1636  Double Tournois of Gaston Duc De Orleans, Brother of King Louis XIII
Obverse: Bust facing Left
Obv: Double Tournois with three fleur De Lis (Lys)

 Extremely nice coin! Better than photo of coin. Extremely nice coin.

Elopement

While taking refuge from the wrath of Cardinal Richelieu in Lorraine, Gaston fell in love at first sight with Marguerite of Lorraine, the sister of Charles IV, Duke of Lorraine. But as France and Lorraine were then enemies, he was refused the king's permission to marry with a sister of its duke. Nonetheless, Gaston fled again to Lorraine and, in a secret ceremony in the presence of her family at Nancy during the night of 2 – 3 January 1632, Gaston took the princess Marguerite as his wife. Because he had not obtained the prior permission of his elder brother, the king — one of his many acts of defiance — the couple could not appear at the French court and the marriage was kept secret.

But in November of that year, Henri II, Duke of Montmorency, on his way to the scaffold, betrayed Gaston, his former co-conspirator, and Louis XIII and Richelieu learned of the elopement. The king had his brother's marriage declared null and void by the Parlement of Paris in September 1634 and, despite the protest of Pope Urban VIII, the Assembly of the French clergy held in September 1635 that a prince du sang could enter matrimony only with permission of the king — consistent with French sovereignty and custom. Although Marguerite and Gaston had re-celebrated their marriage before the Archbishop of Malines, a French emissary persuaded the pope not to protest the matter publicly, and Gaston formally accepted the nullity of his marriage. It was not until Louis XIII was on his death bed in May 1643 that he accepted his brother's plea for forgiveness and authorized his marriage to Marguerite, whereupon the couple undertook nuptials for the third time in July 1643 before the Archbishop of Paris at Meudon, and the Duke and Duchess of Orléans were finally received at court.

By right of her marriage, Marguerite became known as Madame at court. After the death of his mother in 1642, Gaston was bequeathed the Luxembourg Palace, which became the couple's Parisian residence under the name Palais Orléans once they were restored to royal favor. They also sojourned at the Château de Blois, in the Loire Valley, where their first child was born in 1645.