importance, as far as mere Mint edicts are concerned. As a consequence the bimetallic action which we have hitherto sought in the history of each individual currency must now increasingly be sought in the wider field of the world currency, that congeries or completed whole of currency of which each national system now forms only a part, and that not an independent part.
France.
In this third period the first change which France made in her silver monies was in 1674, when she for a time coined 4-sol. pieces of a quality below that of the écus blancs by more than a fifth. A great outcry was made by the Mint officers and mercantile community against this money as implying a debasement.
In 1679 there was a noticeable quantity of Spanish pistoles and large écus d'or in circulation, and as a remedy it was ordered that they should be recoined into louis d'or and louis d'argent, the King offering to forego the seignorage as an inducement to bring them to the Mint. In 1686, however, the louis d'or itself was raised from 10 livres to 11 livres 10 sols., and the ratio thus changed to 15 1⁄2. This being found greatly in excess, in the following year it was Page 168 lowered to 11 livres 5 sols. (a ratio of 15 1⁄4). In 1689 both silver and gold were again raised, the louis d'or to 11 livres 12 sols. and the louis d'argent to 3 livres 2 sols., but almost immediately a general recoinage was resolved upon. In this great operation, effected towards the close