CHAPTER III

monies. At the time of the erection of the bank, 2nd May 1716, there were four species of louis d'or and three of louis d'argent. By 1720 the former had grown to forty in number and the latter to ten. (For the disorders of the period of John Law, see the account of French monetary system, Appendix VI.) It was to remedy this disorder that the great edict of 1726 was enacted. This edict, which formed the basis of the French currency system almost up to the days of the Revolution, prescribed the minting of louis d'or at a tale of 30 to the mark, and issued at a value of 20 livres; and of silver écus at 8 3⁄10 to the mark and issued at 5 livres—divisional coins in proportion. The legal ratio was therefore 14 5⁄8. All foreign coins and the ancient species of gold and silver were decried, and ordered to be brought in for reminting. All the prohibitive regulations of an old régime against cutting and export, etc., were re-enacted with severest penalties. But as the rate at which the Mint was ordered to take in the old coinage did not represent the commercial value at the moment, the old coins were not brought in, and up to as late as 1749 the recoinage had not been accomplished, although the Mint prices had been at different times advanced on the whole a matter of 30 per cent. or more. In 1759 the want of currency had become so great that the King sent his plate to the Mint, and numbers of