The Indianapolis journal. [volume] (Indianapolis [Ind.]) 1867-1904, 1899-01-01
FORTUNE FOR SOME ONE.
Five Million Francs in a. Certain
FiVe-Franc Piece.

| i've M1lI1Om FTinCS IN IL NcrIu1n
Five-Franc Piece.
| New York Herald.
| If you happen to have in your possession
! the particular French coin known as a five
| franc piece you may, unwittingly, be a
! millionaire. Such, at least. says Pearson's
! is the belief shared by hundreds upon thou
| sands of credulous French men and French
| women, many of whom spend most of their
! spare time destroying quantities of five
| franc pieces in the hope of realizing a for
| tune
| DIR. Carco-Leonardo Nardez, a well-known
! numlsmatist, and one of the recognized au-
| thoritieS on coin lore. speaking of this Curl
| Gus condition of affairs, said:
1t is quite true that half France still be-
| IeVes in the existence of great wealth hid
! den in a five-franc piece, although many
numlsmatists hold that the fortune in ques-
| ton was long ago discovered and appropri-
| ated by one of the Rothschild family
The story of the strange 5-franc fortune
! legend may be briefly told. A 5-franc piece,
to begin with, is a silver coin, and is worth
about dollar. Napoleon 1 was very anx-
1ouS to make the coin popular one, and,
with this end in view, he caused to be cir
cul9ted everywhere throughout France that
he had inserted in one of the silver pieces
before it left the mint a banknote or order
for 100000 of these same francs-roughly
about $l,O00COO. Whether he really did this
or not cannot say for certain, but the
weight of evidence would seem to show that
it was done.
I'm the manuscript memoirs of the Due de
Felue, NapoleOnS minister of war it is ex-
pressly stated that the Emperor Enclosed
note on the Bank of France duly signed nv
the governors of that institution in a split
tve-franc piece; that the halves We're then
welded together, partially reminted 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
ne went TO Boulogne, and distributed Law
lshly en- route, even dropping some of them
out of his carriage windows. In this Wav
II was impossible to keep track of the lucky
coin
The. news of this odd lottery spread far
and wide, and the fiVe-franc piece leaned
into immediate favor. From that day to this
mutilaton of the coin has been common in
France, Switzerland, Belgium and elsewhere
Every year the Bank of France is requested
to make good scores of pieces split in a vain
search for the 5000 900 frame bank note
1t was also common talk that General
until the discovery that his money supplies
came from the Duchess Dues set that be-
lief at rest
The most likely explanation as to why
the five-franc piece fails to turn up is that
Baron Ferdinand de Rothschid a French
member of the great Jewish banking house.
secured it. This account states that Baron
De Rothschfld, having investigated the ira
ditton and found sufficient proof of its
truth deliberately set to work to locate the
note.
He quietly bought in and collected every
f1ve-franc piece he could get, and his agents
We're notified to preserve and forward to
Paris every fve-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 govern
Ifent en- block. The work was colossal but
in the end the barons system is said to
have conquered.
He found the note for 100000 francs,
having spent nearly a million to obtain it.
The order was duly presented at the Bank
of France and cashed by that institution.
Plausible as this narration may seem,
the great mass of Frenchmen refuse to
credit it, and go on, year after year, split
ting open their five-franc pieces to look for
NapoleoH's note. 1t is certainly q tantaliz-
ing thought that somewhere in the world
a check for 81 10000 is knocking about hid
den in ordinary silver coin worth not
quite one dollar"