Joseph, however, smiled and said, "No, not only can't we raise the interest rate, we actually need to lower it..."
"Ah? But then we'll sell even less, Your Highness."
Joseph swept his eyes over the assembled officials, but simply instructed Godan: "Please make preparations according to the sale of 130 million francs in government bonds."
The Minister of Finance nodded in astonishment, "Yes, Your Highness."
The French Government currently owed less than 1.4 billion francs in foreign debt, with very low interest—almost no pressure to repay—so there was a great deal of room for borrowing. According to the last report from the Ministry of Finance, France's debt ceiling was roughly 2.7 billion francs. As long as it stayed below that figure, the financial situation wouldn't deteriorate.
Indeed, nowadays France's debt-servicing capacity had greatly improved—back in the day, with twenty billion in debt, repayment had become impossible.
