THE ROYAL ARTILLERY INSTITUTION. 
298 
des Comptes at Paris. This author, whose care and correctness are unim¬ 
peachable, quotes a passage from the accounts of Bartholomew du Drach, 
treasurer of wars, who paid money <e h Henri de Paumechon pour avoir 
poudres et autres choses necessaires aux canons qui estoient devant Puy- 
Guillaume/” 1 
It is to be regretted that Ducange did not give the entire document, from 
which we might probably have gathered the cost and consequently approxi¬ 
mately the size of these cannon. 
About the same date, however, we find two receipts in the same chamber of 
accounts, one of which supplies us with the data to estimate the size of the 
cannon then in use : the other with the price of the materials of gunpowder. 
Both of these documents were published by M. Leon Lacabane, in his learned 
treatise on gunpowder. 2 
The first is a receipt for 25 livres, 3 in payment for ten cannon, five of 
brass, and five of iron, for the defence of Cambray. It is as follows 4 :— 
“ Sachent tuit que nous, Ilugues, sires de Cardilhac et de Bieule, chevaliers, 
avons eu et receu de mons r . le Galois de la Balmes, maistre des arbalestriers, pour 
1 Ducange. Glossarium. article ‘ Bombarda. “ Illius ab ann. 1338, in Gallia usum fuisse docefc 
Computum Bartholomsei du Dracb Thesaurarii guerrarum istius anni: a Henri &c.’” 
2 De la poudre a canon et de son introduction en Erance, par M. Leon Lacabane. Paris, 1845. 
3 It is very difficult to obtain sound information as to the value of money at the period we are 
discussing, as so many points have to be considered before a correct estimate can be formed. 
First, we must determine the actual weight of silver represented by the term ‘ livre 5 or ‘pound,’ 
and then, the weight of metal being known, its value in relation to the ordinary commodities of life 
must be ascertained. 
French money especially was from time to time degraded by the rapacity or ignorance of the 
kings, who, to conceal their tampering with the coin, compelled the people to reckon at one time 
in crowns or 5cus, at another time in livres and sols, and sometimes in fractional parts of one or the 
other. 
From the days of Charlemagne to 1103, the livre contained exactly one pound weight of pure 
silver, and was divided into twenty sols, and each sol into twelve deniers. The weight of the livre 
was first reduced by Philip I ; and its value was constantly lowered by one method or another, till, 
in the reigns of Charles IY. and Philip VI. (1322-1350), it did not contain more than between one- 
fifth and one-sixth of a pound weight of silver and, at the Revolution in 1789, it contained less than 
one seventy-eighth part of a pound. 
As far as weight of silver is concerned, the livre of the second quarter of the fourteenth century 
was equal to about 14J- francs of the present coinage. 
English money, though much depreciated, never sunk to the same extent as the French ; nor was 
it tampered with till the 28th year of Edward the First (1300). Previous to that year, the pound 
(tower weight, rather less than troy weight), was coined into twenty shillings, and each shilling into 
twelve pence or sterlings; and, till the end of the first half of the fourteenth century, the decrease 
in value was very small. 
One pound (troy weight) of silver is now coined into sixty-six shillings, so that the shilling of the 
earlier part of Edward the Third’s reign was worth about three and a half shillings of the present 
day, as far as weight of metal is concerned. 
The method generally adopted to estimate the relative value of money as an article of exchange is 
to compare the prices of corn at different periods. By this test, which is not altogether fan*, the 
pound or shilling in the first half of the fourteenth century was worth about fifteen times as much 
as the coin of the same denomination is now.—Encyclopaedia Britannica. Article, Money.—Le 
Blanc, Traits Historique des Monnayes de France—Ruding, Annals of the Coinage of England, 
4 B. R. original parchemin, parmi les titres scell^s de Clairambault. Yol, 25, fol. 1825. 
