Places, museums, monuments

Update (January 2019): The historic (in terms of Australian history, 1850s) Briars Park, Mt Martha, Victoria, Australia, used to display the Napoleonic Collection of Dame Mabel Brookes (a Balcombe descendant), including a copy of Napoleon’s death mask, in the historic “Homestead”. Unfortunately, due to a burglary a couple of years ago, a number of Napoleonic […]

The Athenaeum society was founded in 1814, and it was to benefit from the general cultural enrichment of Philadelphia brought about by successive waves of French, particularly French émigrés fleeting the French Revolution, the rise of power of Napoleon I, the revolt of Toussaint Louverture on Haiti, the collapse of the First Empire and subsequently the political turmoil generated […]

Given to the Lot department by the descendants of the comtes Murat (the branch derived from the Marshal's brother), the house in which that proud cavalier, but also 'grand amiral', grand-duc de Berg and King of Naples was born, is open to the public, offering…

Victor Hugo's works are frequently related to the First and Second Empires: on the one hand, they played a major part in forging the epic legend surrounding Napoleon I, and on the other, they were filled with open criticism of the imperial regime created by Napoleon III. Such is the context for any visit to […]

Situated in the La Muette neighbourhood between the Parc du Ranelagh gardens and the Bois de Boulogne, the Marmottan Museum has its home in alarge town house built in the Empire style. Once a hunting lodgebuilt for the maréchal Kellermann, the house was purchased in 1882by Jules Marmottan who saw it as the ideal place […]

In the heart of Ajaccio lies Palais Fesch, and in that building is the Musée Fesch displaying the painting collection amassed by Cardinal Joseph Fesch (1763-1839), Napoleon's maternal uncle and archbishop of Lyons, the primate of the Gauls, a great art lover and important patron. It was Fesch's desire to found an Intsitute of Arts […]

The château de Malmaison, purchased by Josephine in 1799 was, together with the Tuileries, the French government's headquarters from 1800 to 1802. When Napoleon moved to Saint-Cloud, Josephine stayed in Malmaison and commissioned a wide range of improvements to the house. She settled in permanently after her divorce in 1809 and died there on May […]

In 1763, in a truly beautiful spot overlooking the Caribbean Sea, was born a child with a most extraordinary future ahead of her: for this little girl was none other than Marie-Joseph-Rose Tascher de la Pagerie, who was to become Josephine, Empress of the French.Josephine spent the first sixteen years of her life in the […]

Following his article against Napoleon which had appeared in the Mercure in 1807, Chateaubriand, victim of imperial censorship, was forced to move out of at least two houses in Paris. However, thanks to the success of his earlier publications, Atala and Le Génie du Christianisme, he was able to afford a modest property located in […]

The Napoleonic Museum in Cuba is the happy result of the combinationof the personal collections of Julio Lobo and Orestes Ferrara. The artefacts and memorabilia on exhibition were bought at auctionduring the first half of the 20th century and represent the mostimportant Napoleonic collection in Central America. The collection itself was declared a 'National Heritage' […]