200th Anniversary of the Accession of Prince Honoré V

Portrait of Prince Honoré V. To the left the inscription "HONORÉ V", to the right the issuing state "MONACO". Along the lower rim, in a semicircle, the legend "1819 — Avènement — 2019".

Honoré V ascended to the throne of the Principality of Monaco in 1819, during a politically unstable period: after the Congress of Vienna in 1815, Monaco had been formally placed under French protection before shortly afterwards falling under Sardinian suzerainty. Honoré V, born in 1778 as the son of Honoré IV, took power in a small, territorially much reduced state whose economic base - above all through the loss of income from the former Grimaldi possessions in France - had been considerably diminished. His reign was marked by attempts to stabilise the principality's finances and to manage relations with Sardinia-Piedmont, which had regarded Monaco as a protectorate since 1815.

Domestically, the era of Honoré V remained difficult: tax levies and austerity measures repeatedly led to tensions with the population, particularly in Menton and Roquebrune, which broke away from Monaco in 1848, shortly after his death. Honoré V reigned until his death in 1841 without being able to fundamentally resolve the principality's structural problems - a contrast to the later stabilisation under Albert I. Monaco began an economic fresh start only in the second half of the 19th century, with the opening of the Casino de Monte-Carlo. The Principality of Monaco used the 200th anniversary of the accession in 2019 as an occasion to recall this little-known chapter of its history.