The Napoleon Route and the coins of 1815

1 March: a beach between Antibes and Cannes

Having left the island of Elba on 26 February 1815, Napoleon came ashore on 1 March at the head of the Golfe-Juan bay, in the commune of Vallauris. Accounts of his numbers vary: roughly 1,000 to 1,200 men. The beach was then almost empty, with a few fishermen’s huts. The troops stayed there several hours, in an olive grove.

An attempt on Antibes came to nothing: the fortified town kept its gates shut. The march therefore set off westwards. General Cambronne went ahead with the advance guard to scout the road and gather supplies. General Drouot brought up the rear. At nightfall the column bivouacked at Cannes, near a chapel dedicated to Notre-Dame-de-Bon-Voyage, which has since disappeared.

One detail matters for anyone interested in coins. The County of Nice, French since the Revolution, had been returned to the House of Savoy in 1814. In March 1815 the border therefore ran once again along the Var river, a few kilometres east of the landing place. Our French page on Grasse and Provence describes what this border changed in people’s purses.

Noon in Grasse, lunch on the plateau

On 2 March the column left Cannes at dawn. It crossed Mougins during the morning, passed Mouans without stopping and reached Grasse around midday. The town then had more than 12,000 inhabitants. It lived from tanneries and perfume, and it was the first sizeable town on the Emperor’s route.

In Grasse a decision was taken that would shape everything that followed. There was not yet a carriage road to Digne: beyond the town there were only mule tracks. Napoleon nevertheless chose the mountains rather than the Rhône valley. The column had to be lightened. Four cannons, a berline (a travelling carriage) and several other vehicles were left on the Place de la Foux. The baggage went on by mule.

The troops did not lodge in the town. They settled to the north, on the Roquevignon plateau, known ever since as the Plateau Napoléon. The Emperor had lunch there beneath an oak tree. According to local guides to the Grasse area, food was handed out to the soldiers on the Place du Calvecin, today’s Square Fragonard. Around 2 pm the march resumed towards Saint-Vallier.

Six days over mountain passes to Grenoble

Saint-Vallier was reached around 4 pm by way of the Col du Pilon. More mules were added there. At Escragnolles, Napoleon called on the mother of General Mireur, a son of the village killed in Egypt. Then the column crossed the Col de Valferrière, at 1,169 metres, in the snow. It reached Séranon around 10 pm. The Emperor spent a short night at the Bastide du Broundet, fully dressed, in an armchair.

On 3 March the column entered Castellane, then spent the night at Barrême. On 4 March it reached Digne on a Saturday, market day; the night was spent at the Château de Malijai. On 5 March, Sisteron around midday, then Gap late in the evening. On 6 March, a stop at Corps.

On 7 March, near Laffrey, a battalion of the 5th Line Infantry sent to block the road went over to the Emperor. Further on, Colonel de La Bédoyère brought the 7th Line. Grenoble opened its Porte de Bonne around 11 pm. Lyon followed on 10 March, Paris on the 20th.

Money in people’s pockets in March 1815

The people who watched the column go by had been counting in francs since the law of Germinal Year XI (1803). The franc weighed 5 grams of silver, 900/1000 fine. Silver coins ranged from the quarter franc to the 5 francs écu, and gold was struck as 20 and 40 francs. To identify the silver coins of the Consulate and Empire, see the page on the silver francs of Napoleon I.

The coins of the Ancien Régime, the monarchy before 1789, had not disappeared, however. Écus of 6 livres and gold louis stayed in drawers and in everyday dealings. Only the law of 14 June 1829 demonetised the écus. In a single payment in 1815, an écu of Louis XVI could still sit alongside a 5 francs bearing Napoleon’s profile.

One last element of the scene: since May 1814, the government of Louis XVIII had been striking its own 5 francs, with the King’s draped bust and the arms of France. When Napoleon crossed the Grasse area, he was therefore marching along roads where brand-new royal coins were already circulating.

The coins struck during the Hundred Days

Back at the Tuileries on 20 March, Napoleon had coins struck with his effigy once more. They carry the laureate head and, on the reverse, the words EMPIRE FRANÇAIS. They were produced until the second abdication on 22 June. Louis XVIII returned to Paris on 8 July.

The 5 francs of this period weighs 25 grams of silver, 900/1000 fine, and measures 37 millimetres. According to the mintage tables published by BDOR, some 1.38 million pieces came from Paris, Limoges, Rouen, Strasbourg, Bayonne, Toulouse, Perpignan and Lille. No Provençal mint appears on that list, so a Hundred Days coin found in the Grasse area arrived from elsewhere. The gold 20 francs were struck in Paris, Bayonne and Lille.

Beware of the date: 1815 is not enough. Coins of Louis XVIII also carry that year, from before and after the Hundred Days. The portrait and the legend make the difference. The breakdown by mint is on the page on Hundred Days coins.

Reminders of 1815 on the ground

At Golfe-Juan, the Napoleon column has had several lives: pulled down after Waterloo, put back up at the start of the Second Empire, damaged in 1871. It was moved and reinaugurated on 1 July 1932, topped with a Carrara marble bust. A plaque on the harbour recalls the landing. In Cannes, another plaque, on the church of Notre-Dame-de-Bon-Voyage, recalls the bivouac.

In Grasse, the Plateau Napoléon keeps the memory of the halt. The charred trunks of three cypresses used to mark the spot, and an oak bears the Emperor’s name. Above Saint-Vallier, the old Siagne track follows the route actually taken in 1815, not the present-day road.

The road itself, today the N85, is more recent than the episode. Its section between Grasse and the Vallon de Nans was built between 1832 and 1855. In 1913, Abbé Jules Chaperon proposed giving Napoleon’s name to the road from Antibes to Lyon. The road was tarred in 1927, and the tourist route was inaugurated in July 1932. Today it is recognisable by its signs bearing an eagle with outstretched wings.