2 Francs - Chambre de Commerce de Libourne 33

Libourne's Chamber of Commerce began issuing small-denomination emergency notes in 1915 because the wartime hoarding of coins — particularly bronze and nickel — had made change nearly impossible to find in everyday commerce. These chambres de commerce issues were explicitly temporary, authorized under French government decree, and were supposed to be withdrawn once coinage returned to normal circulation. That didn't happen quickly. Many of these Gironde-region notes remained in use well past the armistice.

Wetterwald Frères was a Bordeaux printing house that handled several southwestern French emergency issues during this period. The watermark is the primary security measure — modest by any standard, but adequate for notes whose face value made sophisticated counterfeiting economically pointless.