Écu (Louis XV)
1716 ・ silver ・ 18th century ・ Louis XV
After Law's bubble burst, the currency of France went back to metal. The monetary reform of 1726 fixed the louis d'or and the écu, and that stability lasted some 60 to 70 years, until the Revolution. The écu in the hand was metal standing on the memory of never trusting paper again. The foreign minister Talleyrand, seeing the assignats of the Revolution, warned later that they would come to the same end as John Law's scheme. The memory of 1720 held the paper-money argument of 69 years later directly in its grip.