The Silent Witness: Charles VI’s Écu Amid France’s Collapse

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

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

the écu of Charles VI emerged as an unspoken testament to national endurance amid collapse.

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.

Even as France burned from within and without,

authorities kept turning out the écu,

a tradition dating back to the reign of Saint Louis.

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,

symbols of divine right and royal authority.

The reverse side displayed a radiant cross, each arm tipped with fleurs de lys, encircled by the Latin legend: "Carolus Dei gratia Francorum rex".

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

As the war dragged on, the value of the écu fluctuated,

inflation, debasement of the coinage, and the loss of territory to the English meant that the silver content of the coin was sometimes reduced.

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

Craftsmen, laborers, and warriors all bore these pieces in their pockets and purses,

each coin echoing the burden of royal insanity and collective survival.

By the time Charles VI died in 1422, France was divided.

The Treaty of Troyes had disinherited his son, the future Charles VII, アンティークコイン in favor of Henry V of England.

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

its likeness of the monarch still etched in the minds of those who remembered his reign.

Today, surviving examples of the écu of Charles VI are rare and prized by collectors.

Yet their true significance lies beyond coinage—they are relics of a society clinging to ritual and image amid collapse.

The coin tells a story not of triumph, but of persistence.

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