gold coins, and that there was no sufficient reason for so great a change. The Financial Committee of the Council of State at first rejected the scheme, preferring that of Prieur, already described, but on an inquest, ordered by the First Consul, who insisted on pressing the matter to a conclusion, M. Gaudin carried his propositions through the Council of State, but with the important difference that the reference to any future change in the ratio of gold to the basis of silver was tacitly dropped. These propositions became the foundation of the law of 7-17 Germinal an XI. (28th March 1803), on which the monetary system of Republican France was finally built. The _exposé des motifs_ of this law speaks of the gold coins in these words:-- "The gold pieces up to the present in circulation are the pieces of 24 and 48 livres tournois. Article 6 of this law substitutes in their place pieces of 20 and 40 francs. The adoption of the decimal system necessitates this change, which brings all parts of the system into accord. It is on the same consideration that the standard is fixed at 9/10, like that of silver." Not a word is said as to the ratio, and much more stress is laid upon the suppression of billon money and on the abolition of seigniorage, as of greater importance and benefit to the nation's interests. By this law of Germinal XI. the monetary unit of the French system was declared to be the silver franc, weighing 5 grms. of 9/10 standard. By the side of this franc and its multiples, were to be issued gold pieces of 20 and 40 francs, valued on a basis ratio of 15-1/2 to the silver. [Sidenote: FRANCE: THE REFORM OF 1803] It will be seen at a glance from the course of this previous history that this law instituted no new principle, or theory, or system in French currency. The decimal system was adopted in place of the old system of livres tournois, seigniorage was abolished, and fixation of value given to the unit money, and billon money discontinued. But in matter of standard and system there was not even innovation. The system of Republican France, as established by this law, was no more and no less bimetallic than in 1785, or than in 1610, or in the days of Francis I. Theories as such did not occupy the mind of the legislator, and of any conception of a bimetallic theory or system such as we have learned to know there is no trace. The First Consul found at hand the two metals which had formed the currency of his country for centuries. The problem of their regulation was the same which had been faced by his predecessors for centuries, and he settled it in the same practical untheoretic way.