A double gold Louis from the Vendée treasure put up for sale at auction

It’s always an event. A double gold Louis treasure of Vendée will be auctioned. Wednesday May 22 and Thursday May 23, the coin from the 1,742 coin hoard will be put on sale at the Paris Chamber of Commerce and Industry.

The precious metal, struck on one side of the profile of Louis XVI and on the other arms of France and Navarre, is estimated between 1,200 and 1,500 € by the Phidias house. “It’s a piece that comes from a treasure and has little circulation. Hence its good state of conservation,” explains Thomas Teirlynck, auctioneer.

The Wars of Vendée

For nearly 200 years, the treasure remained buried under 40 centimeters of earth. A loot hidden by Admiral du Chaffault during the Vendée Wars in an alley of his castle of Meslay, in La Guyonnière.

His legacy to posterity mattered 1,742 Louis and double gold Louis, struck between 1728 and 1789, with a total weight of 15 kg of gold and estimated at €750,000. A jackpot that Louis-Charles du Chaffault de Besné had patiently collected throughout his career in the royal navy.

50,000 pounds of gold

When he retired in 1790, the count, originally from Montaigu, received a pension of 9,000 pounds per year. When the Vendée Wars broke out, the admiral returned to service and rallied the insurgent troops against the republican armies.

Before his castle was pillaged and burned, the aristocrat made sure to bury his cassette of 50,000 pounds of gold. Admiral du Chaffault took this secret to his grave, he who died at the age of 86 in the Luzançay remand prison.

The discoverer

It was without counting without Rodrigue Griffon. On February 8, 1993, the young 23-year-old turner-miller revealed a 200-year-old secret.

He was the first to be surprised when his metal detector started going crazy while he was testing his frying pan on his neighbor’s land. It’s not one piece, but ten, a hundred, a thousand… that came out of the ground. Immediately, a report was made to the Medals Office. And Drouot-Richelieu took charge of publishing a catalog. At the time, the loot was estimated at €450,000.

The 77 descendants

Enough to arouse the desire of 77 descendants of the admiral who initiated proceedings before the high court of La Roche-sur-Yon in 1998. The judge ruled in favor of their case in 2000. Before being dismissed by the Poitiers Court of Appeal.

“The competent court ruled in 2004 by naming the discovery Trésor de Vendée, confirming the attribution of the treasure to the discoverer, because the identity of the buryer could not be proven,” confided Cyriaque Griffon, the brother of the inventor (name given to the one who discovered the treasure), to West France in its edition of February 8, 2023.

A rare piece

Since then, few pieces of the Vendée treasure have resurfaced. Collectors jealously keep them in double-locked chests. Each appearance in the sales rooms is an event for numismatists.

Especially since the currency with “its flowery edges” and “its freshness of minting” are of a exceptional quality, as noted by the experts of Phidias and Jean Vinchon. Certainly, the royal motto should raise the stakes.

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