To return to the site, www.napoleon.org, please click here.  
Bulletin - Bulletin  
        
   
      
    EDITORIAL
 
5 May, 1821, at 5-49 pm, as Chateaubriand put it, "the greatest breath which ever enlivened mortal clay" came no more.
 
As is the tradition, the Hôtel des Invalides is organising (at 6-30pm on 4 May - because of the French presidential elections) a mass in memory of the Emperor and the soldiers of the  Grande Armée.
 
This ceremony - one of the rare regular official ceremonies commemorating the First Empire - has a particularly poignant character this year because of the discovery of a communal grave  in the region around Vilnius (Lithuania) containing the mortal remains of several thousands of soldiers who probably died of typhus at the end of the Russian Campaign and who were buried there.
 
Rendezvous then at Les Invalides for those who can make it.
 
Have an enjoyable week.
 
Thierry Lentz
Director of the Fondation Napoléon
 
 
INVITATION
 
Those signed up for the letter are specially invited to a presentation by the author of the book 'Les élites Religieuses à l'époque de Napoléon' (éditions de la Bibliothèque Napoléon) by Professor Jacques-Olivier Boudon, President of the Institut Napoléon. It will take place on Monday 13 May, at 6-30pm at the Bibliothèque Marmottan. The author will be signing copies of his book after the presentation.
 
Be sure to reserve your place, on ++ 33 (0)1 41 10 24 70.
 
Bibliothèque Marmottan, 7 place Denfert-Rochereau in Boulogne-Billancourt: Metro - Boulogne Jean-Jaurès or Bus 52, Denfert-Rochereau stop.
 
THIS MONTH'S PAINTING, MAY

The Return of Marcus Sextus
A proscript returns home to find his wife dead and his daughter in tears. Guérin's tragic subject also evoked current griefs and on presentation at the Salon of 1799 met with instant success.
 
200 YEARS AGO
 
7 May, 1802 (17 Floréal, An X), officers Fournier and Donnadieu were arrested for having called for the assassination of Bonaparte. Fournier was released 26 May.
 
A Book Fair in Paris
In literary circles, support began to be voiced for the creation of a Paris book fair (or "foire de librairie" as it was called) to match the one which had existed in Leipzig for almost a century and the very recent book fair in Philadelphia, in the United States. Was this the ancestor of the current 'Salon du Livre'?
Citoyen français, 17 Floréal, An X (7 mai 1802)
 
8 May, 1802 (18 Floréal, An X), the Sénat voted the prolungation for ten years of First Consul Bonaparte's powers: Bonaparte tried to circumvent the Sénat decision by calling upon the citizenry.
What is more, rumours were circulating (perhaps an attempt to prepare the people for a significant change in affairs) that Bonaparte could be declared Head of State for life and his brother Joseph would be designated his successor (Report by the Préfecture de police, Paris, 8 May, 1802).

Wishing you an excellent, Napoleonic, week!
 
Peter Hicks 

Historian and Web editor



  
      THIS WEEK:
 
Press review
'Napoleonic' articles on the web site europeanhistory.com
'Aspern and Essling' and 'Marshal Bazaine, traitor or scapegoat?'

 
Agenda
- Study day and re-enactment on Elba: Napoleone, 4 May, 2002

- Commemoration in Poland: Bicentenary celebration for the creation by Napoleon of the Lycées or High schools 
 
Just Published
Centro Guido Dorso - Annali 1797-1799: Il Mezzogiorno d'Italia e il Mediterraneo nel Triennio rivoluzionario 1797-1799, ed. Francesco Barra


The monthly titles: in April
- Book of the Month: 1815: The Return of Napoleon by Paul Britten Austin
- This month's picture, The return of Marcus Sextus

- in Biographies, a biography of Camille de Tournon, prefect of Rome
- In the Collectors Corner, the allegorical clock, Diogenes looking for a man, by Claude Galle.

<<