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Old French money and weights


Diana

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Often I stumble across in old documents or French literature livres and sols for currency and even today in the local market fruit and veg can still be measured in livres. I know it was Napoleon who introduced the decimal system in France but I have been unable to find what these equate to in either pre -60’s Francs or for weight stones, pounds and ounces.

I have just seen on ebay a listing for a 1793 French Revolution bank note ‘Assignat de Cinq Livres et Cinquante Sols’ dated 23 Mai 1793. Why does this not use the language of the Revolution for both the currency and the date? We have the papers for every sale of our house going back to 1794, all the dates are in the style of the revolutionary calendar and the sale price in old, old French Francs.

Thanks

Diana
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TOH says this is very strange. By 1793, revolutionary dates should have been used and assignats had lost their value. He says that the monetary system was "très compliqué" but as far as I've understood, at the time the franc was a calculating system without having a physical existance.

He says he's got comparison tables somewhere. If you're interested I can get him to dig them out. As for metric pounds (livres) that's 500g. I haven't seen it much in france but it's used a lot in germany.

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I always ask for a livre when shopping, don't know why, possibly because I started to learn French at school in the late 50's. I find it's always understood.  In the same way, I ask for a "pond" in Holland.  They're both 500 grams and I suppose I should be asking for 500gms in UK but no-one has difficulty with "a pound."

I can vaguely remember old French money but can't think whether a brique was 10,000 or 100,000 francs.

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Thanks to both of you. Mistral if you have time I would be interested in the tables. Here is the ref for the old bank note, just copy and paste it.

http://cgi.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&item=8348206912&ru=http%3A%2F%2Fsearch.ebay.com%3A80%2Fsearch%2Fsearch.dll%3Fsojs%3D1%26from%3DR40%26satitle%3D8348206912%26fvi%3D1

Thanks

Diana
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