Obverse: ARME POUR LA PAIX. The helmeted head of a classical warrior.
Reverse: A BONAPARTE. A crane l., standing on one leg, the other raised and holding a rock. In the left field an olive branch, in the right, a thunderbolt. Below, DENON, DIR[ecteur] G[eneral] D[e] MUSEE C[entral] D[es] B[eaux] ARTS. Dated 1803.
On a variety of this piece (Bramsen 268) the reverse inscription reads DENON DIRECTEUR G.D.M.C.

The irregular shape of this medal is due to its having been struck free, that is, not within a collar. This small medal is usually called "Negotiations with England." The helmeted Bonaparte on the obverse is clearly modelled after the ancient coins of Phrygia, while the bird on the reverse, usually incorrectly called an ibis, represents the crane of Pliny the Elder's description. He is the guard of the flock, and stands on one foot, clutching a rock in the other, so that if he falls asleep on duty he will drop the rock into the water and thus awaken himself. This emblem is found on earlier medals, usually with other cranes sleeping and with the legend VIGILAT UT QUIESCANT, he guards so they may sleep. Hennin 428 is an example of the type in more complete form, dated to 1713. The designs of many of the Napoleonic medals are strongly reminiscent of earlier medals. Often the symbols, such as the weird thunderbolt here, date back to antiquity.

Obverse: LE TRAITE D'AMIENS ROMPU PAR L'ANGLETERRE EN MAI DE L'AN 1803 A leopard crouched left, chewing up a scroll. In the exergue, DENON DIREXIT JEUFFROY FECIT.
Reverse: L'HANOVRE OCCUPE PAR L'ARMEE FRANCAISE EN JUIN DE L'AN 1803.
Exergue: FRAPPEE AVEC L'ARGENT DES MINES D'HANOVRE L'AN 4 DE BONAPARTE. A winged victory riding a horse right, holding out a laurel wreath.

The leopard is an older symbol of England, although heraldic artists didn't know what a leopard looked like and so adopted the convention that a lion with his head in profile was a lion but a lion with his head facing you was a leopard! Originally the English hallmarks included a leopard's head. Here we see that leopard tearing up the treaty. The die of the medal was deliberately manipulated to produce the die break beneath the French word ROMPU, broken.
One of the fatal flaws in the Treaty of Amiens between France and Great Britain was that it did not reestablish the commercial treaties which had been nullified by the recent war. First Consul Bonaparte wanted to develop French industry by banning imports from England. Other causes of the resumption of war were the British occupation of Malta and South Africa, and the French designs on the near east, Switzerland, and Germany.
The sketch for the reverse was drawn by Chaudet. A horse running free was the symbol of the British king's possessions in Germany. The occupation of Hannover was about all Bonaparte could immediately do in response to the British declaration of war, aside from declaring all British subjects then in France prisoners of war.

The transition from First Consul Bonaparte to Napoleon, Emperor of the French Republic, was assisted by another plot against him. England was the haven of many of the French aristocrats who had escaped the guillotine during the revolution; the British government subsidized these refugees and junior government officials assisted them in mounting a plot to assassinate First Consul Bonaparte. (See the evidence of government involvement in Rose's Life of Napoleon I.) The first consul had a well-organized intelligence operation. His secret police infiltrated the subversive groups and carefully watched the plotters. The chief actors in the plot had already been arrested when a spy reported that a prince of the blood royal living in Baden had been seeing a General Dumouriez, an exiled officer of the Royal French Army, and that his prince (the Duke of Enghien, heir of the house of Conde, a branch of the Bourbons) had secretly met with the plotters in Paris. Napoleon sent troops into Baden to kidnap the duke and bring him to France (15 March 1804). He was tried by a court-martial, condemned and shot. Although the duke of Enghien was in the pay of England and had borne arms against the republic, he had no connection with the plotters. His execution confirmed Great Britain in its emnity toward Bonaparte, alienated the czar of Russia, and changed the first consul into the emperor.

Obverse: L.A.H. DE BOURBON CONDE, DUC D'ENGHIEN. Uniformed bust left, signed E. GATTEAUX.
Reverse: PERIIT HEROS. a saddled, riderless horse right; in the background a helmet, sword, tent, and a shield bearing the three fleurs-de-lis of Bourbon with a cadet's baston superimposed. Exergue: VINCENNES, 21 MARCH 1804.

This medal is post-Napoleonic, struck during the reign of Louis XVIII to commemorate the duke. He had been seized from a German state, brought back to France, convicted of having borne arms against the Republic of France, and shot in the moat of the chateau of Vincennes.

Standard obverse by Andrieu.
Reverse: The toga-clad emperor welcomes a woman in classical costume. Behind him, an eagle; behind her, a ship. Signed in the field, BRENET F. DENON D. Exergue: LA LIGURIE REUNIE A LA FRANCE MDCCCV.
Napoleon was particularly happy to acquire Liguria (the Italian Riviera and Genoa) because this gave him a source of sailors for the French navy as well as denying to the British their chief commercial ports for north Italy.

Obverse: HONNEUR LEGIONAIRE AUX BRAVES DE L'ARMEE. The laureate Emperor, seated in an elevated curile chair, distributing decorations to soldiers. Exergue: A BOULOGNE, XVI AUGUST MDCCCIV. DENON D. JEUFFROY F.
Reverse: SERMENT DE L`ARMEE D'ANGLETERRE A L'EMPEREUR NAPOLEON etc.
The plan to revolutionize England which General Bonaparte had postponed until after his Egyptian campaign was taken up again. An army was assembled on the English Channel and "Le Moniteur" was filled with articles about it, ranging from "How bravely our boys are bearing up under the hardship of living in tents" to "The oligarchs in London are quaking in their boots." It was during this period that the Pennsylvania Gazette published a letter to the editor from Tom Paine, telling of his part in the earlier plans.

"The original plan conceived by the Directorate (but which is today much more extensive) was to build a thousand long boats, each sixty feet long and sixteen wide, drawing about two feet of water, and each was to carry a cannon of 24 or 36 and a field piece. Each boat was to carry one hundred men, making in all one hundred thousand, and was to be manoeuvred by twenty or twenty five oars on each side. Bonaparte was named to command the expedition and, in accordance with an agreement I had with him, I was to accompany him, seeing that the aim of the expedition was to furnish the English people the occasion to choose for themselves a government, and by that means to bring about peace.
"Since the expedition could take place at will, whether after a storm which would disperse the English fleet or whether taking advantage of a calm or a fog, and since it only required thirty six hours to row across, it was probable that the fleet would arrive at its destination, and from then on it would not have to fear the approach of the ships of the line and the great frigates, because of the shallows along the coast. Then the boats would have formed a floating battery of a thousand pieces of artillery along the shore, and the attempts of Lord Nelson against the gunboats of Boulogne is the proof that large ships can do nothing in such a case. About 250 gunboats had already been built when the expedition was abandoned for that of Egypt, which was only undertaken then to fool the British."
(I have translated from "Le Moniteur", 14 July 1804, which got the letter third hand from the English "Morning Chronicle". Mr. Paine was no longer persona grata after Bonaparte became First Consul. A letter of 5 April 1800 reads, "You will inform M. Payne that the police have been notified that he is behaving badly, and that at the first complaint against him he will be sent back to America, his country.")

Standard obverse signed J.P. DROZ F.
Reverse: EN L'AN XII 2000 BARQUES SONT CONSTRUITES.
A classically dressed hero is subduing the English leopard. On the ground behind the hero is the letter D.; in the exergue is our mint director, DENON DIREXIT, and the year, 1804. The reverse refers to one of the labors of Hercules, probably his kidnapping of Cerberus, the hound of hell. The leopard is an older symbol of England, although heraldic artists didn't know what a leopard looked like and so adopted the convention that a lion with his head in profile was a lion but a lion with his head facing you was a leopard! Originally the English hallmarks included a leopard's head.

Obverse: Laureate bust of Napoleon r. Signed JEUFFROY FECIT/ DENON DIREXIT.
Reverse: DESCENTE EN ANGLETERRE. A man holding aloft a merman who tries to touch the water. Below, FRAPPEE A LONDRES, EN 1804.

Obverse: Laureate bust of Napoleon r. Signed DROZ FECIT/ DENON DIREXIT/[bar].
Reverse: DESCENTE EN ANGLETERRE. A man holding aloft a merman who tries to touch the water. Below, FRAPPE A LONDRES, EN 1804.
Edge: COPIED FROM THE FRENCH MEDAL

Obverse: NAPOLEON EMP. ET ROI. Laureate bust r., signed on the truncation DROZ FECIT. In the lower left field, DENON DIREXI, with a bar underneath.
Reverse: imitative of Bramsen 634.

(The attentive reader will have noticed that Bonaparte has become Napoleon. It was in March of 1804 that the Senate offered First Consul Bonaparte the title of emperor. He accepted and henceforth was denominated Napoleon, although he insisted that a plebiscite be held to determine whether that office should be hereditary in his family. Thus he risked little in the plebiscite, although appearing to defer to the electorate.)

The British have had great fun with this medal, the dies for which were prepared before they were needed. Only a single specimen of Bramsen 364 has been reported; the illustration is from a bronzed lead cast. The first English strikes (Bramsen 365) have an edge inscription, "Copied from the French medal", and the word FRAPPE is incorrect, lacking an E. Bramsen 2188 is a later English production. The bar below DENON DIREXI is where the 1806 date has been gouged from the die, since it did not agree with the date on the reverse. The type refers to mythology. Hercules was able to defeat Antaeus, the son of Mother Earth, by holding him in the air, out of touch with the earth, from which he drew his strength. The analogy is rather unhappy, since the British merman drew his strength from the ocean, and there was no way Napoleon could forbid him that.

The die for this medal was later given a new legend, TOTO DIVISOS ORBE BRITTANNOS. This medal was signed by Jeuffroy and Denon, and dated 1806. Listed as Bramsen 550, it is almost unknown.

The invasion plans fell through in 1805, when a scheme to lure the British ships away from the channel failed and the Austrians, backed by British gold and supported by Russian promises of assistance, mounted an attack aimed through Italy at France, leading to the First Austrian Campaign.