Political heirs can sometimes capture the imagination. Imagining a return to the grandiosity of the past but hopefully without the missteps. Followers and the heirs themselves hold out the hope but it rarely works out. So slip on your smoking jacket, fill your pipe, take your first sip of your adult beverage and sit back in your most comfortable chair. Welcome to todays offering from The Philatelist.
Todays stamp is a very early issue of France. It does a good job displaying the transformation of France back to Empire and Napoleon. The first French stamp issue featured Ceres the Roman Goddess of Agriculture. The Napoleon stamp very much resembled the Ceres stamp, with the details of the long stamp issue changing to reflect the details in the transformation of France’s longest serving head of state.
Todays stamp is issue A5 a 30 Centimes stamp issued by the French Empire in 1867. According to the Scott catalog, the stamp is worth $12.50. There is an imperforate version of this stamp that was solely for the use of the Rothschild banking empire that is worth $190.
Louis Napoleon was born to Napoleon’s younger brother and a daughter from Empress Josephine’s first marriage. The marriage was not happy and was only to produce heirs as by now Josephine was barren. After Napoleon’s defeat and death, Louis went with his mother into exile in Switzerland. He studied as a soldier and with German tutors. He tried as a young man to march back into France and claim the throne, but was stopped in Strasburg and forced into exile this time in London. He later tried again landing in Boulogne and immediately arrested by customs officers. He spent several years in French jail writing widely read political manifestos. He was able to escape back to England. In the uprisings of 1848 King Louis-Philippe abdicated. Louis Napoleon was able to return from exile to Paris and win election to the Presidency of the new French 2nd Republic.
There were many achievements in France under Louis Napoleon. The education system was modernized and made to also educate women. The banking, agriculture and trade systems were modernized with much benefit to the economy. There was major public works including in Paris where the city center was first given its modern look and sewers, gas street lamps, boulevards and many parks were laid out. .
Louis Napoleon also ended the republic and became Emperor. The constitution did not allow him to run for another term and when he failed to get that changed there was a coup. A self coup that took much power from the Assembly and gave it to Emperor Napoleon III as he was now styled. Napoleon II had theoretically ruled for a few weeks in 1815. With Empire came a lot of attention to Empire and Napoleon III added colonies in Africa and Indo-China and sent troops to help keep the Vatican from being absorbed in a new Italy. He also sent many troops to Algeria and Mexico where he supported a pro French Emperor Maximillian. All these foreign adventures stretched the French Army thin. It was the period when conscription was being used to build large armies. France was late to this and as a result the small number of French troops in France were easy to defeat in the Franco-Prussian War of 1870. Napoleon III was defeated, and again went into exile where he soon died.
Napoleon III did have time to find an Empress and produce an heir. After being rebuffed by two potential candidates, he married Eugenie of Montijo in 1849 when she was 23 and he 42. She became Empress Consort and produced an heir in 1856 Napoleon. Prince Imperial. He grew up in exile in London and died while serving in the British Army in South Africa during the war with the Zulus in 1878. After the death of her husband and son. Eugenie retired to the south of France to Villa Cyrnos that was built for her. She died in 1920 at age 94.
Well my drink is empty and so I will open up the conversation in the below comment section. Come again tomorrow for another story that can be learned from stamp collecting.