20 Francs - Bayard type 1916

The Bayard type was introduced in 1916 as wartime pressures drained the Banque de France's metal reserves and forced a dramatic expansion of small-denomination paper. Before this issue, the 20-franc value had circulated almost exclusively in gold — the Napoléon coin. Putting that amount on paper was a significant psychological concession, and the public treated these notes with corresponding suspicion at first.

Romagnoli's intaglio work on the series is technically accomplished. The type ran for nearly a decade, which is itself a sign of how thoroughly gold coinage failed to return to everyday use after the Armistice.