There is here no question of an arbitrary debasement. It was simply an attempt to preserve the currency from the action of a changing market ratio, which led to the withdrawal now of the one, now of the other coins, and to the circulation meanwhile of foreign coins at a rate apparently disproportioned to the metallic content.[7] In 1361 evidence was given before the Mint authorities that "in payments the people do by abuse give foreign monies at a higher rate than they are worth, viz. the _moutons_ of Flanders and Brabant at a higher rate than the _franc d'or_, of which said _moutons_ the best specimens are worth 18 denars less than the said _franc d'or_; a silver piece called _chartain_ for 16 and even 18 denars, which is worth no more than 10," and so on. Two years later it was declared that the Mint at Tournay was on the point of stopping work, "the people having been accustomed for a long time to give a higher price for the mark of gold than in the case of other monies of this kingdom, and this by reason of the foreign merchants." Towards the close of his reign Charles V., finding his kingdom filled with depreciated imported specie, while all the good native pieces had been drawn out of the land, sought and obtained from the Pope, 1372, a Bull of Excommunication against neighbour powers who should counterfeit his monies. It was not until 1391 that the proper defensive measure of a change of ratio was resorted to, and by that time the conditions of the Mint rates in surrounding nations had so altered as to render the change partially inoperative. In 1393, accordingly, there was a great lack of the smaller silver coin, which led to a proclamation by Charles VI. on the 2nd April of that year for encouraging the minting of _petiz deniers Tournois_. The same complaint was, however, re-echoed in 1395 and 1396, but, as it appears, quite futilely, for nine years after another proclamation had to be issued against the currency of foreign coins of Scotland, Navarre, the Rhenish and Netherland provinces, etc., "which have course in our kingdom for a greater value than they are worth, by which means our monies are arrested in their course and greatly withdrawn; the gold and silver _deniers a l'écu_ which we have minted having been melted down." [Sidenote: ACTION OF THE STATES-GENERAL IN 1420]