^Lot 1618 FRENCH COLONIES, mint uncertain, billon 2 sols (24 deniers), Louis XV, 1743, encrusted as found, rar

FRENCH COLONIES, mint uncertain, billon 2 sols (24 deniers), Louis XV, 1743, encrusted as found, rare provenance. Vlack-22; Gad-281; KM-500.29. 2.33 grams total. The Vlack reference states: "Specimens examined indicate they were part of a hoard recovered from the French frigate, St Geran, that sunk [sic] during a gale when it struck shoals en route to the Île de France (Mauritius) on August 17, 1744." The story of the St. Geran's sinking includes the tragic death of a young French lady traveling back from France to idyllic Mauritius (then known as Île de France) along with her betrothed, a crew member, her death ostensibly due to a prudish refusal to remove her clothing to keep from drowning, tragically choosing modesty over survival. In 1788 this anecdote became the core of the best-selling novel Paul et Virginie, by the French author Jacques-Henri Bernardin de Saint-Pierre, which also extolled the virtues of living harmoniously on an island without the constraints of social class divisions. A bit corroded yet with much of the legends quite legible, encrusted with verdigris and sedimentation. With old tag describing a shell fragment in the encrustation as "apparently a pc. of TOOTH." Recovered from: St. Geran, sunk in 1744 off Mauritius in the Indian Ocean