Our only currency here
consists of assignats of 5 livres, 50, 100, 200, and upwards: therefore
in making purchases, you must accommodate your wants to the value of your
assignat, or you must owe the shopkeeper, or the shopkeeper must owe you;
and, in short, as an old woman assured me to-day, "C'est de quoi faire
perdre la tete," and, if it lasted long, it would be the death of her.
Within these few days, however, the municipalities have attempted to
remedy the inconvenience, by creating small paper of five, ten, fifteen,
and twenty sols, which they give in exchange for assignats of five
livres; but the number they are allowed to issue is limited, and the
demand for them so great, that the accommodation is inadequate to the
difficulty of procuring it. On the days on which this paper (which is
called billets de confiance) is issued, the Hotel de Ville is besieged by
a host of women collected from all parts of the district--Peasants, small
shopkeepers, fervant maids, and though last, not least formidable--
fishwomen. They usually take their stand two or three hours before the
time of delivery, and the interval is employed in discussing the news,
and execrating paper money. But when once the door is opened, a scene
takes place which bids defiance to language, and calls for the pencil of
a Hogarth. Babel was, I dare say, comparatively to this, a place of
retreat and silence.
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