₣100 — One Hundred Francs
The artwork
Front: Two classical figures fill the sheet: a laurel-crowned man in white drapery leaning on a fluted column, and opposite him a bare-shouldered youth reaching up into a heavy swag of grapes and roses. Behind them, drawn in pale grey, spreads a working landscape of quays, bridges and factory roofs — industry on one side, the vine and the harvest on the other. "CENT FRANCS" in deep red, with the issue date CE. 16-5-1940. CE.
Back: The reverse gives the type its collector's name: Maximilien de Béthune, duc de Sully, Henri IV's superintendent of finances and the great improver of French agriculture, shown in period dress against a rural scene of ploughing and field work — the visual gloss on his line about tillage and pasturage being the two breasts of France. The denomination is repeated in words and figures, the panel framed in the same red and grey.
In circulation
A late Third Republic design, created in 1939 to replace the long-serving Luc-Olivier Merson hundred, and printed in vast numbers through the first war years — this one dated May 1940, days into the German offensive. The Descartes hundred took over from 1942, and the Sully notes were called in during the post-war currency clean-up.
Details
- CurrencyFranc (₣)
- DenominationOne Hundred Francs
- Collectedon the France journeys, 1991–2019
- IssuerBanque de France
- SeriesType 1939 "Sully", dated 16-5-1940
- SignatureLe Caissier Général and Le Secrétaire Général
- SecurityLetter-and-number serial (D.10589) with plate number 724 repeated at each corner, and a full eight-figure control number