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The Louis d'Or

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  24 July 2012

Shepard Pond
Shepard Pond
Affiliation:
Harvard '10, Ex-President, Boston Numismatic Society.
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Extract

Probably most Americans who read Dumas' immortal Three Musketeers and its sequels have no clear idea of the coins in question when the great novelist writes of pistoles and louis d'or. And though the louis d'or was coined for only about a century and a half, it has left, thanks to a fortunate combination of circumstances, a lasting mark in history.

Type
Other
Information
Business History Review , Volume 14 , Issue 5 , November 1940 , pp. 77 - 80
Copyright
Copyright © The President and Fellows of Harvard College 1940

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References

page 77 note 1 The livre tournois was the old French monetary unit. Never a coin but always a money of account, its value was very nearly but not quite equal to the franc,which superseded it in 1795.

page 77 note 2 Actually the French gold ran nearer .900 fine than .916.

page 78 note 1 Under Louis XIII four- and ten-louis pieces were struck, but as medallions rather than coins.

page 79 note 1 We who nowadays are so accustomed to see a value stamped on all our coins must remember that this is a comparatively recent practice. Witness the English sovereign and crown as survivors of the old custom.