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EDITORIAL
The phrase "I took the day off to come and work in the library" is often heard here at the Fondation Napoléon. As well as researchers working independently on their own projects, we also have a large number of volunteers - our membres correspondants" - who from the very beginning have been involved in the project to publish the General Correspondence of Napoleon Bonaparte. This month, we have decided to highlight once again the latest volume in the series, 1807 - Tilsit, l'apogée de l'Empire. Frequent readers of the letter will know all about this project, but new readers are signing up all the time. The letter this week is therefore our attempt to unite these two groups.
The intention is not to emphasise just how titanic this project is, nor just how much effort, tenacity, and indeed determination is required. For both the Fondation Napoléon and the project's many participants, institutions, partners, and volunteers alike, the publication of a volume of correspondence, each containing thousands of letters all annotated and in their original form, is not in fact an end in itself. The final goal is rather the continuing development and enrichment of research within the field of Napoleonic history.
Irène Delage
Section head and Editor of the French side of napoleon.org
PS:
And as work continues in preparation for the release of the 1812 volume of the General Correspondence of Napoleon Bonaparte, the indexers slaving away on this tome have drawn a blank on one or two figures involved in the campaign. So, in the spirit of interactivity, perhaps there are those out there reading the letter who could help us with details - namely the first names, dates of birth and death, and (the icing on the cake) a scrap of biographical background - relating to the following individuals: Bernard, payeur général de la Grandé Armée; Beaudeuf, payeur de la garde impériale; Ducros, commissaire des guerres; Lambert, officier de santé; and Alphonse Margarita, directeur des estafettes. Please direct any information you may have on these issues to Thierry Lentz (lentz@napoleon.org). Thank you.
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BOOK OF THE MONTH
1807 - Tilsit, l'apogée de l'Empire, edited by M. Kerautret and G. Madec
Volume seven of The General Correspondence of Napoleon Bonaparte sees Napoleon at the height of his powers and his empire at its apogee. Battles at Eylau and Friedland led to the signing of the Treaty of Tilsit with the Russian tsar, Alexander I, and Napoleon's new creations, the Kingdom of Westphalia and the Duchy of Warsaw, were recognised in Europe. This seventh volume includes 3,020 fully-annotated letters, an introduction from the editors, an article on the treaties signed at Tilsit, and an in-depth timeline of the events of 1807. Volume eight in the project will be released later this year.
And for those of you looking for more reading material to keep you going over the next couple of months, why not take a look at our Summer Selection for 2011?
FONDATION NAPOLEON NEWS
Study grants application dossier updated
Following on from our announcement last week relating to the deadline date for study grant applications, the forms to be completed and returned to the Fondation Napoléon have been updated. Anyone who downloaded the form before 22 June, 2011 should download the latest version from the study grants homepage.
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NAPOLEONIC NEWS
Annual newsletter from the Institute on Napoleon and the French Revolution at Florida State University, Tallahassee
The annual newsletter from the Institute on Napoleon and the French Revolution at Florida State University in Tallahassee has been released. Detailing the institute's latest academic developments - including graduate student milestones and the latest PhD and MA arrivals at the university - the newsletter also features information on a newly created fellowship, the Donald D. Horward Graduate Fellowship in Military History, and news of the success of the first Weider Invited Professor, Annie Jourdan, who completed a month last autumn teaching a seminar on "War and Society in the Early Modern Period".
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PRESS REVIEW
British Library and Google digital project
The British Library, in partnership with Google, has announced a project to digitise 40,000,000 pages produced between 1700 and 1870, roughly 250,000 out-of-copyright books - in a variety of languages - from the library's collections. The books set for digital republication take in such important historical events as the French and Industrial Revolutions, the Battle of Trafalgar, the Crimean War, and the end of slavery. Items that will be digitised include An address to the people, on the present relative situations of England and France, by Robert Fellowes (1799), and Proyecto de navegacion submarina, by Narciso Monturiol (1858), which describes the author's invention of the first combustion engine-driven submarine. Full details can be found on the British Library press page (external link).
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WHAT'S ON
"A.-L. Breguet: how horology conquered the world", Prangins, Switzerland
The Schweizerische Nationalmuseum's retrospective on the art and life of Abraham-Louis Breguet, the Swiss horologist whose clients included Marie-Antoinette, Tsar Alexander I, King George VI of Britain, and the Bonaparte family, includes the montre à tact that belonged to Jerome Bonaparte. The Fondation Napoléon has loaned the watch to the Schweizerische Nationalmuseum for the duration of the exhibition, which will transfer to the Landesmuseum Zürich for the autumn.
Napoleonic Europe At Its Peak: 9th International Napoleonic Congress, Den Helder, The Netherlands
The 9th international Napoleonic Congress takes place between 4 and 8 July, 2011, in Den Helder, The Netherlands. Organised by the International Napoleonic Society, the programme includes Johan Joor's talk "The Continental System and Napoleonic Holland: Motor of Napoleonic Policies and Key Factor of Protest", Jackson Sigler on "The Dutch-Belgian Forces and Leaders at Waterloo", Doina Harsanyi's paper on "The Netherlands, How Not to Make a Revolution: The Duchies of Parma/Piacenza Within the Napoleonic Order", and "The Easel and the Eagle: Rembrandt Peale Views Napoleonic France" by William Chew III, as well as trips to Fort Kijkduin and Texel Island.
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"Britain's soldiers, 1750-1815", Leeds, UK
Championed as heroes yet also decried as a danger to liberty, British attitudes towards the military during the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries were complicated by new forms of military service that were developed alongside the Regular Army, such as the Militia, Fencibles, Volunteers and Armed Associations. The expanding range of military organisations and recurrent wars in Europe and across the globe resulted in a larger proportion of Britain's men experiencing some aspects of life as a 'soldier' and also meant that the military had a more prominent part of British society and culture. The conference will include papers on British soldiers' reactions to the Spanish and Portuguese violence of the Peninsular War (Gavin Daly of the University of Tasmania), the depiction of British soldiers in Denis Dighton's Waterloo paintings (Robert Willoughby of the University of Arkansas-Fort Smith), and the use of church and cemetery memorials as sources for the Napoleonic Wars (John Rumsby). The conference takes place on 7 and 8 July.
200 YEARS AGO
"In absolute darkness, intense confusion and disorder reigned"
The final celebration marking the Roi de Rome's baptism was held on 23 June, 1811, in the park and streets surrounding Saint-Cloud. Although everything was done to ensure a memorable event, the garden party - which included 9,000 paper lanterns, 2,400 coloured torches, and a magnificent firework display - was to be remembered more for the huge storm and torrential downpour which destroyed the orchestra's instruments and sent the 300,000-strong crowd (as reported by the Moniteur on 25 June, 1811) scurrying back to Paris. Despite the Moniteur's curiously revisionist report (the weather "did not interrupt the celebrations - which had finished - but merely prevented them from continuing into the night"), Alexandre Bellot de Kergorre, an army commissary in attendance, paints a different picture of the chaos that followed:
"Unfortunately, clouds had gathered over the course of the evening and the firework display took place in inky darkness. Barely had it finished that the huge Parisian population rushed off home. [...] A friend and I crossed the bridge; arriving at the stationed carriages, I sought in vain to climb into one: modest buggies were fought over, with each passenger paying five or six Louis. [...] I set off on foot through the Bois de Boulogne. [...] The rain was torrential. [...] There was two foot of water on Rue Saint-Honoré; the cafés and wine bars were still open, and I did not return home until two o'clock in the morning. Many spent the night in the bush. [...] The next day, the Bois de Boulogne was full of bruised and battered people, clothes strewn about, and broken carriages; despite the police's best efforts, many people found themselves victims of this disaster, from which only thieves made any profit."
150 YEARS AGO
Reception of the Siamese ambassadors at the Château de Fontainebleau
On 27 June, 1861, Napoleon III, Eugenie, and the Prince Imperial received the Siamese embassy, dispatched by King Rama IV, in a grand ceremony involving a procession of bowing ambassadors, sumptuous costumes, and lavish gifts. The reception marked the re-establishment of diplomatic relations between France and the Siamese kingdom (modern day Thailand), which had last been active during the seventeenth-century. France and Siam signed a treaty on 15 August, 1856, setting out peaceful relations, developing commercial ties between the two countries, and guaranteeing religious freedom for missionaries. An official painting of the ceremony, produced by Jean-Léon Gérôme, can be found in our Arts & Collection section on napoleon.org. Further information on the Kingdom of Siam's diplomatic and commercial dealings with France and Britain can be found here.
In November 2011, "Siam in Fontainebleau" - an exhibition dedicated to the Siamese ambassadors' visit to Paris and the historical, political, and diplomatic context surrounding the event - will open at the Château de Fontainebleau.
Wishing you an excellent "Napoleonic" week,
Peter Hicks & Hamish Davey Wright
Historians and web-editors
THE NAPOLEON.ORG BULLETIN, N° 590, 24 - 30 JUNE, 2011
Interested in the work of the Fondation Napoléon? Why not participate, either generally or in a specific project, by making a donation?
© 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
Just published
- A Corsican Youth, by Jean-Baptiste Marcaggi, Philippe Munch, Christophe Simon, Philippe Werner & Philippe de Saint-Maur (external link)
Seen on the web (external links)
- British Library and Google digital project
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.
Book signings
- Chroniques de Sainte-Hélène Atlantique sud: Michel Dancoisne-Martineau, Paris, France [28/06/2011]
Full details
Conferences
- "Napoleonic Europe At Its Peak: 9th International Napoleonic Congress", Den Helder, The Netherlands [04/07/2011-08/07/2011]
Full details
- "Britain's soldiers, 1750-1815", Leeds, UK [07/07/2011-08/07/2011]
Full details
Exhibitions
- "A.-L. Breguet: how horology conquered the world", Prangins, Switzerland [10/06/2011 - 19/09/2011]
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
NAPOLEONICA.LA REVUE
Available free on Cairn.info
NAPOLEONICA ARCHIVES ONLINE
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Situated at 148 boulevard Haussmann, 75008 Paris, the library is open on Monday, Tuesday and Wednesday 1.30pm – 6pm, and Thursday 10am - 3pm.
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