W. C a r e w H a z l i t t Coinage of the European Continent

Descriptive Outline of the Coinages of Europe 471
the aspect
is
uninviting, and the particulars are barely
intelligible even to French experts and a second and more
;
select category is precluded from crossing the frontier by its
rarity and price. French coins of a particular stamp are
like French books in French bindings ; and it is, perhaps, a
clue to the smallness of the original output, that certain
pieces in the collection at the Bibliotheque are unknown
elsewhere. In general the entire range from Louis II. to
Louis VIII. (877-1226), confined to the more strictly French
series, becomes a difficult problem in the experience of the
foreign amateur, more especially certain reigns, where we
meet concurrently with coins of German or Italian origin of
superior fabric and workmanship, and of more or less common
occurrence.
Regarding the state of preservation in which the ancient
French money has reached us, we discover that the phenomenon
is less connected with its chronological sequence than
with the metal of which it was composed and the degree of
care employed by the mint-master and his A staff. grave
difficulty and drawback in this series arose from the evident
want of skill or patience in preparing the metal and flans
even for the silver currency and this characteristic, which is
;
absent from the earlier coins, is very conspicuous in those
both of billon and finer quality from the fourteenth century
to the Revolution. Hardly one piece in fifty is round, and
there is not that slender proportion of entirely satisfactory
specimens. The most degraded epoch was probably that
between 1380 and 1610, comprising the reigns of eleven
monarchs ;
and although greater attention was paid to
the gold, the flan was often too small for the die, and in
other cases the pressure was insufficient to render the type.
A comparison of the Franco-Italian series is quite sufficient
to establish the great inferiority of the French one : a coin
of Louis XII. or Francis I. from an Italian hand powerfully
contrasts with one produced at home and when we
;
perceive
that the services of such men as Briot and Goffin were
secured even by its baronial subjects, and rejected by the
Crown, and contemplate the mournful gold coinage of Louis