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The bulletin here on your screen has a decidedly Second-Empire feel to it. This month's book is a new maritime take on the Crimean War by British naval specialist Andrew Lambert. There is a web exhibition including uniforms worn at the Charge of the Light Brigade. Our highlighted article from Napoleonica La Revue is by independent fashion scholar Zoe Viney on the ecclesiastical robes that Eugénie donated to the monastery she founded, St Michael's Abbey. And '150 years ago' reveals the peculiar menagerie kept by the renowned Second-Empire academic and writer, Prosper Mérimée. In-between, we bring you two new updates in our Digital Library, news of an on-line exhibition at London's National Army Museum, a teaser for a Napoleonic film (and a call for participation), not to mention a fascinating modern-art exhibition at Rome's Museo Napoleonico and the finest fountain of First Empire Paris (in 200 years ago). Enjoy!
PS, please excuse the untimely sending yesterday of this week's bulletin. We hope the sneak preview didn't spoil your enjoyment of the real thing. PH.
PPS And technical problems to boot!!! Please excuse now the late arrival of this letter due to technical issues beyond our control.
BREAKING NEWS
A written ministerial statement was made in the House of Commons on 3 November 2011 by British International Development Secretary Andrew Mitchell. An airport (served from South Africa) will be built on the island of St Helena and opened in time for October 2015, bicentenary of Napoleon's arrival on the island. Excellent news! And the influx of new visitors to the island will be greeted by the newly refurbished Longwood House, which was made possible by your generosity.
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BOOK OF THE MONTH
The Crimean War, Andrew Lambert
This work on the the Crimean War is neither an operational history of the armies in the Crimea, nor a study of the diplomacy of the conflict. The core concern is with grand strategy, the development and implementation of national policy and strategy. The key concepts are strategic, derived from the works of Carl von Clausewitz and Sir Julian Corbett, and the main focus is on naval, not military operations.
This month's book on the French side is Montalivet, l'homme de confiance de Napoléon, by Jean-Claude Banc.
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WHAT'S ON
Exhibitions on the web: The National Army Museum (London, UK):
- “Warhorse” – including uniform from Charge of the Light Brigade (external link).
- Changing the World, 1784-1904 (external link)
Institute of Historical Research seminars, London (UK)
15 November - Richard Biddall (Wellcome Institute, University of Oxford) "'As his was not a surgical case it was not my duty to attend upon him': The surgeon's role in the nineteenth-century royal dockyards". Details here (external link).
SEEN ON THE WEB
The Messengers of the Emperor
The Imperial Circle, makers of the historical film 1805, have announced their latest film project, The Messengers of the Emperor. Promising to offer greater historical accuracy than has ever been seen in a film of the period, the production team has called on re-enactment groups and interested individuals to come forward and participate in the project. The release is scheduled to coincide with the Waterloo bicentenary in 2015, and a short teaser film is available on the film's website (external link).
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WHAT'S ON
"Napoleone entra a New Jork. Chaim Koppelman e l'Imperatore", Rome, Italy
Between the end of June and the middle of July, 1815, in the dramatic days after his defeat at Waterloo, America seemed to be the ideal place of refuge for Napoleon and his family. Despite all the frenzy of those few days, the former emperor ordered his librarian Barbier to put together a large library to be shipped to America. As everyone knows, the story ended differently. More than a century later, American artist Chaim Koppelman symbolically opened the gates of New York to Napoleon. The figure of Napoleon, studied in different forms, with all its contradictions and its different implications, was a constant in Koppelman's long career. This exhibition at the Museo Napoleonico in Rome returns to this New Yorker's work.
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NAPOLEONICA. LA REVUE
Issue n° 11 now online
Continuing our highlights from the most recent issue of Napoleonica La Revue, we bring you this week a fascinating article which attempts the delicate task of substantiating oral tradition related to Second Empire vestments held at Farnborough Abbey (UK), the monastery built by the Empress Eugénie in exile in Britain after the fall of the Second Empire. 'The empress Eugénie and the imperial vestments at St Michael's Abbey, Farnborough', was written by independent scholar, Zoe Viney.
200 YEARS AGO
Paris during the First Empire: the fontaine du boulevard Bondy
On 4 November, 1811, the Moniteur Universel reported on the progress of the alterations being made to the fountain located at the end of boulevard Bondy (external link). The beauty of the fountain - designed by Pierre-Simon Girard - was described by Jacques-Antoine Dulaure (in his Histoire physique, civile et morale de Paris, vol. 4, published in 1839) as "comparable only to the Fontaine des Innocents [at Les Halles, in the centre of Paris]: although less rich in sculpture, its waters are more abundant, and their effect more imposing and vivid". It is considered one of the most impressive water installations of the First Empire(external link). Also known as the fontaine du Château-d'eau or the fontaine aux Lions de Nubie (after the lion sculptures that decorate the installation), the water feature was eventually moved from its location at the end of the curiously winding boulevard Bondy (today rue René Boulanger) in 1867 to the Abattoirs de la Villette, where it remains to this day as part of the park which replaced the abattoirs and market. A similar fountain, designed by Gabriel Davioud and larger in size, replaced it on Place du Château-d'eau (today Place de la République). In 1880, it too was dismantled, to be installed on Place Félix Eboué, near Daumesnil, in Paris' twelfth arrondissement (external link).
150 YEARS AGO
Mérimée's menagerie
Prosper Mérimée, as well as being a historian, archaeologist (see Bulletin 589), writer, and senator, also displayed a keen interest for botany and zoology. During his time in the Côte d'Azur, where he spent his winters from 1856, he started up a curious menagerie of animals: a praying mantis (which he fed on flies), an owl, and a hermit crab. Intrigued by the crab, one day he delicately broke its shell and watched how it carefully measured a new empty shell that Mérimée had placed in its tank, before "the little mathematician" slid into his new home, "with the aplomb and assurance of a man in a new suit". Mérimée was much taken with his "pets", and often attributed to them human characteristics, remarking of his owl to Jenny Daquin that "it has feelings [and] an extremely amusing physiognomy, like a conceited individual, with its extremely grave air and expressions" (letter dated 12 July, 1860). Mérimée indulged his owl, permitting it to fly about after dinner, although in a later letter to Fanny Langden he noted how "the owl grows every day more wicked and treacherous. He very narrowly caught my hand yesterday after I had been five minutes scratching his head" (9 November, 1861). Unfortunately, despite his best attempts, not all of his animals were so comfortable. His praying mantis returned with him to Paris, but had difficulties acclimatising: "she used to eat three flies a day, he wrote to Madame de la Rochejaquelein on 5 February, 1859, but in Paris she fasted for two months [before perishing]."
Wishing you an excellent "Napoleonic" week,
Peter Hicks & Hamish Davey Wright
Historians and web-editors
THE NAPOLEON.ORG BULLETIN, N° 602, 4 - 10 NOVEMBER, 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...
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
- "Napoleon III and Italy: birth of a nation 1848-1870", Paris, France [06/10/2011 - 06/10/2011]
Full details
- "Napoleone entra a New Jork. Chaim Koppelman e l'Imperatore", Rome, Italy [14/10/2011 - 08/01/2012]
Full details
Just published
- The Artist and the Warrior: Military History through the Eyes of the Masters, by Theodore K. Rabb
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
THE BIBLIOTHÈQUE MARTIAL-LAPEYRE FONDATION NAPOLEON LIBRARY
Online catalogue
Digital Library
Contact
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