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THIS MONTH'S OBJECT
Josephine's wedding basket
On the occasion of her marriage to the young General Bonaparte, on 9 March, 1796, Citizen Joséphine de Beauharnais found amongst her wedding gifts this basket filled with jewelry and and fripperies.
COMMEMORATION OF THE DEATH OF NAPOLEON
Initially at the Hôtel des Invalides, and later at the church of Saint-Louis des Invalides, the ceremony of the laying of the wreath and the mass in memory of Napoleon I and the soldiers of the Grande Armée who died for France, 5 May, 2003.
REMINDER: SPECIAL DOSSIER: THE LOUISIANA PURCHASE
After many twists and turns, France finally regained her erstwhile colony from Spain, only to sell it immediately to the young United States, the latter thus doubling its land mass by a stroke of the pen.
TWO HUNDRED YEARS AGO
6 Floréal, An XI (26 April, 1803), there was a levy of 60,000 men.
6 Floréal, An XI (26 April, 1803), in the Orne département, a flight of thunderbolts was witnessed: Jean-Baptiste Biot (1774-1862), astronomer, mathematician, chemist et physicist, was the first scientist to discover the celestial original of this phenomenon.
7 Floréal, An XI (27 April, 1803), the Emperor Francis II of Austria ratified the Reichsdeputationshauptschluss or Imperial Recess at the Diet of Ratisbon: 3 Germinal, An XI (24 March, 1803) the Diet of Ratisbon had ratified the secularisation of the German ecclesiastical principalities, which in effect completely altered the map of Germany.
112 small states and 45 (out of 51) free towns disappeared; 18 universities were secularised, as were all convents. Wurtemberg, Bade and Hesse-Cassel became Electorates as a resulat of this reorganisation, and the majority in the Diet was in the hands of Protestants.
9 Floréal, An XI (29 April, 1803), a bill was passed by the First Consul granting the Prefet of the Département of the Aisne a sum of 17,000 Francs, so as to be able to repair and refit the Abbey of Saint-Jean-de-Laon, in order to be able to deposit there the departmental archives.
Le Moniteur, 21 Floréal, An XI
11 Floréal, An XI (1 May, 1803), the British plcaed before Bonaparte an ultimatum: whilst refusing to leave Malta, they demanded that the French leave Dutch territory.
Wishing you an excellent, Napoleonic, Easter!
Peter Hicks
Historian and Web editor
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THIS WEEK:
Snippets
- Saint Helena Visit and Longwood opening
Press Review
French History, Volume 16, Number 4, December 2002
What's on
- Sale: Sale of Napoleonic Prints
- Commemoration: 7th Annual French Presence symposium and 8th annual commemorative ceremonies for the anniversary of the death of the Prince Imperial, South Africa
- Commemoration: 2003 Commemoration of the Battle of Tolentino, 1815, Italy
- Commemoration: 5 May Commemoration, Reggio Calabria
Just published
- Napoleon's Jailer: Lt. Gen. Sir Hudson Lowe. A life, by Desmond Gregory
- Napoleon: One image, ten mirrors, ed. John C. Hirsh and Roberto Severino
The monthly titles
- Book of the Month: The Oxford History of the French Revolution, by William Doyle
- This month's picture, The Empress Eugénie in 18th-century costume, by Franz-Xaver Winterhalter
- Article of the Month, Louisiana: to have and to have not..., by Peter Hicks
- In the Collectors Corner, Josephine's wedding basket
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