10 francs - Chambre de Commerce de Cambrai [59]

The Cambrai Chamber of Commerce began issuing emergency paper in 1914 as the German advance through northern France severed normal banking operations. Cambrai itself fell under German occupation in late August 1914 and would remain so until October 1918 — one of the longer-held French industrial towns of the war. Whether notes issued before the fall saw any meaningful circulation, or were largely superseded by German-administered currency almost immediately after printing, remains a point of genuine ambiguity in the series.

Fernand Deligne et Cie was a local Cambrai printer, which makes the survival of any impressions from this run quietly remarkable given what the town endured over four years of occupation and the near-total destruction it suffered during the German withdrawal in 1918.