Banknotes for Democracy

The first resistance banknotes appear under the Second Empire!

2 December 1851. Louis Napoleon Bonaparte seized power power through a putsch. It's the end of the Second Republic and the beginning of the Second Empire. Napoleon III, who ignored his "democratic" promises quickly restore the empire to its profit and gives it an authoritarian character. Restrictions are imposed on public freedoms and a series of consecutive orders, the liquid gradually Prince Emperor opposition. A true "law of suspects" can multiply arrests, deportations and detentions in distant new prisons emerging in Cayenne and Algeria.

 

In order to escape imprisonment, some Republicans voluntarily choose exile. Victor Hugo, the most famous, Francois Ledru-Rollin, an emblematic figure of the "Republican Party" who chose to go into exile in England. Boichot, when with him, will be held at Belle Isle from 1854, following the trial of the summer of 1853.

 

Republicans refugees in London founded a new secret society. Here's what we can read in a study published in 1858, entitled "The conspirators in England" Mr. Ch de Bussy. "This secret society is composed largely of French refugees [...] and is entitled Revolutionary Commune. It spreads inflammatory writings in France and throughout Europe, taking care [...] to make sales because money is the [...] only real purpose of all these agitators. On July 22, 1853, some of the illustrious members of the Revolutionary Commune, had to report to the justice of their actions [...]. Here's what the Paris newspaper said this trial ... Correctional Police Court (6th bedroom). Trial hearing of July 22, 1853: you can read, among the documents in the file: "3. A shaped piece ticket bearing: Voluntary contribution, 1 franc; Revolutionary Commune; Democratic republic and universal social. Said ticket having the back of the stamp and signatures Revolutionary Commune in print: Felix Pyat, Caussidiere Boichot. [...]. " (See photos below against the post).

 

A second note for the Republican Peoples Alliance

I quote again from Mr. Ch Bussy. "London Refugees founded another called Secret Society" Republican Alliance of peoples. " Like all other similar and composed of the same elements, the democratic and social society aims to revolutionize Europe [...]. The following excerpt from the newspaper "Freedom", Lille, capital of the northern department, is an official document for the history:

Lille Criminal Court (Audience of August 31, 1853)

Correspondence newspapers, both from within and abroad, announced, there are about four months, the higher committee of universal socialism, including most of the members live in London, had just try to beat currency, recognizing that, if money is the sinews of war, it is also mobile, lever conspiracies.

Appeals were made to all the followers of socialist democracy, on all points of the globe, by inviting them to a subscription of 1 franc per head to provide them the right to make their offerings to the common fund, bonds were created . These bulletins consist of a small square thumbnail in the center of which we read: Republican Peoples Alliance; GOOD FOR A GREAT". (See photos below against the post).

 

Article for the numimatic newsletter of cgb.fr, dated March 20, 2015. Yann-Noël Henon.

 

 

 

 

 

Version française a été publiée au format PDF dans le N°142 du Bulletin numismatique de cgb.fr : lire

 

Below: the subscription coupon of the "Republican Alliance of People" signed by Ledru-Rollin. London 1852? Names included is "martyrs" revolutionaries such as Mikhail Bakunin, Lajos Batthyány, Robert Blum and Jean-Baptiste Baudin (killed on a barricade in Paris in December 1851 and whose remains rest in the Pantheon today).

 

Since 1995, only one identical copy was offered for sale by the cgb.fr!