It contains only two thousand beds; each of the four new
hospitals is to contain twelve hundred beds.]
Of the _Bastille_ nothing remains but the foundations; it was demolished
and levelled with the ground in about eleven months; the expences at the
end of the first three months amounted to about twenty thousand pounds
sterling. The materials were sold for half that sum, and the nation paid
the remainder. And on the 14th of July, 1790, the anniversary of the day
of its having been taken, a long mast was erected in the middle of the
place where it stood, crowned with flowers and ribbands, and bearing
this simple and expressive inscription; _Ici on Danse_. Here is
dancing.
COINS AND TOKENS.
IN the _Hotel de la Monnoye_ (the Mint) I procured some new coins. The
silver crown piece of six livres has on one side the king's head in
profile, round which is _Louis XVI. Roi des Francois_, 1792; over this
date is a small lion passant, being a Mint mark. The reverse, is a human
figure with an enormous pair of wings,[6] holding a book in its left
hand, which book rests on an altar, and with its other is represented as
if writing in it; the word _Constitution_ is already seen there. The
figure is naked, except a slight drapery on the left arm; behind the
figure is a bundle of staves, like the Roman Fasces, surmounted by the
cap of liberty, and behind the altar is a cock standing on one leg; the
inscription is _Regne de la Loi_. _L'An 4 de la Liberte._ Besides this,
there are two other Mint marks, one a small lyre, and the other the
letter A; at the foot of the altar is _Dupre_, the name of the person
who engraved the die; and on the edge is _La Nation_, _La Loi_, _et le
Roi_, in _Relievo_.
[Note 6: There is to be a new coinage without the king's profile,
and it is to be hoped these wings, or rather the whole figure, will be
left out.]
There are no new half crowns. The dies of the new thirty and fifteen sol
pieces are just like that of the crown, except that their value is
stamped on them 30 _Sols_, 15 _Sols_, and that there is no inscription
on the edge.
There are two other coins, made of a sort of bell-metal; one of two
_Sols_, with the king's profile; inscription and date like those on the
silver coin, and on the reverse the _Fasces_ and cap, between two oak
branches, and the inscription, _La Nation, Le Loi, Le Roi. L'an_ 4 _de
la Liberte. 2 S_. The other of half this size, and with the same
impressions, excep
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