| |
| |
THE NAPOLEON.ORG BULLETIN n° 698, 24-30 JANUARY, 2014
EDITORIAL
As 2014 starts to gather pace, we here in France have been casting our eyes around the world looking for sightings of Napoleon outside the Hexagon. And the view is extremely promising.
One could argue that St Helena is redolent with exile and death, and yet it remains a symbol of the enduring fascination and financial pulling power of our great man. Only he (and the airport, it would appear) can bring the island financial salvation. Indeed, we have had first-hand St-Helenian contact this month, since Director Thierry Lentz has been there overseeing the start of the restoration work at Longwood – the first fruits of all your generous donations – and the future is looking very bright! Further West, the Napoleonic History Society is organising a study day and visit to the Napoleonic exhibition in Louisville (Kentucky), and a few weeks later on, the annual Consortium on Revolutionary Era will provide a forum for academic papers on the Napoleonic world. Most excitingly this year, there'll be a panel sponsored by the Masséna Society, named after our President Victor-André Masséna, on Napoleonic military history. And let's not forget the society's annual dinner and its (in)famous “Napoleon cake”!
Capping off this first quarter, we at the Fondation will be welcoming the world to our international conference on diplomacy during the First Empire period here in Paris. Whilst it is true that the news from the front 200 years ago this month was not all rosy, these days, in Napoleonic terms, it's all systems go. Enjoy!
Peter Hicks
Historian and International Relations Manager
|
|
|
| |
ARTICLE OF THE MONTH > "Barbaric destruction or symbolic retribution – the razing of the Yuanming Yuan" by Anouska KOMLOSY, former curator of Asian Ethnography at The British Museum
On the 18th October, 1860, the Summer Palace or the Garden of Perfect Brightness (Yuanming Yuan) as it is known in Chinese was set alight on the orders of Lord Elgin. This was no ordinary palace but rather an exquisite garden of over eighty square miles filled with pagodas, libraries, fountains and palaces, some designed by Jesuits and built in European Baroque style (The European Palaces Xiyang Lou). Designed to be an expression of heaven on earth the Yuanming Yuan was home to thousands of priceless treasures and works of art. Its beauty was well known even outside China; it is said for example to have been the inspiration for Coleridge's 1797 poem Kubla Khan.
> Our French Article of the Month is: "Les folles dernières semaines du général Junot" by Jacques JOURQUIN
|
|
|
|
|
| |
EXHIBITIONS
> If in London, you have until 11 March to go and see the exhibition “Georgians Revealed: Life, Style and the Making of Modern Britain” at the British Library. Click on the link above to watch a video presentation of the exhibition by the curator, Moira Goff.
> In Paris, at the Louvre Museum, there's an exhibition entitled "New Frontier III", which focuses on "Anglo-American Portraits in the time of the Revolution", until 28 April. And at lunchtime on 19 February in the Louvre Auditorium, Kevin Murphy will be giving a talk presenting the exhibition.
> On the other side of the Pond, in the US, the Napoleonic Historical Society is organising a study day and a private visit of the exhibition "The Eye of Napoleon" at the Frazier History Museum, on 1 February, 2014.
|
|
|
| |
WHAT'S ON
> On Mondays 3, 10, 17 February, the Palais of Compiègne will present talks about the productions of the Great Exhibitions, and about the collection of the Imperial family in exile: "France -England in the 19th century: Allies or Old Enemies?"
> 217 works from the Musée national de la Marine in Paris have recently been digitized, as part of a project between the French National Library and its partner libraries. Some of these works, all from the 19th century, are now available online on Gallica. The project will continue over the next few years. Ultimately about 1000 works from the National Navy Museum will be digitized.
WATERLOO 200: COMMEMORATIVE MEDAL
The “Tables rondes napoléoniennes” of Belgium is an umbrella organisation comprising the main Belgian Napoleonic societies. They have launched a subscription for the creation of a medal to commemorate the Battle of Waterloo and its bicentenary in 2015. For more information or to subscribe, contact the General Secretary of the Société Royale Belge d'Etudes Napoléoniennes, Jean-Jacques Pattyn (tel: +32 2 262 13 36 or e-mail).
|
|
|
| |
200 YEARS AGO > A CLOSE SHAVE AND THE RETAKING OF BRIENNE
At the end of January 1814, Blücher's army was, of all the allied troops, the most likely to reach the French capital. Napoleon therefore in the three days between 25 and 29 January focused his attention on this army, vainly scouring the area around Saint-Dizier (near Troyes and Reims) in the hope of confronting the Prussians. The battle eventually took place near Brienne, the very town where young Bonaparte had completed his military training. On 29 January in the evening, while the battle was raging, Napoleon was nearly killed in an ambush. As he was riding at the front of some of his troops, listening to a report by General Gourgaud, a Cossack suddenly emerged and attacked the Emperor with a lance. Gourgaud shot him dead at point-blank range. Later, Napoleon was to give the General one of his own swords to thank him for saving his life. However, Napoleon on St Helena (merely a few years later) refused to credit Gourgaud with saving his life, something which Jacques Macé, who wrote a biography of General Gourgaud in 2006, described as a sort of “moral cruelty”. Blücher had to abandon the Brienne château in the face of a French attack and was forced to wait for Schwarzenberg's Austrian reinforcements whilst Napoleon was attempting to consolidate his troops. Two days later, on 1 February, 100,000 Allied troops were to take on 40,000 Frenchmen at La Rothière.
150 YEARS AGO > THE TAI PING REBELLION
China in the middle of the 19th century was going through a difficult time. Natural disasters, economic hardship, gender imbalances in the population, opium wars… All this was to be the fertile ground for a ‘heresy' which fostered an armed rebellion, and ultimately all out civil war, touching 16 out of 18 Chinese provinces, and leaving an estimated twenty million dead. The leader of the rebellion, Hong Xiuquan, after failing the imperial civil servant examinations for the fourth time at the age of 37, and under the influence of Christian missionaries and American Baptists, had a vision that he was Jesus' younger brother, and that his mission was to bring the Heavenly Kingdom to China. His sect soon gathered many followers and they took many cities, whilst installing an actual state within the empire, with its own infrastructures (building roads, running a parallel postal service). The new ideology promoted shared land and property, equality between men and women (although with a strict gender separation), and the replacement of Chinese traditional religions (Confucianism, Buddhism, Taoism) by this new form of Christianity – indeed the rebellion's full name, “Tai Ping Tian Guo” (which is Chinese for ‘Kingdom of Heavenly Peace'), clearly underlines the messianic and millenarian nature of the struggle. Such revolutionary changes were of course opposed and fought by the Manchu-Qin government. Coupled with the Second Opium War in 1856-62, the Tai Ping rebellion lasted for fourteen years, from 1850 to 1864.
The Moniteur of Tuesday 26 January, 1864, gives a long and detailed testimony dated 15 June, 1863, of a Corsican soldier who found himself in the hands of the rebels and fought on their side, and his report on his meeting with the great Chinese leader, Hong Xiuquan (Tchoung-ouang). Hong Xiuquan is quoted seeking the approval of the French Emperor, and promising new business partnerships with France instead of England, should the French help the Tai Ping revolt and the overturn of the Qin government. Hong Xiuquan died during the siege of Nanjing in 1864. The Tai Ping rebellion was finally crushed in 1871.
> Further listening: Excellent BBC 4 Radio programme on the Tai Ping rebellion
> Further reading: “The Chinese expedition: Chinese Gordon and the burning of the Summer Palace” by Alfred Egmont HAKE
Wishing you an excellent "Napoleonic" week,
Peter Hicks and Lucie Louvrier
THE NAPOLEON.ORG BULLETIN, N° 698, 24-30 JANUARY, 2014
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.
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
OPERATION ST HELENA
The Fondation Napoléon and the Souvenir Napoléonien, in association with the French Ministry of Foreign Affairs, have announced the prolongation of its 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.
You can still donate online to the project via the Friends of the Fondation de France in the US here.
ALWAYS AVAILABLE
Problems with a link in this letter?
- Check the homepage on napoleon. org
- View back numbers of the bulletin
- Contact us
Follow us on Facebook and on Twitter!
napoleon. org - related content:
MAGAZINE
JUST PUBLISHED
- GREENE Jack P., Evaluating Empire and Confronting Colonialism in Eighteenth-Century Britain, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2013
- FOSTER R. E., Wellington and Waterloo: The Duke, The Battle and Posterity 1815-2015, Stroud: The History Press, 2014
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.
WHAT'S ON
- Thierry Lentz's presentation and signing of his book Les vingt jours de Fontainebleau [29/01/2014], 5:30pm
- Anti-Napoleon III Caricatures: The Republican Hatred [25/01/2014]
- Georgians Revealed: Life, Style and the Making of Modern Britain [08/11/2013 - 11/03/2014]
- "The Eye of Napoleon" exhibition at the Frazier History Museum in Louisville, Kentucky (USA) [19/10/2013 - 02/03/2014]
- The Taste for the Theatre from the First to the Second Empire, Palais Fesch, Ajaccio, Corsica [19/12/2013 - 21/04/2014]
PRESS REVIEW
- Review of "Evaluating Empire" by Jack P. Greene
SEEN ON THE WEB (external links)
- English Heritage plans double Waterloo exhibition in London and Kent
- War of 1812 exhibit opens at Northern Michigan University (with video)
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
THE BIBLIOTHÈQUE MARTIAL-LAPEYRE FONDATION NAPOLEON LIBRARY
The library is open on Monday and Tuesday from 1pm – 6pm and on Thursdays from 10am – 3pm. The library is closed on Wednesdays.
Online catalogue
Digital Library
Contact
ACCOUNT DETAILS
To change your email address, unsubscribe, and sign up for the French information bulletin.
|
|
