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The Gazétier révolutionnaire, a digital database of literally hundreds (possibly thousands) of newspapers from the Revolutionary period and the Newspaper Archive are extraordinary tools. From the comfort of your desk, you can read the news of the coup d’état of 18 Brumaire as it filtered out…

Weapons of honour In 1791 the National Constituent Assembly disposed of royal military honours and replaced them with their own Décoration Militaire. Then, on 21 September 1792, the Convention abolished the monarchy and with it the Décoration Militaire (officially abolished on 15 October 1792), which was in effect a direct descendent of the Ancien Régime. […]

FRANCE, AFTER THE REVOLUTION OF BONAPARTE, ON THE EIGHTH OF NOVEMBER, 1799. Hastily translated from a French Pamphlet, intituled ‘LES ADIEUX A BONAPARTE.’ LONDON: Sold by J. WRIGHT, Piccadilly; ROBINSON, Paternoster Row; ELMSLEY and BREMNER, Strand; EGERTON, Whitehall; BELL, Oxford Street; RICHARDSON, Royal Exchange; SEWELL,…

This extract is taken from the translation of a biography of Bonaparte written by a contemporary French writer, Charles-Yves Cousin d’Avallon in 1802. The biography was translated into English and published the same year.   Life of Bonaparte, First Consul of France, From his birth…

Helen Maria Williams was an English novelist, poet and translator, who moved to France at the time of the Revolution. She just so happened to be at Saint Cloud as the events of the coup d’Etat of Brumaire unfolded. These letters, published in London in…

On 19 Brumaire An VIII (10th November 1799), Bonaparte made a proclamation to the French people. This translation of his speech featured in the Annual Register for the year 1799, published in London in 1801.

How should we read the history of this event? After the coup d’état of 18 Brumaire [9 November, 1799], the Directorate was overthrown and replaced with the Consulate. Bonaparte, Sieyès and Ducos, the three provisional Consuls, produced a new constitution, accompanied by a proclamation ending…

A regime thought to be on its last legs In 1795 the Directory succeeded the Thermidorian Convention, the regime that followed the downfall of Maximilian Robespierre and his Reign of Terror. The new regime was structured in the following way: an executive body of five…

(Publication in French) The famous memoirs of Gaspard Gourgaud (1783-1852) remained hidden for many years in the family’s private papers. They were to be published in French in a much bowdlerised form at the turn of the 19th century and shortly after WWII, as well as appearing in English in 1903 and 1932. Here in […]

Gourgaud’s Journal, duly bowdlerised, was published twice, first by Gourgaud’s descendants (at the end of the 19th century) and secondly by Octave Aubry, fifty years later. The words, ideas and deeds that might have shocked were quietly omitted, including some particularly ‘unfiltered’ opinions either of the Emperor’s or amongst those of his First Ordnance Officer. The deposition […]