2024-01-18 17:22:06
The notes issued by the Banque de France for more than two centuries have always been the subject of a attentive care. And yet, here is what we read from 1829 to 1962 on the 500 and 1000 franc notes:
“Article 139 of the penal code punishes with death those who have counterfeited or falsified bank notes authorized by law, and those who have used these counterfeit or falsified notes. »
“Banks” in the plural, “authorized” in the feminine plural, this would be a spectacular case of grammatical failure if we are to believe what is currently circulating on the Web, and in particular on the online encyclopedia Wikipedia :
“Always designed and engraved by the same creators, the 1,000 francs created on November 26, 1829 and issued on March 26, 1830 introduces the white watermark, the printed date of issue (and no longer handwritten) and three cartridges, two of which contain the same extract from Article 139 (editor’s note: of the penal code) (instead of the wet stamp) with a black and white printing technique that is particularly difficult to reproduce. This text contains two grammatical agreement errors (the word banks is in the plural, the word authorized is in the feminine plural), errors which were not corrected before the issue of the 50 franc Racine note… in 1962! It remains to be assumed that these “typolls” were left as a subterfuge, certain forgers being particularly perfectionist typographers: these two errors would therefore be secret points, but nothing is certain. »
Millions of people who would not have seen them?
A spelling mistake, really? A way to unmask counterfeiters? Even more curious than what we find on Wikipedia, the Historical Archives of the Banque de France offer an online timeline of all the notes issued by the Bank, very well done and with high quality reproductions. The presentation of the 500 franc note from 1829 reads:
“This 500 franc note includes for the first time two circular cartridges in which are reported, identically on a black or white background, both article 139 of the penal code punishing with death “those who have counterfeited or falsified the Bank notes authorized by law” and article 36 of the law of 24 Germinal Year XI which equates these counterfeiters with counterfeiters. The grammatical error of gender agreement on “authorized” will persist until 1962.”
This would therefore mean that the 16 members of the General Council of the Banque de France who, on Thursday May 14, 1829, were present to examine in detail the characteristics of the new model of 1,000 and 500 franc notes were unable to notice this fault. No more than the artists and printing workers associated with its creation. And neither do the hundreds of people who, with each reissue of this cartridge, read, reread and corrected the new versions of the posts. And even less so the tens of millions of users of these notes, who have circulated for more than 150 years with this faulty cartridge!
Bank of France
There therefore seems to be all the elements of a contemporary urban legend, combining the capacity for diffusion via the Web and the exhilarating feeling of being smarter than those millions of people who have not seen their noses in the middle of the figure. Especially since the session of May 14, 1829 followed several debates held since 1828 and under no circumstances can haste – even if there is a form of urgency – be considered a reason for error . “Banks” in the plural, “authorized” in the feminine plural: how to explain it? Quite simply by law.
A legal clarification above all
Legal language is disconcerting for the layman in that it is exact, in the sense that each letter, each punctuation mark, is not only capable of having a rigorous meaning, but also that the aim of this rigor is to avoid ambiguity and therefore the risk of incorrect interpretation of the text.
To understand the grammatical choice, we must refer to the law which establishes, in France, the general principles of fiduciary issuance, i.e. the loi du 24 germinal an XI (April 14, 1803). This is best known for establishing by privilege the monopoly of the Bank of France on the issue of banknotes in Paris.
However, the text also sets, in its articles 31 and 32, the conditions of issue “in the departments”, that is to say outside the Seine:
“No bank may be formed in the departments except with the authorization of the Government, which may grant them the privilege; and the issues of his tickets cannot exceed the amount he has determined. »
It is obviously the term “authorization” that matters here: only banks authorized have the right, and therefore the privilege, to issue bank notes.
The notion of a bank note is not, moreover, not defined by this lawas the commercial lawyer Émile Vincens then recalls, who however attributes this definition to the Fundamental Statutes of January 16, 1808 when it actually appears in the original Statutes of the Bank of France of 24 Pluviôse Year VIII.
We then understand better the wording of the cartridges: “bank notes authorized by law”. The notion of bank note (in fact often written “bank note”) did not exist in law in the first half of the 19th century.e century. The law instead uses the expression “bearer and demand notes”.
There is therefore no error in writing “banks” in the plural, since it is not a question of the expression “bank note” but of notes issued by banks, notes whose characteristics are fixed elsewhere.
Since there is no question of “bank note”, the term “banks” can be clarified, since this term is in no way a quality associated with the note. In fact, these “banks” are the real key word in the sentence: it is through them that the notes are issued. But for this issue to take place, the law must authorize them: only “banks authorized by law” have this privilege.
There is therefore, as we see, no error in wording or grammar in the cartridges reproduced from 1829 to 1962 on the notes issued by the Bank of France. These supposed errors of agreement only come from the gradual forgetting of the context in which these cartridges were drawn up, due to the extension of the monopoly of the Bank of France to the entire metropolitan territory (including Corsica), and the adoption of the expression “bank note”, while all other forms of notes gradually disappeared from our practices and our wallets, in place of “bearer and demand note”.
“In each of the upper corners of the thousand and five hundred franc note, a medallion one inch in diameter bearing in small lower case characters will be printed for non couples this text: “Article 139 of the penal code punishes with death those who have counterfeited or falsified bank notes authorized by law, and those who have used these counterfeit or falsified notes. Article 36 of the law of 14 Germinal Year XI equates these counterfeiters with counterfeiters. They will be prosecuted, tried and sentenced as such.” On one of these medallions this text will stand out in white on a black background; on the other medallion, it will be printed in black on the white background of the paper. These medallions will be placed opposite each other. »
When the Council of Regency adopted this text, on May 14, 1829, did it commit no other mistakes than that of a wording that was obscure to the reader of the 21ste century ?
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