| The period which lasted from the beginning of the French revolution up to the definitive fall of Napoleon I has for a long time been of intense interest to the entire world, so collectors of metallic souvenirs of that period are many, and their number even seems to increase, not only in France but also in foreign countries. That is because the great events which developed then did not concern France alone; there is hardly a country which in the long metallic history of the period is not specifically mentioned, and its representatives recall the part it took in these events. |
| There are works by various authors which have as their object the study and description of the numismatic products of that period of history. |
| In increasing this series of works I am compelled to make known the reasons which decided me to undertake this work. |
| For the period from the beginning of the French revolution (27 April 1789) up to 18 Brumaire an 8)(9 November 1799) there exists the famous work of M. Hennin: Histoire numismatique de la Révolution française, Paris, 1826. There is no need of further praise for that book; M. Hennin has once and for all achieved his goal in such a way that his successors cannot dream of doing anything more than making a supplement containing the pieces --few as they may be-- which escaped his laborious researches. |
| It is otherwise for the numismatics of the consulate and the empire. From when I began to collect I often felt, as certainly did most of my colleagues, the need of a reliable practical guide for that period, able to replace the book to which one refers generally today when buying and selling medals of the time of Napoleon are concerned. |
| That book is L'Histoire métallique de Napoléon, London, 1819, or, as it is generally known, "Millin", although M. Millingen, who was conservator of medals and antiquities in the national library of France, had finished only thirty four of the seventy four plates which make up that book. Thus it is that M. Millingen is a stranger to all the part of the book which deals with the pieces after 1806 and even with some of the pieces of the earlier period. |
| Of the five hundred forty four pieces contained in the book M. Millingen had described only one hundred seventy four; seventy four of these are from the period before 18 Brumaire and consequently are already described in Hennin, and one hundred ten pieces are either coins or proofs, so the number of medals and jettons of the consulate and empire described in the book is only three hundred sixty three, in any case only a fifth of the actually existing medals and jetons of the period. |
| This fact by itself demonstrated the inadequacy of the book. Now when you go beyond the series of pieces from the Paris Mint, you actually have every chance of not finding in it what you seek; consequently the preface of the book is simply erroneous when it states, "This record contains not only the coins and medals struck in France, but also those struck in the states allied to France, those of the princes of Napoleon's family, and, in general, all the pieces which can serve to illustrate that period of history". |
| Beyond the fact that everyone who consults this book verifies again the numerous faults contained not only in the text, but also the plates, forms a serious objection which none the less pales before the capital defect which I indicated above in by demonstrating that it contains only a small part of the medals about which the collector desires information. For my part, I stopped long ago consulting that book, which is so frequently used internationally that a number of collectors even believe that a piece is rare when they do not find it in L'Histoire métallique de Napoléon. |
| It is completely different when you consult the fundamental book, Trésor de numismatique et de glyptique, published in 1836 and 1840 for the consulate and the empire. |
| These capital books contain the descriptions of two hundred sixty four pieces belonging to the consulate and one thousand twelve pieces from the empire, some twelve hundred seventy six pieces, most of them illustrated, by a mechanical process which, unlike the wood engravings in the L'Histoire métallique, excludes any error. Le Trésor de numismatique et de glyptique, on which I am basing the present work, has been indispensable to me in my work as a collector; I shall continue to use it because for what it contains it gives a lot more than my book can contain to others and to me myself, and if that work had become the meeting place for collectors and dealers, the publication of all the medals, clichés, repoussés, and jettons of the period would not have filled any perceptible lacuna; it would have sufficed to have been limited to composing a supplement, certainly considerable enough. |
However, the Trésor de numismatique et de glyptique is far from being generally used. All collectors know by experience how rare it is that a medal from the Napoleonic period is described by referring to that book. The main reason is that that book was published in a format which makes it practically unusable in a collector's daily work. It does not give the pieces any name and does not continue the series of numbers but begins anew with each plate; all this, coupled with its high price, results in the collector's conclusion that using it is hardly practical, however valuable it may otherwise be in many other ways. |
It is still necessary to report a very real and considerable defect in the Trésor de numismatique, that it is very incomplete for the years after 1812. I have the involuntary impression that that the ardor of the author for gathering the metallic souvenirs of the period cooled somewhat as the victories of the French changed into defeats and as the medals became the expression of the triumph of those defeated yesterday and proclaimed the disasters of the French. What is certain is that even though the book pretends to have the aim of containing everything relating to France during the Napoleonic period, you find therein rarely, whatever the cause may be, English and German medals, and notably those related to the years of French reverses. |
| We other collectors, whether we are French or not, whether our sympathies and sentiments lean toward one side or the other, nonetheless in our quality as collectors consider this period from a completely objective point of view, and we want the book we consult to contain everything and not to omit anything which can contribute toward presenting the complete, imposing image offered to those who consider a metallic history of this period. |
I have said earlier that the Trésor de numismatique contains the description of close to thirteen hundred medals etc.; if I am asked what I estimate the real number of pieces to be, I have to admit that at the present time it is impossible for me to indicate a number which is even approximately sure. However, I am led to believe that I shall eventually describe nearly two thousand pieces. |
If in the course of my labors my colleagues in the collecting world wish to assist me and send me exact descriptions of the unpublished pieces which they find in their collections, I shall in any case succeed in exceeding even more sensibly than in this volume the number in the Trésor de numismatique et de glyptique. These descriptions which will have been sent to me will be inserted in the second and final volume of the book, with the name of the owner, in the same manner as I have proceeded to designate the unpublished pieces to be found in my own collection. |
In addition to the books mentioned above and passing over some small books such as that of Miss Scargill (one hundred thirty seven medals) and that of Captain Laskey (one hundred forty one medals), I have to mention more particularly three books cited in the description of the pieces. |
The first of these books is that of Médailles françaises dont les coins sont conservés au musée monétaire, published in Paris in 1892 by the Administration of Coins and Medals. This book contains the description of about four hundred pieces of the consulate and the empire, a great number of which can be ordered as restrikes, but then --alas!-- with the indication of the metal struck on the edge. |
| The second of these books is the special one of Count Nahuys: Histoire métallique du Royaume de Hollande sous le régne de Louis Napoléon, Amsterdam and Paris, 1888, in which are found some medals belonging to this period which are not described in the Trésor de numismatique. |
| Finally, there are found in van Heyden's book, Ehrenzeichen, Meiningen 1897. 1898, and 1903 some military medals of the period; French, Austrian, and German; which according to the plan of the Trésor de numismatique are not excluded from that book but which nonetheless are, with a few exceptions, not found there. |
| As for the aim of the present book, I have tried as author to give what I could not find as a collector, that is to say, a manual which because of its price could be in the hands of serious collectors, of a format allowing it to be used in the daily work, arranged in such a fashion that it would be enough to give the number and name of the piece to be understood, containing correct text and comprehending a greater number of pieces than any other similar book now existing. |