Articles : 1308
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ArticleTalking Point with Thierry Lentz: “Greetings from St Helena”, says Jonathan the tortoise, who’s lived there since 1882!On 11 May 2019, Jamestown, the tiny capital of St Helena, put on its Sunday best for the installation of its 69th governor, Dr Philip Rushbrook, who had arrived that morning by plane from Johannesburg, distant successor to Sir Hudson Lowe, in charge of the life… -
ArticleWhat was the reaction in Great Britain to the victory at Waterloo?Abstract At the end of June 1815, two politicians (Lord Grey and Sir Robert Wilson) were explaining to a packed audience at Brooks’s, a liberal club in London, that Napoleon had won at Waterloo and that his 200,000 men had crossed the Sambre. ‘Unfortunately’, news… -
ArticleExtract of her memoirs dictated by Madame MèreTowards the end of her life, Madame Mère dictated her short autobiography to her companion, Miss Rosa Mellini. These memories were a brief account of certain events in the life of the Emperor’s mother including touching recollections of her illustrious son as a child and… -
Article“Sleeping China” and NapoleonNapoleon liked a good apothegm. Bourrienne recorded (almost contemporaneously) how the First Consul liked the expression “England is a nation of shopkeepers” – a bon mot snitched from Adam Smith’s “Wealth of Nations”. Much later, the Abbé de Pradt noted the Emperor’s predilection (in 1812)… -
ArticleBullet Point # 26 – Who were Napoleon’s parents?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, June 2019, translation RY) -
ArticleTalking Point with Pierre Branda: identitiesThe Bonaparte family had Italian or more precisely Tuscan origins, and they never completely broke with this original identity. Indeed Ajaccio, the city where the family settled and grew up almost exclusively, was for a long time a Genoese enclave on island territory. Furthermore, Napoleon’s… -
ArticleLetter from Napoleon Bonaparte to Archdeacon Lucien Bonaparte, his great-uncle, on the death of Charles Bonaparte (n°4, March 1785)This early letter written by Napoleon is taken from the Correspondance générale de Napoléon Bonaparte, Volume I: Les apprentissages, 1784-1797 (edited by Fayard/Fondation Napoléon, 2004) (English version based on a 1961 translation by John Eldred Howard in Letters and Documents of Napoleon: Vol I: The… -
ArticleDocument > Letter from Napoleon Bonaparte to his father, Charles Bonaparte (September 1784)This early letter (handwritten missive, French Archives Nationales, 400 AP 137) written by Napoleon is taken from the Correspondance générale de Napoléon Bonaparte, Volume I: Les apprentissages, 1784-1797 (edited by Fayard/Fondation Napoléon, 2004) (English version based on a 1961 translation by John Eldred Howard in…
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ArticleQueen Victoria’s impressions of Napoleon III (memorandum dated 2nd May 1855)Memorandum by Queen Victoria Extract from THE LETTERS OF QUEEN VICTORIA: A SELECTION FROM HER MAJESTY’S CORRESPONDENCE BETWEEN THE YEARS 1837 AND 1861 PUBLISHED BY AUTHORITY OF HIS MAJESTY THE KING, EDITED BY ARTHUR CHRISTOPHER BENSON, M.A. AND VISCOUNT ESHER, G.C.V.O., K.C.B. IN THREE VOLUMES VOL. III.—1854-1861 LONDON, JOHN MURRAY, ALBEMARLE STREET, W. 1908, pages 122-26 […]
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ArticleBullet Point #25 – Was Napoleon a good pupil?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 2019, translation PH)