------------------------------------------------------------------------ CHAP. XXIV. _Account of the variations of the French coin, some time before and after the death of Louis XIV._ In 1709, there was a new general coinage in France; by which operation the King gained 231⁄13 _per cent._ upon all the specie coined. (Dutot, vol. i. p. 104.) Out of the marc of standard gold were coined 30 louis d’ors, of 20 livres denomination each. Out of the marc of standard silver, 8 crowns, of 5 livres denomination each: so that the silver was put at 40 livres the marc.—But, By edict of the month of September 1713, the old King appointed a diminution of the denomination of silver and gold coins; by which, after eleven successive changes, the coin of France was ordered to be brought down, from 40 livres the marc, to 28: so that the 8 crowns, which were _called_ 40 livres in the month of September 1713, by the 2d day of September 1715, (the day after the King’s death) were to be _called_ only 28 livres. I say _called_, because certainly the crowns had suffered no variation but in their name. On the 13th of August 1715, (a few days before the King’s death) he issued a declaration; ordering that for the future the coin should remain at 28 livres _per_ marc. From this I conclude, that his intention was to leave, at his death, the coin of his kingdom of the same standard he had found it to be at the beginning of his reign, and at which he had preserved it invariably, during the flourishing state of his kingdom, for the space of 46 years; that is, until the year 1689. He could not fail to be sensible of the infinite prejudice occasioned to debtors and creditors by the variations he had practised upon the coin from 1689. To this standard, then, it was brought the very day after his death, and no sooner: therefore his debt of two thousand millions of livres should regularly be estimated according to that rate; or at about 40 shillings sterling for every 28 livres: 40 shillings being, within a trifle, the value of 8 ounces or one marc of standard silver, Paris weight. At this rate of conversion, the two thousand millions were equal to 142,857,140_l_. sterling. Soon after the King’s death, on the 2d of January 1716, the new ministry issued an edict, which totally destroyed all. This was the most extraordinary operation, I believe, ever invented; and to it was owing the establishment of Mr. Law’s bank: I must therefore explain it. There had been no general coinage since 1709; the louis d’or had then been coined at 20 livres, and the crowns at 5, as has been said. The edict of 2d January 1716, ordered a new general coinage, on the same footing, both as to weight, fineness, and denomination, as that of 1709: the only difference was, that the first had an old man’s head upon it; the other had that of a child of six years old.