The Bonaparte Clan on Coins

Started by bart, February 29, 2008, 08:04:05 PM

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bart

Here's an interesting coin, in particular for people interested in Napoleontic coinage.
It was issued for the principality of Lucca and Piombino, in the name of Bonaparte's sister Elisa and her husband prince Felix Bacciocchi. When Napoleon acquired Northern Italy, he proclaimed himself king of Italy and his (baby-)son Napoleon II l'Aiglon king of Rome. His sister received the title of princess of Lucca and Piombino.

Figleaf

What a magnificent piece, Bart. There's so much to see. A French denomination and wreath on an Italian coin, lofty titles of short-lived lands. The biographies on Wiki are short but telling: Elisa had a sharp tongue, she ruled in practice, shutting out her husband to the point where they became estranged. More grandiose titles in Tuscany and total collapse in the end. Worthy of a classical drama. No wonder collecting Napoleonic coins is a (pretty expensive) theme by itself.

Peter
An unidentified coin is a piece of metal. An identified coin is a piece of history.

bart

Thanks for the comment, Peter!

That's also what I see in this coin : as the Buonapartes, coming from Corsica, are half Italian, half French, you can really feel the melange of these 2 countries. This coin, with its renaissance-inspired design of Felix and Elisa, breaths Italian drama!

I also have some small-denomination coins from Napoleon's kingdom of Italy. These have much simpler designs. Still I like the renaissance interpretation of Napoleon as a Roman emperor. It reminds me of the designs of the British George III and IV as a Roman emperor by Benedetto Pistrucci.

Bart

Figleaf

Great coins, Bart. That 5 soldi is a gem. Also, you are quite right to remark on the resemblance between French and English neo-classicism. Art does not recognize boundaries. Napoléon had a dinner service in late Egyptian style, complete with temple gates and pyramids as centerpieces for the table, all in dark blue and gold. Of course, neo-classicism also struck in other countries. Why else would the first king of the Belgians wear a laurel wreath on his second series of silver coins? We may not yet have put te movement behind us. I see Bolivar's portrait on the coins of Venezuela as neo-classical. The earliest portrait on the coins of Tanzania look neo-classical to me too.

Peter
An unidentified coin is a piece of metal. An identified coin is a piece of history.

Austrokiwi

I have been reading one article  that states the 5 Franchi pieces of Lucca dated between 1805 and 1810  were actually minted in 1810 in Florence after the Lucca mint closed.  Can any one shed any light on this?

<k>

#5
Lodewijk Napoleon Ducat 1810.jpg


I found this image while surfing. I imagine "Lodewijk" is the Dutch version of Ludwig/Ludovic/Ludovico. Apparently Lodewijk Napoleon was the younger brother of Napoleon Bonaparte and the father of Napoleon III of France. I was surprised to see his first name translated into Dutch on the coin's legend, and also to see the abbreviation of Napoleon included. I always imagined "Napoleon" was the first name of Napoleon Bonaparte, nothing else.

Anyway, here we see the results of the flawed French Revolution, which (as so often happens with revolutions) ended up producing a nepotistic imperial dynasty. Note the bee on the reverse exergue.
Visit the website of The Royal Mint Museum.

See: The Royal Mint Museum.

Figleaf

#6
This is one of those coins the average coin collector cannot afford. It is more like a pattern than a coin. There are three variants, all with different edge inscription (RRR) and bronze and silver essais (RRRR). This pattern is a witness of an attempt at decimalisation and modernisation: the 20 and 10 gulden denominations did not exist. Gold coins were expressed in ducats; they had a floating rate with silver.

I the course of 1794/95, French armies overran the allied armies in the Netherlands, starting with the battle of Boxtel, where the duke of York was defeated and Art Wellesley learned how not to wage war against the French and ending with the shameful capture of the Dutch fleet frozen into the ice at Texel, so that it could be taken by infantry in January 1795.

The French were welcomed by the majority of the population. The Republic, once a world power, had degenerated into a sclerotic morass ruled by a clique of rich families (regents) who had learned to use the federal system to leverage their power to national level (interestingly, there are many parallels between there and then and some US enterprises and now). Their only opposition, the prince of Orange, was a weak ruler with no sense of political reality or priority. The French replaced the Republic of the Seven United Netherlands with the Batavian Republic, leaving the coinage virtually unchanged until 1806. The exceptions are a rare emergency coin of 1795 with a double denomination: 1/8 livire and 2-1/2 stuiver and a series of patterns with revolutionary symbols and the country name Bataafsch Gemenebest (Batavian Commonwealth.) This latter series was rejected in parliament.

The French quickly squandered their popularity by heavy taxation and putting in a top layer of French bureaucrats over the heads of their supporters (the Dutch would make the exact same mistake in what is now Belgium, learning is hard). As resistance grew, Napoleon decreed that the republic should be turned into a kingdom, installing his brother Napoléon-Louis (Lodewijk Napoleon) as king.

Louis was meant to run a French client state, but he honestly tried to be a good king. The French immigrants refused to learn Dutch, but Louis took Dutch lessons (he had an atrocious accent), took Dutch advisors and actually listened to them. His popularity grew quickly, even though he had to cede Dutch territory to France. In 1809, British troops landed in Walcheren. Napoleon reacted by making Bernadotte commander of the armies in the Netherlands and transferring the powers of the king to him. On 1st July 1810, Louis abdicated in favour of his sons Napoléon-Louis and Charles-Louis-Napoléon (later the French emperor Napoléon III), but on 13th December, Napoléon made the country part of France.

In the realm of coins, the most important players were minister of Finance Alexander Gogel and Utrecht mint master Du Marchie Servaas (mintmaster sign bee.) Their goal was to replace the non-decimal system with a decimal system according to the ideas of the French revolution, which they supported. They managed to abolish the old system on 11th February 1808, but did not succeed in getting new types accepted, in spite of a large number of patterns and essais for gold and silver coins dated 1808 and 1810. At the unification of the kingdom of Holland with the French empire, the issue became moot. By decree of 4th January 1811, all mints, excepted Utrecht, were closed. Utrecht started minting regular French coins in 1812, still under Du Marchies Servaas, now using mintmaster sign mast.

Peter
An unidentified coin is a piece of metal. An identified coin is a piece of history.

chrisild

Clan, Mafia ... well, at least around here we have a somewhat more differentiated image of Napoleon. His war sure was terrible, but keep in mind that the regimes he fought against in Europe were not exactly democratic systems to put it mildly. A written constitution, a parliament, civil rights? Phh, that French parvenu may have introduced that in Westphalia and elsewhere, but let's get him out of the way, do away with that modern stuff and establish our Holy Alliance. >:D

By the way, "FR. PR." means Prince of France. And "Westphalen", that was one of those countries Napoleon created. The Duchy of Westfalen, which existed until the end of the Empire in 1803, was relatively small compared to what was created then. Napoleonic Westphalia was much bigger but did not have much to do, even territory wise, with that ...

Christian

Figleaf

#8
Can't afford the gold, but here is a silver counterpart. The other coin is a 2/3 thaler of Braunschweig-Lüneburg. I should have put these in the lookalike coins thread...

The Bonapartist rulers were more often more popular than their deposed predecessors. Napoléon himself certainly beat any Bourbon (although Napoléon was in all probability the greatest slaughterer of Frenchmen of all times) and his brothers all did well, with the exception of Joseph. That was probably more due to misbehaviour of French troops in Spain than to Joseph himself. One of the first things Ferdinand did on recuperating the Spanish throne was re-instating the inquisition!

Napoléon's generals also did fairly well. Sweden even kept its Bernadotte, rather than return to Wasa rule. Clan, yes, Maffia definitely not. Their rule was not by terror and they were a modernizing force. It would be interesting to have a thread "Bonapartists on coins"...

Peter
An unidentified coin is a piece of metal. An identified coin is a piece of history.

<k>

#9
Italy 5 lire 1813.jpg

Italy, 5 lire, 1813.


From Wikipedia:

Gioacchino Napoleone, otherwise known as Joachim-Napoléon Murat (born 1767, died 1815), Marshal of France and Grand Admiral or Admiral of France, 1st Prince Murat, was Grand Duke of Berg from 1806 to 1808 and then King of Naples from 1808 to 1815. He received his titles in part by being the brother-in-law of Napoleon Bonaparte, through marriage to Napoleon's youngest sister, Caroline Bonaparte. He was noted as a flamboyant dresser and was known as 'the Dandy King'.

He fled to Corsica after Napoleon's fall. During an attempt to regain Naples through an insurrection in Calabria by announcing a rebellion at the town square he was attacked by an old woman blaming him for the loss of her son, the incident sparking attention he was arrested by the forces of the legitimate King, Ferdinand IV of Naples, and was eventually executed by firing squad at the Castello di Pizzo.
Visit the website of The Royal Mint Museum.

See: The Royal Mint Museum.

chrisild

#10
And here he is as Joachim (image: Düsseldorfer Münzfreunde) on a taler from Berg.

Christian

<k>

#11


Here's a child monarch who was apparently briefly King of Rome.

He was due to become Napoleon II, and this pattern piece was made for him.


From Wikipedia:

Napoléon François Joseph Charles (Bonaparte), Duke of Reichstadt (20 March 1811 – 22 July 1832), after 1818 known as Franz, Duke of Reichstadt, was the son of Napoleon I, Emperor of the French, and his second wife, Marie Louise of Austria. By Title III, article 9 of the French Constitution of the time, he was Prince Imperial, but he was also known from birth as the King of Rome which Napoleon I declared was the courtesy title of the heir-apparent. His father abdicated in his favour, thereby transferring to him the title of Emperor of the French, in 1815.

Napoléon François Joseph Charles was born at the Tuileries Palace in Paris to Emperor Napoleon I and his second wife, Marie Louise of Austria in 1811. As Napoléon I's eldest legitimate son, he was already constitutionally Prince Imperial and heir-apparent, but the Emperor also gave his son the style "His Majesty the King of Rome". Three years later, the First French Empire—to which he was heir—collapsed. Napoleon wanted to abdicate the throne in favour of his toddler son, but the Allied Powers, at the insistence of the Emperor Alexander I of Russia, refused.

On 29 March 1814, accompanied by her suite, the empress left the Tuileries Palace with her son. Their first stop was the Château de Rambouillet; then, fearing the advancing enemy troops, they continued on to the Château de Blois. On 13 April, with her suite much diminished, Marie-Louise and the three-year-old King of Rome were back in Rambouillet where they met her father, the Emperor Francis II of Austria, and the Emperor Alexander I of Russia. On 23 April, escorted by an Austrian regiment, mother and son left Rambouillet and France forever, for their exile in Austria.

In 1815, after his defeat at Waterloo, Napoleon abdicated in favour of his son, whom he had not seen since his exile to Elba.

The day after Napoleon's abdication, a Commission of Government of five members took the rule of France, awaiting the return of King Louis XVIII who was in Le Cateau-Cambrésis. The Commission held the power for two weeks, and it never summoned Napoleon II as emperor, and no regent was ever appointed. The entrance of the Allies into Paris on 7 July brought a rapid end to his supporters' wishes. Napoleon II, aged 4, was residing in Austria with his mother and was probably never aware at the time that he had been proclaimed Emperor in his father's abdication. The next Bonaparte to come to the throne of France (in 1852) took the name Napoleon III in deference to his cousin's theoretical reign.

After 1815, the young prince, now known as "Franz" (after his maternal grandfather, Emperor Francis of Austria), lived in Austria. He was awarded the title of Duke of Reichstadt in 1818.

Upon the death of his stepfather, Neipperg, and the revelation that his mother had borne two illegitimate children to him prior to her marriage, Franz said to his friend, Prokesch von Osten, "'If Josephine had been my mother, my father would not have been buried at Saint Helena, and I should not be at Vienna. My mother is kind but weak; she was not the wife my father deserved".

He died of tuberculosis at Schönbrunn Palace in Vienna on 22 July 1832.


See also: Child monarchs on coins
Visit the website of The Royal Mint Museum.

See: The Royal Mint Museum.

chrisild

And then there is Napoléon Louis Bonaparte, the last grand duke of Berg. Son of Louis Napoléon (Lodewijk Napoleon), born in 1804, died in 1831. He became Grand Duke at the age of four, and also King of Holland (for less than a week) when he was five. No coins from Berg with his effigy, however, as far as I know ...

Christian

Figleaf

One little footnote to an otherwise fair bio. After the battle of Vittoria, the French baggage train got stuck on a secondary road and was overrun by allied units, mostly British, who robbed an unprecedented amount of money from what was legally the property of the British crown. An unbelievable number of precious artifacts were destroyed for their gold parts, precious paintings were used as packaging material for coins. The destruction and pillage must have been horrible.

It was this incident that made Wellington famously exclaim that British soldiers were "the scum of the earth". He had hoped to finance a campaign in France with the loot. The best Wellington got out of the rampage was the baton of Marshal Jourdan, his opposite number. He sent it to the Prince-Regent, who reacted by inventing the rank of field marshal for him. Both the marshal's coach and Joseph's coach got stuck and were plundered, so Joseph could not have had much more than what he could carry. Enough for a sweet life in a smart house, apparently.

Peter
An unidentified coin is a piece of metal. An identified coin is a piece of history.

Figleaf

The clan counted other members whose last name was not Bonaparte. The most successful member of the clan was Marshal Jean Baptiste Bernadotte.

How the son of a French prosecutor, a foot soldier in the army of the first republic became Marshal, prince and fell out of Napoléon's favour, only to end up as king of Sweden is a fascinating story. Amazingly, no one has made a film on his life.

The first piece shown is a modern French pseudo coin, the second a Swedish circulation coin. The third piece is a rare medallion dated 1853 with the portrait of his wife Désirée Clary by Barre Sr., dedicated to 26 years of loyal services of one Johan Fredr. Klynder. Désirée was once engaged to Napoléon himself. Her second choice turned out to be the better deal.

Peter
An unidentified coin is a piece of metal. An identified coin is a piece of history.