Charleville was carved out as an independent principality in 1606 by Charles de Gonzague, Duke of Nevers, who obtained the right to strike coinage from the Holy Roman Emperor — a deliberate end-run around French royal authority over minting. By the 1630s, the principality's copper coinage was circulating well beyond its borders, notorious enough that Paris repeatedly attempted to suppress it. The sixth type marks a late phase of this jurisdictional friction, issued just years before French pressure finally curtailed the mint's independence.
Charleville was carved out as an independent principality in 1606 by Charles de Gonzague, Duke of Nevers, who obtained the right to strike coinage from the Holy Roman Emperor — a deliberate end-run around French royal authority over minting. By the 1630s, the principality's copper coinage was circulating well beyond its borders, notorious enough that Paris repeatedly attempted to suppress it. The sixth type marks a late phase of this jurisdictional friction, issued just years before French pressure finally curtailed the mint's independence.