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Dear Friends
This is the last letter before the Summer. We hope your holidays are excellent and look forward to sending you our next letter on 5 September.
BOOKS: A SUMMER SELECTION
Everything for the Napoleon/Josephine on the beach, for the Summer 2003!
LIBRARY BIBLIOTHEQUE LAPEYRE-FONDATION NAPOLEON DURING THE SUMMER
The library Bibliothèque Martial Lapeyre - Fondation Napoléon will be open during as usual during the summer. However, from 28 July to 14 August will open only on Mondays and Wednesdays from 1 to 6pm. For any further information, please contact either Madame Lheureux-Prévot, Librarian, or Peter Hicks for information in English.
NAPOLEON IN BRAZIL
If you happen to be in Brazil, Sao Paulo to be precise, don't forget to go to the Napoleonic exhibition there, which opens on 24 August (closing on 2 November). More than 300 Napoleonic items will be on show, 150 of which come from the collection of the Fondation Napoléon.
TWO HUNDRED YEARS AGO
23 July, Ireland. Robert Emmett's attempted storming of Dublin castle and uprising in the cause of Irish independence - the last manifestation of the United Irishmen - was put down; only 90 of the 2000 rebels who had promised to come turned up to fight. Emmett went into hiding, where he was captured, tried on 15 September and executed the following day.
8 Thermidor, An XI (27 July, 1803), a bill for a mass levy of British citizens, aged between 17 and 55, was passed in the Houses of Parliament.
13 Thermidor, An XI (1 August), Napoleon arrives in Liège.
21 Thermidor, An XI (9 August, 1803), the first steam vessel, called the Pyroscaphe (from the Greek words meaning Fireboat), navigated the Seine. This, the brainchild of the american inventor Robert Fulton, did not however convince the First Consul. In fact, Fulton had already unsuccessfully proposed an invention to the French government in 1798, his submarine, the Nautilus. After similarly fruitless attempts to interest the British in his creations (notably torpedoes), Fulton was finally to achieve success, in the US, with the first regular steamship line (in fact a paddleboat), the 150 miles between New York and Albany, beginning in September 1807.
23 Thermidor, An XI (11 August, 1803), the First Consul was back in Saint-Cloud after his tour of inspection of the ports and towns of the North.
25 Thermidor, An XI (13 August), Regnier fils, Nougarède de Fayet, Blanc de Pomard, Chabrol de Crouzol, Dudon, Hély d'Oissel, Lecouteulx and Petiet were all appointed as Auditeurs at the Conseil d'Etat.
It was on 19 Germinal, An XI (9 April, 1803) that the role of Auditeurs at the Conseil d'Etat was created: in essence it was to be a seedbed for future Conseillers d'Etat; Auditeurs would assist the councillors in their ordinary work in the different sections and also when on 'extraordinary' mission: whether in Prefectures, Sub-prefectures, local government in occupied countries… 16 posts of Auditeur were created, of which 8 were filled.
1 Fructidor, An XI (19 August, 1803), the British restated their refusal to leave Malta.
2 Fructidor, An XI (20 August, 1803), Cadoudal and four followers arrived in France and disembarked during the night at Biville. Whilst in England, they had organised a plot against the First Consul. After having kidnapped the Consul, Pichegru was to head a provisory government, in order to prepare the ground for the Comte d'Artois to sit upon the throne.
13 Fructidor, An XI (31 August, 1803), seminarists exempt from subscription.
Wishing you excellent, Napoleonic, holidays!
Peter Hicks
Historian and Web editor
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THIS WEEK:
Journal news
French History, volume 17, June 2003
What's on
- Auction: Napoleonic Medals, London
- Conference: the Napoleonic Association autumn conference, London
- Exhibition: Bonaparte or Buonaparte, Italy
- Re-enactments: Central European Napoleonic Society - Events 2003
- Exhibition: 1803 - A Turning Point in European History: the Collapse of Feudalism and the Dawn of the Bourgeois Era, Regensburg
- Re-enactment: Napoleonic Association British Summer Events
- Re-enactment: Napoleonic Association Continental Summer Events
The monthly titles
- Summer reading 2003
- This month's picture, Reception of the Ambassadors from Siam at the Château de Fontainebleau, by Jean-Léon Gerome
- Article of the Month, "The Arming of the Nation" - Speeches by William Pitt 'the Younger', July 1803
- In the Collectors Corner, a clock, "Diogenes looking for an honest man", by Claude Galle
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