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400 Sols = 20 Livres Tournois
| Issuer | Caisse d'Échange, Caen |
|---|---|
| Year | 1801 |
| Type | Standard circulation banknote |
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| Obverse description | The obverse is set within a fine typographic border with a decorative guilloche panel at left incorporating an ornate interlaced monogram. The central text panel bears the issuer name CAISSE D'ÉCHANGE in large letterpress type, followed by the address Rue des Quais and city Caen, with a circular seal vignette at upper right. The promise-to-pay text is printed in period French letterpress, specifying payment of QUATRE CENTS SOLS in copper coin or VINGT livres tournois, dated 1er Thermidor an 9, with the series and number designations and the manuscript signature of the Caissier Delaville at lower right. |
|---|---|
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| Signature(s) | Delaville (Caissier) |
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| Comments |
The Caisse d'Échange des Monnaies was a short-lived institution created under Napoleonic financial reorganization to ease the chronic shortage of small metallic currency that had plagued France since the Revolution. These regional exchange offices — Caen was one of several — issued notes convertible into coin, functioning less as a bank of credit than as a municipal mechanism for making change at scale. The dual denomination, expressed in both sols and livres tournois, reflects a monetary system still in transition: the livre tournois was officially dead by this point, replaced by the franc, yet it persisted in popular accounting and commercial contracts.
Caen issues are among the scarcer provincial examples from this network.