ECU FIGURANT « LE ROI ENFANT À LA MÈCHE LONGUE »

Atelier monétaire d’Angers
1647
Achat du musée en vente publique, 2008
Provenant du trésor de Montrichard (Indre-et-Loire)

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In 1647, Louis XIV is only four years old. He’s depicted from profile, wearing a laurel crown, a Saint Esprit insigna and an armor. The letter F on one of the side attests the coin was created in Angers. 

Found in a treasure that was buried around 1661, the coin didn’t travel much. The existence of that treasure can’t be explain yet. 

collectivehistory:

A 1691 French map of the city of Kamianets-Podilskyi, located in western Ukraine.

Blind Orion Searching for the Rising Sun, 1658
Nicolas Poussin (French, 1594–1665)
Oil on canvas

46 7/8 x 72 in. (119.1 x 182.9 cm)
Fletcher Fund, 1924 (24.45.1)

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For his depiction of the gigantic hunter, Poussin drew on the Greek writer Lucian (De domo 27–29): “Orion, who is blind, is carrying Cedalion, and the latter, riding on his back, is showing him the way to the sunlight. The rising sun is healing [his] blindness.” Poussin also studied a sixteenth-century commentary on the tale by Natalis Comes, which offers a meteorological interpretation. Accordingly he added Diana, standing upon the clouds that wreathe Orion’s face, symbol of the power of the moon to gather the earth’s vapors and turn them into rain. Toward the end of his life, Poussin scrutinized pebbles, moss, flowers, and plants, and his landscapes—such as this one, painted for Michel Passart in 1658—evoke the earth’s early history in showing nature abundant and uncultivated.

Statue of 17th century privateer Jean Bart in Dunkirk, France

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Jean Bart (21 October 1650 – 27 April 1702) was a French sailor who served the French crown as naval commander and privateer.

When he was young, Bart served in the Dutch navy under Admiral Michiel de Ruyter. When war broke out between France and the United Provinces in 1672, he entered the French service. Since persons not of noble birth in those days couldn’t obtain the rank of officer in the navy, he became captain of one of the Dunkirk privateers. In this capacity he displayed astonishing bravery, so that Louis XIV sent him on a special mission to the Mediterranean, where he gained great distinction.

Unable due to his low birth to receive a command in the navy, he held an irregular sort of commission, but he had such success, however, that he became a lieutenant in 1679. He became a terror to the Dutch navy and a serious menace to the commerce of Holland. On one occasion, with six vessels, he broke through a blockading fleet, shattered a number of the enemy’s ships, and convoyed a transport of grain safely into Dunkirk harbor. He rose rapidly to the rank of captain and then to that of admiral.

He achieved his greatest successes during the Nine Years’ War (1688–1697).

• In 1689, in the beginning of this war he was captured by the English, together with Claude de Forbin, and taken to Plymouth. But 3 days later, they succeeded in escaping to Brittany in a rowboat, together with 20 other sailors.

• In 1691 he slipped through the blockade of Dunkirk, terrorizing the allied merchant fleet and burning a Scottish castle and four villages.

• In 1694 he achieved his greatest success in the Action of 29 June 1694, when he captured a huge convoy of Dutch grain ships, saving Paris from starvation.

• In 1696 he struck another blow against the Dutch in the Battle of Dogger Bank (1696).

The Peace of Ryswick (1697) put a close to his active service.

Le Jeu du Monde dédié à Monsieur, Monsieur le Comte de Vivone, premier gentilhome de chambre du Roy par son très humble et très obéissant serviteur Duval 

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A goose game dedicated to the Comte de Vivone. Instead of the geese are depicted parts of the world, from the further away from France to France - the game was gallo centric). It was aimed to be a pedagogic game, 

 French castle at Fort Niagara. Fort Niagara is a fortification located near Youngstown, New York, on the eastern bank of the Niagara River at its mouth, on Lake Ontario.

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René-Robert Cavelier, Sieur de La Salle built the first structure, called Fort Conti, in 1678. In 1687, the Governor of New France, the Marquis de Denonville, constructed a new fort at the former site of Fort Conti. He named it Fort Denonville and posted a hundred men under the command of Capt. Pierre de Troyes, Chevalier de Troyes. The winter weather and disease was severe, and all but twelve perished by the time a relief force returned from Montreal. It was decided in September 1688 to abandon the post and the stockade was pulled down. In 1726, a two story “Maison a Machicoulis” or “Machicolated House” was constructed on the same site by French engineer Gaspard-Joseph Chaussegros de Lery. It was called the “House of Peace” or trading post to appease the Haudenosaunee, or Iroquois. The name used today, “The French Castle” was not used until the 19th Century. The fort was expanded to its present size in 1755 due to increased tensions between French and British colonial interests.

Élisabeth Sophie Chéron, self-portrait, 1672

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Élisabeth Sophie Chéron (3 October 1648, Paris – 3 September 1711, Paris) is remembered today primarily as a French painter, but she was acclaimed in her lifetime as a gifted poet, musician, artist, and academicienne.

She was trained by her artist father, while still a child, in the arts of enamelling and miniature painting. Her father was a rigid Calvinist, and endeavored to influence his daughter to adopt his religious belief, but her mother was a fervent Roman Catholic, and she persuaded Elizabeth to pass a year in a convent, during which time she ardently embraced the Catholic faith. At 22 she was admitted to the Académie Royale de Peinture et de Sculpture as a portrait painter under the sponsorship of the influential artist Charles Le Brun. She was the fourth woman painter to enter the academy, nine years after Catherine Girardon, and three years after Madeleine and Geneviève, the two daughters of Louis de Boullogne.

She exhibited regularly at the Salon, and at the same time produced poetry and translations. She was fluent in Hebrew, Greek, and Latin. She published her book of Psalm paraphrases in 1694, as the, Essay de pseaumes et cantiques mis en vers, et enrichis de figures. Her literary talent was recognized in 1699 when she was named a member of the Accademia dei Ricovrati, in Padua, under the academician name of Erato. Her Psalms were later set to music by Jean-Baptiste Drouard de Bousset and Antonia Bembo, a Venetian noblewoman.

She was an affectionate daughter to both her parents and devoted her earnings to her brother Louis, who studied art in Italy. She was indifferent to proposals of marriage throughout her life, many from brilliant men in her intellectual circle. In 1692, at age 60, and to the surprise of her friends she married Jacques Le Hay, the King’s engineer, after which she was known as Madame Le Hay.

She died at aged sixty-three and is buried in the church of Saint Sulpice, Paris

Cravat End

Date:late 17th centuryCulture:FrenchMedium:Linen, needle lace (point de France)

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The lavish use of expensive Venetian laces at the court of Louis XIV convinced his finance minister, Jean-Baptiste Colbert, to establish a competing French lace industry. The term point de France originally referred to both needle and bobbin lace made in France, but eventually became synonymous with French needle lace characterized by a hexagonal background mesh covered with buttonhole stitches and embellished with tiny projections known as picots. 
This cravat with a hunting theme was reputedly part of a set made in 1697 for the marriage of Marie-Adelaide of Savoy and Louis XIV’s grandson the duc de Bourgogne.

Partisan of the Gardes de la Manche, 1679 © Army Museum, Dist. RMN photo Pascal Segrette

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The Gardes de la Manche (literally “guards of the sleeve”) were the closest guards to the King, so close they touched his sleeve. In 1679, they were given new tabards and weapons. The Herculean symbolism, inherited from Henry IV, was replaced in their decorations by the solar symbolism adopted by Louis XIV circa 1662.

Indeed, the iron of the partisans represents the world (a globe) above which flies a chariot driven by Mars, the god of war (the King). This chariot, drawn by four horses, crushes the eagle (the Holy Empire) and the lion (often associated with England but representing Spain in this context). The King is crowned with the victor’s laurels by an allegory of Renown, under the radiant sun surrounded by the motto NEC PLURIBUS IMPAR.

Jean Bérain (1640-1711) was entrusted with making these weapons. In 1675, he began designing the costumes and decorations for the events - carrousels, funerals as well as parties and operas - held at the Court of France.

Maison Royale de Saint Louis

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The Maison Royale de Saint-Louis was a ‘pensionnat’ or boarding school for girls set up in 1684 at Saint-Cyr (what is now the commune of Saint-Cyr-l’École, Yvelines) in France by king Louis XIV at the request of his second wife, Madame de Maintenon, who wanted a school for girls from impoverished noble families. The establishment lost its leading role on the deaths of Louis and then Maintenon, but it nevertheless marked an evolution in female education under the Ancien régime. Its notable students included the Maintenon’s niece Marthe-Marguerite Le Valois de Villette de Mursay, marquise de Caylus, and Napoleon’s sister Élisa Bonaparte, grand duchess of Tuscany.

It remained in existence during the first years of the French Revolution, but closed for good in March 1793, with its empty buildings being taken over by the École spéciale militaire de Saint-Cyr in 1808. However, the Maison royale later provided Napoleon with the inspiration for his Maison des demoiselles de la Légion d’honneur, which still exists as the Maison d’éducation de la Légion d’honneur.