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The Caisse Patriotique de Lyon was one of dozens of provincial emergency-credit institutions that sprouted across France in the early 1790s to address a severe shortage of small-denomination assignats. These local caisse notes were technically interest-bearing obligations — not currency in the modern sense — but circulated as such out of necessity. Their legal status was always ambiguous, and the Revolutionary government never fully sanctioned them.

1793 was a particularly violent year for Lyon. The city rose against the Jacobin-controlled Convention in May, endured a two-month siege, and was subjected to systematic demolition afterward — the Convention even ordered it renamed "Ville-Affranchie." Notes issued that year may have been redeemed, suppressed, or simply abandoned mid-circulation as the city's institutions collapsed entirely.