Diversity in Numismatics
Cayman Islands


Obverse
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Reverse
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Coin Details

  

Set Details
Coin Description:
Grade: NGC AU 50
Owner: RAM-VT
 
Set Category: Other (Diverse collecting in the style of Garrett while on a very limited budget)
Set Name: Diversity in Numismatics
Slot Name: Cayman Islands
Research: See NGC's Census Report for this Coin

Owner's Description

France Louis XIV 1643 - 1715 Ecu - 1693X (Mint at Amiens) AU-50 KM #298.21/ DAV-3813 This Ecu was struck over an earlier Ecu also issued under Louis XIV. This “under” Ecu is a 1791-P issue - KM#275.13 Census - The only Ecu of this variety, date & mint mark certified by NGC Obv. King’s bust right Rev. – Crown round arms As best I can determine the under coin is a 1691 mm "P" ECU KM-275.13 Louis XIV (5 September 1638 – 1 September 1715), known as Louis the Great (French: "Louis le Grand") or the Sun King (French: le Roi-Soleil), was King of France and of Navarre. His reign, from 1643 to his death in 1715, began at the age of four and lasted seventy-two years, three months, and eighteen days. As such, it is one of the longest documented reigns of any European monarch. Louis began his personal rule of France in 1661 after the death of his chief minister, the Italian Cardinal Mazarin. An adherent of the theory of the divine right of kings, which advocates the divine origin and lack of temporal restraint of monarchical rule, Louis continued his predecessors' work of creating a centralized state governed from the capital. He sought to eliminate the remnants of feudalism persisting in parts of France and, by compelling the noble elite to inhabit his lavish Palace of Versailles, succeeded in pacifying the aristocracy, many members of which had participated in the Fronde (see below) rebellion during Louis' minority. By these means he consolidated a system of absolute monarchical rule in France that endured until the French Revolution. France was the leading European power and fought three major wars: the Franco-Dutch War, the War of the League of Augsburg, and the War of the Spanish Succession—and two minor conflicts—the War of Devolution and the War of the Reunions. Louis encouraged and benefited from the work of prominent political, military and cultural figures. Upon his death just days before his seventy-seventh birthday, Louis was succeeded by his five-year-old great-grandson, Louis XV. All his intermediate heirs predeceased him. The Fronde (1650–1653) was a civil war in France, occurring in the midst of the Franco-Spanish War, which had begun in 1635. The word fronde means sling, which Parisian mobs used to smash the windows of supporters of Cardinal Mazarin. The Fronde was divided into two campaigns, the Fronde of the parlements and the Fronde of the nobles. The timing of the outbreak of the Fronde des parlements, directly after the Peace of Westphalia (1648) that ended the Thirty Years War, was significant. The nuclei of armed bands under aristocratic leaders that terrorized parts of France had been hardened in a generation of war in Germany where troops still tended to operate autonomously. Louis XIV, impressed as a young ruler with the experience of the Fronde, came to reorganize French fighting forces under a stricter hierarchy whose leaders ultimately could be made or unmade by the King. Thus the Fronde finally resulted in the disempowerment of the territorial aristocracy and the emergence of absolute monarchy. My cost was $565.

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