Six-livre écu (constitutional monarchy type)

A silver écu of 6 livres struck under the constitutional monarchy, cut with the name of Louis XVI. It is an actual piece of the specie still moving through the market around the time the Revolution began as a crisis of finance. But as the value of paper fell, this good coin was hoarded and disappeared from the market. The Revolution began in debt, ate first the wealth of the church, then the savings of the people through the assignat, and at the last returned to metal. This is one of the vanished specie pieces on the metal side of that story.