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EDITORIAL
BUSY SPRING FOR FRENCH BOOKS ON NAPOLEON
This is a good spring for those who can read French and who want to learn about Napoleon: last week we brought you Karine Huguenaud's Napoleonic walks in Paris (Nouveau Monde éditions), and we are soon to get a study on Napoleon's colonial policies written by Thierry Lentz and Pierre Branda (published by Fayard), with a bibliography by Chantal Lheureux-Prevot, and here today we bring you the first ever biography of General Gourgaud, a subject close to Fondation's heart given that the general's descendant was the first president and is now its first President of Honour... Also soon to come (though perhaps not in the spring) is a new edition (including never-before seen sections!) of Napoleon's novella, Clisson and Eugénie.
Watch this space...
Peter Hicks
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EVENT
Le général Gourgaud, Jacques Macé
At last we have the volume all students of Napoleon on Saint Helena have been waiting for: a detailed, carefully researched biography of General Gourgaud. Jacques Macé, specialist on all things Helenian, is the first ever biographer of this key figure for the Saint Helena episode and for this work he had access to the private family archives. We are given a full-colour picture the bold, impetuous, sincere, warm-hearted general who remained throughout his life devoted to the emperor.
© nouveau monde éditions
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THIS MONTH'S PAINTING
Le rêve (The Dream), by Edouard Detaille (1848-1912)
The "annus terribilis" of 1870 and the defeat at Sedan had left France deeply traumatised, and the painters were to play on the theme of this 'national wound' for many years to come. Detaille presented Le Rêve (The Dream) at the Salon of 1888 and it met with immediate public success. The painter shows an army campaign bivouac and the collective dream of the young soldiers there, a dream of glory represented by the heroes of the Revolution and the armies of Napoleon I.
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200 YEARS AGO
In the month of April 1806, a slight alteration was made to the decoration for the Légion d'honneur. A palmette garland was added to form the bélière (or ring).
It is clear that Napoleon was convinced that the French Revolution and its aftermath had brought about the disintegration of French society. In his speech to the Conseil d'état in May 1802 proposing the Légion d'honneur, he said that the 'nation' was "broken, without system, without unity, fragmented". In order to rebuild it, Napoleon said in the same speech that he would throw down some foundations, the celebrated 'masses de granit', granite blocks as foundations, and one of these blocks was to be the Légion d'honneur, thus re-introducing civic and military distinctions which had been banned during the Revolution because of their apparent encouragement of privilege and inequality. The project for the honour was adopted on 19 May, 1802. Despite being initially without insignia, the legion was subsequently given one on 11 July, 1804. The medal replaced the honour arms (usually swords) previously given and engraved with the name of the recipient, the last of which was awarded at Marengo. The decoration of the Légion d'honneur comprises a star of five double points. The centre is encircled by a laurel and oak wreath. On one side stands the emperor's head and the legend «Napoléon Empereur des Français» (Napoleon, emperor of the French), and on the other is a French eagle with a thunderbolt in its claws and the legend «Honneur et patrie» (Honour and fatherland). The decoration is covered in white enamel; for officers and higher ranking figures it is made of gold, for simple legionnaires it is made of silver. It is worn from the buttonhole of a suit atached to a red ribbon.
For more details on the decoration, click here
On 7 April, 1806, there took place in the Tuileries Palace, «the ceremony of the signing of the engagement contract and the civil marriage certificate of HIH (Her Imperial Highness) the Princess Stéphanie-Napoléon and HSH (His most Serene Highness) the Prince Elector of Baden» (Moniteur for 8 April, 1806). The religious marriage was celebrated on 9 April in the chapel in the Tuileries.
Introduced to court in January 1804, Stephanie née Beauharnais and niece by marriage to the emperor was adopted by him on 3 March, 1806. Her marriage to the crown prince of Baden was part of Napoleon's strategy of installing members of his family on the thrones of Europe via marriage. She received from the emperor a dowry of 150,000 Francs.
See our biography of Stéphanie de Beauharnais
And also:
11 April, 1806, saw the birth in Normandy of Pierre Guillaume Frédéric Le Play, one of France's greatest ever sociologist/economists. He was a second empire Councillor of State in 1855 and senator from 1867 to 1870.
The Catholic Encylopedia gives a detailed, if religio-centric, account of his remarkable life
150 YEARS AGO
On 12 April, 1856, the emperor gave a grand banquet in the Salle des Maréchaux (in the now demolished Tuileries Palace) in honour of the participants at the Congrès de Paris. The entertainments arranged on the sidelines of this congress (see Bulletin n° 360) which led to the signing of the Treaty of Paris and the end of the Crimean War, contributed greatly to the cordial relations between the plenipotentiaries.
On this occasion, Napoleon III gave the following toast: «may this union which has been so happily re-established between the sovereigns be lasting, and may it always rest upon the pillars of law, justice and the true and legitimate interests of the people».
(The Moniteur universel, 13 April, 1856)
Wishing you an excellent, Napoleonic, week.
Peter Hicks
Historian and Web editor
THE NAPOLEON.ORG BULLETIN, No 366, 7 - 13 April, 2006
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© this Napoleon.org weekly bulletin is published by the Fondation Napoléon. Reproduction or all or part of this bulletin is forbidden, without prior agreement of the Fondation Napoléon.
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THIS WEEK in the MAGAZINE
As you will have doubtless understood, last week's article about the floating airport for Saint Helena was in fact an April Fool, written by Jacques Macé, fan not only of Napoleon but also of Saint Helena.
SNIPPETS
Betsy and the Emperor: filming soon?
WHAT'S ON
Conferences:
- The Paris Congress (1856), a founding moment, Paris, France
- In the embrace of France: The Law of Nations and Constitutional Law in the French Satellite States of the Revolutionary and Napoleonic Age (1795-1813), Tillburg, The Netherlands
Just published
- Fiddlers and Whores: the candid memoirs of a surgeon in Nelson's fleet, by James Lowry
- War to the death: the sieges of Saragossa, 1808-1809, by Raymond Rudorff
Commemorations:
Jena 1806-2006 - Rendezvous in Thuringia - The "Journées de Thuringe 2006" and the bicentenary of the Battle of Jena/Auerstädt
Exhibitions:
- Il tempo dell'Imperatore: gli orologi restaurati delle residenze di Napoleone all'Elba, Elba, Italy
- Napoleon: Treasures of the Fondation, Mexico 2006, Monterrey, Mexico
- Napoléon an intimate portrait, Tallahassee, Florida, USA
- "Battle in a sittingroom." The Austerlitz wallpaper, Museo Napoleonico, Rome, Italy
- "Beauty celebrating power": Vincenzo Monti in the Napoleonic period, Milan, Italy
- Louis Napoleon: at the court of the first King of Holland, 1806-1810, Apeldoorn, Netherlands
Entertainments:
- Thursdays at the Museum of Florida History, Tallahassee, Florida, USA
Got a problem with the letter? Try the home page: http://www.napoleon.org
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