12 Livres

Card money was New France's recurring solution to a chronic problem: coins shipped from France were perpetually late, insufficient, or simply never sent. The intendant and governor would cut playing cards into quarters or halves, sign them, impress an official seal, and declare them legal tender — redeemable in coin whenever the treasury ships arrived. This series, carrying the signatures of Governor Beauharnois and Intendant Hocquart, ran across two decades of relative administrative stability before the French crown finally suppressed card money in 1764.

Hocquart's long tenure as intendant (1729–1748) makes him the anchor figure of this issue. His administration was unusually orderly by colonial standards, and redemption of card money was generally honored during his watch — a fact that kept public confidence in the instrument higher than it had any right to be.