Exacting Change

Abstract

After the Assembly overhauled the currency system and issued assignats in denominations too large for retail trade, a small change shortage rocked the nation. To facilitate marketplace exchanges, the Dames, their suppliers, their clients, and other merchants turned to promissory notes. These bills were inadequately backed by local financial societies and contributed to rapid inflation. Beginning in 1790, the lack of practical cash spurred market actors to innovatively ally across guilds and occupational boundaries. Vegetable merchants formed coalitions with carpenters to demand new assignat denominations, retailers joined forces with brokers to protect promissory notes, and clients and merchants rallied to support overlapping credit networks. Thus, the Dames and their allies forged novel socioeconomic associations before the Le Chapelier law and d’Allarde decree legally dismantled the corporate world in 1791. Money thus became a concrete conduit for effecting the core social transformations at the heart of the Revolution. While spurring the state to protect the monetary networks of productive citizens, the Dames and their allies also changed the trajectory of national currency reform.