Abstract
Reviewed by: P. M. Jones, University of Birmingham, UK
Although there exists a specialized literature on the numismatic history of the French Revolution, researchers will hunt in vain for a broadly conceived account of money which focuses on its social and political attributes. This is what the author has in mind when she says that she intends to investigate the qualitative rather than the quantitative aspects of her subject. The book, however, is also intended as an extended commentary on the current historiography of the French Revolution. As a medium of exchange which was both material and symbolic in the sense that it normally circulated on the basis of shared assumptions and trust, money, we are told, can shed light on the transition from the old order in France to the new. On the whole these twin objectives are achieved, although the author’s pronouncements on the contested narratives of the Revolution sometimes appear rather detached from the specifics of her topic.
The chapters proceed in a loose chronological order starting with an overview of state credit-worthiness and borrowing during the Ancien Régime followed by the decision taken in 1789–1790 to reimburse past debt and to meet future expenditures with the issue of a form of paper money backed by sales of the assets of the church; the political difficulties this decision subsequently provoked as the assignat became the principal and in due course the only official tender; the production challenges flowing from the demonetization of silver and gold; and the inflationary aftermath of 1795–1796 when political management of the money supply lapsed amid a general failure of state authority leading to the withdrawal of a colossal number of assignats from circulation. A final chapter explores the legacy of this experiment with paper money in the first half of the nineteenth century and discusses, somewhat late on in the book, the removal from commerce of the copper and base-metal coins which were probably the ‘stuff’ of most wage and food transactions in the Revolutionary era – even during the short period when the assignat ruled supreme.
The initial chapter is particularly illuminating and can be recommended to anyone wanting to know more about how state credit actually functioned in Bourbon France prior to 1789 and how wealthy private individuals financed their expenditures via networks constructed around negotiable bills of exchange. As for rentes viagères, a form of loan contract on which the monarchy was depending heavily by the end of the Ancien Régime, I have never read a clearer statement of how these ingenious financial products were designed and put onto the market. The determination with which the author lays bare the logistical and production challenges confronting legislators following the switch to the money-assignat is to be applauded as well. Most histories dwell solely on the quantitative dimensions of the assignat episode and the sharp rise in food prices, which, it is claimed, was the by-product of having too much paper in circulation.
One of the themes of this book is the commodification and merchandizing of money, and Spang draws attention to the emergence of a ‘voluntary money’ in the form of small denomination paper notes (billets de confiance) issued by private individuals and corporate bodies (merchants, municipalities, caisses patriotiques, etc.). This episode is rarely if ever alluded to in the standard narratives of the Revolution. However, the author weakens her arguments, or rather misses an opportunity to consolidate them further, by failing to devote proper consideration to metallic currency. Contrary to the impression given in the final chapter, the reform and re-coining of copper and base-metal small change did not wait upon an initiative of Louis-Philippe’s government in 1842–1843. It was being discussed and acted upon in the early 1790s, even as the momentous decision to tackle the debt with an emission of paper was being taken. The circulation of unofficial or ‘voluntary money’ included coin, for it was not until August–September 1792 that regalian authority over moneying was reaffirmed and private coinage emission formally prohibited.
In the meantime a dozen and more merchant houses issued monnaie de confiance, or what we would call tokens. By far the largest issuers were the Monneron brothers who lubricated the commercial networks of Paris and other great cities with millions of 2 and 5 sols pieces known to numismatists as monnerons. They were all coined in Birmingham on the steam-powered presses of Matthew Boulton and shipped over to France in 1791 and 1792. A consideration of this and other episodes of token production and distribution would have enabled the author to drive home more effectively her themes of decentralization, trust (the monnerons were minted with the slogan ‘la confiance augmente la valeur’ on the rim), didacticism (the 5 sol piece carried an image of the ‘Pacte fédératif’), standardization, and so on. In this regard the title chosen for this study seems rather unhelpful to the reader because it is basically a book which limits the treatment of the monetary policy of the French Revolution to the assignat.