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THIS WEEK IN THE BULLETIN
We bring you a fascinating two-part article on Beethoven. Then, there are our usual seasonal suggestions for reading over the summer. After that there's news of the exhibition on Elba and a further encouragement to have a look at an article on Napoleonica La Revue. In ‘200' and ‘150 years ago there's much of interest in this fascinating summers of 1808 and 1858'. In the Magazine, we bring you the contents of the recent number of First Empire, a web site on the preservation of the farm at Hougoumont (Waterloo) and the usual selection of events. Enjoy.
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THIS MONTH'S ARTICLE
Beethoven, Byron, and Bonaparte, by John Clubbe
The epigraphs are worth pausing over. Beethoven, hearing “For unto us a child is born” in The Messiah, thought Handel struck like thunder. The words apply equally to Beethoven himself, or (as Rossini implies) to Napoleon Bonaparte. They also apply, I propose, to Byron. Beethoven, Byron, Bonaparte: each a unique entity, each possessed of an awesome, almost mythical name, one that implies the ultimate limits of human achievement. What might these three figures have in common with each other? Read on...
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THE TREASURES OF THE FONDATION NAPOLEON ON ELBA
After a triumph in Rome this spring, the Fondation Napoléon's collection is to be exhibited in the two ‘imperial palaces' on the island of Elba, I Mulini (in the principal town of Portoferraio) and San Martino (set in the countryside surrounding the town). The exhibition, which is to run until 12 September, 2008, is one of the finest exhibition ever to grace the island, including more than 250 oustanding works of art and historical memorabilia, which also includes loans from the Paris Musée de l'Armée and the Musée national de Malmaison.
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Summer 1808
Spain and Portugal
On 28 June, General Verdier began the siege of Saragossa in earnest, building heavy breaching batteries on the slopes in front of the southern side of the city. At midnight on 30 June, the thirty siege guns, four mortars and twelve howitzers opened fire on the unarmed town. The Spanish general Palafox was not to enter the town until two days later (in the night of 1-2 July) to organise the successful defence (French troops were finally called away on 13 August with losses of more than 2,000). It was on that second of July that the (apochryphal?) Agostina Zaragoza (the “maid of Saragossa” and the very embodiment of the “pueblo” rising up against the foreign invader) famously repulsed the French besiegers by lighting the cannon (left unfired by her dead betrothed) at point blank range.
On 4 July, General Dupont (de l'Etang), commander of the 2nd Corps de l'Observation de la Gironde stationed between Andujar and Baylen, was made Comte d'Empire.
On 9 July, Joseph Bonaparte, new king of Spain, entered his new kingdom and headed for Madrid.
On 13 July, Marshal Bessières at head of 12,000 troops comprehensively beat the “army of Castile”, 22,000 men under the Captain-General Cuesta and General Blake at the Battle of Medina de Rio Seco (near Valladolid). Afterwards the town of Rio Seco was severely plundered (so much so that bitter reports were made of it to British allies in the following September). The strategic result of this was that the communication line between Madrid and Bayonne was no longer under threat and Joseph could continue his regal progress towards his throne.
After having exceedingly brutally sacked Cordoba (he left on 16 June), General Comte Dupont with about 21,000 troops engaged Castaños with about 34,000 men at Baylen on 19 July. Though the conflict was mismanaged on both sides, Dupont was eventually forced to capitulate, with French troops finally laying down their arms on 23 July. Dupont was to be repatriated to France where he was cashiered and thrown into prison.
1 August: King Joseph I of Spain afraid of the consequences of the catastrophe at Baylen left Madrid. He wrote to Napoleon on 9 August stating his desire no longer to be sovereign in the Iberian Peninsula: «Since I have become the conqueror of this country by the horrors of a war which will touch every single Spaniard, I shall long be the object of terror and execration. I ought not to wish to reign in Spain.»
In the first days of August, Napoleon, indignant at Dupont's capitulation, set about gathering soldiers from German lands and Italy to prepare to retake Spain.
On 14 August, Napoleon returned to Paris with the aim of reassuring the empire that it was business as usual (Correspondence no. 14,243 Napoleon to Joseph, dated 3 August, “Germany, Italy, Poland, etc., all are tied up in the same knot”). On the following day, he robustly attacked Metternich on the subject of Austria arming itself.
On 17 August, the French general Delaborde was beaten by Arthur Wellesley (the future duke of Wellington) on the hill at Roliça, near the two villages Columberia and Zambugeira, both north of the Torres Vedras range of hills above Lisbon (Portugal).
On 21 August, Wellesley's troops defeated Junot's men at Vimiero, not far from the coast, north of the Torres Vedras range above Lisbon (Portugal)
The 30 August saw the signing of the infamous Convention of Cintra whereby the beaten French troops were evacuated from Portugal on British ships.
Institution
On 20 July, 1808, a decree was passed demanding that Jews in France adopt surnames. For the most part, it was the first name which was adopted as a surname.
Whilst the decree of 1806 had given Jews certain freedoms not previously enjoyed, the Grand Sanhedrin of 1807, which underlined their status as one of the three acceptable religions in France, tied them closely to the state. The resolutions passed by the Sanhedrin in 1807, however, remain a sort of concordat which still today in France forms the basis of Jewish relations with the state. This decree regarding Jews should therefore be seen in the light of the Concordat (1801) and the Code civil (1804).
150 YEARS AGO
Summer 1858
On 21 July, 1858, the secret meeting between Napoleon III and Piedmontese minister, Camillo Benso Cavour took place in the Vosges spa town of Plombières. Thie meeting was to lead to the Treaty of Turin, which was in turn to be the starting point for the unification of Italy.
On 25 July, the town of Jidda in the Arabian Gulf was bombarded in reprisal for the massacre of Christians which had taken place there on 15 June, 1858, during which the French consul (Eveillard) and British vice-consul had been killed.
On 3 August, the Emperor and Empress leave for a trip to Normandy and Britanny. On August they preside over the inauguration of the new port of Cherbourg. On the following day, they were joined by Queen Victoria (from England). On 7 August, the new Napoleon III dock was inaugurated, as was the equestrian statue of Napoleon I (still standing today and soon to be restored).
On 9 August, the imperial couple went by sea from Cherbourg to Brest before beginning a long tour of Britanny. «The Emperor went on land aboard the skiff in which Napoleon I visited the mouth of the Escaut and defences at Antwerp in 1811» (Moniteur dated, 10 August, 1858).
On 4/5 August the transatlantic telegraphic cable, stretching from Valentia Bay (Ireland) to Trinity Bay (Newfoundland, Canada), was finally laid. For the full story, click on the following link (external link).
On 15 August, a statue of the Napoleonic Marshal Suchet, Duc d'Albufera, was inaugurated in Lyons.
Wishing you an excellent, Napoleonic, summer.
Peter Hicks
Historian and Web editor
THE NAPOLEON.ORG BULLETIN, No 464, 30 June - September, 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
What's on
Snippets
- Further doubt of the Colossus painting attributed to Goya.
Press review
- First Empire July/August 2008
Seen on the web
Project Hougoumont
This is a website with an agenda – to save the famous farm on the battlefield at Waterloo.
Conferences
- 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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