In fact, it was clear that during 1930, the Banque under Émile Moreau had been very consciously and deliberately offsetting—the technical term was sterilizing—the natural tendency of an influx of gold to expand the currency, lest it lead to inflation. With prices around the world collapsing, this may sound strange, but it was a symptom of how badly scarred he and other French officials had been by the currency crises of 1924 and 1926.
