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FROM ITALY, TO PRUSSIA...
... St Helena to Philadelphia, and a little stop over on the Scottish island of South Uist: the letter this week leaps all over the place as we bring you all the latest news and information from the world of Napoleonic history. Our objet d'art of the month is Charles-Louis Corbet's bust of General Bonaparte, who is depicted basking in the glory of his first Italian campaign. Next up is another military man, Lieutenant Read, whose geographical sketch of St Helena - reproduced in beautiful detail via our digital library - offers us a fascinating description of the island upon the arrival of the exiled French emperor. From St Helena, we continue our journey onwards across the Atlantic, to Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, where an exhibition dedicated to natural history in post-Revolutionary France is taking place at the moment. And for our UK readers, on Monday 25 April, BBC Alba will be screening a documentary on Neil MacEachen - father of French maréchal Etienne-Jacques-Joseph-Alexandre MacDonald - who was involved in Bonnie Prince Charlie's flight to Paris. Finally, we round off the letter with dilemmas for Prussia and the Campana collection for France, in 200 and 150 years ago.
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OBJET D'ART OF THE MONTH
Bust of General Bonaparte, by Charles-Louis Corbet
Effigies of Napoleon became more common after the successes of his first Italian campaign. This particular example - the original marble version of which was presented at the Salon of 1800 - was the product of a meeting between Charles-Louis Corbet and Bonaparte, which took place during the latter's triumphal five-month stay in Paris prior to his departure for Egypt. Depicting the victorious general - in the full bloom of youth and consumed by dreams of glory - in his military uniform, the bust is a magnificent example of turn-of-the-century physiognomonical norms and more traditional sculptural grandeur.
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DIGITAL LIBRARY
A Descriptive sketch of Saint Helena, 1815, by Lieutenant Read
Following on from last week's news piece on Denzil Ibbetson's Longwood watercolour, the bulletin this week returns to the island of St Helena with a descriptive sketch, put together by Lieutenant Read. The version available online via the Fondation Napoléon's digital library is actually the second edition, printed (possibly) in October 1815, and features such landmarks as St Helena's telegraphs, the citadel, Plantation House and "Buonaparte's residence", Longwood House. The hand-painted map was published by London firm Burgis & Barfoot and went on to receive four print runs between 1815 and 1841. To accompany this cartographical delight, the Fondation Napoléon has prepared a reading note, which includes publication details and descriptions of the different editions.
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WHAT'S ON
"Of Elephants and Roses: Encounters with French Natural History, 1790–1830", Philadelphia, USA
"Of Elephants and Roses: Encounters with French Natural History, 1790–1830" explores natural history in post-revolutionary France, and tells the story of two famous French gardens: Josephine's Malmaison and Paris' Museum of Natural History. Together, in their zeal for collecting, preserving, cultivating, labelling, classifying and displaying rare plants and animals, they made Paris the centre for the development of natural history. The exhibition, which runs until 31 December, 2011, includes fossilized mastodon teeth sent by Thomas Jefferson from the White House to French scientist Georges Cuvier, the founder of palaeontology, and one of Josephine's stuffed Australian black swans.
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"Domhnallaich na Frainge": the story of Neil MacEachen
BBC Alba, the BBC's Gallic-language channel, will be screening "Domhnallaich na Frainge" at 10.30pm on 25 April, 2011. The show, in Gaelic with English subtitles, sees journalist John Morrison explore the story of Neil MacEachen, the Uist Jacobite who saved Bonnie Prince Charlie from capture and whose son, Étienne Jacques Joseph Macdonald, rose to become one of Napoleon's generals and a Marshal of France. BBC Alba is available to UK viewers on Freesat channel 110 and Sky channel 168.
200 YEARS AGO
The survival of Prussia
Early on in 1811, Russia mounted a diplomatic offensive, aimed at "feeling out" the various European powers (including Sweden, Austria, the Duchy of Warsaw, and Prussia) in the event that they could be persuaded to side with the tsar against Napoleon. All bar one of these trips were to prove fruitless: Prussia, a state that had been crushed by Napoleon in 1806 and remained partly occupied by French troops, was experiencing a wave of reborn nationalism. Caught between the French and Russian empires, Prussia's "miserable existence" (in the words of French historian Albert Vandal) was defined by the conviction that the coming war's first casualty would be her. In a bid to stave off destruction, King Frederick William and Chancellor Hardenberg offered platitudes to Alexander and Napoleon indiscriminately, desperately hoping to avoid a decision one way or the other whilst at the same time secretly rebuilding their armed forces in the event of an invasion. Except that there proved to be little "secret" about these troop movements, as Napoleon noted with concern in a letter to Maret, the newly-installed Minister for Foreign Affairs (see last week's bulletin), on 27 April, 1811:
"M. de Saint-Marsan [French Minister Plenipotentiary in Prussia] is not sending enough reports on what Prussia is up to. Is it true that troops in Silesia are evacuating this province and making for the coast? And what is this bridge that they are constructing between Stettin and Küstrin for? M. de Saint-Marsan would be better employed stopping these armaments, rather than encouraging them, [...] and informing [the Prussian court] that these measures can only result in distrust [which] could be misinterpreted."
Evidently troubled by these developments, Napoleon turned to espionage:
"I think, he continued, that it would be appropriate to send a number of secret agents, intelligent and trusted men, to Berlin and Prussia. Using business affairs as a pretext, they must find out what is going on."
Prussia continued to dither, but finally, faced with Alexander's defensively-orientated strategy, Frederick-William was forced to join forces with Napoleon and a Franco-Prussian alliance was concluded on 24 February, 1812. In his last letter to Alexander before war broke out, the Prussian king informed the tsar, "Faithful to your strategy of not taking the offensive, Your Majesty deprived me of any hope of prompt or real assistance and placed me in a situation where the destruction of Prussia would have been the preliminary to a war against Russia."
150 YEARS AGO
Napoleon III acquires the Campana collection
On 27 April, 1861, Horace de Viel Castel remarked briefly on Napoleon III's recent acquisition, on behalf of France, of the Campana collection:
"The emperor has recently decided to acquire the Campana collection for the sum of four million francs. [...] It is a magnificent collection of objets d'art containing some of the most beautiful examples of antique art."
The collection was assembled by the Marquis Campana, an Italian archaeologist whose passion and interest for antiquities knew few bounds. He soon amassed a huge collection of Etruscan, Greek and Roman items, to which he later added items of Mediaeval and Renaissance provenance and, in particular, Italian maiolica and early Italian paintings. Having exhausted his fortune, he pawned his collection to Monte de Pietà, but again exceeded his credit limit. In 1858, after investigation into his irregular finances, he was condemned to the galleys; this decision was later commuted to exile after Campana agreed to give up his collection in exchange for the five million Francs owed. Although the collection was initially offered to France, Britain and Russia succeeded in acquiring some pieces (examples from the collection can today be found in the State Hermitage in St. Petersburg, the Victoria and Albert Museum in London, and the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York) before Napoleon III agreed to purchase its near-totality. The bill came to 4,800,000 Francs - an extraordinary sum considering the fact that the Louvre's annual budget for acquisitions never went beyond 100,000 Francs between 1853 and 1868 - with the sale made possible following the authorisation of a one-off allocation of funds. The collection was initially exhibited at the Palais de l'Industrie on 1 May, 1862, before being transferred to the Louvre shortly afterwards.
Wishing you an excellent "Napoleonic" week,
Peter Hicks & Hamish Davey Wright
Historians and web-editors
THE NAPOLEON.ORG BULLETIN, N° 580, 22 – 28 APRIL, 2011
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© This Napoleon.org weekly bulletin is published by the Fondation Napoléon. Reproduction or all or part of this bulletin is forbidden, without prior agreement of the Fondation Napoléon.
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OPERATION ST HELENA
The Fondation Napoléon and the Souvenir Napoléonien, in association with the French Ministry of Foreign Affairs, have announced an international fund-raising campaign to restore and save Napoleon I's residence on the island of St Helena. All the details regarding the campaign as well as donation forms and advice for donating from outside France, can be found on napoleon.org.
FONDATION NAPOLEON ON THE WEB
Each week we offer you a "mystery" link to somewhere on napoleon.org. Click on the link to discover a part of the website you might not have visited before...
MAGAZINE
Press review
- BBC: "From a last battle to the Louvre" - the MacDonalds of France
Seen on the web (external link)
- The Campana collection at the Louvre
EVENTS
On now and coming up
A selection of events taking place now or in the coming weeks, taken from our What's on listings.
Exhibitions
- "Of Elephants and Roses: Encounters with French Natural History, 1790–1830", Philadelphia, USA [25/03/2011 - 31/12/2011]
Full details
Re-enactments
- "Bivouac des soldats de l'Empereur", Fontainebleau, France [23/04/2011 - 25/04/2011]
Full details
TV
- "Domhnallaich na Frainge": the story of Neil MacEachen, BBC Alba, UK [25/04/2011]
Full details
NAPOLEON.ORG
The best of the month:
- Book of the month
- Painting of the month
- Objet d'Art of the month
- Article of the month
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