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Until the 1570s, coins in France contained one or the other of the two precious metals, gold and silver. The increase of their price no longer allowed the production of small cash. As a result, copper coinage was invented, which in view of the price of the metal, was intrinsically worth practically nothing and must be considered as the first fiat money of the kingdom. The coins of a few pence that were created during the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries officially responded to a need: alms to the poor who suffered from a lack of cash, as well as small daily exchanges. In reality, they became a financial product that upset the nature of bimetallism.