Word: franc
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Playing baccarat at the big table in Deauville in 1929, the flashy little Jew whom everyone calls the Ford of France tossed a 10,000 franc (then $400) chip over his shoulder with the contemptuous remark "Be so kind, Madame, as to take this and stop breathing down the back of my neck...
...intimate friend of a famed saint. In his native Normandy many years ago Papa Cheron used to play the guitar while the "Little Flower," St. Therese of Lisieux, sang hymns. As Finance Minister in the successive ministries of Poincare, Briand, Tardieu, he helped to keep the franc stabilized after the crucial days of 1926-27, and left with a budget surplus of 19,000,000,000 francs. But ending inflation was a simple matter compared with cleaning up l'Affaire Stavisky. Frenchmen have forgotten about St. Therese and the budget of 1930. They only remember that the greatest political scandal...
That meant that France, Holland, Belgium and Switzerland must rally to a last desperate defense of their gold standards. Their first stand came quickly?when Liege, fourth city of Belgium, suddenly defaulted on its debts. The Government promptly stepped to its aid but pressure on the Belga spread to other gold-bloc currencies, and for the first time in two months the dollar rose to parity with the franc...
Next he assured the tax-paying rentiers that there would be no devaluation of the franc...
...advocates of devaluation would lead the franc to zero. They would ruin all France and finally ruin that famous French woolen stocking that people abroad sometimes laugh at because they are envious of it. Perhaps someone will say to me that the currency, once devalued, can be restored again. That is impossible when it no longer has any value. You cannot bring the dead back to life...