Poland / Saxony Silver Satirical Medal 1697 - Unsuccessful Candidacy of Prince Louis François de Conti for the Polish Throne - Augustus II the Strong (1697-1732)

36.43g. 43mm. AU/AU. Attractive exemplar with nice old patina. 

Medalier: unsigned. 

Slg. Merseburger 1409; Slg. Engelhardt 1223; Dassdorf 1074; Gebauer 1697.26.1 (Sachsen), 1697.1 (Dresden); Hutten-Czapski 2607; Tentzel 76, VI. 

Very rare. 

With edge inscription: 

EXCUSSUS ACONTEUS FULMINIS NEMOREM 

(Aconteus, hurled away, falls into the grove of the thunderbolt). 

The edge inscription alludes to Aconteus from the legend of the Seven against Thebes, casting Conti as a defeated or thrown-back attacker. 

Obv.: French pikemen advancing in battle order; at left, a drum bearing the Conti family arms.

Inscription around: 

ACUTA CUSPIDE CONTOS EXPEDIUNT. 

(They ready their sharp-pointed pikes - a wordplay on the name Conti). 

Rev.: View of the supposedly impregnable fortress of Königstein.

Inscription around: 

NON EXSUPERABILE SAXUM. 

(An insurmountable rock). 

In exergue: 

MDCXCVII. 

(1697). 

After the death of King John III Sobieski in 1696, the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth entered a contested royal election. One of the main candidates was François Louis de Bourbon, Prince of Conti, supported by France and by part of the Polish nobility. His candidacy was also encouraged by Louis XIV, partly because Conti’s growing influence at the French court made him politically inconvenient. 

On 27 June 1697, Conti was elected King of Poland by his supporters, while the rival Saxon candidate, Frederick Augustus I, was also proclaimed king by his own party. Augustus acted faster and more decisively: he entered Poland with Saxon military support and was crowned in Kraków on 15 September 1697 as Augustus II the Strong. 

Conti arrived in Poland too late and failed to turn his election into real power. After a brief confrontation, he returned to France. The medal satirizes this failed French attempt at the Polish crown: the French pikemen and the Conti arms refer to his military-backed claim, while the fortress of Königstein represents Saxon strength and resistance. The edge inscription refers to the ancient legend of the Seven against Thebes, reinforcing the medal’s satirical and learned political message.