200 Livres Assignat

The 200 livres denomination sits at an awkward moment in the assignat's short history. Authorized by the law of 19 June 1791, it fell between the large ecclesiastical-property-backed issues of 1790 and the inflationary flood of smaller denominations that followed. The Caisse de l'Extraordinaire — a short-lived institution created specifically to administer confiscated biens nationaux — issued these notes as the revolutionary government scrambled to convert seized Church land into liquid currency fast enough to service its debts.

Gatteaux and Lorthior were responsible for the engraving, and the technical complexity of their work was deliberately chosen as a counterfeiting deterrent. It failed. Forgery of assignats, particularly the higher denominations, was rampant by 1792 — some operations running with royalist backing from abroad.