egularly exported from
Birmingham to Athens, for the supply of our travelled gentlemen; and, if
groats and pennies should ever rise in the market, I doubt not but that
they will find their way in plenty into the old towns of Normandy. There
is not, at Rouen, any public collection of the productions of the mint.
Since the annexation of the duchy to the crown of France, no coins have
been struck here, except the common silver currency of the kingdom: the
manufacture of medals and of gold coins is exclusively the privilege of
the Parisian mint. The establishment is under the care of a commissary
and assay-master, appointed by the crown, but not salaried. Their pay
depends upon the amount of money coined, on which they are allowed one
and a half per cent., and are left to find silver where they can; so
that, in effect, it is little more than a private concern. The work is
performed by four die-presses, moved by levers, each of which requires
ten men; and about twenty thousand pieces can be produced daily from
each press. But this method of working is attended with unequal
pressure, and causes both trouble and uncertainty: it is even necessary
that each coin should be separately weighed. The extreme superiority of
the machinery of our own mint, where the whole operation is performed by
steam, with a rapidity and accuracy altogether astonishing, affords Just
reason for exultation to an Englishman.--It is true, that the execution
of our bank paper rather counterbalances such feelings of complacency.

Footnotes:

[105] This appears from the following inscription now upon a silver
tablet placed near it.--"Ce tableau est celui qui fut donne par Louis
XII, en 1499, a l'Exchiquier, lorsqu'il le rendit permanent. C'est le
seul de tous les ornemens de ce palais qui ait echappe aux ravages de la
revolution: il a ete conserve par les soins de M. Gouel, graveur, et par
lui remis a la cour royale de Rouen qui l'a fait placer ici, comme un
monument de la piete d'un roi, a qui sa bonte merita le surnom de pere
du peuple, et dont les vertus se reproduisent aujourd'hui dans la
personne non moins cherie que sacree de sa majeste tres chretienne,
Louis XVIII, 15 Janvier, 1816."

[106] Du Cange, (I. p. 24.) quoting from a book printed at Rouen, in
1587, under the title of _Les Triomphes de l'Abbaye des Conards_, &c.
gives the following curious mock patent from the abbot of this
confraternity, addressed to somebody of the name of De Montalinos.