GROUPS OF COINS WITH A HISTORY. I BY WILLIAM S. CHURCHILL. AM quite conscious to myself that the title of this paper conveys but little idea of what it is intended to describe. It would doubtless have been better had I given in as its subject a short account of some coins or types that have attained a remarkable degree of popularity; this, in fact, is all that I venture to aim at, and out of the many instances available for selection, I propose to take an example from French annals and another from the Austrian. The one I take first is almost well nigh forgotten, whilst the second example is still in full vigour of life and activity at the present moment. The past history of the French coinage presents remarkable contrasts to that of England. Contemporaneous with the issues from the numerous royal mints, the more illustrious of the seigneurial houses also exercised the right to coin money. It will be remembered that almost up to the beginning of the sixteenth century some considerable portions of what is now called France were quite independent of French monarchs. Brittany, Burgundy, Franche-Comté, Navarre, and Lorraine all had their own separate issues of money. The existence of these different coinages side by side might be one reason why, after the royal authority had been gradually extended in one way or another over the whole |