MÉRY DE VIC

FRÉMY, Claude (?):  France, 1622, Bronze, 62 mm
Obv: Bust of Méry de Vic    MERICVS DE. VIC FRANCIAE PROCANCELLARIVS 1622 (Méry de Vic, Vice Chancellor of France, 1622)
Rev: Justice with sword and balance    NEC PRECE NEC PRECIO (Neither by Requests Nor by Bribery)
Very Rare
Ref: In Jones Vol. 2, 120/81, there is a large uniface medal of Méry de Vic. Under this entry (p.121) Jones states "There is a smaller version of this portrait with a reverse showing Justice with the legend NEC PRECE NEC PRECIO, dated 1622, which is probably also by Frémy (Mazerolle II, no 755)". However, on p.290, Jones suggests that a medal of Méry de Vic may have been executed by the "S" medallist.

Méry de Vic was a member of the Most Christian King's Privy Council, Vicomte d'Ermenonville, and Baron de Fiennes. In 1587 he became an advisor to Louis XIII. He was appointed President of the Parliament of Toulouse in 1597. In 1600 he was sent as ambassador to the Swiss, and in 1621 he became Keeper of the Seals and Minister of Justice, to which the device on the reverse of the medal refers. He died in 1622 and was buried in Ermenonville, the same city where Jean Jacques Rousseau lived in his later years and where he is also buried.

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