80 Livres Assignat

The 80 livres denomination is an oddity within the assignat series — most face values clustered around more conventional amounts, and this one was issued under the Caisse de l'Extraordinaire, the short-lived body established to manage the nationalized ecclesiastical properties that backed the early assignats. The theoretical collateral was confiscated Church land, a mechanism that worked credibly only in the first months before overissuance began eroding public confidence.

Gatteaux was a medallist by training, and his involvement in the assignat designs reflects the Revolutionary government's early attempt to give the notes an engraved, authoritative character — a deliberate contrast with the cruder emergency issues that would follow as the decade wore on.