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THIS WEEK...
...we have plenty of Napoleonic news for you, as well as a couple of items which continue our build-up towards the bicentenary of the union between Marie-Louise and Napoleon. Our Painting of the Month, by Georges Rouget, immortalises the moment of the religious ceremony which saw the French House of Bonaparte wed the Austrian House of Habsburg. Further down, 200 years ago sees Marie-Louise set off from Vienna, passing through Enns and Sankt Peter am Hart before finally reaching Bavaria. Elsewhere in the letter, we have details of the latest Napoleonic magazines, including First Empire and a special issue of Connaissance des Arts, released to mark the completion of the renovation project at the Musée de l'Armée. And for those interested in the Indian Mutiny of 1857, we have a link to an episode of the BBC Radio 4 programme, "In Our Time" in which Melvyn Bragg discusses the event with three specialists in Indian history. Finally, with the news of a couple of new publications (The Waterloo Archive and Wellington's Highland Warriors) and 150 years ago, which sees the crime and justice figures for 1858 pulled apart and analysed, we bring our letter to a close.
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PAINTING OF THE MONTH
Religious marriage of Napoleon I and Marie-Louise in the Salon Carré at the Louvre, on 2 April 1810, by Georges Rouget
Napoleon I and Marie-Louise of Austria were married before God in a 'chapel' created by architects Percier and Fontaine out of the Salon Carré at the Louvre on 2 April, 1810. The wedding procession and cortege had to walk all the way from the Tuileries palace, down a great part of the Grande Galerie in order to reach this large space usually given over the exhibition of paintings.
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WHAT'S ON
Closing soon: "First Shots: Early War Photography 1848–60"
"First Shots: Early War Photography 1848-60", which runs until 18 April, 2010, delves into the National Army Museum's photograph collection and showcases a selection of its earliest works by four war photography pioneers: John McCosh, Roger Fenton, James Robertson and Felice Beato.
Amongst the items on display will be photos from the Second Sikh War (1848-49), the Second Burma War (1852-53), the Crimean War (1854-56), the Indian Mutiny (1857-59) and the Anglo-French attack on China in 1860.
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PRESS REVIEW
Connaissance des Arts : Napoleon at Les Invalides
As part of the refurbishment and renovation project of the Musée de l'Armée, the French arts magazine, Connaissance des Arts, has released a special issue which allows the reader to rediscover Napoleon Bonaparte "through the prism" of the Musée de l'Armée's refurbished collections. The issue is available in English for 8 € or $11.05.
First Empire, March/April 2010
The March/April issue of First Empire is now available and features articles on the siege of Naarden, Ney's defection in 1815, Emmanuel Augustin Dieudonné, also known as the Count de Las Cases, and Napoleon and the social fabric of Poland, as well as the usual Napoleonic news and information.
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"In Our Time": the Indian Mutiny of 1857
The BBC website features the recent episode of "In Our Time", chaired by Melvyn Bragg, in which he discusses the Indian Mutiny of 1857. The episode can be streamed directly from the website.
RECENTLY PUBLISHED
The Waterloo Archive Volume I: British Sources, by Gareth Glover
The Battle of Waterloo, a constant source of interest for scholars, enthusiasts and general readers alike for nearly 200 years, has been extensively covered in written works. However, most of these books are simply regurgitating other accounts of the battle, which in turn are a rehash of another work, and so it is rare to find new work based on genuine primary sources - until now.
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Wellington's Highland Warriors: From the Black Watch Mutiny to the Battle of Waterloo, by Stuart Reid
The kilted regiments of the British Army have a long, romanticised and often factually dubious history. From their inception as the Black Watch - a local militia designed to introduce some measure of English law to the clannish highlands - to the Battle of Waterloo by the Gordons, the Highland regiments established a reputation for fearlessness in battle and reliability as soldiers which expanded beyond all proportion to their actual numbers.
200 YEARS AGO
Marie-Louise leaves Vienna
On 13 March, 1810, Marie-Louise left Vienna, accompanied by eighty-three carriages [see bulletin n° 531]. On 14 March, the procession stopped at Enns where Marie-Louise rested. The next morning they were back on the road, overnighting in Ried before the grand handover ceremony the next morning in Sankt Peter am Hart. There, Marie-Louise was handed over to Napoleon's representative, Maréchal Berthier, for the next stage of the journey. That same day, the Austrian archduchess wrote to her father:
"I arrived at 2pm at the French camp, posted near Braunau [she had not yet, in actual fact, reached Braunau but was still in Sankt Peter am Hart]. Having waited a little while in the Austrian camp, I took my place on the throne erected on neutral ground. After the deeds had been read out, all my compatriots kissed my hand. [...]; I started to shake and I lost my composure to such an extent that the Prince de Neuchâtel [Berthier] began to cry. Prince Trauttmansdorf brought me back to my senses and introduced me to my court. [...]"
The journey continued onwards and on 17 March, the convoy reached Bavarian territory. At the town of Haag, Ludwig I of Bavaria awaited them, ready to accompany them to the Wittelsbach capital.
150 YEARS AGO
Crime: lenient juries and the dangers of drink
On 13 March, 1860, the Moniteur universel published the report from Claude Alphonse Delangle regarding the administration of criminal justice for 1858. Of particular note for the Justice Minister was the decrease in death sentences issued in 1858, which Delangle put down to greater leniency from juries, particularly as the instances of crimes carrying the death penalty, including assassination, poisoning, parricide and infanticide, actually went up in 1858. Of the 38 death penalties issued (compared to 58 in 1857 and 46 in 1856), 23 were carried out, whilst the remainder received an imperial pardon and had their sentences commuted to a lifetime of hard labour.
Elsewhere, the report revealed that of the 269,585 complaints and accusations made in 1858, nearly half, 126,950, were dropped. Delangle argued that this was less down to failures in the justice system and more because the majority did not constitute a crime (59,938 instances) or a threat to public order (17,873). There were, however, nearly 31,000 cases of the investigation being dropped due to the police's inability to find the culprit.
Perhaps the most interesting judgement, however, was reserved for the influence of the harvest on crime:
"As well as reducing [social] misery, the abundance of the grain harvest has brought with it a decline in crimes and offences that [this misery] inspires, notably theft. The abundance of the grape harvest [and thus a greater availability of wine], however, has brought about an increase in attacks, rebellion, outrages and violence towards civil servants and agents of the state." [Le Moniteur Universel, 13 March, 1860]
Wishing you an excellent "Napoleonic" week,
Peter Hicks & Hamish Davey Wright
Historians and web-editors
THE NAPOLEON.ORG BULLETIN, N° 533, 12 - 18 March, 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:
The Digital Resources text and documents directory on napoleon.org now contains 3,000 fully-searchable entries.
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
Just published
- The Waterloo Archive Volume I: British Sources, by Gareth Glover
- Wellington's Highland Warriors: From the Black Watch Mutiny to the Battle of Waterloo, by Stuart Reid
Press review
- First Empire, issue n° 111, March/April 2010
- "In Our Time": the Indian Mutiny of 1857
- French History, vol. 24, n° 1, March 2010
- Connaissance des Arts: Napoleon at Les Invalides
- Book review: The Making of British Unionism, 1740-1848: Politics, Government and the Anglo-Irish Constitutional Relationship
EVENTS
On now
A selection of events taking place now or in the coming weeks, taken from our What's on listings.
Exhibitions
- "First Shots: Early War Photography 1848–60", London, UK [02/09/2009 - 18/04/2010]
Full details
- "Turner and the masters", Paris, France [24/02/2010 - 24/05/2010]
Full details
- "Ravage, Empires et mieux !" Two artists and Napoleon, Boulogne-Billancourt, France [12/02/2010 - 29/05/2010]
Full details
- "Charlotte Bonaparte, Dama di molto spirito: the romantic life of a princess artist", Rome, Italy [05/02/2010 - 18/04/2010]
Full details
- "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
- "Coup de crayon à l'Empire", Waterloo, Belgium [23/09/2009 - 17/05/2010]
Full details
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