Lot 172: Louis Oscar Roty (French, 1846-1911) "Mort de Sadi

Louis Oscar Roty (French, 1846-1911) "Mort de Sadi Carnot", 1894, a memorial bronze medal, the obverse with the shrouded figure of Sadi Carnot lying in state, attended by a mourning Marianne, with the date "XXIV Juin MDCCCXCIV" and legend "Dans le Deuil de la Patrie", the reverse with Carnot's cortege of female pall bearers holding aloft his wreath-topped coffin and proceeding towards the Pantheon, with the date "1er Juillet" and the legend "Sadi Carnot, President of de la Republique Francaise", marked on the lower edge "Bronze" and with the French cornucopia mint-mark in use after 1880, h. 3-3/16", w. 2-1/4". Note: Marie-Francois Sadi Carnot (1837-1894) was the fourth President of the Third French Republic. The son of statesman Hippolyte Carnot, he was trained as an engineer but served admirably as an organizer of the resistance during the Franco-Prussian War. He later served as Minister of Public Works and Minister of Finance before his election as President in 1887. He was an effective leader, presiding over the centennial of the Revolution in 1889 and the Paris Exhibition of the same year, both of which served to bolster the image of the Republic. His popularity was at its height when, on June 24, 1894, after delivering a speech at a public banquet in Lyon, he was stabbed by Sante Geronimo Caserio, an Italian anarchist; Carnot died shortly after midnight the next morning. He was entombed, as seen on this medal - one of Roty's most famous - in the Pantheon.