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BANQUE ROYALE. Two bank notes of John Law's Banque royale, Paris, 1 January 1720:
a note for 100 livres Tournois, no. 1183152, signed on behalf of messieurs Fenellon, Bourgeois and Durevest by the clerks Chapuis, Correge and Ysardin, 104 x 163mm;
and a note for 1,000 livres Tournois, no.493956, signed on behalf of messieurs Fenellon, Bourgeois and Durevest by the clerks Rousseau, ?Dunon and ?Dinory, 103 x 165mm, docketed on verso 'Duteille de Fissac';
each bearing the printed text 'La Banque promet payer au Porteur à vüe Cent [/ MILLE] livres Tournois en Especes d’Argent, valeur reçeüe. A Paris le premier Janvier mil sept cens vingt’, numbered and signed in manuscript, on paper bearing fragments of the text 'BANQUE ROYALE' along the counterfoil, and with blind stamp of the French royal arms.
High-denomination bank notes from Law's Banque Royale. The introduction of paper bank notes -- initially in his private Banque Generale from 1716, and subsequently, from 1719, in the Banque Royale -- was Law's key innovation as a financier, and symbolic of his revolutionary insight that 'Money is not the value for which goods are exchanged, but the value by which they are exchanged'. Fatally, Law's bank notes contained the promise that they could be redeemed in specie (the convertible values of the present notes at today's silver prices are the equivalent of approximately $25,000 and $250,000 respectively). The present notes are from the second of four issues of notes by Law's Banque Royale, which were initially in four denominations of 10, 100, 1,000 and 10,000 livres: in the issue of 1 July 1720 the 1,000 and 10,000 livres notes were discontinued, in a vain attempt to stem the run on the bank, and by the last issue of 2 September 1720, only 10 livres and a new 50 livres notes were printed. No examples of the 10,000 livres note are known to exist (see John E. Sandrock, 'John Law's Banque Royale and the Mississippi Bubble', www.thecurrencycollector.com). By 1721 the notes had ceased to circulate, and France was to return to a specie footing until after the Revolution.
a note for 100 livres Tournois, no. 1183152, signed on behalf of messieurs Fenellon, Bourgeois and Durevest by the clerks Chapuis, Correge and Ysardin, 104 x 163mm;
and a note for 1,000 livres Tournois, no.493956, signed on behalf of messieurs Fenellon, Bourgeois and Durevest by the clerks Rousseau, ?Dunon and ?Dinory, 103 x 165mm, docketed on verso 'Duteille de Fissac';
each bearing the printed text 'La Banque promet payer au Porteur à vüe Cent [/ MILLE] livres Tournois en Especes d’Argent, valeur reçeüe. A Paris le premier Janvier mil sept cens vingt’, numbered and signed in manuscript, on paper bearing fragments of the text 'BANQUE ROYALE' along the counterfoil, and with blind stamp of the French royal arms.
High-denomination bank notes from Law's Banque Royale. The introduction of paper bank notes -- initially in his private Banque Generale from 1716, and subsequently, from 1719, in the Banque Royale -- was Law's key innovation as a financier, and symbolic of his revolutionary insight that 'Money is not the value for which goods are exchanged, but the value by which they are exchanged'. Fatally, Law's bank notes contained the promise that they could be redeemed in specie (the convertible values of the present notes at today's silver prices are the equivalent of approximately $25,000 and $250,000 respectively). The present notes are from the second of four issues of notes by Law's Banque Royale, which were initially in four denominations of 10, 100, 1,000 and 10,000 livres: in the issue of 1 July 1720 the 1,000 and 10,000 livres notes were discontinued, in a vain attempt to stem the run on the bank, and by the last issue of 2 September 1720, only 10 livres and a new 50 livres notes were printed. No examples of the 10,000 livres note are known to exist (see John E. Sandrock, 'John Law's Banque Royale and the Mississippi Bubble', www.thecurrencycollector.com). By 1721 the notes had ceased to circulate, and France was to return to a specie footing until after the Revolution.
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Robert Tyrwhitt