Page:Notes and Queries - Series 11 - Volume 4.djvu/217

 ii s. iv. SEPT. 9. i9ii.] NOTES AND QUERIES.

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by Mr. Burden, M.P.), and completed in 1796. Frog mugs were made to com memorate both events, and others exis bearing dates up to 1813. They were after wards copied by the Staffordshire potters but Messrs. Phillips' name gives the approxi- mate date of the mug referred to by MR. C. S BURDON. ALAN STEWART.

The mug seen by MR. BURDON is evidently a Sunderland " toad mug." If MR. BURDON wrote to Mr. P. W. Bull at the House of Commons, that gentleman would probably supply him with valuable information from his fund of knowledge. Q.

A Masonic drinking-mug with a toad inside may be something rare, but there are many " toad-mugs " without Masonic emblems outside. Many are of Wear-side make, and are known as " Sunderland toad mugs.' I have a mug which shows the bridge, anc part of pottery works, at which, no doubt the mugs were made. THOS. RATCLIFFE.

FRENCH COIN : REPUBLIC AND EMPIRE (11 S. iv. 149). The inscription NAPOLEON

EMPEREUR REPUBLIQUE FRANQAISE OH

French coins is well known, not only to numismatists, but also to people who have resided in France. In the Introduction to ' France ' I wrote in 1898 :

"Amateurs of the diversified French coinage of the nineteenth century are familiar with a series of gold pieces of great beauty, struck when it was young, the oldest bearing the revolutionary date An XII, and the most modern that of four years later, 1808. They are still in circulation. Their unworn outlines tell of ninety years' hoarding, and betoken the national virtue of thrift .... The image and superscription are worthy of note, not merely for their preservation of Caesar's finely cut profile, but because on their face is engraved ' Napoleon Empereur ' and on

the reverse ' Republique Frangaise.' The

legend on these coins, with all its inconsistency, seems to indicate the form of government which France needs," &c.

In addition to silver coins, such as that described by MAJOR WILLCOCK, I possess a number of gold pieces (of twenty francs) of the early Napoleonic period, gathered in the everyday exchange of French cur- rency. Among them are two bearing the revolutionary date "An 12 " (September, 1803-September, 1804). The head is almost identical on each, the first being inscribed on the obverse BONAPARTE PREMIER CONSUL, the other NAPOLEON EMPEREUR, and each on the reverse REPUBLIQUE FRANCHISE : AN 12, both reverses being apparently struck from the same die. The next in the

series bears a more finely cut profile of Napo- leon, with shorter hair, with the inscrip- tion on one side NAPOLEON EMPEREUR, and on the other REPUBLIQUE FRANAISE : AN 13 the design of the reverse being different from that of An 12. Another, with the head laurel-crowned, is inscribed NAPOLEON

EMPEREUR and REPUBLIQUE FRANQAISE :

1807 the Revolutionary Calendar having been abolished at the end of 1805, nineteen months after the proclamation of the Empire. Another, otherwise almost identical, bears the date 1808.

The first of the Napoleonic coins, in my incomplete collection, inscribed EMPIRE FRANCAIS, is dated 1810 a laurel-crowned head by the same engraver as those of 1807 and 1808. An interesting piece of the latter date is inscribed, around a completely different head, NAPOLEONE IMPERATORE E RE 1808, and on the other side not the Republic, still recognized on the French coinage, but REGNO D'ITALIA : 20 LIRE.

Of 44 years later I have a twenty-franc piece inscribed on the obverse LOUIS NAPOLEON BONAPARTE, and on the reverse REPUBLIQUE FRANgAiSE : 1852 the year in which the Second Republic came to an end in name as well as in reality. On the first coins struck after Louis Bonaparte proclaimed himself Emperor, he had NAPOLEON m. EMPEREUR stamped on the obverse, and REPUBLIQUE FRANCAisE on the reverse, after the manner of his uncle. But this issue was small, and specimens of it are rare, though provincial notaries sometimes get them, extracted from the bas de laine of the French peasantry. J. E. C. BODLEY.

Among a good many five-franc pieces I have one with NAPOLEON EMPEREUR on the obverse, and REPUBLIQUE FRANCAISE on the reverse, as given by MAJOR WILLCOCK ; but its date is 1808. The date of his ex- ample is AN 13, which equals 23 September, 1804 22 September, 1805. It is therefore evident that the contradictory inscriptions asted for some years.

I have also a five-franc piece dated AN 12,
 * he last year of the Republic and the first

of the Empire (28 May, 1804), bearing the nscriptions BONAPARTE PREMIER CONSUL

and REPUBLIQUE FRAN9AISE.

According to one (dated 1889) of those money-sheets published in France giving -^presentations (poorly drawn) of coins to >e refused and of those to be accepted, there were two five-franc pieces dated AN 12, he one bearing NAPOLEON PREMIER CONSUL, he other NAPOLEON EMPEREUR, each having