#same as with Napoleon he started the invasion during june as well

[starpros-sunshine]

Napoleon Bonaparte is one funky funky individual

The French Revolution is making me want to chop my own head off

[dutch-and-flemish-painters]

Pieter Jozef Verhaghen - Presumed self-portrait - 

Pieter-Jozef Verhaghen (19 March 1728 in Aarschot – 3 April 1811 in Leuven) was a Flemish painter of large-scale religious and mythological scenes. He is regarded as the last representative of the so-called Flemish School of painting. In particular, he is seen as continuing the artistic tradition of Flemish Baroque painting as exemplified by Rubens in the late 18th century and into the 19th century. He was highly regarded during his lifetime and enjoyed the patronage of eminent patrons and religious institutions. He was appointed first court painter to Empress Maria Theresa of Austria who also provided him a stipend to travel abroad to further his artistic studies.

Pieter-Jozef Verhaghen was born in Aarschot on 19 March 1728. Grandfather and father Verhaghen belonged to the notables of the city and practised as surgeons. The two sons of the family broke with the family tradition and opted to become painter. Jan-Jozef Verhaghen, older brother of Pieter-Jozef, is known in the history of 18th century painting as Potteke (little pot) Verhaghen, because in his works he often depicted kitchen utensils, pots and bowls of earthenware, copper and tin.

Pieter-Jozef Verhaghen thanked his artist career to a chance meeting. As a young boy, he very much enjoyed drawing. When in 1741 he learned that the traveling painter and art restorer Jan-Baptist van den Kerckhoven (c. 1709-1772) was working to restore a painting in the Church of Our Lady in in Aarschot he showed van den Kerckhoven some of his drawings. Van den Kerckhoven immediately recognized the boy's artistic talent and convinced father Willem Verhaghen to let his son study the principles of painting. The young Verhaghen stayed with Van den Kerckhoven and travelled with him to other cities nearby working on decorations and restorations. When van den Kerckhoven was called to some job further away, Verhaghen was not allowed by his father to travel with him due to his young age. He spent the next two years studying art by making copies after prints. In 1744 he moved to Antwerp where he continued his training with Balthasar Beschey. Beschey was an upcoming painter who worked in the style of Rubens and even made direct copies after the famouns Antwerp master. As part of his training in Beschey's workshop Verhaghen made studies after 17th-century works. He was simultaneously enrolled at the Royal Academy of Fine Arts in Antwerp where he learned to draw after models. His brother Jan-Jozef later also moved to Antwerp where he worked while taking art classes. In 1747 Pieter-Jozef left Antwerp to return to Aarschot to live with his parents.

In 1749, he was summoned to Leuven where brewer Guilliam Vrancx asked him to decorate the salons of his house on the Mechelsestraat with decorative paintings in Louis XV style. Vrancx was an influential business man and later mayor of Leuven who provided the young artist with an excellent introduction to the bourgeois milieu in Leuven. Not long after his move to Leuven, Verhaghen met and fell in love with Johanna Hensmans, the daughter of a brandy distiller. Rather then return to Antwerp to take up his studies again, the artist decided to stay in Leuven where the couple were married in 1753. Seven children (four sons and three daughthers) were the issue of this marriage. The couple settled in Leuven where Verhaghen opened a small workshop while his wife ran an yarn and linen shop. In 1754 the artist became formally a citizen of Leuven. In these early years of his career Verhaghen was mainly active as a decorative painter. He counted among his patrons members of the bourgeoisie as well as from the circle of the University of Leuven. For the University's graduates who were not from the aristocracy he painted coats of arms, which they could hang above their house door. He also started to receive commissions for larger works with religious themes, in which he was be able to give free rein to his creativity. These works include 11 paintings for the chapel of Leuven University, two canvases for the chapter hall of the Park Abbey and a series of paintings for the Dominican church in Leuven. These works show that his artistic aspiration was to paint in the style of his artistic examples, Rubens and Gaspar de Crayer. He took de Crayer as his example as there were multiple works of this artist present in the churches of Leuven. He gradually also found patronage outside Leuven and its immediate surroundings and painted altarpieces for churches in Turnhout, Halle and Ghent. He was also active as a portrait painter.

The Brussels banker and art lover Daniel Danoot introduced Pieter-Jozef Verhaghen to Prince Charles Alexander of Lorraine, Governor of the Austrian Netherlands. At the time Verhaghen had been working on a commission for the duke Karl von Koblenz depicting the Hungarian king St Stephen receiving the Pope's envoys bringing him the crown. When von Koblenz died before Verhaghen had delivered the commission, he offered the finished work to Prince Charles. Prince Charles wrote to Austrian Empress Empress Maria Theresa to ask for permission to purchase the work. The Austrian Empress Empress Maria Theresa agreed to the request and when she later was sent the work, she was taken by its qualities. She decided to support the artistic development of the artist by funding a study trip to Italy. He as awarded a stipend that would cover the living expenses of the artist and his family for a period of two years.

In May 1771 Verhaghen was made the ordinary painter of Prince Charles Alexander of Lorraine. In the same month he set out on his trip together with his eldest son Willem who would later become a priest. Travelling first to Paris he then continued via Lyon to Turin. Here he was received at the court of Sardinia. He then travelled on to Milan, Parma, Piacenza, Bologna to arrive in Rome at the beginning of August 1771. He stayed in Rome for one and a half years and visited Napels during that period. While in Rome, Pope Clement XIV granted the artist an audience and he offered plenary indulgence to him, his family in the third degree, and thirty other people of his choice. The pope also personally gave the artist's son Willem a tonsure.

Subsequently Verhaghen travelled to Vienna via Tuscany and Venice. He arrived in Vienna on 9 June 1773. Here the Empress received him in audience two times. She honored him by bestowing the title of 'first court painter' on him. When he returned home in October 1773, he was welcomed as a kind of national hero in various cities, including his native city Aarschot, his hometown Leuven and Antwerp. The Leuven painter and poet Martin van Dorne composed a short didactic poem, in which he evoked all the works executed by the prolific Verhaghen. His reputation had increased enormously and many institutions wanted to own paintings by his hand. His reputation grew also outside his own country. His success were supported by his ability to paint quickly and his efficient workshop organization in which he followed the example of his teacher Balthasar Beschey.

Religious institutions were his most important customers, so his career suffered from the Austrian government's efforts to curb the influence of the Catholic Church. The invasion of the Southern Netherlands by French troops in the 1790s further affected the artist's career. Two of his sons, Willem, parish priest in Schaerbeek, and Joris-Jozef, canon of the Park Abbey had to shelter in the artist's home to escape persecution of the French administrators. After the Concordat of 1801 entered into between Napoleon and Pope Pius VII in 1801, the religious tensions decreased and Pieter-Jozef was able to get some new orders, especially from private individuals. But the time for his great historical compositions had passed.

After on 26 October 1800 artist from Leuven such as Martin van Dorne, François Xavier Joseph Jacquin, Josse-Pieter Geedts, Frans Berges, Gillis Goyers and Antoon Clevenbergh had established a society for the establishment of an academy in Leuven, Verhaghen was elected its honorary director. After suffering a stroke in 1809, the artist was no longer to work in the last years of his life. He also lost his oldest son and wife in the year 1810.

By the time he died on 3 April 1811, the interest in his work had been in decline for a while.

[rbzpr]

Conscription during the French Revolution (Jean-Paul Bertaud)

Drawing inspiration from the writings of the philosophers of the 17th century, the politicians of the Revolution, of the Constituant Assembly as well as of the Legislative Assembly and the Convention, maintained the principle of military duty: the citizen had to have two costumes, the one of his trade and the one of the soldier. The citizen was a soldier in power, the solider remained, under the flag, a citizen. In fact, the principle was never really applied until the era of the Directory. The Constituent Assembly, in its beginnings, limited itself to levying 100,000 auxiliaries for the troops of the line, and later, in 1791, volunteers from the National Guard. The Legislative Assembly, in spite of the declaration of La patrie en danger, also limited itself to levying Volunteers, and the Girondin Convention, while reaffirming the principle of obligatory military service, did the same. The law of 23 August 1793, passed under the pressure of the sans-culottes and of the Jacobins, only envisaged a requisition of young bachelors or of widowers without children between the ages of 18 and 25 for the duration of the war: the requisition should only be a helping hand given, in a period of time which was hoped to be short, to the already standing army.

After Thermidor the army grew gradually weaker, while the number of dersertions increased and the requisition ran out, for lack of coactive force of the Montagnards. In 1797, the headcount of the army fell alsmost from almost a million to 365,000. Such a contingent was insufficent for facing the war, which flared up again everywhere in Europe.

General Jourdan, deputy in the Council of Five Hundred, presented a mobilisation project on 23 Nivôse Year VI (12 January 1798). Obligatory military service for all was henceforth a reality: young men from 18 to 21 years of age in peacetime, from 18 to 24 in times of war, would henceforth be enrolled. As France only needed a limited number of troops in peactime, Jourdan proposed to draw lots in order to determine who would actually have to depart. Delbrel, the deputy from Tarn, spoke against such a procedure, as he considered it to be antidemocratic.

The Jourdan Law was finally passed on 19 Fructidor Year VI (5 September 1798). It regulated military service for almost a century. All Frenchmen of military age (20 completed years) had to be inscrits ensemble (i.e. conscrits) on the tables of recruitment of the army and remain there until the age of 25. All Frenchmen born in the same year formed a class. Military service lasted five years in peacetime and rested upon the youngest of each class. Soldiers enrolled in the navy and married men were exempted. Men between 20 and 25 years of age could not travel without a passport on which their military situation was recorded. In case of relocation, young men had to inform their municipality of origin ; thereby, the authorities hoped to counter insoumission. The insoumis was persecuted, arrested and judged as a deserter. No Frenchman could hold a public office or enjoy his rights as a citizen if he had not fulfilled his military duties.

The municipal administrations drew up the tables of conscription on the authority of the central administrations of the department or of the Ministry of War. Surgeons or doctors were appointed in order to form medical boards. In these, five family fathers sat who had children serving in the army, deciding on who to recruit or to exempt ; due to these boards, we still possess, for numerous departments, information on the physical aspect and health status of thousands of young men from the end of the First Republic, from the Consulate and the Empire. Not all administrations showed scrupulous care in organising the conscription, and in April 1799, when the war started again, many tables remained devoid of information.

The municipalities, which supported the military cause, show us the « bons pour le service » gathering in the administrative centre of the department and, in groups of hundred or two hundred, leaving on foot under the command of a former officer. Their departure gave rise to public manifestations: the representative of the government rediscovered the language of Year II in order to glorify the Revolution, the community gathered in a banquet, where one swore « hatred to tyrants » and one distributed travel provisions to the conscripts, a ball closing the festivities. On the next day, the community accompanied those who departed to the last hurdle of the city or of the village. « The example of their elders, the account of victories ignited their hearts ; and why should it be otherwise, are they not French, wrote a commissioner of the directory ». Reality was often different: while many villagers in the border zones which were directly threatened rediscovered the gestures and the enthusiasm of the first moments of the Republic, there were also processions, almost funeral, surrounding an open coffin, into which the conscripts would, as a gesture of mourning, throw their freshly cut hair.

In Year VI, among 202,000 conscripts, 143,000 were recognised as fit and only 93,000 departed. In the spring of 1799, the Directory decided to levy 150,000 men, designated by drawing lots. The law of 28 Germinal Year VII (17 April 1799) went counter to the principle of equality: the conscripts, drawn by lot, could indeed include substitutes between 18 and 20 years of age. Drawing by lots and replacement aroused protests: the drawing was, according to some, reinstituting a practice of the Ancien Régime. The replacement? The poor asked: was the blood of the rich worth more than theirs? There were insurrections, only amplified by royalist propaganda, as in the region of Toulouse. The law of 19 Messidor Year VII (28 June 1799), passed under the pressure increased by the Coalition, ordered that the ones who had been exempted from the prior levies would have to return before the councils in order to have a medical examination ; the departments of the West, who had been protected until had, had to contribute. This was the starting point of a new revolt that was marked by the occupation, for some time, of Mans, Nantes and Saint-Brieuc. The royalists mingled with the réfractaires here. In spite of everything, the levy provided nearly 400,000 men, who allowed Masséna and Brune to halt the offensive. Victories were achieved which the Bonapartist propaganda minimised on the eve of the coup d'état of 18 Brumaire.

Under the Consulate and the Empire, Napoleon Bonaparte took over the essentials of the previous laws on conscription. He perfected a « machine conscriptionnelle », bequeathed by the dead Republic, to the point – the historian I. Woloch has shown this – of making it an effective tool of mobilisation until 1812. Contrary to popular belief, it seems that one can subscribe to what the Emperor said on Saint Helena: « Conscription had rendered the French army the best composed in the world. It was an institution, eminently national yet very progressive in the mores ; henceforth, it was only the mothers who were still distressed by it ; and the time would have come where a girl would not want a boy who has not paid his debt towards the patrie. And it is in this state alone that conscription would have acquired the last level of its advantages: when it is no longer presented as a punishment or as a duty, but has become a point of honour of which everyone is jealous, then alone the nation is great, glorious, strong ; that is when its existence can defy setbacks, invasions, centuries. » Conscription, originally regarded as a burden, was soon recognised as a droit du citoyen and appeared as a democratic safeguard.

Source: Dictionnaire historique de la Révolution française (Albert Soboul)

[goldeagleprice]

British gold disguised as French

In 1815, the London Mint struck a gold coin that baffled historians for decades until the truth was finally uncovered by diligent researchers. Some of these early published accounts indicated that the British had secretly struck French gold coins that were made so well and close to the French originals that no one could tell the difference. It all began in the early 19th century when the Emperor Napoleon Bonaparte stood astride Europe like a colossus and controlled nearly everything within view.

By 1810, however, Napoleon was facing increasing opposition and was forced to strike hard at restive states such as Prussia and Austria. In 1811, however, Czar Alexander I of Russia also began to chafe under the increasingly stringent restrictions imposed on trade within Europe and overseas. To put an end to Russian meddling that undermined his authority, the French emperor invaded Russia in June 1812 with 600,000 troops. The Russians had far less men at their disposal and many predicted that Russia would soon become part of the French Empire.

The grand scheme of the Russian invasion, despite the conquest of huge areas of the country, even including the old capital of Moscow, began to unravel by the late fall of 1812 and the Grand Armée of Napoleon began to disintegrate under an early Russian winter and the unceasing attacks of the Cossack cavalries. Napoleon himself left hurriedly for the West and the urgent need to raise fresh armies against the expected Russian onslaught.

In the meantime, Prussia and Austria saw their chance and joined with the Russians in a grand Coalition against the French. At the same time the British general Wellington was attacking the French soldiers in Spain in an effort to drive them from that country. It all boded ill for Napoleon.

The Coalition struck first at Dresden in Germany but Napoleon’s luck held and the allies suffered a devastating defeat. Undeterred, the Coalition raised fresh troops and aimed their armies at the French homeland. The next clash of arms came at Leipzig and this time Napoleon’s luck ran out, with the Coalition obtaining a major victory.

Napoleon now raced for France in yet another bid to raise enough troops to defeat the oncoming Coalition. He also faced as well the British now advancing into France after having defeated the remnants of the French armed forces in Spain.

This time, however, Napoleon’s luck ran out completely, with the Coalition seizing large areas of northern France, including Paris itself, by March 1814. The British forces under Wellington were also only a matter of days away from the capital and the French Senate saw the handwriting on the wall. Napoleon was deposed by the latter body and negotiations opened with the British and the Coalition.

Peace was soon achieved, with the French being forced to pay reparations and the former emperor, Napoleon, exiled in May 1814 to the island of Elba, situated in the Mediterranean south of France. All breathed a sigh of relief and the Allied armies began to return home. France then named Louis XVIII as the new king; he was the brother of the unfortunate Louis XVI who had been guillotined during the French Revolution, along with his queen, Marie Antoinette. (Louis XVII was the young son of Louis XVI but did not rule, also having been killed during the Revolution.)

Under Louis XVIII France began a slow return to normalcy and the realization that large numbers of her young men had been killed in the various military adventures of Napoleon. The British and their Coalition allies did continue to occupy parts of France but their troops slowly began to return home after a job well done.

At Elba, on the other hand, Napoleon was increasingly restive and the recipient of numerous clandestine pleas to return to France and overthrow the hated foreign troops as well as Louis XVIII. In March 1815 he left Elba in a small ship and landed on the southern shore of France. To the surprise of nearly everyone outside France, and even the foreign soldiers still in the country, Napoleon had little trouble in raising large numbers of fresh troops in an effort to make France once more the master of Europe.

Louis XVIII fled the country in late March 1815 for Ghent (across the Channel from England) and made arrangements with British authorities for protection and financial assistance. One important aspect of the arrangement was that the London Mint was authorized by the King to strike French 20 franc pieces of the same weight and fineness as those made in Paris and other French mints. This coin is called a Louis d’Or by modern collectors.

Although some historians think that the British coinage of 20 franc pieces was mainly for the benefit of Louis this was not the case although he no doubt received a fair number of coins for his living expenses as well as those of his retinue. The bulk of the coins were clearly meant for Wellington’s army, then assembling in France for a blow against Napoleon. At the same time the Coalition forces – of Russia, Austria, and Prussia – also formed their armies as quickly as possible.

The London coinage of the French gold began in late May 1815 and was instrumental in providing the necessary funds for Wellington. The first deliveries of coin were made by the moneyers at the beginning of June. The coins were quickly sent to Wellington who put them to good use.

The Prussians on their own moved first and attacked Napoleon but were decisively defeated on June 16, 1815. Two days later, however, Wellington moved his army into position at the Belgian town of Waterloo and inflicted a catastrophic defeat on Napoleon. The war was now over and the Allies had carried the day.

This time Napoleon was exiled to the Island of St. Helena in the south Atlantic; he died there in 1821 from stomach cancer, though some claimed – without a shred of proof – that he had been poisoned by the British.

The London Mint continued to strike the Louis d’Or well after Waterloo as the coins were being used to support Wellington’s troops then occupying considerable parts of French territory. In all, through late October 1815, about 872,000 pieces had been struck and sent to France.

The London coins are easily distinguished from those struck at Paris in that the reverse date was flanked by a fleur de lys and the letter R, which was not used at any of the French mints. The Paris coins of 1815, on the other hand, carried a rooster and the letter A at the sides of the reverse date. All bore the obverse portrait of Louis XVIII.

One other difference is found on the obverses of the two coinages. The London Mint did not copy the name of the French artist, Tiolier, which is found beneath the truncation on the obverse of the coins struck in the French mints.

Problems arose when the French Treasury found out about the coins. It seems Louis XVIII had neglected to mention the London coins to his government. The Treasury promptly declared the coins to be counterfeits and ordered that no government agency would be allowed to accept them for any reason.

There was a stand-off for some weeks but in due course the French government decided to accept the coins after all but not to release them into circulation after arriving at the Treasury. They were used in part to pay off the indemnity imposed on France after the final European peace treaty signed at Vienna in 1815.

There was one final French effort in late 1815 to discredit the London coins; a Treasury official in Paris claimed that the London coins were of a lesser fineness than the French issues and therefore worth less. To counter this complaint, in January 1816 the annual Trial of the Pyx in London was held in the presence of the French ambassador and all parties agreed that the British pieces were the exact equivalent in value to the Paris coins.

The London coins are not overly rare and can be obtained with a little patience and not a great deal of money. Those collectors interested in a nice display should obtain both the London and Paris gold coins of 1815.

The latest edition of the Krause Standard Catalog of World Coins 1801–1900 gives a value for the London coin at $325 in Very Fine while $700 is the estimated worth in Extremely Fine. The Paris 1815 coins are valued at $224 and $300, respectively. The 1815 20 francs was also struck at other French mints that year, including Rouen, Bordeaux, Bayonne, Perpignan, and Lille; values vary considerably for the other mints, those of Rouen being the scarcest and worth considerably more than the London pieces. Proofs exist for the London coinage and bring strong prices.

Some of the information in this article was taken from the detailed research by Graham Dyer in the records of the British Royal Mint, published in the December 1977 issue of Seaby’s Coin & Medal Bulletin.

  This article was originally printed in World Coin News. >> Subscribe today.

  More Collecting Resources

• The 1800s were a time of change for many, including in coin production. See how coin designs grew during the time period in the Standard Catalog of World Coins, 1801-1900 .

• Purchase your copy of The Essential Guide to Investing in Precious Metals today to get started on making all the right investing decisions.

The post British gold disguised as French appeared first on Numismatic News.