During the Reign of Terror, Ceilings on Grain Prices Were Ridiculously Low and Enforced by the Guillotine

As with many hyperinflationary episodes, the French government attempted to implement price and exchange controls. In 1793, an exchange control known as “the Law of the Maximum” was enforced, decreeing that “any person selling gold or silver coin, or making any difference in any transaction between paper and specie, should be imprisoned in irons for six years; that anyone who refused to accept payment in assignats, or accepted assignats at a discount, should pay a fine of six thousand francs and suffer imprisonment for twenty years in irons” (Hamilton, 1977, p. 277). Hamilton (1977) also comments on the failure of the price controls during the French episode, and he observes that during the Reign of Terror (1793–1794), ceilings on grain prices were ridiculously low and effectively enforced by ruthless use of the guillotine. Although sales above the price ceilings seldom occurred, the authoritarian regime failed miserably in its efforts to force holders of grain to sell.

—Jayson Coomer and Thomas Gstraunthaler, “The Hyperinflation in Zimbabwe,” Quarterly Journal of Austrian Economics 14, no. 3 (Fall 2011): 336-337.