Medal - Police and Gendarmerie commissaires du Châtelet

Reverse

View of the Châtelet and the Ile de la Cité.

Script: Latin

Lettering:
HIS OCULIS LUSTRATA REFULGET
COMMISSAIRES DU CHATELET 1749

Translation: Traveled from this view, the city shines.

Edge

Reeded

Comment

48 in number, the commissioners at the Châtelet were police officers whose function was very broad: monitoring the markets, the exercise of seals, receiving complaints from victims, affixing seals after death, receiving the accounts of the guardianship community, curatorship, management of companies. They assembled twice a week at the Châtelet.

This token of the GIRARD Denis, dean from 1773 to 1779, commissioner of the Luxembourg district then of the Saint-Avoye, Palais-Royal and Montmartre districts.

The first year of issue of this series of tokens was 1723. It was the year of dean DELAMARRE or DELAMARE Nicolas (author of the famous police treatise). Then there were tokens with the same reverses of the deans:
GALLYOT Pierre, from 1726 to 1737
SOUCY Jean-Baptiste (de), from 1738 to 1739 (No known token)
MENYER Nicolas, François, from 1740 to 1747,
DAMINOIS Louis-Jérôme, from 1748 to 1759,

In 1749 there was the famous law which was created against vagabonds and beggars (https://gallica.bnf.fr/ark:/12148/btv1b86186182.image). It could be a reason for this date to be commemorated on the reverse of the tokens.
That's why dean DAMINOIS Louis-Jérôme has two types of tokens: with a date 1723 and later - 1749.

And then there were tokens with the same reverses of the deans:
DAMINOIS Louis-Jérôme, from 1748 to 1759,
HUBERT Jean, from 1760 to 1772,
GIRARD Denis, from 1773 to 1779
MOURICAULT Thomas, from 1780 to 1789,
CHENON Pierre, from 1790 to 1791

More information: https://sites.google.com/site/jetondepolice/home/les-commissaires-au-chatelet