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EDITORIAL
This week's letter has a strong female element. In '200 Years Ago' we see Napoleon selecting a Russian or Austrian, though definitely royal, ‘womb', this month's book is called Napoleon – Women: Political Players, Allies, Enemies, and an exhibition opens today in Rome on Joseph Bonaparte's artist daughter Charlotte. It is perhaps remarkable that all these elements are presented and discussed without recourse to gender theory, these days popular in certain historical circles. It could therefore be argued that it is possible to tell the history of women - the chapters in Napoleone, Le Donne discuss issues such as women in power, women at school, women as lovers, women as readers and writers of banned literature – untrammelled by theoretical strictures. In other words, you can have your gender without the Gender.
Peter Hicks
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BOOK OF THE MONTH
Napoleone, le Donne: Protagoniste, Alleate, Nemiche, edited by Massimo Colesanti, with Giampaolo Buontempo and Peter Hicks
This collection of articles and essays, the proceedings of the conference that took place in Rome in November, 2006, covers Napoleon Bonaparte's relationship with the important women in his life, as well as more generally the role of women in society during the 19th century. Contributors to the publication include Roberta Martinelli (Elisa Bonaparte and her governing of Lucca), Giulia Gorgone (the political role of the Parisian salons during the First Empire), Peter Hicks (the myth of Letizia Ramolino, Napoleon's mother), and Bernard Chevallier (a comparative study of Napoleon's two wives: Joséphine de Beauharnais and Marie-Louise of Austria).
The French book of the month this time around is Henri Ortholan's L'armée du Second Empire (1852-1870).
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RECENTLY PUBLISHED
Le Siège de Metz de 1814, by Jacques Le Coustumier, with preface from Thierry Lentz
Over the centuries, the city of Metz, a focal point in the history of Lorraine, has fought to defend its integrity. During the winter of 1814, as Napoleon's empire collapsed, Metz, once again under siege, remained defiant whilst Paris was brought to its knees by the coalition forces. This resistance was thanks, in part, to the officer known as "le petit brave", General Durutte, who organised the defence of the city, one that lasted for eighty-five days in extremely difficult conditions.
The Guerilla 1808-1814, by Miguel Ángel Martín Mas
Spain's resistance marked one of the country's first national wars and the emergence of large-scale guerrillas, when the French occupation destroyed the Spanish administration, and created various quarrelling factions. Napoleon's failure to overrule and pacify the Spanish people allowed Spanish, British and Portuguese forces to secure Portugal and drain French forces on the frontiers while Spanish "guerrilleros" bled the occupiers white. Acting in conjunction, regular and irregular Spanish forces prevented Napoleon's army from overthrowing the rebellious Spaniards.
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WHAT'S ON
Charlotte Bonaparte, Dama di molto spirito: the romantic life of a princess artist
This exhibition which opened today at the Rome Museo Napoleonico explores different moments in the short but eventful life of Princess Charlotte Bonaparte, daughter of Napoleon's brother, Joseph Bonaparte, and highlights the historic moment of which she was a part. There are separate sections, beginning with her childhood and ending with the years she spent in exile.
Friends of the British Cemetery, Elvas Fund-raising reception, London
On 24 February, 2010, the Friends of the British Cemetery, Elvas, is holding a fund-raising reception in the Guards Museum at the Wellington Barracks in London. Proceeds will go towards the restoration of the Chapel of St. John, in the British Peninsular War Cemetery, in Elvas, Portugal. Wine and refreshments will be served, and there will be a raffle on the night. The reception takes place in the museum galleries, where you will be surrounded by their magnificent collection.
Napoleon III: Milan-Magenta, Milan and Marengo
The weekend of the 6 and 7 February, 2010, sees the conclusion to the 150th anniversary of the Franco-Piedmontese campaign of 1859. The Northern Italian delegation of the Souvenir Napoléonien and the Magenta historical group "General Cler" have organised two days concerning this piece of shared history between France and Italy.
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"Ravage, Empires et mieux !" Two artists and Napoleon, Boulogne-Billancourt
Between 12 February and 29 May, 2010, the Bibliohèque Paul-Marmottan in Boulogne-Billancourt (France) is playing host to an exhibition of a number of art-works, inspired by the First Empire, produced by the artistic collective Ravage. The Dutch collective, formed in 1972 by Arnold van Geuns and Clémens Rameckers, is a France-based centre for the plastic arts which takes its inspiration from both the present and the past, the contemporary and the old.
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200 YEARS AGO
Napoleon's next step
With his civil and religious annulments behind him, Napoleon's number-one priority was to marry again and ensure his succession. A secret Privy Council meeting was held on 21 January, 1810, in which Napoleon's advisers (including Cambacérès, Murat, Berthier, Champagny, Lebrun, Eugène, Talleyrand, Fontanes and Maret) presented their opinions on the three prospective brides: Maria Auguste, Princess of Saxony; the Grand Duchess, Anna Pavlovna, the youngest sister of Alexander I; and Archduchess Marie-Louise of Austria.
According to Cambacérès' memoirs, opinion was split between Anna Pavlovna (who had just turned fifteen) and Marie-Louise. However, Napoleon would go on to outline some concerns regarding the Russian duchess in a letter to Champagny dated 6 February, 1810:
"[It has been] observed that Princess Anne [is] not yet mature; occasionally it takes a couple of years for some girls to attain maturity having reached the marriageable age and the idea of waiting three years with no hope of conceiving a child goes against the intentions of the Emperor." [Letter from Napoleon to Champagny dated 6 February, 1810, Correspondance de Napoléon Ier, Second Empire edition; n° 16,210]
More concerning, however, was the fact that there had been no response of any sort from the Russian court, despite Napoleon's impression that the major stumbling block, Alexander's mother, Maria Feodorovna, had been removed (although against the marriage, Alexander's mother had decided to leave the ultimate decision to the Russian tsar). With time running out, Napoleon made a decision, writing again to Champagny that same night:
"Tomorrow evening [...] you will dispatch a letter to inform [the Russians] that I am decided in favour of the Austrian." [Letter from Napoleon to Champagny dated 6 February, 1810, Correspondance de Napoléon Ier, Second Empire edition; n° 16,211]
Preparations began to pick up steam and instructions were dispatched for Louis-Guillaume Otto, the French ambassador to Austria:
"The letter with the marriage contract should arrive in Vienna on the thirteenth of this month; he [Otto] will then send another on the fourteenth with assurances of its ratification; this will arrive in Paris on the twenty-first. The Prince de Neuchâtel, who will be dispatched as ambassador extraordinaire to ask for the Princess' hand in marriage, will then be able to leave on the twenty-second; he will arrive in Vienna on the twenty-eighth or twenty-ninth and will make the request the morning after his arrival. [...] The marriage will then be possible on 2 March [...] and the princess will leave on the seventh [...] in order to arrive in Paris towards the twenty-sixth." [Unsigned letter to Champagny dated 7 February, 1810, Correspondance de Napoléon Ier, Second Empire edition; n° 16,218]
In the event, proceedings unfolded much as planned and Marie-Louise arrived in Compiègne on 27 March, 1810.
The Elephant and Bastille
The idea for a fountain at the Place de Bastille was floated by Napoleon as early as 1806. By 1808, it had crystalised, taking the form of huge elephant. And on 9 February, 1810, a new decree was issued, ordaining that:
"There will be erected, at the Place de la Bastille, a fountain in the form of a bronze elephant, smelted from canons taken from the Spanish insurgents; this elephant will bear a tower [upon its back] and will be as the ancients employed them; water will flow from its trunk. Measurements will be taken in order that the elephant be finished and unveiled now later than 2 December, 1811." [Decree issued by Napoleon, 9 February, 1810, Correspondance de Napoléon Ier, Second Empire edition; n° 16,233]
The project was conferred upon the sculptor Pierre-Charles Bridan, assisted by Jean-Antoine Alavoine, and the former went on to construct a scale-model in plaster measuring 14.6m in height and 16.2m in length. The huge beast was kept at a site close to the Place de la Bastille and was visited by Napoleon in 1813 but the project stalled and funding dwindled as the Empire's priorities turned towards survival. The elephant is probably best known for its role as Gavroche's lodgings in Victor Hugo's Les Misérables, in which the French author commented "It was an elephant forty feet high, constructed of timber and masonry, bearing on its back a tower which resembled a house, formerly painted green by some dauber, and now painted black by heaven, the wind, and time. In this deserted and unprotected corner of the place, the broad brow of the colossus, his trunk, his tusks, his tower, his enormous crupper, his four feet, like columns produced, at night, under the starry heavens, a surprising and terrible form. It was a sort of symbol of popular force. It was sombre, mysterious, and immense. It was some mighty, visible phantom, one knew not what, standing erect beside the invisible spectre of the Bastille." [Victor Hugo, Les Misérables, Book 6, chapter II "In which little Gavroche extracts profit from Napoleon the Great"] The model was finally destroyed, and the project abandoned, in July 1846.
Napoleonica.org features a number of letters from the Denon archives, including a request for the statue artist to visit the menagerie at the Jardin des Plantes in order to study the elephant housed there, in preparation for a preliminary model for the fountain.
Wishing you an excellent "Napoleonic" week,
Peter Hicks & Hamish Davey Wright
Historians and web-editors
THE NAPOLEON.ORG BULLETIN, N° 528, 5 - 11 February, 2010
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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
Winter opening times:
Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday: 1pm-6pm
Thursday: 10am-3pm
(Closed Friday)
FONDATION NAPOLEON ON THE WEB
Each week we offer you a "mystery" link to somewhere on napoleon.org. Click on the link to discover a part of the website you might not have visited before...
Statistic of the week:
Between 1804 and 1813, 860 million francs were spent on the work of the Ponts et Chaussées (roads, bridges and infrastructure) department.
Source: Thierry Lentz (ed.), Quand Napoléon inventait la France, Tallandier, 2008, p. 605
The Fondation Napoléon's triumvirate of Napoleonic websites:
- Napoleon.org
- Napoleonica. La Revue
- Napoleonica. Archives Online
The best of the month:
- Book of the month
- Painting of the month
- Objet d'Art of the month
- Article of the month
MAGAZINE
Recently published
- Napoleon Concerto, by Mark Mellon
- 1809: Thunder on the Danube: Napoleon's Defeat of the Habsburgs Vol II: The Fall of Vienna & the Battle of Aspern, by John H. Gill, with review by independent scholar, Thomas Zakharis
Press review
- Wall Street Journal (US): book review of For the Soul of France, by Frederick Brown plus excerpt
- Napoleon: Total War multiplayer trailer
Seen on the web (all links are external)
- Sketches of the "Bastille elephant": one, two and three
- Victor Hugo: Les Misérables (in English) online at Project Gutenberg
EVENTS
On now
A selection of events taking place now or in the coming weeks, taken from our What's on listings.
Napoleonic days
- Ben Weider Day at the Montreal Museum of Fine Arts, Montreal (Canada), 5 February, 2010
- Friends of the British Cemetery, Elvas Fund-raising reception, London (UK), 24 February, 2010, 7pm - 9.30pm
Film
- Yves Simoneau's Napoléon at the Montreal Museum of Fine Arts, Montreal (Canada), 7 February, 2010, 10am - 6pm
Talks
- "Napoleonic museum policy" at the Museo Napoleonico, Rome (Italy), 5 February, 2010, 3.30pm
- "Parisian Stories: Love and Oblivion in a Landscape of Power", London (UK), 10 February, 2010, 6.30pm
Exhibitions
- "L'Impossible Photographie, prisons parisiennes (1851-2010)", Paris, France [10/02/2010 - 04/07/2010]
Full details
- "Mathilde Bonaparte: a princess on the shores of Lac d'Enghien", Enghien-les-Bains, France [15/01/2010 - 15/04/2010]
Full details
- "Napoléon III et les Alpes-Maritimes", Nice, France [30/11/2009 - 30/06/2010]
Full details
- "Mito e Bellezzo", Lucca, Italy [06/12/2009 - 07/03/2010]
Full details
- "Coup de crayon à l'Empire", Waterloo, Belgium [23/09/2009 - 17/05/2010]
Full details<<
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