During the final decades of the 1300s and the opening years of the 1400s

France struggled through the turmoil of the Hundred Years’ War and internal political chaos,

a single silver piece silently bore witness to a kingdom’s anguish and endurance—the écu minted under Charles VI.

Charles VI, known later as Charles the Mad

became king in infancy and presided over an era defined by chaos and crisis.

His rule was shattered by recurring episodes of insanity, deepening the rift between the Burgundian and Armagnac factions.

Amid relentless internal conflict and relentless English offensives,

authorities kept turning out the écu,

a monetary symbol rooted in the legacy of Louis IX.

The écu of Charles VI was struck in fine silver and bore the image of the king standing beneath a canopy, holding a scepter and the fleur de lys,

emblems of God-given sovereignty and monarchical power.

Flanked by the Latin phrase "Carolus Dei gratia Francorum rex," the reverse bore a fleur-de-lys-decorated cross, spreading outward like divine light.

The design was elegant, deliberate, and meant to project stability—even when the realm was anything but.

With the war’s relentless toll, the coin’s purchasing power grew erratic,

rising prices, deliberate alloying of the metal, and territorial losses to England forced minters to cut the silver purity.

The portrait of Charles VI persisted, a steadfast symbol in a landscape of betrayal and fractured oaths.

Traders, farmers, and foot soldiers passed these coins from hand to hand,

each piece bearing the silent legacy of a monarch’s collapse and a people’s perseverance.

When Charles VI passed away in 1422, the kingdom lay in shards.

Through the Treaty of Troyes, France’s throne was legally transferred from Charles VI’s son to the English monarch Henry V.

But even as the English claimed the French crown, the écu continued to circulate.

the king’s face, though no longer ruling, アンティークコイン remained deeply familiar to the populace.

Only a handful of these coins endure today, making them coveted treasures among historians and collectors alike.

More than currency, they embody a people’s desperate grasp at dignity and structure while their world disintegrated.

Its legacy is not conquest, but the stubborn will to carry on.

the steadfast dignity of subjects who honored the coin, though their king had lost his mind