Commemorative, Historical and Art Medals

Guadeloupe, Armand Barbès, 1848, a copper medal by Delarue and Houzelot, bust left, rev. Republican symbol and clasped hands, 32mm; Armand Barbès, 1848, a brass medal, 27mm [2]. Very fine and better £50-70

Armand Sigismond Auguste Barbès (1809-70), ‘romantic revolutionary’ and politician, born in Guadeloupe, twice escaped the death penalty and had sentences commuted to life imprisonment. Barbès was a prime mover in the Société des Saisons, a body that attempted a coup d’état in Paris in 1839; on release from prison in 1848 he conspired against Louis Philippe in the revolution of 1848-9 and was again imprisoned, only to be released on the orders of Napoleon III in 1854