The finances became continually more and more a subject of uneasiness. In the days of terror, money was easily raised, because it was demanded under pain of death, and assignats were raised to _par_ by guillotining those who bought or sold them at less than their full value; but the powerful argument of violence and compulsion being removed, the paper money fell to a ruinous discount, till its depression threatened, unless remedied, altogether to stop the course of public business.[311] It perhaps arose from the difficulty of raising supplies, that the Directory assumed towards other countries a greedy, grasping, and rapacious character, which threw disgrace at once upon the individuals who indulged it, and the state whom they represented. They loaded with exactions the trade of the Bavarian republic, whose freedom they had pretended to recognise, and treated with most haughty superiority the ambassadors of independent states. Some of these high officers, and Barras in particular, were supposed accessible to gross corruption, and believed to hold communication with those agents and stock-brokers, who raised money by jobbing in the public funds--a more deservedly unpopular accusation than which can hardly be brought against a minister. It was, indeed, a great error in the constitution, that, though one hundred thousand livres were yearly allowed to each director while in office, yet he had no subsequent provision after he had retired from his fractional share of sovereignty. This penury, on the part of the public, opened a way to temptation, though of a kind to which mean minds only are obnoxious; and such men as Barras[312] were tempted to make provision for futurity, by availing themselves of present opportunity.