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OUR SECOND LETTER BACK...
... and it's starting to get busy. After the lull of the summer, the French rentrée is in full swing, and that means plenty of new publications, exhibitions, and news for you. Opening on 24 September at the Musée de Compiègne is "Destins Souverains", one half of a joint exhibition taking place in Ile-de-France this autumn, which examines the relationship between three key rulers in Europe: Napoleon, Bernadotte, and Alexander I. In Sarzana, Italy, the annual Napoleon Festival starts on 22 September, with re-enactment events, a concert, and a Napoleonic market all scheduled over the weekend. September also sees the release of the third and final volume of Napoleon Bonaparte's memoirs, in which the exiled French emperor looks back on the years 1814 and 1815, including the Cent-Jours and Waterloo. Further down, the intriguing, anonymously-painted Portrait of a man and his children is the first painting of the month since our summer break, and is a fascinating study of the family portrait in evolution. Finally, we round the letter off with news of the recent issue of the Waterloo Journal, plus 200 and 150 years ago. The latter, an amusing account of a particularly awkward meeting between Plon-Plon and Abraham Lincoln, brings the French prince's North American sojourn to a close.
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WHAT'S ON
"Destins souverains: Napoléon Ier, le Tsar et le Roi de Suède", Compiègne
The Musée de Compiègne is joining forces with the State Hermitage, St. Petersburg, and The Nationalmuseum, Stockholm, to present this autumn's exhibition, "Destins souverains: Napoléon Ier, le Tsar et le Roi de Suède". As Napoleon constructed his system for Europe, two rulers - Bernadotte, king of Sweden, and Alexander I, tsar of Russia - stood opposed to him. Rivals who were initially allies, then enemies, the three clashed as the struggle for Europe came to a head during the latter years of Napoleon's rule. Featuring a wealth of historical artefacts and fine artisan wares, the exhibition is about the art of governing through art, and the confrontations – political and military – between the three powers, from Tilsit to Vienna. In all, nearly 150 artefacts will be on show, including a splendid selection of portraits, costumes, jewellery, and other first-rate craftsmanship, many of which have been loaned from the Hermitage Museum in St Petersburg and the Nationalmuseum in Stockholm.
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Sarzana Napoleon festival, Sarzana, Italy
The Sarzana Napoleon festival (22 - 25 September) is a weekend of Napoleonic celebrations in the Bonaparte family's birth town, Sarzana. The weekend will include a Napoleonic market - featuring medals, books, miniatures, and other items of historical interest for sale - historical re-enactments on the Saturday and Sunday - including a procession featuring the empress Marie-Louise - whilst the Saturday night will close with a concert of period music at the Teatro degli Impavidi, conducted by the Fondation Napoléon's Peter Hicks, and a ball celebrating the 150th anniversary of Italian unification. The town's restaurants will also be serving dishes based on period recipes over the course of the long weekend. A large number of videos filmed during previous editions of the festival can be found on YouTube.
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JUST PUBLISHED
Mémoires de Napoléon: L'île d'Elbe et les Cent-Jours 1814-1815 (Vol. III), edited by Thierry Lentz
During the last years of his life, Napoleon set to dictating his memoirs. This volume - edited by Thierry Lentz, director of the Fondation Napoléon - rounds off the trilogy, taking in the Treaty of Fontainebleau, the emperor's stay on the island of Elba, the Cent-Jours and his triumphal return to Paris, finishing with the defeat at Waterloo on 18 June, 1815. As the victorious European powers sought to weaken France, the deposed French emperor - exiled to the island of St Helena - saw it his duty to retell the story of what had gone before. Dictating his memoirs from the island in the South Atlantic, this book closes the circle on Napoleon's recollections of his rule.
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PAINTING OF THE MONTH
Portrait of a man and his children, anonymous
This extraordinary family portrait is one of the great enigmas of early 19th-century art history since the identity of the subjects and painter has remained a mystery to this day. The work was initially attributed to David, and the father of the family was identified as the member of the Convention, Michel Gérard. However, today those attributions have been abandoned, and art historians have concentrated on trying to find meaning in the image. The painting in itself marks a moment in the evolution of the family portrait, a genre which grew in popularity throughout the 18th century. Moving from the traditional Ancien Régime representation of the all powerful father, here we see the beginnings of a more intimate vision, giving to the pater familias emotions, even sensitivity, and a tenderness which had never appeared before.
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PRESS REVIEW
The Waterloo Journal, vol. 33, n° 1, Spring 2011
The Waterloo Journal is published by The Association of Friends of the Waterloo Committee and A.S.B.L. Pour Les Etudes Historiques de la Bataille de Waterloo. The spring 2011 edition features articles from Paul Brunyee ("Napoleon's death and first burial") and Martin Stoneham ("Lt Col Sir Richard Fletcher"), as well as a report on the recent thefts at Waterloo.
200 YEARS AGO
Wellington lifts the Ciudad Rodrigo blockade
The summer of 1811 saw a lull in the conflict raging in the Peninsula. British forces under Wellington had crossed back over into Spain and had begun blockading French-held Ciudad Rodrigo, the much-fought-over, strategically important town on the Portuguese border, and a key fortified point on the main road to Salamanca. The French forces under Maréchal Marmont (the Armée de Portugal) and General Dorsenne (who had replaced Maréchal Bessières at the head of the Armée du Nord) were stationed near Navalmoral (to the south-east) and Salamanca (to the north-east) respectively. Wellington, despite sensing that he would have to abandon the blockade if Marmont and Dorsenne joined up, saw the action as an opportunity to prepare for the full-scale invasion of Spain by capturing an important outpost. Even if it was unsuccessful, he reasoned, it would still disrupt the French forces in the area. The British siege train was slow to move up from Lisbon, however, and as suspected, on 22 September, 1811, Marmont and Dorsenne, with a combined force of 58,000 men (about 12,000 more than Wellington had mustered), marched on the British position, arriving in San Munoz and Tamames, about twenty-odd miles east of Ciudad Rodrigo. Despite being outnumbered, Wellington refused to withdraw completely until forced to do so. At El Bodón, a few days later, this misjudgement would nearly prove costly.
150 YEARS AGO
Plon-Plon meets Abraham Lincoln
After a whole series of embarrassments and scandals in Paris, the Prince Napoleon had sought peace away from Europe by setting sail for the New World (see bulletin n° 586). Between 26 July and 26 September, 1861, Plon-Plon toured the East Coast of the USA and Canada. Despite enjoyable stopovers in Boston (on 22 September), and a visit to Harvard to converse with the world-renowned Swiss geologist and glaciologist, Louis Agassiz (famous for his theories on the earth's past ice age, as well as his denial of Darwin's theory of evolution), fiasco was never far away. One particular moment was Jerome's visit to President Lincoln at the White House in Washington on 3 August, 1861. One of Plon Plon's aides, Camille Ferri-Pisani, noted initially how the Prince - accustomed to a certain reception - was forced to wait for fifteen minutes, with no ceremony and no major-domo or service staff on hand to tend to his needs ("You walk straight in, like in a café", remarked the prince, clearly taken aback). Lincoln, apparently giving the impression that he was unused to receiving royalty and disastrously informed as to his visitor's identity, inquired after the prince's father, "Lucien". A furious Plon-Plon sat in stony silence whilst Lincoln ("a good man, but without class or much knowledge," the prince is said to have noted sniffily), by now alerted to his faux-pas, attempted to engage the prince in small-talk about the weather. To finish the embarrassing scene, Lincoln took refuge in a long ceremony of shaking hands (seven men on the American side, two on the French), thus allowing the meeting to reach the appropriate length of ten minutes. A ceremonial dinner later that day did much to repair relations.
Wishing you an excellent "Napoleonic" week,
Peter Hicks & Hamish Davey Wright
Historians and web-editors
THE NAPOLEON.ORG BULLETIN, N° 595, 16 – 22 SEPTEMBER, 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
Recently published
- Mémoires de Napoléon: L'île d'Elbe et les Cent-Jours 1814-1815 (Vol. III), edited by Thierry Lentz
Press review
- Book review: Common Sense: A Political History, by Sophia Rosenfeld
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.
Conferences
- NHS annual conference 2011, Baltimore, USA [16/09/2011 - 18/09/2011]
Full details
Exhibitions
- "Les Misérables, 150 ans à Waterloo", Waterloo, Belgium [30/06/2011 - 30/09/2011] [LAST WEEKS]
Full details
- "Destins souverains. Joséphine, la Suède et la Russie", Rueil-Malmaison, France [24/09/2011 - 09/01/2012]
Full details
- "Destins souverains: Napoléon Ier, le Tsar et le Roi de Suède", Compiègne, France [24/09/2011 - 09/01/2012]
Full details
Festivals
- Sarzana Napoleon Festival, Sarzana, Italy [22/09/2011 - 25/09/2011]
Full details
- European Heritage Open Days 2011, various, Europe [09/09/2011 - 18/09/2011]
Full details
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