In August, 1793, appeared a new report by Cambon. No one can read it without being struck by its mingled ability and folly. His final plan of dealing with the public debt has outlasted all revolutions since, but his disposition of the inflated currency came to a wretched failure. Against Du Pont, who showed conclusively that the wild increase of paper money was leading straight to, ruin, Cambon carried the majority in the great assemblies and clubs by sheer audacity--the audacity of desperation. Zeal in supporting the _assignats_ became his religion. The National Convention which succeeded the Legislative Assembly, issued in 1793 over three thousand millions of _assignats_, and, of these, over twelve hundred millions were poured into the circulation. And yet Cambon steadily insisted that the security for the _assignat_ currency was perfect. The climax of his zeal was reached when he counted as assets in the national treasury the indemnities which, he declared, France was sure to receive after future victories over the allied nations with which she was then waging a desperate war. As patriotism, it was sublime; as finance it was deadly. [57] Everything was tried. Very elaborately he devised a funding scheme which, taken in connection with his system of issues, was in effect what in these days would be called an "_interconvertibility scheme_" By various degrees of persuasion or force,--the guillotine looming up in the background,--holders of _assignats_ were urged to convert them into evidence of national debt, bearing interest at five per cent, with the understanding that if more paper were afterward needed more would be issued. All in vain. The official tables of depreciation show that the _assignats_ continued to fall. A forced loan, calling in a billion of these, checked this fall, but only for a moment. The "_interconvertibility scheme_" between currency and bonds failed as dismally as the "_interconvertibility scheme_" between currency and land had failed. [58] A more effective expedient was a law confiscating the property of all Frenchmen who left France after July 14, 1789, and who had not returned. This gave new land to be mortgaged for the security of paper money.