Franc - Henry IV

Henry IV struck francs from multiple mints simultaneously during the 1590s while still fighting to secure his throne against the Catholic League — a civil war that had fractured French minting authority for decades. The 1593 date is particularly charged: it was the year Henry publicly converted from Protestantism to Catholicism at Saint-Denis, famously remarking (apocryphally or not) that "Paris is worth a mass." The conversion unlocked Paris itself, but royal coinage was already being produced across loyalist provincial mints well before the capital fell.

Gadoury's R1 rarity rating for this type reflects genuinely thin survival numbers across most mint attributions.