Articles

Each “Bullet Point” will confront a question related to the First Empire. My remarks are designed to form the basis for debate and, I hope, research. (Thierry Lentz, May 2020, translation PH)

As dawn broke on 1 September 1870, Emperor Napoleon III was encircled by Prussian forces in the small town of Sedan. After a calamitous campaign, in which his army had seen far more defeats than victories, he had ordered his army (which at this point…

It was composed in the evening of 25/26 April 1792 and given the title Chant de guerre pour l’armée du Rhin (War Song of the Army of the Rhine), before becoming the Hymne des Marseillais (The Hymn of the People of Marseilles) then just simply La Marseillaise after it was adopted by the Fédérés of […]

The emergence of Prussia as a hegemonic power At the dawn of 1870, Prussia (under the rule of King Wilhelm I) was emerging as a hegemonic power in Europe. It had a modern, experienced army at its disposal. 1864 saw a Prussian victory in Second Schleswig War, followed by another against Austria at Sadowa on 3 […]

Each “Bullet Point” will confront a question related to the First Empire. My remarks are designed to form the basis for debate and, I hope, research. (Thierry Lentz, April 2020, translation PH)

This is the translation (published in The Times, 25 July, 1870, p. 5, col. 1.) of the Emperor’s proclamation to the French people. (Text based on the telegraphic dispatch printed in Toulon on 23 July 1870 © Gallica/BnF – ark:/12148/bpt6k5529865n)  

Napoleon burst onto the European scene on the back of his extraordinary military successes of 1796 and 1797. Quite naturally people wanted to know what the new Hannibal looked like. And despite the fact that he hated sitting for artists, it is at this point…

Each “Bullet Point” will confront a question related to the First Empire. My remarks are designed to form the basis for debate and, I hope, research. (Thierry Lentz, March 2020, translation RY with PH)

Photography, from its invention at the end of the 1830s to its development and rapid democratisation over the following 15 years, changed our society forever. A simple glance at the science, art and law articles in the French papers of the 1850s and 60s says it all. Throughout the 1850s and 60s, while astronomers were […]

Each “Bullet Point” will confront a question related to the First Empire. My remarks are designed to form the basis for debate and, I hope, research. (Thierry Lentz, Feb 2020, translation JR with PH)