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As the 14th century gave way to the 15th

France was torn apart by war abroad and civil strife at home,

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

Charles VI, infamously dubbed "Charles the Mad"

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

His reign was marked by bouts of severe mental illness that left the kingdom vulnerable to factional struggles between the Burgundians and the Armagnacs.

Yet even amid civil strife and English invasions,

the king’s mint persisted in striking the écu,

a coin that had been in use since the reign of Louis IX.

This silver coin featured the king, regal and upright, sheltered by a canopy, clutching both the royal scepter and the sacred fleur de lys,

signs of sacred kingship and legitimate rule.

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

An artfully composed motif, meticulously chosen to suggest control and continuity, even as the realm spiraled into disorder.

As the conflict stretched into decades, the écu’s worth became unstable,

economic strain, deliberate reduction of precious metal content, and English occupation of key provinces led to gradual devaluation.

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

Traders, アンティークコイン farmers, and foot soldiers passed these coins from hand to hand,

each one carrying the weight of a king’s madness and a nation’s endurance.

At the moment of Charles VI’s death in 1422, France was no longer a unified realm.

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

As Henry V assumed the French crown, the people still trusted and traded with Charles VI’s coin.

its image of the French king still familiar to the people who had lived under his rule.

Modern numismatists treasure the few remaining écus of Charles VI as rare and invaluable artifacts.

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 quiet dignity of a people who kept using the currency of their king, even when he could no longer rule them