Word: franc
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Dates: during 1930-1939
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First reason for all this is that France needs money. Despite the vast hoards of gold in the deep cellars of the Bank of France, the French Government has a budget deficit to hold its own with any in the world, and must raise 5,000,000,000 francs by July 1. Another internal loan would be a risky business. To charm the francs from Jean Frenchman's famed sock to float the last one, the Government was forced to offer 4½ bonds at 98½ with the costly promise to redeem at 150. France therefore gets...
...apple b'ossom festival next month. *Herbert O. Yardley, onetime Government code expert, declared in his American Black Chamber that the U. S. had stolen secret Japanese messages at the Washington Arms Conference. The official secrets bill was aimed at a second volume of "exposures" by him. *France last month issued $58,800,000 worth of new 10-franc and 20-franc silver pieces, first minted since...
Meanwhile Mayor Chéron had made his plodding, Norman way in Paris to the unexciting post of Minister of Agriculture (1922-24). He made it exciting, became the idol of French farmers. No Minister of Agriculture before or since has shut out of France so much meat because of hoof & mouth disease, so many potatoes on account of scab, so much butter because of "taints." More important, during this period Minister of Agriculture Chéron won the firm friendship of his exalted chief, Premier Raymond Poincaré, "Savior of the Franc...
...came when Premier & Finance Minister Poincaré, having stabilized the franc for years to come, wished to turn his irksome Finance Ministry over to someone else, someone solid, shrewd, incorruptible. In open Cabinet the Premier turned to M. Chéron: "Dear friend, I think you should be charged with the finances of France...
...Sent to Paris at 18 to finish his education, he had his first balloon ascent at 24 with Machuron, designer of Explorer Salomon Auguste Andree's famed balloon. Straightway he began fiddling with lighter-than-air craft, built ten airships of which No 6 won the 100,000-franc Deutsche prize for the first flight around the Eiffel Tower. His airships solved one by one the problems of shrinking & expanding gas, buckling, lateral balance. Then he moved on to heavier-than-air machines. He never hesitated to risk his life on any of his contraptions, crashed all over France...