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INTERNATIONAL WOMEN'S DAY...
... is this month's hot topic, and to mark the occasion, napoleon.org has dipped into the archives and selected as article of the month "Napoleon's Courtesans, Citoyennes, and Cantinières", Susan P. Conner's paper on some of the roles played by women during the Napoleonic period. Elsewhere, we continue our build-up to the upcoming conference on the Russian campaign with part one of our feature on some of the participants and their papers. Heading across the channel to London, and the National Army Museum is asking visitors to its site to vote on Britain's greatest enemy commander: unsurprisingly, Napoleon Bonaparte remains near the top of the list. Next up are details of two more soon-to-be-held events. With silent cinema back in the zeitgeist thanks to the Oscar-winning exploits of The Artist, Abel Gance's magisterial epic Napoléon - newly edited with a running time of over five hours - is set to prove a highlight of the San Francisco Silent Film Festival. And back on this side of the Atlantic, the auction organised by Osenat for April will see some fascinating souvenirs of Napoleon III and the imperial family go under the hammer in Paris. As ever, the letter is rounded off by 200 and 150 years ago, which take a look at French foreign policy during the two periods.
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FONDATION NAPOLEON NEWS
1812, la campagne de Russie: Regards croisés sur une guerre européenne", Paris, France
With the international conference just a few weeks away, the newsletter will be preparing for the bicentenary flagship event with a closer look at some of the Fondation Napoléon staff members who will be participating and the papers they will be presenting. François Houdecek, project manager for the publication of the General Correspondence of Napoleon Bonaparte, will be taking a look at intercepted personal correspondence sent by French soldiers whilst in Moscow. As well as this intensely personal vision of the campaign, François will also present an analysis of the logistics involved in delivering letters on campaign and the tactics used by the Russian forces to intercept them. Peter Hicks, International Relations manager, will also be participating, and will be talking about Sir Robert Wilson - an adventurer and quasi-spy - his involvement with Russian high command, and British interests in Russia during the period.
PhD viva news
On 3 March, Xavier Mauduit, a Fondation Napoléon study grant student, successfully defended his PhD thesis entitled "La maison du prince président et la Maison de l'Empereur". The jury awarded his doctorate with the mention "très bien" (distinction). The Fondation Napoléon joins the jury in offering its most hearty congratulations on Xavier's success and wishes him the best for his future academic career.
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ARTICLE OF THE MONTH
"Napoleon's Courtesans, Citoyennes, and Cantinières", by Susan P. Conner
This article explores the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries - a transition which saw, according to the artist Elizabeth Vigée-Lebrun, women deposed as rulers of the age - from a female point of view. Sarah P. Conner traces the roles pursued by women following the Revolution and the evolving nature of their place in society as political upheaval saw France move from Republic to Directory to Empire. Meanwhile, on the French side, the latest article of the month is Pascal Cyr's "La traversée de la Sambre, 15 juin 1815".
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WHAT'S ON
"National Army Museum: Britain's Greatest Foes", London, UK
Having asked the public to vote on Britain's greatest general in 2011, the National Army Museum in London is now asking visitors to the website to decide on who they think was Britain's greatest adversary. The vote (external link) runs until 30 March, with the top five military commanders going on to a shortlist which will be debated at the museum's celebrity speaker event, "Enemy Commanders: Britain's Greatest Foes", to be held on 14 April. Despite sounding a slightly superficial premise, the goal of the event is to encourage visitors to take a rational, historical approach to analysing the achievements and strengths of those that lined up against Britain and also learn about some of the lesser known "enemies". The twenty-figure shortlist includes, unsurprisingly, Napoleon Bonaparte (currently number two on the leaderboard, behind Michael Collins), as well as Tipu Sultan, the American presidents George Washington and Andrew Jackson, and Eduard Totleben, a German military engineer who served in the Russian imperial army during the Crimean War.
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Abel Gance's Napoléon at the San Francisco Silent Film Festival, Oakland, USA
Hot on the heels of silent cinema's success at the 2012 Oscars, it has been announced that the San Francisco Silent Film Festival will screen the full-length, 330 minutes-long epic, Napoleon, directed by Abel Gance. There will be screenings at the Oakland Paramount Theater on 24, 25, and 31 March, as well as on 1 April. A specially-erected 85-foot wide screen will be used to show the film, whilst music will be provided by a live orchestra performing Carl Davis' score. There are no plans to release this full-length, re-edited version on DVD or Blu-ray, and no other screenings have been as yet scheduled. A trailer for the upcoming screenings can be found on the festival website (external link).
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Osenat auction: the collection of Franceschini Pietri, Fontainebleau, France
An upcoming Osenat auction - scheduled for 1 April - will feature the exceptional collection of Franceschini Pietri, secretary to Napoleon III and subsequently the Prince Imperial and Eugenie. For fifty years, Pietri served as "personal secretary" to the imperial family, first Napoleon III and subsequently Eugenie and the Prince Imperial. Items on sale include clothes worn by the empress, the Prince Imperial, Napoleon III and Pietri, sketches by the Prince Imperial, and - a rather more macabre lot - a bullet recovered from the Prince Imperial's body after his death in Zululand in 1879.
200 YEARS AGO
A snapshot of Spanish affairs
The middle of March 1812 proved to be a busy time for everyone involved in the Peninsula, Spanish, French and British. In Madrid, Joseph, who had complained to Napoleon of a lack of authority in what was technically his own kingdom (see bulletin n° 585), was finally named commander in chief of the French armies in Spain on 16 March 1812. This new role failed to result in any real power, however, and Joseph continued to be sidelined by Napoleon's generals operating in the Peninsula. On the same day, the British army moved up to the walls of Badajoz, a well-defended fortress on the Spanish-Portuguese frontier held by 4,500 French troops under the command of General Phillipon. There, as rain and sleet poured down on them, trenches were dug and artillery moved up in preparation for bombardment and an eventual assault on the walls (which would follow on 6 April). A few days later, on 19 March, the Cadiz Cortes promulgated the Spanish Constitution of 1812, a liberal constitution and effectively Spain's first, which enshrined - amongst other rights - national sovereignty, freedom of the press, a separation of powers and reduction in the monarch's prerogatives, and universal male suffrage. Though Ferdinand VII was to suppress the extremely liberal constitution on his return to Spain in 1814, the document was to remain an object of desire for middle-class Spanish liberals, and it was to have a major influence in the Spanish empire in South America, where subsequently independent countries (such as Mexico, Chile, Peru and Venezuela) were to use it as inspiration for their founding documents. You can read an English-language copy of the constitution - originally published in Cobbett's Political Register (July-December 1814) - can be found here (external link).
150 YEARS AGO
Capture of Vinh Long
The establishment of French interests in Cochinchina, the area of south-east Asia known today as Viet-Nam, was a long and arduous ten-year process. Having seized Saigon as early as 1859, little progress had been made as the Franco-Sardinian war of 1859 and the Chinese expedition in 1860 had occupied the French government and diverted manpower away from the area. The return of the French fleet in February 1861 - following the conclusion of the Chinese campaign - relaunched operations in Cochinchina. The towns of My Tho and Bienhoa were captured in April and December 1861, which led to an intensification of indigenous guerrilla resistance and assassinations. On 22 March 1862, a Franco-Spanish force attacked Vinh Long, a town on the Mekong Delta: the fall of the town's citadel was to be the last allied combat of the Cochinchina campaign, and the Vietnamese emperor Tu Duc was subsequently persuaded to treat with the French (the Treaty of Saigon was concluded on 5 June 1862). The resulting colony, Cochinchina, would remain under French control for nearly one hundred years.
Wishing you an excellent "Napoleonic" week,
Peter Hicks & Hamish Davey Wright
Historians and web-editors
THE NAPOLEON.ORG BULLETIN, N° 619, 16 - 22 MARCH 2012
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
- Field of Glory Napoleonic, by Terry Shaw & Peter Dennis
- The Nineteenth-Century Press in the Digital Age, by James Mussell
Press review
- Artinfo: Abel Gance's Napoléon set for San Francisco Silent Film Festival
Seen on the web (external links)
- The Spanish Constitution of 1812 on the Biblioteca Virtual Miguel de Cervantes website
- Souvenirs de l'expédition de Cochinchine, 1861-1862, par un Lieutenant de l'ex 101e.
- L'expédition de Cochinchine et la politique française dans l'extrême Orient, by Henri Galos
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
- "1812, la campagne de Russie: Regards croisés sur une guerre européenne", Paris, France [04/04/2012 - 05/04/2012]
Full details
Exhibitions
- "La Berline de Napoléon: le mystère du butin de Waterloo", Paris, France [07/03/2012 - 08/07/2012]
Full details
Film
- Abel Gance's Napoléon, San Francisco, USA [24/03/2012 - 01/04/2012]
Full details
Talks
- "The Future of the Past" (IHR round table session on digital history, with Alastair Dunning, Andrew Prescott and Melissa Terras), London, UK [20/03/2012]
Full details (external link)
- Bishopsgate Institute talks: "Monarchy & Republicanism: Great Queens", London, UK [20/03/2012]
Full details
- IHR seminar: "'Children of the Service': Paternalism, Patronage and Friendship in the Georgian Navy" by Ellen Gill, London, UK [20/03/2012]
Full details (external link)
- Kevin Brownlow: "Abel Gance's Napoleon, A Restoration Project Spanning a Lifetime", Berkley, USA [30/03/2012]
Full details
- "Enemy Commanders: Britain's Greatest Foes", London, UK [14/04/2012]
Full details
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