Liard - Henry II

Henry II of Dombes — son of the celebrated Françoise de Bourbon — ruled the principality through the final convulsions of the French Wars of Religion and into the uneasy peace of Henri IV's early reign. Dombes retained the right to strike its own coinage as a sovereign fief, a privilege jealously maintained despite repeated pressure from the French crown to consolidate monetary authority. The liard, a low-denomination billon piece, was the workhorse of local exchange throughout this period.

The span 1594–1610 brackets the Edict of Nantes and ends with Henri IV's assassination — turbulent decades during which small coinage in the Auvergne-adjacent territories circulated heavily and wore accordingly.