1 Franc

The Chambres de Commerce de l'Aveyron issued emergency small-denomination notes during the First World War to address the acute coin shortage that had swept through provincial France from 1914 onward. Hoarding of metal coinage — silver and bronze alike — had left local commerce functionally paralyzed, and the central authorities were slow to respond. Regional chambers of commerce across the country stepped into the gap, issuing their own papier-monnaie de nécessité under emergency authorizations.

L. Cassan Ainé was a well-established Toulouse printing firm with a long record of commercial and official work in the Midi-Pyrénées region. The Boyer design with watermarked paper was a deliberate step above the most rudimentary emergency issues of the period.