70 Livres Assignat

The 70 livres denomination was peculiar from the start — a non-standard value chosen specifically to complicate counterfeiting by making it harder to produce convincing fakes at a round, familiar amount. Issued by the Caisse de l'Extraordinaire, the body established to manage assets seized from the Church, these assignats were theoretically backed by nationalized ecclesiastical lands, a guarantee that eroded rapidly as the Revolutionary government printed far beyond what those holdings could support.

Gatteaux and Lorthior's engraving work was among the more sophisticated applied to early assignat production, though it proved insufficient against the flood of forgeries — both domestic and foreign, the latter including deliberate British counterfeiting operations intended to destabilize French finances.