[Illustration: The above diagram shows the relative annual production of gold and silver during the bimetallic period in France. The ratio given is the commercial ratio, that of the mint being 15.50 to 1. Note the marvellous steadiness of the commercial ratio and contrast it with the enormous fluctuation in the relative annual production of the two metals during this period.] To this should also be added the fact that French coins would have a slightly less value in other countries than the coins of those countries, but it is not easy to estimate the sentimental difference this would make. From the enactment of the law of 1803 to the limitation of the coinage in 1875 France coined 5,100,000,000 francs of silver and 7,600,000,000 francs of gold, or $1,020,000,000 of silver and $1,520,000,000 of gold, very nearly, or 40 per cent. of the total amount of silver and 33 per cent. of the total amount of gold produced in the world during those years. It is further to be noted that, whether gold or silver was the dearer metal at the ratio of 15-1/2 to 1 at any given time, France at that time had more of gold and silver per capita than any country in the world, and that, despite the enormous inflow of the cheaper metal, she held the dearer and absorbed what now seems an astonishing amount of the cheaper. Thus, in 1822 the imports of silver into France exceeded the exports by 125,000,000 francs, and in 1831 the amount had risen to 181,000,000 francs, and then it fell off and did not reach the latter sum again until 1848. On the other hand, in the eight years 1853-60 there was a net import into France of gold to the value of 3,082,000,000 francs, or $616,000,000; and in the same years a net export of silver to the value of 1,465,000,000 francs, or $293,000,000. Thus in the short space of eight years France had made monetary, or, rather, metallic transfers amounting to $909,000,000, and that without a quiver of her financial system, and scarcely a perceptible trace of the effects of that financial storm which swept America, England, and Central Europe with such destructive fury in 1857-8. It further appears that, despite the enormous import of gold, the subsequent export was comparatively small, and thus, such was the wonderful absorbing power of the nation under the free coinage law of 1803, that France came out of each successive financial storm with an increased stock of the precious metals, and more than once has the Bank of England been compelled to apply to France for the specie to arrest a destructive panic growing out of an insufficient amount of coined money upon a safe basis and an overissue of supplemental or faith money.