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EDITORIAL
Dear Friends,
I would like to go on record to clear up what seems to me a slight misapprehension.
As you all know, the Fondation Napoléon has launched a major project to publish the correspondence of Napoleon. Now, as chance would have it, a publisher of reprints is currently offering, via subscription, a reprint pure and simple of the correspondence edition commissioned during the Second Empire by Napoleon III.
In order to nip in the bud any incipient confusion, I would like to state once and for all that the Fondation's project and that for this reprint have absolutely nothing in common; and I say this without any disrespect whatsoever for the latter enterprise.
The complete correspondence (with commentary) to be prepared by the Fondation will not go on sale before 2004, and that for the first volume alone, because the task involved includes huge amounts of research, checking, selection and comment.
Best wishes.
Thierry Lentz
Director of the Fondation Napoléon
THIS MONTH'S BOOK - MARCH
David Baguley's fascinating reappraisal of Napoleon III.
STOP PRESS: BIBLIOTHEQUE MARTIAL LAPEYRE - FONDATION NAPOLEON
The library will be closed exceptionally on Thursdays 7 and 14 March, but open Fridays 8 and 15 March from 10am to 3pm.
Bibliothèque Martial Lapeyre - Fondation Napoléon, 148 boulevard Haussmann, 75008 Paris
Contact: Chantal Lheureux-Prévot
TWO HUNDRED YEARS AGO
In the first days of March, a conspiracy against the First Consul (hatched in Bayreuth) came to light: Louis XVIII's two agents, Précy and Imbert-Colomès, were arrested by the King of Prussia, and their correspondance was sent on to the French government.
3 March, 1802 (12 Ventôse, An X), a bill was passed requiring the Institut national de France to make a "table of the general state of and progress in the sciences, letters and arts, since 1789 up to 1 Vendémiaire, An X [23 September, 1801]. This table, which was to be divided up into three parts, one for each of the Classes of the Institut, was to be presented to the government in the month of Fructidor, An XI [August/September 1803]."
The role of the Institut national de France, founded in 1795 (art. 298 of the Constitution of An III) was "to assemble dicoveries and to help in perfecting the arts and sciences". The law of 25 October of the following year (3 Brumaire, An IV) established the Institut in 3 classes, each one divided up into a certain number of sections: the class of Physical Sciences and Mathematics (10 sections), the class of Moral and Political Sciences (6 sections), and the class of Literature and Fine Arts (8 sections).
5 March, 1802 (14 Ventôse, An X), Jean-Baptiste Gail (1755-1829), teacher at the Collège de France, introduced a free beginner's course in ancient Greek. (In 1809, he was made a member of the Institut, and the of the Académie des Inscriptions et Belles-Lettres)
Wishing you a very enjoyable, Napoleonic, week.
Peter Hicks
Historian and Web editor
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THIS WEEK:
Press Review
bringing you information about articles published, snippets of information:
- Institut Napoleon publishing venture
- Italian web exhibition on the Battle of Chiusella
- Napoleone, issue nbumber 9
Agenda
- Re-enactment: Loevestein Castle
- Study course: The Royal Navy
- Study day: Redcoats!
Just published
- Inside Napoleonic France: State and society in Rouen, 1800-1815
The monthly titles: in February,
- Book of the Month: 'Napoleon III and his regime' by David Baguley
- In Pictures, The Colossus by Goya
- in the Reading Room, an article by Peter Hicks on the British Navy, 1792-1802
- In the Collectors Corner, a gold leaf from Napoleon's coronation crown
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