Faux écu - Honoré II

Honoré II secured recognition of Monegasque sovereignty from Louis XIII in 1641 — the Treaty of Péronne that ended Spanish suzerainty over the rock. This coin was struck just fourteen years later, during a reign in which Honoré was aggressively asserting Monaco's independent identity through coinage. The "faux écu" designation reflects a denomination calibrated to approximate the French écu without formal equivalence, a deliberate ambiguity that suited a principality navigating between French protection and autonomous monetary pretension.