What is "assignats"

Usage examples of "assignats".

To bring this about, we have only to let the assignats (paper money) and their forced rate (of exchange) work things out.

Rovère, who, for eighty thousand francs in assignats, has an estate adjudged to him worth five hundred thousand francs in coin.

Petition against Javogues, with several pages of signatures, especially those of the inhabitants of Montbrison: "In the report made by him to the Convention he puts down coin and assignats at seven hundred and seventy-four thousand six hundred and ninety-six francs, while the spoils of one person provided him with five hundred thousand francs in cash.

He shouts with pain, and indicates another chest which they break open and then carry off what they find there, "seventy-two francs in coin and five or six thousand livres in assignats, which Gibbon had just received for the requisitions made on him for corn.

They are deprived one after the other of their property, assignats, furniture, and food, of daylight and lamp-light, of the assistance which their wants and infirmities demand, of a knowledge of public events, of all communication, either immediate or written, with fathers, sons and husbands.

At this date, and during the four years of the Revolution, the total arrears of taxation amounted to six hundred and thirty-two millions - a bad debt that can hardly be recovered, and, in fact, it is already reduced one-half, since, even if the debtor could and was disposed to pay, he would pay in assignats, which, at this time, were at a discount of fifty per cent.

Such is paper money and the assignats, the third and most efficient way for wasting a fortune and which the Jacobins did not fail to make the most of.

There is not one of these persons whose capital, or income payable in assignats, is not at once crippled in proportion to the decline in value of assignats, so that not only the State falls into bankruptcy but likewise every creditor in France, legally bankrupt along with it through its fault.

It also calls in the 1,500 million of assignats bearing the royal stamp (à face royale) and thus arbitrarily converts and reduces the public debt on the Grand Ledger, which is already, in fact, a partial and declared bankruptcy.

Six months imprisonment for whoever refuses to accept assignats at par, twenty years in irons if the offence is repeated and the guillotine if there is an incivique intention or act, which suffices for all other creditors.

The farmers now sell as they please and at two prices, according as they are paid in assignats or coin.

On March II, 1795, the louis d'or brings two hundred and five francs in assignats, May 11, four hundred francs, June 12, one thousand francs, in the month of October, one thousand seven hundred francs, November 13, two thousand eight hundred and fifty francs, November 21 three thousand francs, and six months later, nineteen thousand francs.

The reader may imagine, if he can, the distress of people with small incomes, pensioners and employees, mechanics and artisans in the towns out of work,[102] in brief, all who have nothing but a small package of assignats to live on, and who have nothing to do, whose indispensable wants are not directly supplied by the labor of their own hands in producing wine, candles, meat, potatoes and bread.

Whoever comes with a full purse gets what he wants[140]: The former rich, the property owners and large capitalists, may eat on the condition that they hand their bundles of assignats over, that they withdrawing their last louis from its hiding-place, that they sell their jewelry, clocks, furniture and clothes.

Dorothy Franz, convicted of having sold two heads of salad at twenty sous, and of thus having depreciated the value of assignats, is sentenced to a fine of three thousand livres, imprisonment for six weeks and exposure in the pillory for two hours.