23 Messidor
An CCXXXIV
Assignats
The assignats were the paper money of the Revolution. They began as debt securities backed by nationalized Church property. They quickly became a legal means of payment. Yet acceptance of the new currency remained low and could not be enforced even by law. To counter inflation, ever more assignats were put into circulation. In the end, the Directory could no longer print enough notes in a single night to cover its most urgent expenses for the following day. In 1796, one last attempt was made to establish a new paper currency. The government solemnly burned the matrices and stamps used to produce the assignats and promoted a new form of money: the territorial mandates. These became worthless within a few weeks. The assignats had taken years to reach that point.
1789 - 1797
- December 1789 · The National Assembly decides on the first issue of assignats as interest-bearing government securities backed by national property.
- 1790 · The assignats become a currency in circulation. However, they are subject to severe inflation.
- April 1793 · Legal obligation to accept assignats as payment at their face value. Anyone who refuses assignats or demands a surcharge compared with metallic money commits an offence.
- September 29, 1793 · The General Maximum sets maximum prices for wages and many everyday consumer goods. The law is also intended to halt the continuing inflation of the assignats.
- December 24, 1794 · Abolition of the Maximum. The depreciation of the assignats accelerates once again.
- December 1795 · The Directory decides to stop issuing assignats.
- February 19, 1796 · On the Place Vendôme in Paris, printing plates and tools used to produce the assignats are publicly destroyed in a ceremonial act. The Directory thereby seeks to signal the end of the old paper money and strengthen confidence in a new monetary policy.
- March 18, 1796 · Issue of 2.4 billion so-called territorial mandates, intended to replace the assignats.
- February 1797 · After becoming almost worthless within a very short time, the territorial mandates lose their status as forced legal tender by law. France now officially returns to metallic money.
Quotes
For the liberation of the national debt, we must undertake an operation that admits no intermediary between the debtor nation and its creditors other than the same kind of paper currently in circulation: the assignats.
Mirabeau, 27 August 1790
They could obtain nothing with the assignats from their pay; even the beggars no longer wanted them.
G. Lenôtre, Les Agens royalistes sous la Révolution, 1922
The assignats made the Revolution. They brought about the destruction of the estates and privileges, overthrew the throne and founded the Republic.
Finance Minister Ramel at the ceremony marking the abolition of the assignats, 19 February 1796
Le Moniteur
Assignats
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