Definition
Money of adieu is a term drawn from French provincial law referring to earnest money — a sum given by the buyer to the seller at the moment the parties conclude and seal their bargain by parting. The payment marked the transaction as complete and binding at the moment of separation. The term is a provincialism specific to the Orleans region of France and is not the standard French legal vocabulary; the ordinary French term for earnest money is arrhes.
The concept is functionally equivalent to earnest money in common law systems: a small sum tendered at the time of contracting as evidence that the bargain is struck and, depending on the governing law, either as part payment or as a pledge forfeited upon breach.
Common Confusion
Money of adieu should not be confused with arrhes, the standard French civil law term for earnest money, though both describe the same underlying transaction mechanism. Pothier treats money of adieu as a regional linguistic variant, not a doctrinally distinct institution. Researchers who encounter arrhes in French legal sources and money of adieu in English-language digests of French law are reading descriptions of the same practice through different terminological lenses.
Why It Matters in Research
This term appears almost exclusively in nineteenth-century Anglo-American digests of French and civil law, most often in discussions of the law of sales and the enforceability of contracts. It is not a term of art in any American or English common law jurisdiction and will not appear in domestic statutes, case reporters, or modern treatises as an operative legal concept.
Researchers tracing the history of earnest money doctrine will find money of adieu cited as comparative support — evidence that the civil law tradition recognized the same function that arles, earnest, or earnest money served at common law. The Pothier citation (Contrat de Vente, No. 507) is the anchor source for this term across all three historical dictionaries; any deeper research into the doctrine should begin there.
The principal research trap is geographic and terminological: money of adieu is identified as a provincialism of Orleans, which means it may not appear even in comprehensive French legal dictionaries of the period. Researchers searching French primary sources using this English rendering of the phrase will likely find nothing. The concept must be sought under arrhes in French sources.
The term has no meaningful modern usage. It surfaces in legal dictionaries as a historical artifact and a bridge concept for comparative law discussions, not as a live doctrine.
Historical Dictionary Support
All three source dictionaries agree on the essential definition: money of adieu is earnest money in French provincial law, given at parting upon conclusion of a sale. The sourcing converges uniformly on Pothier's Contrat de Vente, No. 507, which is the originating authority for the English-language reception of this term.
Burrill's Law Dictionary adds the most texture, quoting Pothier's explanation of the etymology directly: the payment is given when the parties, having concluded their bargain, separate and say "adieu." Burrill then raises a passing alternative — whether the term might derive from the French monier (moneyer) — before abandoning it, suggesting some nineteenth-century uncertainty about the phrase's origins even among careful lexicographers. Black's and Rapalje & Lawrence both accept the parting-at-conclusion explanation without reservation.
None of the three dictionaries address what consequences followed from the payment — whether money of adieu functioned as earnest forfeitable on breach, as part payment recoverable on rescission, or as something else. Pothier's Contrat de Vente distinguishes between arrhes that are forfeited on breach and arrhes that are treated as part payment, and researchers should not assume that money of adieu occupied a settled position on that spectrum simply because English digests treat it as a synonym for earnest money.
Burrill's entry is also notable for appending — apparently mid-entry — the unrelated headword MONEYER, suggesting a typographical or editorial artifact in that edition. Researchers using Burrill should treat the MONEYER discussion as a separate entry that was run together in some printings.
Jurisdictional Note
Money of adieu is a term of French provincial law with no direct counterpart in American, English, or Scottish law as an operative doctrine. Its appearance in Anglo-American dictionaries reflects the comparative and civilian influence on nineteenth-century legal scholarship, not any reception of the term into common law jurisdictions.