LOUIS XVI AND MARIE ANTOINETTE : BIRTH OF THE DAUPHIN

DUVIVIER, Benjamin: France, 1782, Silver, 74 mm
Obv: Conjoined busts of Louis XVI and Marie Antoinette   LUDOV. XVI. ET MAR. ANT. AUSTR. FR. ET NAV. REGI ET REGINAE   (Louis XVI and Marie Antoinette, King and Queen of France and Navarre).
Exergue: LUTETIA   (LUTETIA refers to the Gallo-Roman city that is the ancestor of present-day Paris).
Rev: King and Queen between a kneeling Paris, holding a shield, and Trade (Abundance), holding a cornucopia and Hermes’ staff.  SOLEMNIA DELPHINI NATALITIA
Exergue:  REGE ET REGINA URREM INVESENTIBUS XXI. JANU. MDCCLXXXII
Signed:  B. DU VIVIER / D.V.
Very rare

This medal commemorates the birth of Louis-Joseph Xavier Francois, Dauphin of France (1781-1789). (The Dauphin is the title given to the heir apparent of the throne of France.) He was the second child and first son of King Louis XVI of France and Marie Antoinette of Austria. When Louis-Joseph died at the age of seven of tuberculosis, the title of Dauphin passed to his younger brother Louis-Charles, Duke of Normandy (1785–1795), who survived his father but died in prison at the age of ten.

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