Alliance des corps Hélvétiques: An allegory of France shaking hands with a landsknecht, over an altar

This is a design for a medal which was due to be struck on the occasion of the alliance that King Louis XVI concluded with Switzerland in 1777. On 9 May 1777 the Comte de Vergennes requested that the Académie des Inscriptions et des Belles Lettres create a Latin inscription for the medal, stressing that it was needed urgently. The Académie replied the next day that it could not be done before Pentecost (18 May) and that it was normal for medals to be struck long after the ceremony. Hence the present design, although bearing the same inscription as the final medal, was not struck. Instead the Academy chose a much simpler design with just the legend (see H. Nocq, Les Duvivier, Paris, 1911, no. 190).
Pajou was nominated dessinateur des médailles de l'Académie des Inscriptions on the 18 November 1772, following Bouchardon and then Vassé, and was responsible for designing medals until the Revolution. A drawing for a medal dated 1787 was exhibited in Paris and New York, Pajou, 1998, no. 133.