The Loan of Summer 1855 (L'Illustration : journal universel, August 4, 1855) - Worms

"On July 2, 1855 during an extraordinary session of Parliament the Government proposed the subscription of a loan of 750 million to which 30 million were added to cover any costs. The law of July 11, 1855, passed unanimously, set the conditions, leaving the choice between subscribing to a 4 ½ % annuity at 92.25, or a 3 % annuity at 65.5 (or rather, in reality, taking into account bonuses, 89.46 for the 4 ½ %, 63.27 for the 3 %). MAGNE initially thought of admitting only annuity holders, to enable them to compensate for the depreciation of annuities caused by the war, but the Emperor refused. Small subscriptions were also irreducible, i.e. the only ones exempt from the reduction proportional to the final number of subscribers. Success was immense: 316,864 subscribers offered a capital of 3,652,591,985 F, which was reduced to 779,459,425 F for a total of 36,089,500 annuity securities (4,389,760 4 ½ % annuities and 31,699,740 3 ½ % annuities). Despite these large sums, the annuity price had risen from 65.90 to 66.90 F. Bonapartist newspapers spoke of "universal capital suffrage" once again coming to support the regime." (Guy Antonetti et al., Les Ministres des Finances de la Révolution française au Second Empire, Dictionnaire biographique 1848-1870, t. 3, Institut de la gestion publique et du développement économique, Comité pour l'histoire économique et financière de la France, 2007, art. Pierre Magne)