3 Livres Tournois

The Isles de France et de Bourbon — Mauritius and Réunion under their French colonial names — operated a remarkably isolated monetary system in the late eighteenth century, and local paper instruments like this one were a practical response to the chronic shortage of specie on islands so distant from metropolitan supply chains. The 3 Livres denomination sits in the middle of a small series authorized to ease transactional friction in the colony's plantation economy.

Survivorship is poor. Colonial paper from this period suffered badly in tropical conditions, and administrative upheaval following the Revolutionary Wars further disrupted any systematic preservation.