Duplone

By 1797 Bern was months away from collapse. French revolutionary forces invaded in March 1798, dissolved the city-state's patrician government, and looted the treasury — a haul estimated at over 40 million livres that helped finance Napoleon's Egyptian campaign. This duplone, struck in the final year of the old Confederation, was produced under an oligarchic regime that had governed the city since the medieval period and would cease to exist within months of this coin leaving the dies.