500 Francs With Decree

Bramtot and Duval designed this note for the Banque de France's intaglio workshops, with engraving by Charles-Jules Robert — a combination that places it firmly within the aesthetic tradition of late nineteenth-century French colonial fiduciary printing, where metropolitan prestige was deliberately projected into the monetary instruments of administered territories. The Banque de l'Indo-Chine, chartered in 1875, held exclusive note-issuing rights across French Indochina and, for a period, extended its reach into French India and the Pacific settlements.

The "With Decree" designation distinguishes issues formally authorized under specific ministerial decree — a bureaucratic distinction that mattered to the colonial administration far more than to the merchants and coolies who used these notes in daily commerce.