The money cache

It was in July 1913 that Mr. Buquet,a lumberjack, busy tying bundles in Mrs. Pellerin's wood in the hamlet of Collemare, noticed a rabbit hole.

In the rejected earth he picked up metal washers, considered buttons, and put them on his mantlepiece.

After a while, he observed his finds and realized that some of these metal discs were silver and engraved with crosses and letters. He shared his discovery with Mr. Dupuis, a schoolteacher in the commune. The latter showed these pieces to Mr. Léon de Vesly, a renowned archaeologist and director of the Rouen Museum of Antiquities who dated this deposit of coins from the end of the 15th century. The mayor of Yquebeuf, as the law dictates, informed the prefect.

In January 1914 bad weather prevented an exploration of the hole. However, on 19 January, Mr. de Vesly went to Yquebeuf and the mayor handed him eleven hundred highly oxidized coins and the debris of two vases containing the coins.

A few days later, Mr. Dupuis and Ms. Pellerin handed over 83 and 186 coins, respectively, to the archaeologist. The inventory carried out counted a total of 1442 coins with an estimated value of 791.10 Fr.

The ensemble was composed of French coins:

• 20 coins from the reign of Louis XI

• 249 coins from the reign of Charles VIII

• 84 coins from the reign of Louis XII

• 96 coins from the reign of Francis I

In addition, there were 24 rarer and foreign coins as well as 969 coins of lesser value: copper and lead alloy coins with about 50% silver.

Leon de Vesly wondered what the reason was for this concealment of money. After thinking about the plundering of thieves or the misdeeds of Charles the Bold's troops, he accepted the hypothesis that this deposit took place around 1530, a time of abuse of the Size taxation committed on the inhabitants of the countryside.