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THIS WEEK IN THE BULLETIN
We bring you a fascinating new book on the different forms of administration either present or invented during the Consulate and Empire periods. Books on our period (if they mention the administrative structures at all) often discuss institutions without really knowing what they did, where they came from and quite what their role was. This dictionary is an attempt to put discussion of political France on sure foundations, with articles on the great institutions of government such as the council of state, down to the apparently lesser bodies such as the Imperial Printers and the Insitution for the deaf and blind. This book is a boon for all those who want really to understand French society of the Napoleonic period. Newt we encourage you to have look at an article on Napoleonica La Revue. This week we're highlighting Emmanuel Cherrier's fascinating piece on Napoleon III's ‘perfect' coup d'état of 2 December 1851. Then there's news of some new Napoleonic routes in France in the countryside around Valence. You can download the guide from the letter (in French). In ‘200 years ago', there Malet's first conspiracy (of 1808) and in ‘150 years ago', you can read about Napoleon III's attempt to put his ‘Algerian house' in order (and to distance his difficult cousin). In the Magazine there are two web pages on French prisoners of war in Britain during the Napoleonic period and also news of the latest Forum Marengo.
Enjoy
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THIS MONTH'S BOOK
Quand Napoléon inventait la France (When Napoleon invented France): Dictionary of administrative institutions and of the court during the Consulate and Empire, ed. Thierry Lentz, with Pierre Branda, Pierre-Francois Pinaud and Clémence Zacharie
“Prefects, Council of State, Legion of Honour, Garde champêtres, Public Treasury, National Stud (Dépôt d'étalons), Palmes académiques (Academic palms), Grand Maréchal du Palais… Napoleon modernised some institutions and administrative structures and created other from scratch, changing the face of the country and paving the way for modern France.”
Whilst there are many dictionaries on the Empire, this is the first which is exclusively dedicated to the institutions of the Napoleonic empire and also the first to describe in detail the political and administrative bodies of the court.
The dictionary comprises 800 accessible and straight-forward articles designed to help historians and those interested in the period understand the institutions which formed the bedrock of Napoleonic power. The entries are constructed around three fundamental questions: Why was the structure created? What was its role? How was it organised? The appendices contain nine constitutional texts, maps and tables.”
© Tallandier
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NAPOLEONICA.LA REVUE
The first issue of Napoleonica.La Revue, the Fondation Napoléon's e-journal, has a fascinating article on Napoleon III's famous 2 December coup d'etat (in French) written by Emmanuel CHERRIER, Lecturer in Political science at the University of Valenciennes. You can either pay 7 euros to read this detailed article or you can sign up for the year for 60 euros.
HABILITATION
Michèle Battesti (author of the excellent Trafalgar: les aléas de la stratégie navale Napoléon, Napoléon Ier Editions, 2004) is to defend her habilitation thesis (allowing her to direct research) on Monday 23 June, 2008 at 9am, in Salle D 040 at the Sorbonne (Paris IV) (28 rue Serpente, 75005 Paris, France). Her thesis is entitled: «Heurs et malheurs du prince Napoléon, dit Plon-Plon, sous le Second Empire».
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BONAPARTE ROUTE IN THE DRÔME AND THE ARDECHE, FRANCE
The tourist office in Valence has decided to build on its 21-stop Napoleon route through the town by creating Napoleon routes through the neighbouring countryside. There are four circuits (North, South, East and West) which cross the Drôme and the Ardèche regions. The routes are based on places “visited' by the emperor – one such point is the small town of Saint Rambert-d'Albon. Napoleon passed through the town three times, once during the siege of Toulon, once during the Egyptian expedition period and finally when leaving for Elba.
A top Napoleonic tip for all those holidaying in the area !
Click here to download the Guide to the routes (in French) - external link.
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200 YEARS AGO
General Malet's'first' conspiracy
On 16 June, 1808, General Malet and other Republican conspirators were arrested for conspiring to take advantage of the Napoleon's absence (the emperor was in Bayonne) to overthrow the First Empire. This was to be Malet's dry run for the better-known (and more successful) conspiracy of 1812, after which Malet was to be executed. The Bulletin de la police générale dated 24 June, 1808, noted: «A few senators […] have formed a scheme to save France from inevitable schism [these are the words of those interrogated] [...] Malet would appear to be a conspirator and leader of the group. If we are to believe General Guillaume, it was Démaillot [in the past one of Robespierre's chief agents] who first came up with this plan for an insurrection; it was he who indicated to General Malet the men who were to take part in it, not to mention those who were form the “comité de la dictature” (the dictatorship committee).»
Divisional General Claude-François de Malet was a ‘fly' character who had come to Napoleon's attention in 1803 in a scandal over guns in Angoulême – he had also famously voted against the life consulship. As Napoleon himself noted to Fouché (Bayonne, 16 June, 1808, Lecestre, Lettres inédites de Napoléon, vol. 1, No. 295) “for as long as I have known him, [Malet] has been a very bad character, a thief and lacking in bravery”. In 1805, Malet was in Italy fighting with Masséna. Thereafter he was detailed to the Lombard town, Pavia, and subsequently Civita Vecchia (the ‘port of Rome') in charge of preventing British smuggling and banditry around Rome. He was however to be sent into early retirement in 1807 for corruption and extortion (he was receiving backhanders from an Italian gambling institution running roulette wheels in Rome). On his return to Paris (to protest his innocence) Malet became involved in a ‘Republican' plot to overthrow the Empire and to bring back the Constitution of An VIII. There were apparently two groups of conspirators, Republicans on the one hand (Lamare, school headmaster, Gariot, member of the Revolutionary tribunal in Lyon, Rigomer Bazin, anarchist agitator, Blanchet, member of the Club des Jacobins) and senators on the other (Florent-Guyot (ex-conventionnel) and Wenceslas Jacquemont (a ‘philosophe')). Malet had been chosen (late in the day) to replace the original ‘strong arm', General Servan, a committed Republican general who had suddenly died. However, an unknown informer spilt the beans to Dubois, Prefet de Police. The police prefect then jumped on the opportunity not only to make a high profile catch (saving the empire) but also to embarrass his boss Fouché (Fouché and Dubois famously did not get on). Napoleon (at a distance) aware of the problems between Fouché and Dubois took a week to attempt to unpick the plot, coming to (it is thought) erroneous conclusions. Indeed, it is unclear as to whether the senators were really involved. However, the end result was, as Cambaceres put it in his memoirs (vol. 2, p. 222) that “the police had not garnered enough evidence to convict anyone […] Fouché had wrongly attacked his subordinate [… and] Dubois had wrongly, without his superior's approval, arrested some men of standing in society”. Consequently, towards the end of July most of those detained were released, although Malet was kept indefinitely in the Parisian prison called the Grande Force, “for security reasons” (Cambaceres, op. cit, p. 223).
150 YEARS AGO
The shortlived “Ministry for Algeria and the Colonies”
On 24 June, 1858, Napoleon III created the Ministry for Algeria and the Colonies.
After the French annexation of Algeria in 1830, administration of the territory had remained under the jurisdiction of the Ministry for War. The decision to remove Algeria from a martial regime to a common law regime was therefore a radical change. It is thought that Napoleon III's Saint-Simonian leanings had led to this decision – especially the via the ‘high priest' of Saint Simonianism, Prosper Enfantin who had written a report in 1842 entitled “On the colonisation of Algeria”. Since Napoleon III's cousin, Prince Jérôme or “Plon Plon” had been earmarked for the job as minister, it is also thought that the gesture was an attempt to distance a difficult relative from the centre of power – the new ministry was to have its head office in Algiers.
The nomination of Jérôme as head of the new ministry was greeted with great expectations by the colonists. It was thought that the civil regime would lead to the legal right for Europeans to buy up local land. In fact Jérôme was to proclaim his agenda as follows: “For Algeria, the most urgent matters are the railways, the method for ceding state lands to colonists and the cantonment of the Arabs…”.
Whilst the new ministry (as its title proclaimed) was supposed to deal with all the colonies, it was Algeria which held Jérôme's attention. In that country, however, he ran up against the opposition of the remaining military – Marshal Randon, the ex-military governor, resigned and he was not to be replaced.
As for local administration, six new sub-prefectures were created in October 1858 and the three existing departments were given General Councils. This did not lead for greater indigenous political influence since Arab notables formed a mere eighth of these councils. One gesture to locals was the liberalisation of all real estate transactions between Moslems and French. Much of Jérôme's Algerian policy was however ill-advised. Particularly unfortunate were his attempts to replace Shariah law with the code civil – these plans had to be sidelined by more seasoned Arab watchers (notably MacMahon) since this would have brought about religious conflict. Further colonial officiousness was brought to an end by Jérôme's marriage to Clothilde de Savoie, which in turn led to the prince's resignation as minister on 7 March, 1859. The ministry was taken over by the Comte de Chasseloup-Laubat. But his failure (largely due to his timid administration) was to lead to the ministry being dismantled by Napoleon III by a decree of 26 November, 1860, and the management of the colonies returned the Ministère de la Marine.
Wishing you an excellent, Napoleonic, week.
Peter Hicks
Historian and Web editor
THE NAPOLEON.ORG BULLETIN, No 462, 13 - 19 June, 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
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
Seen on the web
- Napoleonic War Memorial, Leek, Staffordshire - external link.
What's on
Re-enactments
- Medina de Rioseco , Spain
- Waterloo 1815 - 10th Napoleonic Bivouacs, Waterloo, Belgium
- Valencia: International Battle Re-enactment, Spain
Study days
- Forum Marengo IX: Femmes terribles. words and music for three women, Pauline, Marie Letizia and Marie Bonaparte, Alessandria, Italy
Conferences
- Over the Hills and Far Away: The Peninsular War, London, UK
- Napoleonic Association 2008, London, UK
Exhibitions
- Napoleone Fasto imperiale. I Tesori della Fondation Napoléon, Rome, Italy
- Napoleon and the Marches, 1797-1814, Italy
- Goya in Times of War, Madrid, Spain
- Coinage at War. Catalonia in Napoleonic Europe, National Art Museum of Catalonia, Barcelona
- 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
- Napoléon. Symboles des pouvoirs sous l'Empire (Symbols of Power: Napoleon and the Art of the Empire Style, 1800–1815), Paris, France
- 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
- "The trace of the eagle ", the Invalides dome, Paris, France
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