Double Tournois - Francis 12th type

Château-Regnault was a tiny principality on the Meuse in the Ardennes, held by the Gonzaga-Nevers line in the early seventeenth century. Its right to strike copper coinage was a jealously guarded feudal privilege, exercised intermittently and often in direct tension with French royal attempts to consolidate monetary authority in the region. The Double Tournois issues from this mint are rarely encountered in any condition, a product of both low original output and the principality's absorption into France not long after.