Previous Bulletin                    SPECIAL EVENT The second volume of of the Correspondance générale de Napoléon Bonaparte published by the Fondation Napoléon and Editions Fayard is out.   Volume Two deals with 1798-1799, the Egyptian Campaign and the accession to power, general Bonaparte getting to grips with his dream of the Orient: a region with a difficult climate, complicated daily organisation, popular revolts, war. The perfect moment for Napoleon to show his sense of organisation and his remarkable ability to improvise, his obstinacy, but also his implacable toughness: an apprentice head of state, whom the Brumaire coup d'etat catapulted to power in France.   Comprising 2,550 letters, of which about one thousand not published in the Correspondance published during the Second Empire, complete with explanatory notes, a detailed chronology, three indices, maps and facsimiles, this volume, with a preface by professor Henry Laurens, of the Collège de France, also includes two studies, one by Gabriel Madec on Bonaparte's headquarters and one by Pierre Branda on finances in Egypt.   With the support of the Archives de France and the Fondation La Poste, this operation to publish -in twelve volumes- this Correspondance générale has up to now included the collaboration of two hundred people and should end at the beginning of 2009. Emilie Barthet, the person in charge of the correspondance project at the Fondation Napoléon, reports on the project as a whole and the difficulties faced.        THIS MONTH'S PAINTING General Bonaparte and his chief of staff, general Berthier, at the Battle of Marengo The victory at Marengo was celebrated in many different works of art, both paintings and sculptures, some commissioned and giving the official propaganda, and others the personal initiative of artists with an eye to the main chance hoping to attract the favourable influence of the victor and new master of France. This huge painting here falls into that second category and was executed shortly after the battle on 14 June 1800. It is a remarkable work by Robert Lefevre, Carle Vernet, Joseph Boze and was presented on napoleon.org in September 2004.        INTERVIEWS: Jean-Claude Lachnitt - Imperial passion General secretary for the Grands Prix and Research Grants of the Fondation Napoléon, honorary president of the Académie du Second Empire, Jean-Claude Lachnitt is the author of many articles and books on the reign of Napoleon III, notably Prince Impérial "Napoléon IV" published by Perrin in 1997 (new edition 1999).        NEW AT THE BIBLIOTHEQUE M. LAPEYRE-FONDATION NAPOLEON The Bibliothèque Martial Lapeyre - Fondation Napoléon, has just acquired a most rpecious research tool, namely the Bulletins de lois for the years 1793 to 1816. The collection comprises seven series, each one corresponding to the seven successive regimes, and divided up into 49 volumes. Each volume includes a chronological index followed by an alphabetical index. Unfortunately two periods are missing - Germinal-Fructidor, An V (1798) and the second quarter of An X (1802). The catalogue of the library can be consulted online on napoleon.org. This particularly useful for keeping up to date with books published, but also when planning your visit to the library at 148 Boulevard Haussmann, open Mondays and Wednesdays 1 - 6pm, Tuesdays 4 - 9pm and Thursdays 10am - 3pm. For further information, contact Peter Hicks.        DISCOVER NAPOLEONICA.ORG This site, www.napoleonica.org, designed built and run by the Fondation Napoléon, aims to put Napoleonic primary sources at the disposal of enthusiasts, researchers and historians via the Internet. The contents of the site are very much the 'raw material' of history, thus making it possible for readers carry forward research in these largely un-charted areas, both First and Second Empires. The texts present were chosen for their historical interest and value and as part of the Fondation's partnerships with prestigious French national institutions. Readers can perform full-text searches on the material online, namely documents relating to the establishment of the Code Civil, the proclamation of Empire, the correspondence of Vivant Denon, director of the Musée Napoléon (today's Louvre), and the working documents of the Napoleonic Council of State (1800-1814).        200 YEARS AGO Storm in the bay at Brest : one victim, admiral Truguet! 11 Prairial, An XII (31 May, 1804), Napoleon sent a furious letters to his Navy minister, Vice-admiral Decrès: "Monsieur Decrès, I have been most unhappy to note that despite my extremely firm intention that the ships in the bay at Brest should lift anchor every day in order to make the crews do exercises, to harras the enemy [...], not one boat in the course of the year has set sail [...]. Since in the report which you sent me Admiral Truguet has not provided any sufficiantly forceful justification for the non-execution of my orders, it is my intention that he should be recalled and immediately replaced by an officer who is active, who is in the habit of performing manouevres [...] and who knows that the damage caused by several months of inaction is irreparable." Correspondance, Letter No 7800   Appointed commander of the Brest squadron in the September of 1803 as a result of his significant naval experience both during the Ancien Rigime and the Revolution, Admiral Laurent-Jean-François Truguet (1752-1839) had expressed significant reservations as to the success of the landing in England, since he was aware of the enormous differences between the French and British navies(number of vessels and armaments, the quality of the crews, etc.). Furthermore, he had declared himself to the creation of the Empire. He remained in disgrace until July 1809 when he was appointed commander of the Rochefort squadron. He became Prifet maritime de Hollande in March 1811 and received the Grand cordon of the Légion d'honneur on 2 September, 1814. He was made Comte d'Empire on 24 September of the same year. He was not however recalled by Napoleon during the Hundred Days. He was to become a Maréchal de France during the July Monarchy on 30 October, 1832. His name is inscribed on the north side of the Arc de Triomphe.   15 Prairial, An XII (3 June, 1804), each French Département was provided with a society for the fight against measles. The mission of these societies was to popularise vaccination, the principle of which was discovered and first applied in 1796 by the doctor and naturalist Edward Jenner (1749-1823).   Son of a Anglican clergyman, Edward Jenner was first apprenticed to a surgeon in the town of Sodbury and later studied medicine under John Hunter. He began practising in 1773 and became a member of the Royal Society in 1788. Although is best known for his pionneering work on innoculation he was also deeply interested in botany, zoology and geology. Whilst he did not invent the process of innoculation (it had been practised, though not without danger, early in the 18th century by Lady Mary Wortley Montague and was not uncommon), Jenner however made a systematic study of the disease of cow-pox and the apparent immunity to smallpox of dairy-maids and those working with cattle. His complete statement of the case for vaccination (i.e., innoculation with cow-pox, from the Latin, vacca=cow) was published in 1800, and in 1802 and 1806 he secured government grants (worth £30,000) to help spread the practice of vaccination. His work was so valued that the Tsar and King of Prussia demanded interviews with him in 1814 and his publications provided the inspiration for the immunological work of Louis Pasteur and others.   150 YEARS AGO 30 May, 1854, a law was passed confirming the creation of the penal colony in Cayenne, "open" since 1852: indeed a presidential decree of 8 December, 1851, ordered that 329 opponents of the regime involved in the insurrection and disturbances of 4 December, 1851, were deported. Whilst deportation of political opponents had begun during the Revolution, prisoners being sent to Cayenne and Algeria, it was further reinforced by a law of 1854 whereby all those condemned to deportation and forced labour were technically banished and were not allowed to return to the mother country when their sentence was served. However, once freed each released prisoner was given a patch of land.   Wishing you an excellent, Napoleonic, week! Peter Hicks Historian and Web editor   Interested in the work of the Fondation Napoléon? Why not participate, either generally or in a specific project, by making a donation.   © this Napoleon.org weekly bulletin is published by the Fondation Napoléon. Reproduction or all or part of this bulletin is forbidden, without prior agreement of the Fondation Napoléon.          DID YOU KNOW? The Museum of the History of Medicine in Paris has the doctor's case used by Antommarchi for the autopsy of Napoleon on St Helena (the case was given to the head of the faculty, Orfila, in 1837). Amongst the thousands of other exceptional pieces, there is the model body, composed of 2,000 parts, which Bonaparte commissioned from the the Florentine Felice Fontana in 1796 for the Paris Ecole de Santé.   KEY PLACES Discover the key places that marked the life of Napoleon I. Click on the map to read about each place. To follow in the steps of the 'Little Corporal', why not start with Ajaccio in Corsica...   PERIOD GLOSSARY Nation of shopkeepers One of Napoleon's most famous remarks for the English-speaking world is 'England is a nation of shopkeepers', ('L'Angleterre est une nation de boutiquiers'). Whilst Bourrienne, Napoleon's faithful secretary from 1795 to 1802, gives a version of it in his Mémoires (vol. 1, (Paris: Ladvocat, 1831) p. 274 - "Angleterre...a people which he [Napoleon] so disdainfully used to call a nation of shop-keepers ('peuple boutiquier') which hates us", it does not appear in the standard compilations of Napoleonic quotes. The only quotations which have at least documentary backup are those which appear either in the Correspondance of Napoleon or in the Memorial de Sainte-Hélène by Las Cases. A screensaver of authentic quotations (in French) can be downloaded here on the site. Other 'spurious' Napoleon quotations include: 'A picture is worth a thousand words' 'An army marches on its stomach'. Want to find out more about 'taking the king's shilling', 'the wellington boot', the world's longest palendrome, visit, our Period Glossary page.   WHAT'S ON - Conference: Joint Napoleonic Alliance/Napoleonic Society of America Conference, 2005 - Concert: Beethoven, Napoleon and Wellington in Finland - Re-enactment/Commemoration: Tolentino 815 - Re-enactment/Commemoration: Caldiero 1805 - Conference/Guided tour: Portsmouth Dockyard in the Age of Nelson - For Napoleonic and Nelsonian 2005 bicentenaries, watch our 2005 bicentenaries page  Exhibition: The Treasures of the Fondation Napoléon, Paris, France   SNIPPETS - The Salamance/Arapiles battlefield in peril   PRESS REVIEW - The Member's Bulletin of the Napoleonic Society of America, Bulletin 78, Fall/Winter 2004–5 - French History, volume 18, number 4, December 2004   JUST PUBLISHED - GLOVER Gareth, (ed.) Letters from the Battle of Waterloo: Unpublished Correspondence by Allied officers from the Siborne papers - HOLLINS David, Austrian Commanders of the Napoleonic Wars 1792–1815 (Elite 101) - SEMMEL Stuart, Napoleon and the British   THE MONTHLY TITLES - This month's book: Nelson – The New Letters, edited by Colin White - This month's painting: The Empress Eugénie surrounded by her ladies in waiting, by Winterhalter - This month's article: Napoleon's English Lessons, by Peter Hicks - In the Collectors Corner, 'Nécessaire' belonging to the Duchesse d'Otrante Got a problem with a link in the letter? Try the homepage http://www.napoleon.org/