Protestant Exiles from France/Book First - Chapter 6 - Section IX
IX. Briot.
Nicholas Briot was a gentleman of Lorraine, the reputed inventor of the coining-press, and graver of the mint to Louis XIII. But unable to submit to serious religious disabilities as a Huguenot, he withdrew, as a voluntary exile, into England, and in 1626 became chief-engraver to the London Mint, through the patronage of King Charles I. In 1633 he received an appointment in Edinburgh, and in 1635 succeeded Sir John Foulis as Master of the Mint in Scotland. In 1637 his daughter Esther was married to Sir John Falconer, and this son-in-law was conjoined with Nicholas Briot in his office. Briot, however, returned to England on the outbreak of the civil war; he secured for the king’s service all the coining apparatus of the nation, and finally is said to have died of grief on his royal patron’s death. Sir John Falconer was of the Halkerstoun family, and ancestor of the Falconers of Phesdo. Mr Smiles enumerates several fine medals executed by Briot, who “possessed the genius of a true artist.”