Godefroy Maurice de la Tour d'Auvergne ruled Bouillon as a sovereign prince while simultaneously serving as a marshal of France under Louis XIV — a dual loyalty that defined the duchy's peculiar position: nominally independent, practically a French client state on the Meuse. The billon double issued under his name in 1683 reflects that ambiguity; the denomination itself mirrors French small coinage of the period almost exactly, a deliberate alignment with the currency of a kingdom that would formally absorb Bouillon entirely in 1678 under the Treaty of Nijmegen, though the de la Tour family retained titular sovereignty for another generation.
Godefroy Maurice de la Tour d'Auvergne ruled Bouillon as a sovereign prince while simultaneously serving as a marshal of France under Louis XIV — a dual loyalty that defined the duchy's peculiar position: nominally independent, practically a French client state on the Meuse. The billon double issued under his name in 1683 reflects that ambiguity; the denomination itself mirrors French small coinage of the period almost exactly, a deliberate alignment with the currency of a kingdom that would formally absorb Bouillon entirely in 1678 under the Treaty of Nijmegen, though the de la Tour family retained titular sovereignty for another generation.