20 Francs - Caisse d'échange de Rouen

The Caisse d'échange de Rouen was one of several short-lived regional discount and exchange houses that briefly proliferated across France during the Consulate period, filling the credit vacuum left by revolutionary monetary chaos before the Banque de France consolidated its grip on note issuance. Napoleon's law of April 1803 — which granted the Banque de France its monopoly and set the stage for the suppression of competing institutions — effectively ended operations for houses like this one within months of that legislation passing.

Périaux was the dominant commercial printer in Rouen at the time, handling official and semi-official print work throughout Normandy. His imprint here is unsurprising given the issuer's location, though it tells us nothing about the note's security printing quality, which was rudimentary by any standard of the period.