Tour of French History Through 5 Franc Coins

Coins are a tangible piece of history that can illustrate the politics, art, and economics of a people and time. In this video we examine 5 Franc coins from France and how these coins have recorded the tumultuous history of France from 1814 to 2002.

Some notes:
The 5 Franc coins depicting Louis XVIII, Charles X, and Napoleon III have all been cleaned (never clean your coins!)

The coins shown do not illustrate all of the various 5 Franc coins of France. Many other designs exist! This video simply uses one example coin from each different chapter of government in French history.

The coins displayed are often not the highest quality (given my budgetary constraints, sorry about that!)

The historical information presented is common knowledge and can be found on Wikipedia.

I am no Dan Brown, so if anyone would like to add some comments on other symbols displayed on the coins, please do!

That being said, I should also mention that for the French Second and Third Republic coins displaying Hercules and the Maidens, the two Maidens represent Liberty and Equality.

Apparently I also lack the capacity to say "French throne" or "laurel branches", sorry world!

I hope to make some more of these videos using coins to illustrate history, and also add in a bit more personality. Thanks for putting up with my first attempt at this! Also if you have any suggestions for other coin series that are good illustrations of history, comment below. I personally was going to go for Pennies from the UK next, as the stability of the UK is a nice contrast to the chaos that was occurring in France during this same time period.