PARIS, September, 1805.
My LORD:--I am told that it was the want of pecuniary resources that made
Bonaparte so ill-tempered on his last levee day. He would not have come
here at all, but preceded his army to Strasburg, had his Minister of
Finances, Gaudin, and his Minister of the Public Treasury, Marbois, been
able to procure forty-four millions of livres--to pay a part of the
arrears of the troops; and for the speedy conveyance of ammunition and
artillery towards the Rhine.
Immediately after his arrival here, Bonaparte sent for the directors of
the Bank of France, informing them that within twenty-four hours they
must advance him thirty-six millions of livres--upon the revenue of the
last quarter of 1808. The president of the bank, Senator Garrat,
demanded two hours to lay before the Emperor the situation of the bank,
that His Majesty might judge what sum it was possible to spare without
ruining the credit of an establishment hitherto so useful to the commerce
of the Empire. To this Bonaparte replied that he was not ignorant of the
resources, or of the credit of the bank, any more than of its public
utility; but that the affairs of State suffered from every hour’s delay,
and that, therefore, he insisted upon having the sum demanded even within
two hours, partly in paper and partly in cash; and were they to show any
more opposition, he would order the bank and all its effects to be seized
that moment. The directors bowed and returned to the bank; whither they
were followed by four waggons escorted by hussars, and belonging to the
financial department of the army of England. In these were placed eight
millions of livres in cash; and twenty-eight millions in bank-notes were
delivered to M. Lefevre, the Secretary-General of Marbois, who presented,
in exchange, Bonaparte’s bond and security for the amount, bearing an
interest of five per cent. yearly.
When this money transaction was known to the public, the alarm became
general, and long before the hour the bank usually opens the adjoining
streets were crowded with persons desiring to exchange their notes for
cash. During the night the directors had taken care to pay themselves
for the banknotes in their own possession with silver or gold, and, as
they expected a run, they ordered all persons to be paid in copper coin,
as long as any money of this metal remained. It required a long time to
count those halfpennies and centimes (five of which make a sou, or
halfpenny), but the people were not tired with waiting until towards
three o’clock in the afternoon, when the bank is shut up. They then
became so clamorous that a company of gendarmes was placed for protection
at the entrance of the bank; but, as the tumult increased, the street was
surrounded by the police guards, and above six hundred individuals, many
of them women, were carried, under an escort, to different police
commissaries, and to the prefecture of the police. There most of them,
after being examined, were reprimanded and released. The same night, the
police spies reported in the coffee-houses of the Palais Royal, and on
the Boulevards, that this run on the bank was encouraged, and paid for,
by English emissaries, some of whom were already taken, and would be
executed on the next day. In the morning, however, the streets adjoining
the bank were still more crowded, and the crowd still more tumultuous,
because payment was refused for all notes but those of five hundred
livres. The activity of the police agents, supported by the gendarmes
and police soldiers, again restored order, after several hundred persons
had been again taken up for their mutinous conduct. Of these many were,
on the same evening, loaded with chains, and, placed in carts under
military escort, paraded about near the bank and the Palais Royal; the
police having, as a measure of safety, under suspicion that they were
influenced by British gold, condemned them to be transported to Cayenne;
and the carts set out on the same night for Rochefort, the place of their
embarkation.
On the following day, not an individual approached the bank, but all
trade and all payments were at a stand; nobody would sell but for ready
money, and nobody who had bank-notes would part with cash. Some Jews and
money-brokers in the Palais Royal offered cash for these bills, at a
discount of from ten to twenty per cent. But these usurers were, in
their turn, taken up and transported, as agents of Pitt. An interview
was then demanded by the directors and principal bankers with the
Ministers of Finance and of the Public Treasury. In this conference it
was settled that, as soon as the two millions of dollars on their way
from Spain had arrived at Paris, the bank should reassume its payments.
These dollars Government would lend the bank for three months, and take
in return its notes, but the bank was, nevertheless, to pay an interest
of six per cent. during that period. All the bankers agreed not to press
unnecessarily for any exchange of bills into cash, and to keep up the
credit of the bank even by the individual credit of their own houses.
You know, I suppose, that the Bank of France has never issued but two
sorts of notes; those of one thousand livres--and those of five hundred
livres. At the day of its stoppage, sixty millions of livres--of the
former, and fifteen millions of livres--of the latter, were in
circulation; and I have heard a banker assert that the bank had not then
six millions of livres--in money and bullion, to satisfy the claims of
its creditors, or to honour its bills.
The shock given to the credit of the bank by this last requisition of
Bonaparte will be felt for a long time, and will with difficulty ever be
repaired under his despotic government. Even now, when the bank pays in
cash, our merchants make a difference from five to ten per cent. between
purchasing for specie or paying in bank-notes; and this mistrust will not
be lessened hereafter. You may, perhaps, object that, as long as the
bank pays, it is absurd for any one possessing its bills to pay dearer
than with cash, which might so easily be obtained. This objection would
stand with regard to your, or any other free country, but here, where no
payments are made in gold, but always in silver or copper, it requires a
cart to carry away forty, thirty, or twenty thousand livres, in coin of
these metals, and would immediately excite suspicion that a bearer of
these bills was an emissary of our enemies, or an enemy of our
Government. With us, unfortunately, suspicion is the same as conviction,
and chastisement follows it as its shadow.
A manufacturer of the name of Debrais, established in the Rue St. Martin,
where he had for years carried on business in the woollen line, went to
the bank two days after it had begun to pay. He demanded, and obtained,
exchange for twenty-four thousand livres--in notes, necessary for him to
pay what was due by him to his workmen. The same afternoon six of our
custom-house officers, accompanied by police agents and gendarmes, paid
him a domiciliary visit under pretence of searching for English goods.
Several bales were seized as being of that description, and Debrais was
carried a prisoner to La Force. On being examined by Fouche, he offered
to prove, by the very men who had fabricated the suspected goods, that
they were not English. The Minister silenced him by saying that
Government had not only evidence of the contrary, but was convinced that
he was employed as an English agent to hurt the credit of the bank, and
therefore, if he did not give up his accomplices or employers, had
condemned him to transportation. In vain did his wife and daughters
petition to Madame Bonaparte; Debrais is now at Rochefort, if not already
embarked for our colonies.
When he was arrested, a seal, as usual, was put on his house, from which
his wife and family were turned out, until the police should have time to
take an inventory of his effects, and had decided on his fate. When
Madame Debrais, after much trouble and many pecuniary sacrifices, at last
obtained permission to have the seals removed, and reenter her house, she
found that all her plate and more than half her goods and furniture had
been stolen and carried away. Upon her complaint of this theft she was
thrown into prison for not being able to support her complaint with
proofs, and for attempting to vilify the characters of the agents of our
Government. She is still in prison, but her daughters are by her orders
disposing of the remainder of their parents’ property, and intend to join
their father as soon as their mother has recovered her liberty.
The same tyranny that supports the credit of our bank also keeps up the
price of our stocks. Any of our great stockholders who sell out to any
large amount, if they are unable to account for, or unwilling to declare
the manner in which they intend to employ, their money, are immediately
arrested, sometimes transported to the colonies, but more frequently
exiled into the country, to remain under the inspection of some police
agent, and are not allowed to return here without the previous permission
of our Government. Those of them who are upstarts, and have made their
fortune since the Revolution by plunder or as contractors, are still more
severely treated, and are often obliged to renounce part of their
ill-gotten wealth to save the remainder, or to preserve their liberty or
lives. A revisal of their former accounts, or an inspection of their
past transactions, is a certain and efficacious threat to keep them in
silent submission, as they all well understand the meaning of them.
Even foreigners, whom our numerous national bankruptcies have not yet
disheartened, are subject to these measures of rigour or vigour requisite
to preserve our public credit. In the autumn of last year a Dutchman of
the name of Van der Winkle sold out by his agent for three millions of
livres--in our stock on one day, for which he bought up bills upon
Hamburg and London. He lodged in the Hotel des Quatre Nations, Rue
Grenelle, where the landlord, who is a patriot, introduced some police
agents into his apartments during his absence. These broke open all his
trunks, drawers, and even his writing-desk, and when he entered, seized
his person, and carried him to the Temple. By his correspondence it was
discovered that all this money was to be brought over to England; a
reason more than sufficient to incur the suspicion of our Government. Van
der Winkle spoke very little French, and he continued, therefore, in
confinement three weeks before he was examined, as our secret police had
not at Paris any of its agents who spoke Dutch. Carried before Fouche,
he avowed that the money was destined for England, there to pay for some
plantations which he desired to purchase in Surinam and Barbice. His
interpreter advised him, by the orders of Fouche, to alter his mind, and,
as he was fond of colonial property, lay out his money in plantations at
Cayenne, which was in the vicinity of Surinam, and where Government would
recommend him advantageous purchases. It was hinted to him, also, that
this was a particular favour, and a proof of the generosity of our
Government, as his papers contained many matters that might easily be
construed to be of a treasonable nature. After consulting with
Schimmelpenninck, the Ambassador of his country, he wrote for his wife
and children, and was seen safe with them to Bordeaux by our police
agents, who had hired an American vessel to carry them all to Cayenne.
This certainly is a new method to populate our colonies with capitalists.