Banque de France

This puzzles me some:

The Bank of England had come close to failing altogether in 1825; only the transfer of substantial gold reserves from the Banque de France kept it afloat.

Isn't this as if the Bank of Germany were to prop up the Bank of America in 1955 with a transfer of gold? How could the banking system of a defeated and exhausted (and Revolution prone) France have been in so much stronger a position in 1825 than its British counterpart?