Editing Assignat (section)

===1793–1799===
{{See also|William Playfair#Counterfeiting operation}}

After the outbreak of [[French Revolutionary Wars|war]], the fall of the [[10 August (French Revolution)|monarchy]], and the declaration of a [[French First Republic|Republic]], the [[National Convention]] mandated that bills and coins exchange on par, but this law could never be enforced. Instead, the assignats continued depreciating. On 10 April 1793 Robespierre accused [[Dumouriez]] in a speech: "Dumouriez and his supporters have brought a fatal blow to the public fortune, preventing circulation of assignats in Belgium".<ref>[[Wikisource]]: Œuvres complètes de Maximilien Robespierre. Speech Robespierre against Brissot and the girondins Delivered to the Convention on 10 April 1793</ref>

[[Counterfeiting]] of assignats was widespread, both in France and abroad.<ref>{{Cite journal |last=Levasseur |first=E. |date=1894 |title=The Assignats: A Study in the Finances of the French Revolution |url=https://www.jstor.org/stable/1819467 |journal=Journal of Political Economy |volume=2 |issue=2 |pages=179–202 |issn=0022-3808}}</ref><ref>Seymour Edwin Harris''The Assignats'' (Cambridge, Mass: Harvard University Press, 1930)</ref><ref>Rebecca L. Spang, ''Stuff and Money in the Time of the French Revolution''
(Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 2015)</ref> Researchers have documented how French royalists worked with British authorities, including senior ministers and military commanders, to manufacture paper for counterfeit assignats at mills across England, after which the paper was distributed across various locations for printing.<ref>Peter Bower, "Sir John Swinburne's 1793 Memorandum on the English Forgery of French Assignats at Haughton Castle Paper Mill, Northumberland, in  the 1790s" ''The Quarterly,'' No. 106 (April 2018)</ref> By August 1793 the amount of assignats in circulation had doubled to 5 billion. Rising prices and food shortages exacerbated public unrest in September. Bills such as the ''[[Maximum Price Act]]'' of 1793 aimed to address this situation.

On 8 November 1793 the director of the manufacture of assignats [[:fr:Simon-François Lamarche]] was executed. On 2 December Clavière was arrested; he committed suicide within a week. On 24 February 1794 the extension of the "maximum" to all commodities only increased the confusion. Trade was paralysed and all manufacturing establishments were closed down.<ref name="EB1911"/>