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In the Bulletin
This week we bring you a commemorative article on the 'Dos de Mayos' and news of a ceremony at the Arc de Triomphe marking the birth, two hundred years ago, of Napoleon III. Then there are the sections, 200 and 150 years ago, and the usual events in the Magazine.
Enjoy.
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This Month's article
"Bleeding ulcer": the commencement and long-term consequences of guerilla warfare in Iberia, by Don H. Barry, Professor of History at Tallahassee Community College.
In honour of the bicentenary of the Madrid uprising of 2 May 1808, we bring you Don Barry's article on the Spanish ulcer. The month of May, 1808 marked the commencement of a terrible tragedy for the peoples and nations of Spain, Portugal, and France. Six months earlier French armies of the Napoleonic Empire had begun their invasion and occupation of the Iberian Peninsula. But the conservative, proud, religious, and xenophobic native populations had reacted initially to these foreign forces with a fear and loathing that exploded eventually into fury and violent opposition in the form of a spontaneous, general, leaderless, and massive insurrection.
The charge of the Mamluks, by Goya © RMN
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Rekindling of the eternal flame on the bicentenary of Napoleon III's birth
On Monday 21 January, 2008, the association Les Amis de Napoléon III (the Friends of Napoleon III, president Baron Ameil) organised a special rekindling of the eternal flame at the Arc de Triomphe in honour of the birth of Napoleon III. HIH the Princesse Napoléon and General Combette, President of the Comité de la flamme, presided over the ceremony, during which wreaths were also laid on the tomb of the unknown soldier.
The ceremony was followed by a grand gala dinner in the Second Empire salons in a famous restaurant on the Champs-Elysées.
Rekindling of the flame on 21 January, 2008 © EPC
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200 years ago
2 May, 1808, is a date forever written in Spanish history. It was the day on which the inhabitants of Madrid rose up against the French occupier, refusing to accept Napoleon's intervention in Spanish dynastic matters and trying to prebvent the rest of the Spanish royal family from leaving the capital city. These infamous riots of the "Dos de Mayo" which Murat bloodily put down and which are commonly seen as the beginning of the Spanish War of Independence or the Peninsular War.
150 years ago
On 7 May, 1858 Britain ceded the tomb of Napoleon on St Helena to France (Almanach Napoléon 1859).
Napoleon's body had been returned to France (following desires as recorded in Napoleon's will 'to be buried on the banks of the Seine, in the bosom of the French people whom I loved so greatly') during the reign of Louis-Philippe in 1840. This was the famous 'Retour des cendres' or return of the body. In 1854, the Emperor Napoleon III personally negociated with the British government for the purchase of Longwood House and the Valley of the Tomb. Napoleon III ceded the territory to the French government in 1858 and they were thereafter run by the French Ministry of Foreign Affairs.
Wishing you an excellent, Napoleonic, week.
Peter Hicks
Historian and Web editor
THE NAPOLEON.ORG BULLETIN, No 456, 2 - 8 May, 2008
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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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Got a problem with a link in the Bulletin? Go to the homepage: http://www.napoleon.org
MASS IN COMMEMORATION OF NAPOLEON AND THE SOLDIERS OF THE GRANDE ARMEE, 5 MAY, 2008, AT THE HOTEL DES INVALIDES, PARIS
As every year, a solemn mass will be celebrated in the cathedral of Saint-Louis des Invalides in Paris, by Monseigneur Patrick Legal, bishop to the French army, in commemoration of Napoleon (who died on 5 May 1821) and the soldiers of the Grande Armée. Present at the service will be HIH Princesse Napoléon, General H. Gobilliard, gouvernor of the Invalides and Brigadier General R. Bresse, director of the Musée de l'Armée.
The mass will begin at 6-30pm. Please be seated by 6-15pm.
REMINDER
The new Bibliothèque Fondation Napoléon library times are: Monday, Tuesday and Wednesday, from 1 to 6pm, Thursday from 10am to 3pm.
During the French school holidays the library openings times are Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursday, from 1-30 to 6pm.
THIS WEEK in the MAGAZINE
What's on
Re-enactments
- Waltham Abbey Gunpowder Mills, Essex, UK
- Call to Arms History Fair 2, Rockingham Castle, Leicestershire, UK
- The Battle of Bourtange in 1814, nr Groningen, Netherlands
- International Napoleonic Fair, Essex, UK
- Newstead Abbey, Nottingham, UK
- Ironfest 2008, The Battle of Lithgow, Blue Mountains, Australia
Conferences
- War, Empire and Slavery c. 1790-1820, York, UK
- Napoleon III, man and politician, Paris, France
Exhibitions
- Treasures of Napoleon, New Orleans, USA
- Napoleon III, der Kaiser vom Bodensee (The Emperor from Lake Constance), Arenenberg, Switzerland
- Napoleon – genius and tyrant, Namur, Belgium
- Royal weddings 1840-1947: from Queen Victoria to Queen Elizabeth II, Windsor, England
- Napoléon. Symboles des pouvoirs sous l'Empire (Symbols of Power: Napoleon and the Art of the Empire Style, 1800–1815), Paris, France
- Napoleone Fasto imperiale. I Tesori della Fondation Napoléon, Rome, Italy
- A passion for Parma violets: Napoleon and Marie Louise, Parma, Italy
- Gustave Courbet, Metropolitan Museum, New York, USA
- König Lustik!? Jérôme Bonaparte and the Model State: the Kingdom of Westphalia, Kassel, Germany
- The Eye of Josephine, High Museum of Art, Atlanta, GA, United States
- Goya: the Disasters of War, Berkley Art Museum, University of California, USA
- La Rose Impériale: The Development of Modern Roses, Boone Gallery, The Huntington Library, San Marino, CA, USA
- "The trace of the eagle", the Invalides dome, Paris, France
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