent publications and giving my authority for every important statement, and now leave the whole matter with my readers. At the request of a Canadian friend, who has expressed a strong wish that this work be brought down to date, I have again restudied the subject in the light of various works which have appeared since my earlier research,--especially Levasseur's "Histoire des classes ouvrières et de l'industrie en France,"--one of the really great books of the twentieth century;--Dewarmin's superb "Cent Ans de numismatique Française" and sundry special treatises. The result has been that large additions have been made regarding some important topics, and that various other parts of my earlier work have been made more clear by better arrangement and supplementary information. ANDREW D. WHITE. Cornell University, September, 1912. FOREWORD BY MR. JOHN MACKAY I am greatly indebted to the generosity of Mr. Andrew D. White, the distinguished American scholar, author and diplomatist, for permission to print and to circulate privately a small edition of his exceedingly valuable account of the great currency-making experiment of the French Revolutionary Government. The work has been revised and considerably enlarged by Mr. White for the purpose of the present issue.