ABSTRACT
Sources: Journal de commerce, Bruxelles (1760/61); Journal de commerce (feuille commercial), Paris (1763-1783, 1795-1800, 1810-1843); Journal de Paris (1780-1783); Journal général de France (1784-1792); BOUCHARY [1937], pp. 109-180 (1789-1795); Gazette nationale ou le moniteur industriel (1800-1814); Gazette de France (1844-1856); Gazette nationale (1815, 1859/60, 1863-1866); Journal des débats (1857-1859, 1861/62, 1867-1914); Le Temps, Paris (1897-1914). Concordance: WdW VI, pp. 223-237; HStD XII, pp. 215-233; WdW I/II, pp. 197-381; HStD XI, pp. 599-627, 667-674
Currency: From 1602 the livres tournois of 20 sous or 240 deniers functioned as a means of payment within France, whereas for foreign exchange trade the écu or crown (écu de change) of 3 livres or 60 sous tournois was used (MCCUSKER [1978], pp. 87f.). After the Coin Acts of 1726, which were meant to stabilize the French currency after the financial experiments of John Law, the livre tournois was equal to 4.5052 grammes of fine silver. The most important circulating gold coin was the louis d’or (from 1726 nominally 7.48 grammes of fine gold) of 24 livres tournois, the most important silver coins in circulation were the double écu (écu neuf or louis blanc; from 1726 nominally 26.94 grammes of fine silver up to 1783) of 6 livres tournois and the écu (half écu neuf; from 1726 nominally 13.47 grammes of fine silver up to 1783) of 3 livres tournois. The gold-silver relation of 1:14.5, which had been unfavourable to France, was changed on October 30th 1785 to 1:15.5 (1 louis d’or being equal to 7.01 grammes of fine gold). Although the Scottish mercantilist John Law had already introduced paper money in France (1716-1720), and the Caisse d’escompte, founded on March 24th
1776, also issued paper money, the so-called ‘billets’, France had a paper currency in use only with the introduction of the ‘assignats’: created in December 1789 in the wake of the Revolution and its financial problems, the assignats became legal tender with an official rate that was accepted at all official banks in April 1790. From September 1790 the assignats were issued in such great quantities (and even in the smallest denominations) that in the following years – except for a few phases of stabilization – their rate dropped drastically. With sometimes hourly changes of rate, the peaks of the actual phase of inflation were reached in Thermidor (July/August) 1794 and under the government of the Directory (until June 1796). In early summer of 1793 the Paris stock exchange had been closed, public exchange rate quoting had been forbidden and the obligation to accept assignats had been introduced. As assignats were the only legal tender from December 1793, exchange rate quotations were henceforth made in them as well. “L’histoire du marché des changes de Paris se développe parallèlement à celle du papier-monnaie” (BOUCHARY [1937], p. 94). In order to consolidate the French currency system, the franc (4.50 grammes of fine silver) of 100 centimes, a renamed and slightly modified version of the livre tournois, was introduced. It was, however, based on the decimal classification, “le franc continue donc pratiquement la livre” (SÉDILLOT [1979], p. 69), 1 livre presumably being equal to 99 centimes or 1 sou being equal to 5 centimes (Act of August 15th 1795). Even the names ‘livre’ and ‘franc’ – the latter being introduced officially by the Act of May 6th 1799 – could be used synonymously until the old coins in circulation were finally reminted in 1829/30-1834. The resumption of the daily exchange rate quoting at the Paris stock exchange (December 1795) – henceforth in francs – the resumption of the minting and silver circulation, national bankruptcy (of two-
about the stabilization of the currency conditions in France, even if various waves of speculation continued to cause rapid fluctuations of the assignat rates. After the founding of the Banque de France in 1800 and the gradual establishing of the franc the ‘charter’ of the so-called ‘franc-germinal’ was enacted on April 7th 1803 (Germinal 17th an [year] XI) according to which the franc in silver was meant to correspond to 4.50 grammes of fine silver, the franc in gold to 0.2903 grammes of fine gold. This bimetallistic system remained the basis of the French currency system for the whole 19th and the early 20th century, and was ‘exported’ to various European countries. So the French currency system was adopted by Piedmont-Sardinia in 1816, by Belgium in 1832, by Switzerland in 1850/60 and by Italy in 1861/62. With the Latin Monetary Union between France, Belgium, Italy and Switzerland, founded on December 23rd 1865, the dominance of French monetary policy over several European countries reached its peak, following the French example of bimetallism. Greece entered into the Union in 1868. The Papal States (in 1866/67), Romania (in 1868), Spain and Finland (1866/77) adopted the Union’s standard of coinage without becoming formal members. A further convention of the partners of the Latin Monetary Union of November 5th 1878 suspended the unlimited minting of 5-francs pieces as well as of the same nominals of the other countries, so that the countries of the Union had a limping gold standard from then on. From time to time the fine weight of some smaller coins was slightly reduced in some countries and the coins were given local names. Even if the following decades brought various more or less important ‘cosmetic’ corrections to the Acts of 1865 and 1878, no more fundamental changes of the French currency system were carried out until the First World War. Only in the wake of the German-French war of 1870/71 was the convertibility of French paper money suspended and the notes were declared obligatory legal tender (August 12th 1870 to January 1st 1878) (ZELLFELDER [1991], passim).
