The postal arrangements of France have been deranged oft-times within the past century by war and revolution. It is just a century since the famous episode of the Lavalettes occurred. The Count de Lavalette was Director of Posts under Napoleon, and in 1814 he did his best to upset the organisation and fled on the approach of the Allies. The following year he returned to his post, and after Waterloo he was arrested on a treason charge and sentenced to the guillotine. The Countess made desperate efforts to gain the clemency of Louis XVIII., but without avail. In the end she gained permission to go to her husband in his prison. She went in a sedan chair with her daughter, and an old servant of the family. The gaoler left the couple to their last farewell, and on his return saw the broken-hearted wife assisted out by her two companions. A little later he approached the Count, who lay collapsed upon his bed covered in a large cloak, and his face buried in his hands. It was some time after ere the gaoler discovered that his prisoner was the lady, and that the Count had got clear away.
French stamps provide a very interesting record of the political changes in the country, and provide one of the best illustrations of how stamps demarcate the periods of a nation's history. We have dealt at some length with this aspect of French stamps elsewhere,[5] and limit our account here to a short pictorial one. The first French stamps (Fig. 137) are inscribed REPUB. FRANC., and followed in the wake of the revolution of 1848 when M. Etienne Arago was in charge of the post office. They were first issued January 1, 1849, after the election of Prince Louis Napoleon to the Presidency. The head on the stamp
engraved by the elder Barre is not the head of Liberty, as is commonly supposed, but that of Ceres, the Italian goddess of Agriculture, who was the same as the Greek Demeter or "Mother Earth," appropriate for the design of the stamps of a country which is "one of Ceres' chiefest barns for corn." Napoleon's coup d'etat of December, 1851, was followed by the issue in 1852 of stamps in which his portrait takes the place of Ceres (Fig. 138). Late in the same year the Empire was proclaimed, so in 1853 the abbreviated inscription REPUB. FRANC. was altered to EMPIRE FRANC. (Fig. 139). Napoleon's successes in Italy and elsewhere were acclaimed by adding the victor's crown of laurel to the portrait on the stamps in 1863 ([Fig. 140]). His various expeditions are marked for the collectors in a most interesting range of Army postmarks, used in the Crimea, China, Mexico, etc., and of French stamps used in the French post offices in the Levant, similar to the British ones described in chapter I., and now rendered obsolete by
the closing of the post offices in October, 1914, as a result of the "abolition of the capitulations." The Mexican expedition, largely owing to the Civil War troubles in the States, led to the placing of Emperor Maximilian on the throne of Mexico, and to the issue of stamps of the Mexican Empire bearing that ill-fated ruler's portrait ([Fig. 141]).
[5] "All About Postage Stamps." By Fred J. Melville. London, 1913. T. Werner Laurie, Ltd.
137 138 139
140 141