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CULTURE MATTERS
One of the big issues with today's multi-connected society is that of the democratisation of culture. Indeed, it is the bed rock of our liberal democracies today. Grasping at popular legitimacy, Napoleon III proclaimed on the opening of the legislative session of 1866 exactly 150 years ago, “When all French people, who today are invested with all political rights, are enlightened by education, they will easily discern the truth and will not be seduced by tricksters and their theories”. These words ring with peculiar relevance in the face of speeches by Donald Trump, and his supporter Sarah Palin, and of more European concerns over the importance of history in schools and general fears of “dumbing down” and concomitant worries about elitism.
In France today, museums are seen as an excellent medium for the democratisation of culture. The (quite naturally left-leaning) French Fondation Jean-Jaurès commissioned a report which noted that a mere 18% of unqualified employees visit a museum or an exhibition in 2008, and that percentage dropped thereafter.
So here in ‘old Europe', we have to think how to use new media and to train new types of museum staff so as to be able to communicate in ways that people will take notice of, rather than to hammer on in the dusty old formal ways. The internet and social media are helping a great deal, it must be said.
We're doing our best here at the Fondation Napoléon, to make “interest in and study of Napoleon I and Napoleon III and their times” crucial to those around us, whether by the site, the collection, Facebook, Twitter or simply email. Items of clothing Napoleon wore on St Helena have been reunited and are being prepared for the exhibition "Napoléon à Sainte-Hélène. La conquête de la mémoire" (which could be translated as "Napoleon on St Helena: Fighting the Battle for the Story") here in Paris in April at the Musée de l'Armée. Enjoy our little preview of the great exhibition to come.
Marie de Bruchard
Web editor for napoleon.org/fr
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ARTICLE OF THE MONTH > THE POET AND THE CONSUL: A LATE-NIGHT CONVERSATION AT MALMAISON
The Republican Népomucène Lemercier was a prodigious French poet and playwright who moved in the same social circles as the Bonapartes, but he later fell out of favour due to his outspoken criticisms of the creation of the consulship for life and Napoleon's abandoning of the Republic. In this entertaining account of a remarkable conversation that took place at Malmaison in 1800 - Talleyrand described Lemercier as the best conversationalist in France - the two men discuss Lemercier's poem Alexandre, and the relative merits of the dead heroes of ancient and modern history.
THIS MONTH'S ARTICLE IN FRENCH > LES TUILERIES WESTPHALIENNES: LE PALAIS D'HIVER DU ROI JÉRÔME by BAUSTIAN OLIVIER
FONDATION NAPOLEON CERCLE D'ETUDES LECTURES
Stéphanie Genand's talk “Les vertus de l'abdication: dépassionner la relation Staël-Napoléon” will take place on 9 February 2016 at 6pm at the Fondation Napoléon in Paris (France). Sign-up from 27 January if you would like to attend. More information here (in French).
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ST HELENA EXHIBITION > EXCLUSIVE PREVIEW > THE EMPEROR IS NOT NAKED…
We are delighted to be able to share with our faithful readers a glimpse of a historic reconstruction which happened behind closed doors last week at the Musée de l'Armée in Paris. Clothes that Napoleon wore on St Helena - his waistcoat and breeches lent by the Fondation Napoléon and his only surviving riding coat (which belongs to the Museums of Sens, France) – have been reunited for the first time since Napoleon's death in preparation for their display as part of the exhibition Napoléon à Sainte-Hélène. La conquête de la mémoire (Napoleon at St Helena, the Conquest of Memory) which opens in April. A unique opportunity for the European public to see not only Napoleon's everyday dress but also the furniture from Longwood House recently restored in France (thanks to the St Helena appeal which closed last year), not to mention many other souvenirs and documents from the St Helena exile, many of which will return (forever?) to St Helena when the exhibition closes.
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EXHIBITION > QUANDO ROMA PARLAVA FRANCESE: FESTE E MONUMENTI DELLA PRIMA REPUBBLICA ROMANA (1798-1799)
An exhibition at the Museo Napoleonico di Roma, Italy (until 13 March) focuses on the monuments and festivities created during the twenty months of the Roman Republic 1798-99. These essentially Roman adaptations of French ceremonies were redolent of the Republican centuries of ancient Rome, for which architects, painters, and sculptors realised significant ephemeral decors. The visual records of these events, today preserved almost exclusively in drawings and prints held at the Museo Napoleonico di Roma, have only been seen partially by the public until now. Have a look at a few images from the exhibition on our facebook page.
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NAPOLEON > MAN OF DESTINY
The play, The Man of Destiny, set in Italy during the early career of Napoleon, was written in 1897 by the Irish playwright George Bernard Shaw, the only person ever to have been awarded both a Nobel Prize (Literature, 1925) and an Academy Award (Best Adapted Screenplay, 1938 for Pygmalion). It is to be performed in two different versions in January and February in Brooklyn, New York (USA).
A reading of the play will be given on 15 February at 7pm at Symphony Space's Leonard Nimoy Thalia Theatre (2537 Broadway at 95th Street) by Gingold Theatrical Group whose Project Shaw made history in December 2009 as the first company ever to present performances of every one of Shaw's 65 plays. The evening will also feature a curtain raiser with a Shavian Music Hall with songs, poems and letters.
A brand new adaptation of Shaw's play renamed “Destiny and the Little Man,” will run nightly from 15 January to 14 February as part of “a night of music, drinks, and Napoleon” at Night Cap Riot. A different band will play each evening.
And for those who can't make it to New York, Shaw's play can be read here online.
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EXHIBITION CATALOGUE > SPLENDOUR AND MISERY. PICTURES OF PROSTITUTION IN FRANCE, 1850-1910
For those of you who missed this fascination recent exhibition at the Musée d'Orsay, you can still buy the English version of the catalogue, or read more here (in English) about how so many Second Empire representations of modern life were intricately connected to the world of prostitution.
TALK > NAPOLEONIC WAR AND ITS CORRELATION TO CONFLICTS THAT AROSE IN THE FIRST HALF OF THE 20TH CENTURY
Distinguished British historian Roger Knight will give a lecture on 26 January at the SHSU Department of History (Texas) for it's twelfth annual Joan Coffey Symposium. His talk will focus more on imperial wars rather than local ones, about the Napoleonic wars and how involved were the general masses. He will also look to see how these wars created further issues in the 20th century. The Symposium is free and open to the public.
Wishing you an excellent Napoleonic week!
Peter Hicks and Rebecca Young
THE NAPOLEON.ORG BULLETIN No. 786, 22 - 28 January, 2016
Interested in the work of the Fondation Napoléon? Why not participate, either generally or towards a specific project, by making a donation?
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napoleon.org - related content:
BOOK OF THE MONTH:
BRANDA, Pierre, Joséphine. Le paradoxe du cygne (Perrin, 2016)
WHATS ON (see our website for all events)
Exhibitions
- Quando Roma parlava Francese: Feste e monumenti della prima Repubblica Romana (1798-1799), Museo Napoleonico di Roma, Italy [11/12/2015 - 13/03/2016] NEW
- Thomas Couture, Palais de Compiègne, FR [17/10/2015-1/2/2016] LAST DAYS
- Marcello (1836 - 1879). Femme artiste entre cour et bohème, Palais de Compiègne, FR [17/10/2015-1/2/2016] LAST DAYS
- Franceschini-Pietri, Napoleon III's secretary Palais Fesch, Ajaccio , Corsica [27/11/2015 - 09/05/2016]
- Delacroix et l'antique (Delacroix and Antiquity), Musée Delacroix, Paris, FR [09/12/2015 - 07/03/2016]
- Ingres, Museo Nacional del Prado, Madrid, Spain [24/11/2015 - 27/03/2016]
- High Spirits: The Comic Art of Thomas Rowlandson The Queen's Gallery, Buckingham Palace, London UK [13/11/2015 - 14/02/2016]
- Le secret de l'État. Surveiller, protéger, informer. XVIIe-XXe siècle, Archives Nationales, Paris [04/11/2015 - 28/02/2016]
- Visages de l'effroi : violence et fantastique de David à Delacroix, Musée de la Vie Romantique, Paris, FR [03/11/2015 - 28/02/2016]
- Napoléon (1769-1821), sa vie à travers les femmes, Tourist Centre of Wool and Fashion, Verviers, Belgium [10/10/2015 - 28/02/2016]
Talks
- Pierre Branda: "Joséphine le paradoxe du cygne" Fondation Napoléon, Paris, FR [26/1/2016]
- Roger Knight: "Napoleonic war and its correlation to conflicts that arose in the first half of the 20th century", SHSU Department of History (Texas) [26/1/2016]
SEEN ON THE WEB
- War and Peace a great lesson for contemporary leaders
- Mark Schneider Napoleonic actor
- History of Prize-giving for social change: Napoleon's prize for finding alternatives to sugar cane saved Europe's bakers if not European's teeth
- Travel: Revisiting “War and Peace” territory in Napoleon's footsteps
THE BIBLIOTHÈQUE MARTIAL-LAPEYRE FONDATION NAPOLEON LIBRARY
The library is normally open on Mondays and Tuesdays from 1pm to 6pm and on Thursdays and Fridays from 10am to 3pm. The library is closed on Wednesdays.
Online database catalogue
Digital Library
Contact
NAPOLEONICA LES ARCHIVES
Site of digitised Napoleonic archival material:
The working papers or 'imprimés' of the Napoleonic Conseil d'Etat, the correspondence of Vivant Denon, etc.
http://www.napoleonica.org
Contact: napoleonica@napoleon.org
NAPOLEONICA. LA REVUE
International peer-review interdisciplinary e-review on the history of the two Empires, bilingual French-English, 3 issues per year, free access.
Read the review on Cairn.info
Contact: napoleonicalarevue@napoleon.org
The Fondation Napoléon's Institutional website:
www.fondationnapoleon.org
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