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HAPPY NEW YEAR
2004!
A most imperial of Napoleonic years in view, and the last of the great civil bicentenaries, from the Camp at Boulogne to the proclamation of empire and the coronation.
The board of trustees and administrative team of the Fondation Napoléon join me in wishing you excellent reading, good commemorations, interesting exhibition visits, and a year full of happiness and personal fulfilment.
As for myself, I thank you for your interest and we shall continue to bring you regular information regarding the Napoleonic world, both in the letter every Friday and also via updates on the site, which is to be altered to include a special bi-centenary section.
The Fondation too will be offering a broad selection of events, all with the aim of making 2004, the year of Napoleon.
My very best wishes to you all.
Baron Gourgaud
President of the Fondation Napoléon.
THIS MONTH'S BOOK
Napoleon Route, published by Guides Gallimard
Published in the series Gallimard Découvertes, the departmental committe for tourism in the Isère region of France have taken the plunge and published in English their guide to the route which Napoleon took after escaping from Elba and landing at Golfe-Juan in 1815 and reaching Grenoble. This route - known as the Eagle's Flight (vol de l'aigle) - has become a tourist attraction, and the authors of the guide, René Bourgeois and Jean-Loup Fontana et al. hope to encourage more anglophone visitors.
PAUL-MARC SETA JOINS THE BOARD OF TRUSTEES OF THE FONDATION NAPOLEON
The board of the Association du Souvenir Napoléonien nominated Paul-Marc Seta to sit on the board of trustees of the Fondation Napoléon as a replacement for the Comte Florian Walewski, who died in September. Retired from the word of industry and currently treasurer of the Souvenir Napoléonien, Mr Seta was present at his first trustees meeting on 10 December, 2003.
150 YEARS AGO
Starting from the 1st of January, 1854, French civil servants (fonctionnaires) had five percent of the salaries held in trust as pre-financing for their retirements.
On the 3rd of January, 1854, the French and British fleets which up to that time had been stationed in the Dardanelles passed the Golden Horn and entered the Black Sea, with the aim of protecting Turkish commerce and the Turkish coastlines.
In January, 1854, Richard Wagner put the finishing touches to the score of his opera, Rheingold.
200 YEARS AGO
On 23 Nivôse, An XII (15th of January, 1804), Napoleon appointed Murat as Military Governor of Paris.
On 18 Nivôse, An XII (10 January, 1804), Chateaubriand wrote a letter to his friend, Fontanes, regarding his stay in Rome, his impressions of the grandeur of the Roman monuments and the beauties of the Roman countryside. This letter was published in the journal, Le Mercure, on the 3rd of March, 1804.
"Nothing is as beautiful as the lines of a Roman horizon, the gentle run of the slopes, the smooth and receding contours of the mountains which terminate those slopes. Sometimes the valleys take the form of an arena, or of a circus or a of hippodrome; the slopes are cut into terraces, rather as if the powerful hand of the Romans had upturned every single part of this land. A special haze which spreads in the distance rounds out all objects and smoothes off and effaces anything those objects might have had which was too bulky or too rugged in their forms. The shadows are never heavy or black; there is no cliff so obscured by rocks and foliage that a little light cannot squeeze its way in. One harmonious tint marries earth, sky and water: all surfaces, through an imperceptible gradation of colours, join at their edges without one being able to determine the point at which one nuance ends and another begins. You have perhaps admired in the landscapes of Claude Lorrain this light which seems idealised and more beautiful than nature? Well, this is the light of Rome. […]
On a beautiful evening in the July just past, I went to sit down in the Colosseum on the step of one of the altars dedicated to the agonies of the Passion. The setting sun poured rivers of gold down all those passageways where once coursed a torrent of people; at the same time, strong shadows cast by the fractured galleries and walkways fell in broad, dark strips on the ground. From the top of the huge blocks of the architecture I saw, between the ruins on the right-hand side of the building, the garden of the Palace of the Caesars, and a palm tree which seemed to have been placed on these remains on purpose, expressly for painters and poets. Instead of the roars of delight which once came from the wild spectators in this amphitheatre as they watched Christians being torn apart by lions and panthers, all that could be heard was the barking of the dogs belonging to the hermit who watched over the ruins. But just as the sun went below the horizon, the bell in the dome of Saint Peter's echoed in the porticoes of the Colosseum. This correspondence, created by religious sounds, between the two greatest monuments of pagan Rome and christian Rome, excited in me a keen emotion."
Wishing you an excellent, Napoleonic, Christmas and New Year!
Peter Hicks
Historian and Web editor
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THIS WEEK:
Snippets
Fund set up to commemorate British dead during the Napoleonic wars
Journal News
The Nelson Dispatch, vol. 8, part 4, October 2003
What's on
- Exhibition: Elisa's Days: the public and private life of a princess, Lucca (Italy)
- Exhibition: Art booty in the Napoleonic period. The "French gift" to Mainz, 1803
Recently published
Napoléon et les italiens, by Alain Pillepich, Nouveau Monde Éditions, 2003 (in French)
Two questions to Alain Pillepich about his new book
How do you explain Napoleon's different attitudes with regard to the Italian peninsula and its systems of government? You yourself differentiate several different types of state, from the semi-autonomous principality of Piombino to the kingdome of Italy and Naples. Indeed, why do you think Napoleon created the kingdom of Italy and didn't just make it a direct part of the Grand Empire? (P.H.)
Alain Pillepich: Italy's past had presented Napoleon with six types of state: republic, kingdom, principality, grand duchy, duchy, and theocracy. He only kept the first three and put them under three different types of jurisdiction: direct administration, protectorate, vassal status, of which there were in practice five different manifestations: direct administration, republic, protected kingdom, vassal kingdom, and vassal principality. In my opinion, at least as far as Italy is concerned, there is no doubt whatsoever as to his personal attachment to the principle of unity. The fact that he did not manage it is simply because he lacked peace, time, the agreement of the French, and the support of the Italians. The tri-partite division which resulted derives for the most part from his empirical approach. The direct anexation of Turin and Piacenza was a product of from his military strategy, that of Genova and Livorno came for economic reasons, and that of Rome was for ideological reasons. The creation of vassal states came from his policy of using his entourage and family as rulers. The Repubblica Italiana came from his youthful ambitions, and its transformation into a kingdom was the ineluctable consequence of the proclamation of the empire."
How much room for manoeuvre did the Viceroy of Italy, Eugène de Beauharnais, actually have under Napoleon as King of Italy? And what were firstly Napoleon's relations with Francesco Melzi d'Eril, initially vice-president of the Repubblica Italiana (under Bonaparte as president) and later 'Chancelier garde des sceaux de la couronne' under Eugène? Did Melzi have any freedom of action? (P.H.)
A. P.: Napoleon was certainly a despot (in the technical sense), but on the other hand telephone, fax, and email did not exist. And whilst the First Consul and later Emperor left his lieutenants more room than is generally believed, Eugène, whom he loved as a son, was not the non-entity he is often portrayed to be. He was frequently consulted on difficulties of different sorts, where it was left up to him whether (and how much) to apply certain measures passed in Paris, depending upon the local circumstances. During the time of the Repubblica Italiana, this was the same for Melzi, indeed he was generally considered one of the most remarkable Italians of his generation. During the kingdom, he was kept in the background, and wheeled out during Eugène's absences.
The monthly titles
- This month's book: Napoleon Guide, Guides Gallimard
- This month's painting: Costume Ball at the Tuileries Palace, by Carpeaux
- This month's article: The History of Lord Seaton's Regiment, (The 52nd Light Infantry) at the Battle of Waterloo, Chapter Four, by William Leake
- In the Collectors Corner, a leaf from Napoleon's coronation crown
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