10 Euros Washington La Fayette

Issued ahead of the 250th anniversary of American independence, this piece marks the relationship between Lafayette and Washington that was forged at Valley Forge in the winter of 1777–78, when the nineteen-year-old French marquis — already a major general in the Continental Army — shared the encampment's privations and earned Washington's lasting trust. Lafayette had crossed the Atlantic at his own expense and in defiance of a direct royal order from Louis XVI, who initially banned French officers from joining the American cause.

The Monnaie de Paris has issued coins in this diplomatic-history vein with some regularity. France's intervention ultimately proved decisive at Yorktown in 1781, where Rochambeau's forces and a French naval blockade sealed Cornwallis's surrender.