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50 Livres Tournois
| Issuer | Intendance Générale des Colonies |
|---|---|
| Year | 1788 |
| Type | Standard circulation banknote |
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| Obverse description | A typeset letterpress note on cream hand-laid paper, enclosed within a decorative border of repeating ornamental units running along all four margins. The issuing authority is set in serif capitals across the upper portion, beneath which the body text states the denomination and legal basis — referencing the Édit du Roi of 10 June 1788 — in alternating roman and italic typefaces. The denomination CINQUANTE LIVRES appears in bold white reverse lettering within a solid black rectangular panel at centre, flanked in the lower register by the manuscript signatures of two colonial treasury officials: De Vaivre as Intendant général des Colonies at lower left, and Le Brasseur as Intendant général des fonds de la Marine & des Colonies at lower right. |
|---|---|
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| Signature(s) | De Vaivre and Le Brasseur |
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| Comments |
The Intendance Générale des Colonies issued this note for circulation in the French Caribbean colonies — almost certainly Saint-Domingue, Martinique, or Guadeloupe — where chronic coin shortages made paper instruments a practical necessity rather than a policy preference. Colonial administrators had been issuing paper money in the Antilles since the late seventeenth century, and by 1788 the system was well-entrenched if perennially distrusted by merchants who had seen earlier colonial bills depreciate badly.
De Vaivre served as Intendant of Saint-Domingue during this period, which makes his signature here more than administrative formality — it places this note squarely within the last years of French colonial order in that island, just before the revolution that would end it permanently in 1791.