On July 22, 1659, Cardinal Jules Mazarin, prime minister of the French king Louis XIV, and consequently King Louis III of Navarre, arrived in the sovereign Principality of Bidazun.
There, at the dinner organized at the end of the day, Antoine III., Sovereign Prince of Bidaxun, Count of Agaramont, Marshal of France, Viceroy of Bearn and Navarre and Mayor of Bayonne, honored and flattered him in his castle of Bidaxun… The Count of Agaramont, here we find one of the fruitful branches of the Agramontes, the Navarrese banderizos. The adventures of this family, after the conquest carried out by the false Fernando, are enough to write an entire book; and among the honors they accumulated during these adventures was that of mayor and leader of Bayonne.
Cardinal Jules Mazarin, Prime Minister of France and Antoine III. Count of Agaramont and Mayor of Bayonne – Wikipedia Commons
On July 23, thanks to the ships prepared by the city of Bayonne, Cardinal Mazarin arrived in Bayonne down the Atturri River. Our mayor and prince were with him.
Castle of the Prince of Bidajún, head of the Sovereign Principality of Bidajún – Wikipedia Commons
After spending a few days at the bishop's residence in Bayonne, Jules Mazarin arrived in Saint-Jean-de-Luz on July 28. This town in the northern Basque Country would be his residence for the following months.
According to many historians, Mazarin stayed at the Daskonagerre house until he left the town in mid-November. The reason for his arrival was to conclude negotiations with the Prime Minister of the Kingdom of Spain, Don Luis de Haro, to agree on a peace treaty between the two kingdoms.
Initially, Mazarin offered the Spanish the convent of the Recollects of Saint-Jean-de-Luz as the seat of peace negotiations, but the Spanish were wary of negotiating on French territory. Consequently, the island of Companhia, located right on the border, in the middle of the Bidasoa River, was chosen for these peace talks. In addition to Companhia, this island has also been called Faisai Island or Hospital Island.
On August 5, forty carpenters and five or six architects set out from Saint-Jean-de-Luz to the island of Compiègne, with the aim of building a pavilion to be used for the peace talks. Two days later, the number of workers on the island had reached two hundred. They were divided in two, with a line separating the French and Spanish and a fence between the buildings. Inside the pavilion, the line that divided the conference room into two halves marked the side of each delegation. Next to the conference room, private rooms were prepared for Louis de Haro, Mazarin and their assistants; each room, of course, on the side of each participant, was on its own side.
The organization of the Companhia Island preserved by the Bayonne Municipal Archives and Library
The peace conferences began on 13 August and consisted of a total of 25 conference sessions, each lasting at least five hours. During the sixth conference, it was agreed to send Antoine III, Duke of Agaramont, Marshal of France and Mayor of Bayonne, as Louis XIV's ambassador to Madrid, with the task of conveying the marriage proposal of the Infanta Maria Teresa, daughter of King Philip IV.
On November 7, 1659, during the 24th Conference, Louis de Haro and Jules Mazarin signed a 124-article peace treaty known as the "Pyrenees Treaty".
Thousands of texts and opinions have already been written about this agreement and we will not dwell on it here. As far as the Basques are concerned, there is nothing new under the sky; Lapurdi, Behenafarroa and Zuberoa would remain under the rule of “Le roy chez chrestien de France et de Navarre”, Louis XIV, and Gipuzkoa, Araba, Bizkaia and Upper Navarre under the rule of “Rey Catholico de las Españas” Philip IV. However, taking into account article 22 of the peace treaty of Vervins of 1598, which is mentioned in article 90 of the agreement, Louis XIV made it clear that he did not renounce his rights over Upper Navarre. Philip IV did the same in article 21, guaranteeing the rights that belonged to the Duchy of Burgundy.
On November 12, during the 25th and final conference, while the two delegations were bidding farewell to each other, the Duke of Agaramont and the mayor of Bayonne arrived from Madrid. He brought encouraging news about the mandate he had received. Louis XIV guaranteed the marriage contract and peace treaty in Toulouse on November 24, and Philip IV did the same in Madrid on December 1.
Jules Mazarin could have gone to his king. Mazarin would not have missed Saint-Jean-de-Luz, he found the town dull and the climate unhealthy. As he wrote in a letter sent in September, “After this, know that I will not stay in this town for long, unless I want to spend some time here learning Basque and learning to skip like they do, or because I have made up my mind that I do not want to leave here, or because I want to catch a whale.” He was forced to return to Saint-Jean-de-Luz the following year, as we will soon see.
The meetings and comings and goings of this prime minister and his entourage of nobles, assistants and foreign ambassadors brought a tremendous boom in trade to the Northern Basque Country. Accommodation, food and drink, clothing, transport and services were needed and these had to be paid for, in heavy and solid silver coins.
But the French kingdom, which had entered the Gulf War against Spain, banned the production of large silver shields on September 5, 1653. These silver shields, which bore the name of white shields or silver Louis, were minted in September 1641, and with a legal tender of 917 thousandths, they were 931 thousandths below the Spanish eight reales. As for the weight, the nominal weight of the shields, 27.450 grams, was equal to the weight of the Spanish 8 reales coins. These two coins, if compared with today, would be the 50 euro banknotes of our day.
In the case of the Bayonne mint, silver shields from 1654 are known; but from 1655 onwards, only half shields (or smaller denominations) were minted. It is important to remember that, as far as the Bayonne mint is concerned, coinage using a flywheel press first began in 1650, on the site of the street where the mint is located that has survived to this day. Like all other French mints, Bayonne had to stop producing large silver shields as soon as they began (full shields began in Bayonne somewhat later, in 1652).
More precisely, there were three exceptions among the French mints, since the mints of Morlaas, Pau and Donapaleu continued to produce solid silver shields. In fact, these three mints, unlike the other mints of the kingdom, were subordinate to the Chamber of Accounts of Navarre (Chambre des Comptes de Navarre) and not to the Court of Currency of Paris (Cour de la Monnaie). This independence and the fact that they ignored the order would have serious consequences for these three mints in the following years.
Silver shield minted in 1659 at the Donapaleu mint – approximately 27.06gr – 39mm diameter
Found: LVD.XIIII.DG (Clover) FR.ET.NA.REX – Clover: Engraver Pierre d'Armagnac
Obverse: (Clover) SIT.NOMEN.DOMINI.BENEDICTVM.1659 – Clover: Jean de Forcade, mintmaster
But let us return to the Bayonne mint. With the arrival of Jules Mazarin and all the other representatives, and the time to make significant payments, it was clear that there was a need for large silver coins in the Northern Basque Country. As a result, a special order was issued. The Bayonne mint would once again be able to mint large silver shield coins; apart from the three mints of the Chamber of Accounts of Navarre, it was the only French mint to mint these beautiful coins that year. It was also the only mint to mint coins bearing the French royal pattern (the other three had the Navarrese and Bearn patterns).
Between September 10, 1659, and December 5 of the same year, a peace conference was held at the same time, similar to the following: 50.839 The coins were minted at the Bayonne mint. This minting did not continue into 1660, although on that date the royal family and their entire court visited the Northern Basque Country.
Silver shield minted in Bayonne in 1659 – approximately 27.19 gr – 38.8mm diameter
Found: LVD.XIII.DG (Titarea) FR.ET.NAV.REX
Obverse: SIT.NOMEN.DOMINI.L.BENEDICTVM. (Moon) 1659 – The coin designates the mint of Bayonne
As a result of the fire that broke out in the municipal archives of Bayonne town hall on December 31, 1889, the mint records older than the 18th century were lost. As a result, we are currently missing many data on the 17th century Bayonne mint.
Fortunately, these old records were discovered by the Parisian researcher Adrian Blanchet in the 19th and 20th centuries, and by the Bayonne natives Eduard Ducere, Antoine Foltzer and Paul Burguburu, who managed to write up their research and transmit it to our days. Similarly, the coinage accounts sent to the “Cour de la Monnaie” in Paris provide us with traces of the amounts minted, mint heads and engravers, but unfortunately not in full.
As mentioned, French coins of this period were struck by a flywheel press in all the mints of the kingdom. The name of the mint could be identified by a mark placed on the reverse of the coin, and in this case, Bayonne had the mark L. Previously, coins struck by hammer in the old mint on Rue Orbe until 1649 still featured the anchor symbol, the old hallmark of the Bayonne mint, but with the advent of coins struck by press, the anchor symbol disappeared from the coins.
Likewise, the mint mark appeared next to the date on the obverse of the coins, and the engraver's mark appeared at the top of the obverse. French coins did not have the hallmark of the assayer that was common in the Spanish kingdom.
In the case of the coin of 1659 and if we look at the bibliography, it is quite clear that the name of the engraver, which is revealed by the thimble, is Leon Boisnet. Leon Boisnet worked at the Bayonne mint between 1659 and 1672. But in the case of the mintmaster, we are not so sure.
Victor Gadoury's work “Monnaies Royales Françaises 1610-1792” provides a list of the mintmasters and engravers of the French mints. However, in this work, the meaning of the distinctive crescent moon that appears on this coin is not stated. The issue is somewhat more complicated if we look at the silver half-escudos from the same year, 1659. In this case, instead of the crescent moon, a star appears as the mintmaster's distinctive feature. In the place of the engraver, in this case at the bottom of the obverse, a rose flower appears.
Silver half-shield minted in Bayonne in 1659 – approximately 13.50 gr – 33mm diameter
Found: LVD.XIIII.DG FR.ET.NAV.REX (pink)
Obverse: SIT.NOMEN.DOMINI.L.BENEDICTVM. (Star) 1659
In this case, we must look at the other half-shields minted in previous years; as a result, we can see that the coinage changed in 1658:
Silver half-shield minted in Bayonne in 1658 – 13.50 gr – 32mm diameter
Found: LVD.XIIII.DG FR.ET.NAV.REX (pink)
Obverse: SIT.NOMEN.DOMINI.L.BENEDICTVM. (Star) 1658
Silver half-shield minted at the Bayonne mint in 1658
Found: LVD.XIIII.DG FR.ET.NAV.REX (pink)
Obverse: SIT.NOMEN.DOMINI.L.BENEDICTVM. (Lily) 1658
And if we go back even further in time:
Silver half-shield minted in Bayonne in 1657 – 13.57 gr – 32mm diameter
Found: LVD.XIIII.DG FR.ET.NAV.REX (pink)
Obverse: SIT.NOMEN.DOMINI.L.BENEDICTVM. (Lily) 1657
Silver half-shield minted in Bayonne in 1656 – 13.54 gr – 32.7mm diameter
Found: LVD.XIIII.DG FR.ET.NAV.REX (pink)
Obverse: SIT.NOMEN.DOMINI.L.BENEDICTVM. (Lily) 1656
This year 66,400 copies like this were produced
This leap back in time has given us a couple of clues. Victor Gadoury's book, The Character of the Rose Abraham Bureau It clarifies that it belongs to the engraver. This engraver worked at the Bayonne mint between 1656 and 1659. And the coins described above confirm this.
According to the same book, the characteristic of the lily Pierre Dutost This coin master began working in Bayonne in 1656, and although the book does not mention this, as we have seen on the coins, he held this position until 1658.
But then, to which mint does the star symbol on the half shields of 1658 and 1659 and the moon on the full shields of 1659 belong? Gadoury's book does not provide any information on these. In this case, we must refer to the works of Adrian Blanchet.
According to Blanchet Martin d'Anretche was the head of the coinage in Bayonne in 1659. Either the star or the moon could be Martin's hallmark. But unfortunately we don't know which of the two it corresponds to.
The crescent moon appears only on the shield issue minted in the three months of 1659, and is not continued in the issues of 1660. The issues before and after this special mintage had their own Bayonne mint, and this one Martin d'Anretche It should be. This would be the characteristic of the star. As for the moon, it should be that of someone who came from Paris, who took charge of the mint in these three short months and returned to the capital again after the conference. His name, at least to me, is unknown.
In 1660, only half of the shields were once again produced in Bayonne, but if we look at these, we have something to say here too.
Silver half-shield minted in Bayonne in 1660 – 13.56 gr – 32mm diameter
Title: LVD.XIIII.DG (timid) FR.ET.NAV.REX
Obverse: SIT.NOMEN.DOMINI.L.BENEDICTVM. (Clover) 1660
Silver half-shield minted in Bayonne in 1660 – 13.58 gr – 31.8 mm diameter
Title: LVD.XIIII.DG (timid) FR.ET.NAV.REX
Obverse: SIT.NOMEN.DOMINI.L.BENEDICTVM. (Clover) 1660
This year 113,946 specimens were produced. Most of these were with the image of a young man.
In 1660, a new mint mark appears. This mark is a clover. The young Louis XIV began to be used on coins in this year, but there are still a few rare examples of the long-haired child that can be found. The king was already between nineteen and twenty years old, and he had married in June; so it was time to update his coinage.
To find out the mintmark corresponding to the clover, we must go back in time, since Gadoury's book does not show any clover. The name of the engraver is already known and has been mentioned before; it appears on the thick shields of 1659. Leon Boisnet the same as the thimble.
Clover, after two more years, remained:
Silver half-shield minted in Bayonne in 1661 – 13.49 gr – 32.5 mm diameter
Title: LVD.XIIII.DG (timid) FR.ET.NAV.REX
Obverse: SIT.NOMEN.DOMINI.L.BENEDICTVM. (Clover) 1661
113,305 pieces like this were produced this year – CGB auction house
Silver half-shield minted in Bayonne in 1662 – 13.58 gr – 32.8 mm diameter
Title: LVD.XIIII.DG (timid) FR.ET.NAV.REX
Obverse: SIT.NOMEN.DOMINI.L.BENEDICTVM. (Clover) 1662
This year 64,540 specimens like this were cultivated
In 1662, another change of mintage took place in Bayonne. I cannot detect this on the half-escudo pieces, but I can on this single twelve-escudo (1/12) piece:
Silver 1/12 escudo minted in 1662 at the Bayonne mint – 2.18 gr – 20.0 mm diameter
Title: LVD.XIIII.DG (timid) FR.ET.NAV.REX
Obverse: SIT.NOMEN.DOMINI.L.BENEDICTVM. (Heart) 1662
In this case, we know the coin head characteristic of the heart. Louis Martin that it belongs to the mintmaster and that he was the mintmaster between the years 1662 and 1666.
In the spring of 1662, the French Mint (Cour de la Monnaie) re-established the production of whole silver shields. In the case of Bayonne, I have not found any production of these solid silver pieces until 1663, and these were produced by the mintmaster Louis Martin and the engraver Leon Boisnet. Finally, the production of the spectacular Bayonne pieces, which used the silver source from the Spanish kingdoms, was resumed in pieces.
Silver shield minted in Bayonne in 1663 – 27.13 gr – 38.7 mm diameter
Title: LVD.XIIII.DG (timid) FR.ET.NAV.REX
Obverse: SIT.NOMEN.DOMINI.L.BENEDICTVM. (Heart) 1663
This year 65,194 copies like this were produced
But we still don't know which mintmark the clover symbol belongs to!! Here too, we have to look at the works of Adrian Blanchet, who, in 1661, minted the Bayonne mintmark. Francois Savin It explains that it was. Therefore, if we were to make a summary of the coin mints and engravers seen during this period, we would have the following:
Summary of the mintmasters and engravers of the Bayonne mint (1656-1666)
Cardinal Jules Mazarin, the subject of our current history, was forced to return to the Isle of Compiègne and Saint-Jean-de-Luz in 1660. In fact, he was about to celebrate the arranged marriage between the Infanta Maria Theresa and Louis XIV!
The French court arrived in Bayonne in early May 1660 and after eight days moved to Saint-Jean-de-Luz. King Louis was eager to meet his wife.
A town of about twelve thousand inhabitants, Saint-Jean-de-Luz was a wealthy town at the time thanks to its maritime resources, but it was not large enough to accommodate an entire court. In fact, the French court spent about a month in Saint-Jean-de-Luz and the old saying dates back to those times: “Saint-Jean-de-Luz, little Paris, Bayonne its stables and Zibu its fishmongers”. Servants and workers had to find accommodation in the surrounding countryside. Mazarin himself stayed in Zibu on this occasion.
Finally, the Spanish court appeared on the other side of the border. Among them was the painter Velázquez, who took on the task of decorating the half of the pavilion on the island of Companhia that belonged to the Spanish.
The first wedding of the new royal couple took place in the church of Hondarribia on 3 June, with King Luis being represented by the Spanish Prime Minister Luis de Haro. On 4 June, the visit of the siblings King Philip IV and Queen Anne to the Isle of Companhia took place. On 6 June, the first meeting between Kings Philip IV and Louis XIV took place in the same place.
Bronze medal depicting the surroundings of the Isle of Companhia – Aureo&Calico auction house
A series of medals depicting episodes in the life of King Louis XIV, struck between 1663 and 1691, 107.95 g. Ø62 mm
Found: LVDOVICVS. XIV. REX. CHRISTIANISSIMVS. (Engraver J. Mauger)
Obverse: REGVM COLLOQVIVM AD PIRENAEOS MDCLX MOLART.F (Engraver M. Molart)
The next day, after the second and final conference on 7 June, Infanta Maria Teresa crossed into her new territories in France. On 9 June, the royal couple were married for the second time by the Bishop of Bayonne, in the church of Saint-Jean-de-Luz.
These events were depicted in the Gobelins tapestries under the direction of the painter Charles le Brun. And using these tapestries as a basis, the painter Jacques Laumosnier painted two different oil paintings at the end of the 17th century. These oil paintings can be seen in the "Musée de Tessé" in the city of Le Mans:
Jacques Laumosnier – Late 17th century – Dialogue between Kings Philip IV and Louis XIV of the Isle of Compiègne – Jules Mazarin behind Louis XIV – Wikipedia Commons
Jacques Laumosnier – Late 17th century – Marriage of King Louis XIV and Queen Maria Theresa in Saint-Jean-de-Luz – Jules Mazarin again behind Louis XIV – Wikipedia Commons
In the coins made by the French administration, we also have a reflection of what happened on the island of Companhia. This one shows the bride and groom on the right and the island of Companhia and its peace pavilion on the left. The island could be crossed by two causeways supported by three boats, on either side of the Bidasoa river.
A token minted by the French administration depicting the Isle of Companhia – CGB auction house
Found: LVD. XIIII. ET. MARIA. THER. DG FRA. ET. NAV. REX. ET. REG.
Ifrentzua: AETERNO. FOEDERE. IVNGAM. – I will unite them in an everlasting Covenant
The text in favor of Ifrentzu will bring a smile to our lips, "I will unite them in an eternal treaty", which would refer to the marriage between Louis and Maria Teresa and not to the peace agreement, as after six years, the kingdoms of France and Spain were once again at war.
Work and fatigue took their toll after the conferences on the Isle of Companhia. The painter Diego Velázquez died of the Navarrese disease on August 6th in Madrid. Cardinal Jules Mazarin died on March 9th, 1661, at the Château de Vincennes, near Paris.
Bibliography:
Monnaies Royales Françaises 1610-1792– Victor Gadoury – 2018 -5° Edition
ARRIVALS OF THE FRENCH COURT TO THE BASQUE COUNTRY – Bayonne City Media Library – link
Researches sur l'atelier monétaire de Bayonne (1488-1837) – Adrien Blanchet – Revue Numismatique 1913 – link
El jetón de la Isla de los Faisanes – Miguel Ibáñez Artica – 2016 – link
PYRENEES AGREEMENT – link
VERVINS PEACE AGREEMENT – link
Les Hôtels des Monnaies de Bayonne, dans le Bulletin de la Société des Sciences Lettres et Arts de Bayonne, 1930-31, p 288-316 et p.157-190 – Antoine Foltzer
Dictionnaire historique de Bayonne – 1915- Édouard Ducéré
Histoire topographique et anecdotique des rues de Bayonne – 1893 – Édouard Ducéré
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