6 Livres Tournois

The Intendance Générale des Colonies issued this note to address a persistent and embarrassing problem: chronic coin shortage across the French Caribbean, particularly Martinique and Saint-Domingue, where metallic currency drained steadily toward metropolitan France and inter-colony trade left local administrators unable to meet ordinary expenses. Paper was the only practical answer, and not everyone accepted it willingly.

The livres tournois denomination places this firmly in the pre-revolutionary monetary system — the same unit of account swept away by the assignat regime after 1789. Notes from this colonial series are among the earliest surviving paper instruments issued under French colonial administrative authority, and attrition from tropical climate and the upheavals of the revolutionary period has been severe.