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THIS MONTH'S ARTICLE
Chateaubriand and Napoleon, by Jean-Paul Clément
Napoleon and Chateaubriand's paths crossed many times. Read Director of the Maison de Chateaubriand Jean-Paul Clément's fascinating article on their stormy relationship.
NEW ON THE SITE - TIMELINE OF NAPOLEON III
Discover the extraordinary roller-coster ride that was the life of Napoleon I's illustrious
nephew, Louis-Napoleon, whose father was King of Holland, Napoleon's brother Louis Bonaparte and whose mother was Josephine's daughter and Napoleon's step-daughter.
REMINDER: SUMMER OPENING TIMES AT THE BIBLIOTHEQUE FONDATION NAPOLEON - M. LAPEYRE
The library will begin operating summer opening times from Wednesday 12 July until Thursday 13 August. In other words, the library will only be open two days a week, Wednesdays (1-6pm) and Thursdays (10am to 3pm). Starting from Monday 16 August, normal opening hours re-apply: Monday and Wednesday 1 to 6pm, Tuesday from 4 to 9pm (last possible entrance 8pm) and Thursday from 10am to 3pm.
200 YEARS AGO
21 Messidor, An XII (10 July, 1804), Fouché once again became Ministre de la Police générale, whilst the newly created Ministère des Cultes (Ministry for Religion) was given to Jean Etienne Marie Portalis (1745-1807).
21 Messidor, An XII (10 July, 1804), Napoléon signed the decree referring to the imperial coat of arms. Although the lion had been chosen, Napoleon, at the last minute, crossed the word out, writing in above the line eagle with wings outspread. The long and difficult discussion concerning the choice of the heraldic animal had begun at the Conseil d'Etat on 12 June: Crétet successively suggested an eagle, a lion and then an elephant, Cambacérès chose bees, Ségur, a lion, Laumond, an elephant, "the strongest of animals", Duroc, the pacific oak, and Lebrun, the fleur de lis which in his opinion had been the symbol of France (not the ruling family), whilst the Conseil d'Etat preferred the cockerel...
To find out more about the imperial coat of arms, visit the presentation in the section entitled Essential Napoleon, 'The Symbols'.
24 Messidor, An XII (13 July, 1804), a decree was passed detailing the order of imperial precedence and imperial etiquette.
26 Messidor, An XII (15 July, 1804), the first crosses of the Légion d'honneur were awarded at the Hôtel des Invalides.
150 YEARS AGO
As part of the general cholera pandemic of 1848-1862, one of the first cases in France was diagnosed on 10 July 1854 at Cheminon, in the Marne region. More than 11,000 people were to die of the disease in Paris in 1854. And at the end of the French epidemic in 1855 the death toll had risen to more than 150,000.
The disease cholera, caused by the bacterium Vibrio cholerae infecting the small intestine, results in extreme diarrhea which may lead to massive dehydration and death. Though the bacterium was first scientifically identified by the Florentine scientist Filippo Pacini in 1854, the first ever outbreak of cholera had occurred in India in 1817-1823, spreading as far as Java to the East and Russia in the west. A second pandemic was to begin in 1826, first appearing in central and western Europe in 1830-31. The third cholera pandemic began in 1848 just as the second was dying out in Europe, and did not reach its paroxysm until 1862. In August 1854 however Yorkshire doctor, John Snow, performed the crucial experiments related to the cholera outbreak localised around the Broad Street pump in London which made the scientific world accept that contaminated water was a key feature of the disease.
John Snow from York (1813-1858) was educated at a private school until, at the age of fourteen, he was apprenticed to a surgeon living at Newcastle-on-Tyne. After serving as a colliery surgeon and unqualified assistant during the London Cholera epidemic of 1831-2, he became a student at the Hunterian School of Medicine in Great Windmill Street, London. After two years of schooling, he was accepted a member of the Royal College of Surgeons of England. He graduated M.D. of the University of London in 1844. In 1849, Snow published a small pamphlet "On the Mode of Communication of Cholera" where he proposed that the "Cholera Poison" reproduced in the human body and was spread through the contamination of food or water. This theory was opposed to the more commonly accepted idea that cholera, like all diseases, was transmitted through inhalation of contaminated vapors. Snow is today honoured as the founder of the modern science of epidemiology.
For full details on Snow and cholera, visit the following site.
15 July, 1854, the first Parisian tramline was opened connecting Rueil to Marly-Le Roi. It was to become much used by the aristocracy on their Sunday outings in the suburbs of the capital.
Wishing you an excellent, Napoleonic, week!
Peter Hicks
Historian and Web editor
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THIS WEEK:
What's on
- Conference: Napoleonic Association, UK
- Conference: Napoleonic Society of America, Annual Conference, Washington
Conference: Napoleonic Alliance, Annual Conference, Boston
- Exhibition: Was für ein Theater, Krönungen & Spektakel in napoleonischer Zeit
(What a show! Coronations and pomp in the Napoleonic period), Château d'Arenenberg, Switzerland
- Exhibition: Giovanni Spadolini's passion for Napoleon: a tale of history, politics and culture, Elba, Italy
- Conference: England and Hanover, Cambridge (UK)
- Exhibition: Napoleon: the Emperor's coming! Veneration and myth in Coblenz (Germany)
- Exhibition: Napoleon. The Sacre, at the Musée Fesch, Ajaccio
- Exhibition: Napoleon and the sea, a dream of Empire, Paris
The monthly titles
- This month's book: Napoleon: Centres of power, by Bernard Chevallier
- This month's painting: The Comtesse Regnaud de Saint-Jean d'Angély, by Baron Gérard
- This month's article: Chateaubriand and Napoleon, by Jean-Paul Clément
- In the Collectors Corner, scale model of the frigate La Muiron
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