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.