A passage in Henri-Frédéric Amiel's journal, quoted from here:
April 14, 1866
Panic, collapse, a general rout at the Bourse in Paris. My poor remaining funds are dropping, dropping! In our epoch of individualism and “every man for himself and God for all”, the trepidations of the public funds resemble the palpitations of the heart. One feels an obligatory sympathy, somewhat suggesting the patriotism of one’s compulsory taxes; one is constrained to keep an eye out on the follies of Prussia and America, one feels engaged, compromised in all the world’s affairs, and so one has to take an interest, in spite of oneself, in the terrible machine whose wheels may at any instant crush us.
Credit gives birth to an unstable society, whose trembling base and artificial structure perpetually menace its security. It sometimes forgets that it is dancing on top of a volcano. But the least rumour of war pitilessly brings this back to mind. Houses built of cards are easily ruined.
This anxiety is unbearable for humble little bondholders like myself, who, renouncing the pursuit of riches, would at least have liked to attend to their modest labours in peace. But no; the world is there, and like a brutal tyrant, it cried to us: Peace, peace, there is no peace; I mean you to suffer, laugh and skip about with me. And when one reflects that five or six crowned rascals, or merely gold-braided rascals, hold in their hands the tranquillity of the world, and are able to martyr at their caprice the destiny of several millions of their fellows, one feels a little irritated.
This passage is comparatively flavorless in Mary Augusta Ward's translation, which I'm reading right now. For example, the sentence "My poor remaining funds are dropping, dropping!" is omitted.
Wikipedia has scant information on the Panic of 1866. The Internet Archive has an contemporary account.
See also: a real estate boom.
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