A type of paper money or promissory note issued by the French government during the Revolutionary period, originally backed by confiscated church property.
From French 'assignat,' derived from 'assigner' (to assign or allocate). The term refers to currency assigned or allocated to citizens during the French Revolution as payment backed by revolutionary property seizures.
Assignats were one of history's most catastrophic currency experiments—they promised to be backed by stolen church lands, but printing presses ran wild and the currency collapsed so completely that 'assignat' became synonymous with worthless money.
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