Double Tournois - Henry IV Lyon for Dauphiné

The double tournois struck at Lyon for Dauphiné represents one of the administrative curiosities of French provincial coinage — Dauphiné retained its own monetary identity well into the Bourbon period, requiring specific attribution on coinage despite full integration into the French crown since 1349. Henry IV's copper issues were themselves politically charged; his monetary reforms of the 1590s and early 1600s followed decades of religious civil war that had left the coinage debased and counterfeiting rampant across the southern provinces. Lyon, as a major commercial hub on the Rhône corridor, was one of the busiest ateliers for small copper denominations precisely because the region's trade fairs demanded enormous quantities of low-value specie.