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EDITORIAL
Napoleon, Europe and one or two idées reçues
There is a delightful Austrian symmetry to this week's bulletin, with a Napoleon fresco recently discovered in what used to be the Austrian province of Venetia and a Napoleon museum near Leoben, all this without mentioning the bicentenary of the battle of Aspern-Essling coming up on us and the Fondation Napoléon's forthcoming exhibition in Schallaburg castle near Melk in Austria. Our Napoleonic world is all too often beset with what the French call idées reçues or pre-conceived notions (more often than not wrong), such as for example that all British people hate Napoleon and that all French people love him. The story is of course much more complex. It is true that at the beginning of the 19th century Napoleon and France had a troubled relationship with the Austrian Empire. But (thank heavens) this has not prevented Austrian nationals and institutions getting interested in our period, with a Napoleon museum, a commemoration of the battle at Aspern-Essling and an exhibition on the French emperor entitled "General, Emperor and Genius". The same goes for Venice. The young general was notorious in that city on the lagoon for having destroyed the Venetian Republic (another idée reçue, given that it was distinctly moribund when Bonaparte gave it the coup de grace) and having stolen the horses on St Mark's basilica. But today the Istituto Veneto di Scienze, Lettere ed Arti is delighted to announce the accidental discovery of a Napoleonic work by Giovanni Carlo Bevilacqua in Palazzo Loredan. And this a second Venetian Napoleonic monument after the Bantu statue returned to Venice in 2002 and the restoration of the Ala Napoleonica (thanks to financial help from the Fondation Napoléon). So we can forget about all these preconceptions and just get on with trying to write a pan-European view of history. To misquote Wordsworth, "Bliss it is in this dawn to be alive, but to be impartial is very heaven"!
Peter Hicks
Historian and International Relations Manager at the Fondation Napoléon
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OBJET D'ART OF THE MONTH
The Three Graces
"On 11 June, 1812, Josephine commissioned from the sculptor Canova a work representing the Three Graces. In 1802, he had been summoned to Paris to complete his statue of the First Consul. The heroic nudity present in the resulting work, Napoleon as Mars the Peace-bringer, was however poorly received by the French Emperor. This inspiration, taken from Antiquity, dominates the great portraits of Pauline as Venus victorious, of Madame Mère as Agrippina and Marie Louise as Concordia..."
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NAPOLEON.ORG
A close-up on: the Suez Canal
This week is the bicentennial of the beginning of work on the Suez Canal, and we have prepared a new "close-up" on the building of the canal which takes the principal articles and documents from our special dossier and arranges them together in one place. Although work on the canal began on 25 April, 1859, the project would be fraught with difficulties, and it was another ten years until the actual inauguration and opening of the canal.
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NAPOLEONICA. LA REVUE
Issue n° 4
After last week's announcement of n° 4 of Napoleonica. La Revue, this week we continue our selection of articles featured in the latest issue with "Le Maréchal Victor et la Terreur blanche. 1815-1821" by Maurice Bernard-Catinat and François Houdecek (the Fondation Napoléon's project manager for the Publication of the Correspondence of Napoleon Bonaparte). This article (in French) features an annotated report to King Louis XVIII, written by Maréchal Victor, regarding his inspection mission of the southern regions in France in 1821 during the period of "White Terror" in France. You can purchase it for 7 € or take out an annual subscription for 60 € which will cover all the articles published this year.
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KIDS' CORNER
Books and events
We at napoleon.org are always on the lookout for ways to involve younger historians, and this week we have a number of suggestions to get those budding young brains thinking about history, and in particular Napoleonic history. First off, we have the book Baron Crocodile: The Story of Horatio Nelson, which tells the story of Horatio Nelson and in particular the Battle of Trafalgar in 1805.
Secondly, for those of you perhaps planning your summer holidays in Paris, the Musée d'Orsay is putting on a couple of English-language visits in June and July, aimed at children between five and twelve years.
And finally, the new exhibition "General, Emperor and Genius", supported by the Fondation Napoléon, soon to open in Austria in May:
As part of the commemoration of the bicentenary of the Battle of Wagram and the exhibition of the Fondation Napoléon's collection at the castle in Schallaburg (Austria, near Melk), a special kids' section has been designed. Youngsters can discover the Napoleonic period through some specially built "experience stations". Here you can play at being Napoleon not only as emperor but also in his private life. And there's also a clue trail which takes you through the fascinating exhibition and the different stages in Napoleon's life. One particular highlight is the life-size reconstruction of a Napoleonic bivouac with exhibition of Napoleonic military equipment. And every Sunday and on public holidays, special staff will be on hand to recount the history of the time. This is not just for youngsters but also those young at heart!
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PRESS REVIEW
Lost Napoleon work found in Venice
"A lost fresco portraying Napoleon's triumph at the Battle of Austerlitz has been rediscovered in Venice. The fresco by Venetian artist Giovanni Carlo Bevilacqua (1775-1849) was one of a series of celebratory works commissioned in Venice after the French military genius's victory over the mighty combined forces of Austria and Russia in 1805..." Have a look at the rest of this article through this link.
NAPOLEON.ORG
Catalogue review
This week we have the catalogue review of the "Juliette Récamier, muse et mécène" exhibition, written by Elodie Lerner, which also goes hand in hand with our painting of the month.
Music atelier recordings online
Recordings of the talks and musical performances from our recent music atelier are now available on the website www.radioclassique.fr. While the talks are in French, the musical interludes and extracts that serve to illustrate the talks are well-worth taking the time to investigate.
Click here for the audio extracts (external link in French).
200 years ago
Europe and the Industrial Revolution
On 24 April, 1859, the Moniteur universel devoted part of its back page to discuss industrial developments in Europe. In a book review of the recent French publication, Archives des Découvertes et Inventions nouvelles, the Moniteur discussed the growth of industry, the rapid advances made in this field abroad, and lamented that fact that France lagged behind its European competitors not only in practical matters but also in scientific literature and research. The article is a fascinating French view of the Industrial Revolution, notably in Britain.
"According to the publishers of this collection, there have been rapid, and indeed surprising, advances in the fields of arts and sciences. [French] National industry, for so long restricted, is enjoying a new boom under the tutelary Government which continues to encourage it. [...]
England and Germany have been France's rivals, and the results of this rivalry have been incredibly useful to the advances made in the sciences and arts. In England, the perfection of machines has been pursued to a very high level. The Germans, naturally inclined towards research of a useful nature, have distinguished themselves in the field of applied chemistry in the arts, in mining, and in the different branches of rural and domestic economics.
The results of each nation's work and research is often scattered across numerous different periodicals, whilst others, many of which are published in foreign reviews, escape entirely the attention of French scientists, artists and manufacturers. In truth, we have in our possession several excellent papers dedicated to the numerous individual branches of science and art, but we have nothing that encompasses them all, and which has the specific task of recording the various advances made in the fields.
The usefulness of such a publication is clearly felt by our neighbours. For ten years, Germany has published the Apperçu [sic] général des Découvertes et Inventions faites dans les sciences, les arts et les manufactures, pendant le cours de chaque année, and England followed suit with the publication of Retrospect of Philosophical, Mechanical, Chemical and Agricultural discoveries, the first volume of which appeared in 1806. The Archives that we are pleased to announce are intended to make up for this gap in our literature [...]" [Moniteur universel, 24 April, 1859]
150 years ago
Work on the Suez Canal begins
After a year of stock flotation and serious behind-the-scenes discussions between France, England, Turkey and Egypt, work finally began on the Suez Canal on 25 April, 1859. Have a look at our special close-up on: the Suez Canal for the full story.
Jacques Boucher de Perthes and the birth of "pre-history"
On 25 April, 1859, the geologist Joseph Prestwich met Jacques Boucher de Perthes in the town of Abbeville and inspected a number of items that the latter had discovered in the area. Boucher de Perthes, then a customs officer, was interested in geology and fascinated by this new science that would become known as "pre-history". He advanced a theory that caused outrage at the time, and resulted in his clashing with the scientific institutions of the period: next to fossilised elephant bones (actually mammoth bones, and, it would be discovered later, bones not of homo sapiens, but Neanderthals), he claimed to have discovered flints which he believed displayed evidence of human handiwork. This claim was revolutionary for it flew in the face of the common-held belief that man had only appeared on the earth 6000 years previously. Joseph Prestwich, upon considering these discoveries first-hand, confirmed the theory put forward by the French geologist. On 26 May, 1859, in a conference held at the Royal Society in London, Prestwich even developed the theory, adding other revolutionary discoveries to the argument, and his report was published in the Proceedings of the Royal Society for 1859-1860. Although a frame-work for dating the items did not yet exist, the finds and their publicisation led to the field of "pre-history" becoming an official science.
Wishing you an excellent "Napoleonic" week,
Peter Hicks and Hamish Davey Wright
Historians and web-editors
THE NAPOLEON.ORG BULLETIN, N° 495, 24 - 30 April 2009
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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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THE BIBLIOTHEQUE FONDATION NAPOLEON LIBRARY
Spring opening times:
Monday, Tuesday and Wednesday: 1pm-6pm
Thursday: 10am-3pm
(Closed Friday)
THE MAGAZINE
Book of the month
- La Mort de Napoléon: Mythes, Légendes et Mystères
Press review
- Lost Napoleon work found in Venice
- Austrian Napoleon museum under construction
- The Guardian online (UK): launch of the World Digital Library
Seen on the web (all links are external)
- The World Digital Library
- The Fondation Napoléon's music atelier: recordings available online (in French)
Fondation Napoléon History Prizes 2008
- Francis and Madeleine Ambrière, Talma, ou l'histoire du théâtre
- Alain Decaux, Coup d'état à l'Elysée
- Edgardo Donati, La Toscana nell'impero napoleonico
Fondation Napoléon news
- Fondation Napoléon Research Grants 2008
WHAT'S ON
Conferences
- "Seventh International Napoleonic Congress: Napoleon, Europe and the World", and call for papers, Montreal (Canada), 8-12 June, 2009
- "Civilians and War in Europe, c. 1640-1815", Liverpool (UK), 18-20 June, 2009
- Australian Napoleonic Congress, Goulburn (Australia), 31 October - 1 November, 2009
Talks
- "Romantic surgery, radical politics and revolutionary bodysnatching", London (UK), 30 April, 2009
Commemorations
- Annual May Ceremony in the British Cemetery
- Bicentennial commemoration of the death of Maréchal Lannes
- French presence in South Africa
Re-enactments
- Aspern-Essling, 2009, Aspern and Essling (Vienna, Austria), 21 - 24 May, 2009
- Znaim 1809 bicentenary re-enactment, Znojmo and Dobšice (Czech Republic), 11-12 July, 2009
- Bivouac and the Battle of Oostmalle, Oostmalle (Belgium), 5-6 September, 2009
Exhibitions
- "The Satirical Eye: comedy and critique from Hogarth to Daumier", Melbourne, Australia [27/02/2009 - 26/07/2009]
Full details
- "Second Empire Paris: History and Modernity", Williamstown, USA [25/04/2009 - 21/06/2009]
Full details
- "Juliette Récamier: muse and patron of the arts", Lyon, France [27/03/2009 - 29/06/2009]
Full details
- "Napoleon and Corsica", Corte, France [20/06/2009 - 30/12/2009]
Full details
- "Napoleon and Eugenie", Roslyn Harbor, USA [07/06/2009 - 07/09/2009]
Full details
- "The Plains of Mars: European War Prints, 1500—1825, from the Collection of the Sarah Campbell Blaffer Foundation", Houston, USA [08/02/2009 - 10/05/2009]
Full details
- "Imperial Splendour", Manderen, France [15/03/2009 - 31/08/2009]
Full details
- "Napoleon, Commander, Emperor and Genius", Schallaburg, Germany [16/05/2009 - 01/11/2009]
Full details
- "Waldmüller (1793-1865)", Paris, France [26/02/2009 - 18/05/2009]
Full details
- "William Blake (1757-1827): the visionary genius of English Romanticism", Paris, France [02/04/2009 - 28/06/2009]
Full details
- "Jean-Antoine Houdon (1741-1828)", Rio de Janeiro, Brazil [29/04/2009 - 05/07/2009]
Full details
- "Ingres and the Moderns", Quebec City, Canada [05/02/2009 - 31/05/2009]
Full details
- "Napoleon, genius and despot", Saarlouis, Germany [25/01/2009 - 10/05/2009]
Full details
- "Nicolas-Toussaint Charlet and the origins of the Napoleonic legend", Boulogne-Billancourt, France [05/03/2009 - 27/06/2009]
Full details
- Imperial painter: Pietro Benvenuti at the court of Napoleon and the Lorenas, Florence, Italy [10/03/2009 - 21/06/2009]
Full details
- "Romania on the road to modernity: 150 years since the unification of the principalities under Prince Cuza", Bucharest, Romania [22/01/2009 - 24/05/2009]
Full details
- "Coinage at War. Catalonia in Napoleonic Europe", Barcelona, Spain [04/06/08 - 03/05/09]
Full details
- "The Crinoline Empire (1852-1870)", Paris, France [29/11/2008 - 26/04/2009]
Full details
- "Ben Weider Collection at the Montreal Museum of Fine Arts", Montreal, Canada [Permanent]
Full details
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