ABSTRACT
The commemorative medal was an important artistic genre during the reign of Louis XIV (1643-1715), as documented by the fact that one of the first Academies he created was one responsible for inventing inscriptions on medals and monuments. 1 The medal genre was ideal for linking the official persona of Louis with the emperors and gods of Classical antiquity. Unlike other forms of portraiture, the physical permanence of the medal conferred immortality upon its subject, while being far less expensive to produce than a statue, and reproducible in large quantity. As Louis Marin has noted, 'the medal's mystery conceals a secret that is at once a political ruse and a juridical ritual, the secret of a rational magic by which the power of state constitutes its memory in its representation and institutes it in the authority of truth' (129). This article will study how the medals of Louis XIV, an obvious form of propaganda, provided inspiration for a clever form of counter-propaganda, one work artfully concealed inside another, and thus playing a double trick upon the hapless reader.
