New Ulm review. (New Ulm, Brown County, Minn.) 1892-1961, 1899-03-29
"a FIVE FRANC PIECE.
ONE THAT'S THE HOPE or EVERY
cREDuLous FRENCHMAN.

IoNE# THAT'S THE HOPE OF EVERY
cREDuLous FRENCHMAk.
The Story Of Napo1eon's Famous Coin
| and the Immense Fortune That Is
Popularity Believed to BE Conceal
ed Within 1t.
If you happen to have in your posses
sion the particular French coin known
as a franc piece, you may unwilling
" be millionaire.
Such, at least, is the belief shared bk
hundreds upon thousands of credulous
F'renchmen and Frenchwomen, many
of whom spend most of their spare time
destroying quantities of 5 franc pieces
in the hope of realizing a fortune.
DIR MARCEL Leonardo Nardez, the
we'll known numismatist and one of the
recognized authorities on coin lore,
speaking Of this curl ous condition of
affairs: said
1T is quite true that half France
stillsbelieves in the existence Of great
wealth hidden in a franc piece, al
though many numismatists hold that
the. fortune in question was. long ago
discovered and appropriated by one of
the Rothschild family.
The story CT the strange 5 franc
fortune legend may be briefly told. IA S
franc piece, to begin with, is silver
coin, and is worth about 4s. 3D. Napo-
leon I was very anxious to make the
scoin a popular one, and with this end
: in Eview,he caused it to be circulated
!, everywhere throughout France that
ihe had inserted in one of the silver
pieces before it left the mint bank
mote or order for 1 900, 900 Of these same
b francs-roughly, about e2O0, 600
Whether he; really did this or not can
NOT say for certain, but the weight of
evidence would seem to show that it
was done. = -
elm the manuscript memoirs of the
Due de Feltie, sNapoleon's minister of
war, .at:is expressly stated that the en-
Iperor Enclosed a note on the Bank of
France, duly signed by the governors Of
that institution, in split franc piece;
that the halves were then welded to-
:gether, partially relninted and thrown
In "a heap of similar coins, which the
emperor mixed with his own hands
These coins Napoleon took with him in
a bag when he went to Bou]ogne and
distributed layishly en- route, even drop
ping some of them out of his carriage
windows. In this way it was impossible
to keep track of she lucky coin
1.-THE news of this odd lottery spread
far and wide, and the 5 franc piece
leaped into immediate favor From
that day to this mutilation of the coin
has been common in France, Switzer-
land, Belgium and elsewhere. Every
year the Bank of France is requested to
make good scores of pieces split in
vain search for the 100000 franc
bank note.
''There are many stories dealing with
reputed finds Of the fortune Indeed
when a man becomes suddenly rich in
France it is common to hear people
whisper, He must have found Napo-
leon s famous CON-
''Some assert that the emperor kept
the coin himself, but this hardly agrees
with Napoleon s character Still it is
current theory that some of the money
which enabled Napoleon III to reach
the imperial throne was found in the
lucky silver piece, which his mother,
Queen Hortense, had wheedled out of
her brother-in-law.
1T was also common talk that Gen
eral Boulanger had acquired the famous
coin until the discovery that his money
supplies came from the Duchess d. Uzes
set that belief at rest.
"The most likely explanation as to
why the 5 franc piece fails to turn up
is that Baron Ferdinand de Rothschild,
a French member of the great Jewish
banking house, secured it, This account
states that Baron de Rothschild, having
investigated the tradition and found
sufficient proof Of its truth, deliberate
~ set to work to locate the note.
''He quietly bought in and collected
every franc piece he could get, and
his agents were notified to preserve and
forward to Paris every franc piece
which reached them in Europe, Asia,
Africa or America. In his office the
baron kept three trusty men hard at
work bisecting the coins. ---
"Some say that he had invented
plan for welding them together again,
SO as to defy detection; others maintain
that he melted down the silver and
sold it to the government en- bloc The
work was colossal but in the end the
baron's sytem is said to have conquered.
''He found the note for 100000
francs, having spent nearly 1000, 900 to
obtain it. The order was duly presented
at the Bank Of France and cashed by
that institution. #~ I.
plausible as this narration may
seem, the great mass of Frenchmen re-
fuse to credit it, and go on. year after
year, splitting open their franc pieces
to look for Napoleon's note. It is Ger
tainly a tantalizing thought that some
where in the world a check for e200,
900 is knocking about hidden in an Or
binary silver coin worth less than shil-