Napoleon Bonaparte became First Consul and practically ruler of France in 1799, and at once addressed himself, with his usual energy, to the task of establishing a stable monetary system. He found that in 1785 Calonne had established the ratio of 15-1/2 of silver to 1 of gold, and that it had worked reasonably well. He accepted it, therefore, as justified by experience, and his Finance Minister carried through the Council of State an act for the free coinage of both metals at that ratio. For seventy years this law stood practically unchanged, and it is speaking with great moderation to say that in those seventy years there occurred more disturbance of every kind unfavorable to the maintenance of a ratio than in any other seventy years in monetary history. France was twice conquered, her soil overrun, and her capital held by the enemy. She four times changed her form of government. Once she was subjected to the payment of enormous war expenditures, and again not only to the payment of still greater expenditures but to a fine exceeding in amount the largest sum of gold ever held in the United States. During a large part of this time the world's production of silver was in excess of that of gold to an extent very much greater than it has been in recent years, and then, after a very brief interval of something like equal production, there was a sudden and tremendous increase in the production of gold until it exceeded that of silver more than 3 to 1 in value. During these years, also, several of the neighboring nations, including seventy million people, demonetized gold and threw the whole burden of sustaining its equality on the continent of Europe upon France, and during another portion of the time there were monetary disturbances so far-reaching that they shook the foundations of credit in every civilized country in the world. And yet, through all these convulsions, France for seventy years maintained a substantial parity, by welding the two metals together for monetary purposes. The contrasted figures are simply amazing. In the decade of 1811-20 there were produced 47 ounces of silver to 1 of gold, and yet the market ratio outside of France never stood higher than 16.25 to 1. In the decade of 1821-30 the production was 32 ounces to 1 and the average ratio 15-80/100 to 1. In 1831-40 the production was 29 ounces to 1 and the average ratio 15-75/100 to 1. In 1841-50 the production was 14-9/10 ounces to 1 and the average ratio 15-83/100 to 1. The demonstration is as complete as that of any proposition in Euclid. In spite of the enormous overproduction of silver, the maintenance of the mint ratio in France held the two so nearly together that in three years out of four the difference in other countries only amounted to the cost of transporting the silver to the French Mint and of coinage.