Interviews : 24
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InterviewFRANCK FAVIER: "Berthier the Marshal existed well before and without Napoleon" (November 2015)On 1 June 1815 one of Napoleon Bonaparte's most faithful servants, Marshal Berthier, chief-of-staff of the army, died after falling from a window in unclear circumstances. Until now little was known of his private life and his psychological profile: Franck Favier has filled this gap,… -
InterviewHERVÉ DUMONT: “NAPOLEON THE SAGA IN 1,000 FILMS” (Napoléon, L’épopée en 1000 films)Hervé Dumont is not only the former director of the Lausanne film directory and a cinema historian often awarded for his works, he is also the author of the monumental Napoléon, L’épopée en 1000 films [Napoleon; the saga in a thousand films] (Editions Ides &… -
InterviewKatherine Astbury curator of the virtual exhibition "Napoleon’s Last Stand: 100 days in 100 objects"The online exhibition "Napoleon's Last Stand: 100 days in 100 objects" is a day-by-day rediscovery of the history of Napoleon's 100 days. In a project developed by the University of Warwick in Britain, the story is retold through a selection of historic objects from public and private collections -… -
InterviewPierre Branda:"On Elba, Napoleon once again took charge of his own destiny" (April 2014)In his new book, historian Pierre Branda, Fondation Napoléon Manager of Capital, Collection and Real Estate, recounts how the reign of Napoleon on the island of Elba was riskier than first thought. After the brutal abdication, he reassumed mastery of his own destiny, firstly placing… -
InterviewAlexander Mikaberidze on Russian Voices of the Napoleonic WarsIn the bicentenary year of the 1812 Russian campaign, the limited use and availability of Russian sources in western historiographical trends appear all the more startling. Despite more than 350 Russian-language memoirs and documents in existence, history of the Napoleonic period - particularly 1812 -… -
InterviewJohn Bew on CastlereaghViscount Castlereagh, arguably one of the most important Foreign Secretaries in British history and a key architect of the Congress of Vienna, nevertheless came out of the nineteenth-century with a poor reputation. John Bew's biography, Castlereagh: Enlightenment, War, and Tyranny, re-evaluates the man whose political… -
InterviewAlan Forrest on NapoleonOn a cold December day in 1840 Parisians turned out in force to watch as the body of Napoleon was solemnly carried on a riverboat from Courbevoie on its final journey to Les Invalides. It may seem curious to begin a biography by focusing on… -
InterviewThierry Lentz: four questions on the 1812 Malet AffairOn 23 October 1812, with Napoleon and his army far away and under the cosh in Russia, General Malet attempted to overthrow the Napoleonic regime. In this, four-question interview, Thierry Lentz – author of La conspiration du général Malet, published by Perrin – addresses some… -
InterviewThierry Lentz: three questions on the "mysteries" of St. Helena
Napoleon was poisoned! Despite historians' best efforts, Rumour continues to flourish, endlessly seeking to make the transition between Myth and History. Faced with the media's continuous undermining, it has become necessary once again to take the matter in hand and redress the balance. The new publication by Thierry Lentz and Jacques Macé, La Mort de […]
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InterviewEmmanuel de Waresquiel: Les Cent-Jours, ou la tentation de l’impossibleEmmanuel de Waresquiel is a graduate of the Ecole normale supérieure, a doctor in history, a research fellow at the Ecole pratique des hautes études and author of biographies on Talleyrand (published by Fayard, 2003) and the Duc de Richelieu (published by Perrin, 1991) as…