Colonial Acres Coins
SKU: SKU:xDOD-N091
France 1699 Louis XIV 4 Deniers with BB Mint Mark (Strasbourg) DOD
France 1699 Louis XIV 4 Deniers with BB Mint Mark (Strasbourg) DOD
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France 1699 Louis XIV 4 Deniers with BB Mint Mark (Strasbourg) DOD
King of France during Le Grand Siècle (The Great Century), Louis XIV (1638-1715) has come to be known as both Louis the Great and the Sun King. This thrilling period of French history gave rise to brilliant innovations in art, architecture, science, literature, theatre, and music. It was also a time of violence, defined by despotism, colonial brutality, and constant war. Perhaps nothing symbolizes Louis' reign like the Palace of Versailles, a spectacular feat of creativity and engineering that embodies French elegance and grandeur -- as well as extravagance, absolutism, and outrageous excess. When he died in 1715, aged 76, Louis had positioned France as Europe's strongest military power, established it as the brightest star of the Enlightenment, and propelled French culture to the height of sophistication. This had a downside, however: an absolutely staggering amount of debt, which Louis would leave to his five-year-old great-grandson and heir, Louis XV. In just two generations, the decadence, the splendour, and the absurd extravagance of the ancien régime would come crashing down in the French Revolution.
The BB Mint mark, visible on this example of a Louis XIV 4 denier coin, indicates that the coin was struck at the Strasbourg mint. Formerly a free imperial city of the Holy Roman Empire, Strasbourg had joined France relatively recently, in 1681. It was to be returned in 1704, but the War of the League of Augsburg led to its permanent annexation in 1697.
King of France during Le Grand Siècle (The Great Century), Louis XIV (1638-1715) has come to be known as both Louis the Great and the Sun King. This thrilling period of French history gave rise to brilliant innovations in art, architecture, science, literature, theatre, and music. It was also a time of violence, defined by despotism, colonial brutality, and constant war. Perhaps nothing symbolizes Louis' reign like the Palace of Versailles, a spectacular feat of creativity and engineering that embodies French elegance and grandeur -- as well as extravagance, absolutism, and outrageous excess. When he died in 1715, aged 76, Louis had positioned France as Europe's strongest military power, established it as the brightest star of the Enlightenment, and propelled French culture to the height of sophistication. This had a downside, however: an absolutely staggering amount of debt, which Louis would leave to his five-year-old great-grandson and heir, Louis XV. In just two generations, the decadence, the splendour, and the absurd extravagance of the ancien régime would come crashing down in the French Revolution.
The BB Mint mark, visible on this example of a Louis XIV 4 denier coin, indicates that the coin was struck at the Strasbourg mint. Formerly a free imperial city of the Holy Roman Empire, Strasbourg had joined France relatively recently, in 1681. It was to be returned in 1704, but the War of the League of Augsburg led to its permanent annexation in 1697.
