Large Medal, Louis-Joseph Seutin, doctor. Brussels. 1852.
obv; LOUIS JOSEPH SEUTIN – BORN IN NIVELLES ON 18 OCTOBER 1793. Head of Louis-Joseph Seutin to the left, below signature LEOPOLD WIENER F..
rev; Crown, in the centre: TO THE AUTHOR/ OF THE METHOD/ REMOVABLE-INAMOVIBLE/ MEDICINE/ AND HUMANITY/ 1852.
Copper
106.03 g.
62.0 mm
12 h
Near Extremely Fine
Louis Seutin (1793-1862) was a chief physician of the Belgian army in 1831 and senator from 1853 to 1862. He was made a baron by Leopold I of Belgium.
BELGIUM – KINGDOM OF BELGIUM – LEOPOLD I (06/04/1831-12/10/1865)
Leopold (16/12/1790-10/12/1865) was the son of Francis of Saxe-Coburg and the uncle of Victoria I. He fought Napoleon in the Russian army. Naturalized English in 1816, he married Charlotte of Hanover and found himself widowed the following year. Leopold had just refused the crown of Greece when he was elected King of the Belgians on June 4, 1831.
The following year, he married Louise of Orléans (1812-1850), the daughter of Louis-Philippe. She gave him three children including Leopold II and Charlotte, the unfortunate wife of Maximilian of Austria, shot in Mexico. He had a morganatic marriage to the actress Caroline Bauer, from whom he had to separate in order to marry the daughter of the King of the French.
The London Conference of July 1831 settled the territorial problems and the Treaty of Eighteen Articles was accepted by the National Congress on 9 July 1831. Leopold was welcomed triumphantly on 21 July 1831. He had to fight against the Dutch army and received the nickname “shield of Belgium”, safeguarding the independence of the “flat country” against William I’s Prussia and Napoleon III’s France. He relied politically on England.