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THIS WEEK'S LETTER...
... is positively overflowing with news: as well as news of the partnership signed between the Musée de l'Armée and the Fondation Napoléon and Jean Tulard's promotion to the rank of Commandeur in the Légion d'Honneur, we are also delighted to announce that registration for the 1810 conference, organised by the Fondation Napoléon and the Souvenir Napoléonien, is now open. All this good news is followed by our latest painting of the month, The Angelus, by Jean-François Millet, plus napoleon.org's latest addition, the interesting history of the Sally Lunn cake. We also have plenty of event details to announce too, including the "Into Africa" weekend event at the National Army Museum (London), the Waterloo 1815 re-enactment event in June, and the Souvenir Napoléonien gala dinner and cruise (eyes right, in the Magazine section). Bringing up the rear is our regular 200 and 150 years ago section: Napoleon's marriage reported in the British press and the invention of the phonautograph.
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NEWS FROM THE FONDATION
Partnership signed between the Fondation Napoléon and the Musée de l'Armée
On 6 April, 2010, M. Victor-André Masséna, Prince d'Essling and President of the Fondation Napoléon, and General Robert Bresse, Director of the Musée de l'Armée, signed a partnership agreement linking the two establishments and their future collaborations.
As part of this agreement, the Musée and the Fondation have agreed to continue to collaborate in the organisation of: events, notably exhibitions, academic exchanges and, more generally, anything that will encourage the development of Napoleonic history and the public interest thereof. The signatories will promote in particular research from historians and individuals into the imperial periods, aided by an accord between the respective institutions' documentation centres. Joint research projects and publications will also be discussed. A board to oversee the collaboration will be set up shortly.
This agreement formalises a relationship that has existed for more than twenty years. But, as Talleyrand once said, what goes without saying goes even better said. Or in this particular case, written and clarified, for the years to come.
Jean Tulard, Commandeur de la Légion d'Honneur
A true leader in contemporary Napoleonic studies, Jean Tulard's promotion in the Easter honours list to the rank of Commandeur in the Légion d'Honneur fills us with great delight. Another reason for much cheer, Beatrice de Durfort, Director of the Fondation Napoléon between 1995 and 2000 (it was she who oversaw the creation of napoleon.org and initiated the Napoleonica programme), has been named chevalier in the Légion d'Honneur. Our congratulations go out to these two outstanding individuals of the Napoleonic world.
1810 conference registration now open
Registration for the 1810 conference, organised by the Fondation Napoléon and the Souvenir Napoléonien, in partnership with the Archives Diplomatiques, is now open. A registration form for the two-day event, which takes places on 8 - 9 June, 2010, in La Courneuve (France), can be found here.
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PAINTING OF THE MONTH
The Angelus, by Jean-François Millet
The peasantry class can often be found at the heart of Jean-François Millet's artistic work. Often featuring peasants and a social message, such as in Les Glaneuses (The Gleaners) in which they evoke the right, granted to the very poorest in society, to gather up the wheat ears after the harvest, Millet's paintings explore the reality of rural life during the 19th century, a reality that alternated between labour and misery.
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NAPOLEON.ORG
The solilème or "Sally Lunn"
The bizarrely named solilème is a slightly salted cake that has an interesting history. Originally from the French region of Alsace, the name probably came from the French words "soleil" et "lune", a term that was already used to describe a similar roundish cake-like bread. During the 17th century, the recipe arrived in Britain and became known as "Sally Lunn bread". This gave rise to the legend that a English baker, a certain Sally Lunn, perfected the recipe that remains popular to this day, particularly in its "home-town" of Bath…
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WHAT'S ON
"Into Africa": the British army's impact on two hundred years of African Culture
On 10 and 11 April, 2010, the National Army Museum in London (UK) is hosting an "Into Africa" event, which will allow visitors to explore the impact of the British army on over two centuries of African culture. You may be surprised to see these details feature in the letter, given their apparent lack of Napoleonic significance. However, in light of Louis Napoleon's participation in the Zulu War of 1879, we feel it is appropriate to signal this event that offers discussion of and background to British involvement on the continent over the last two centuries.
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The Battle of Waterloo re-enactment weekend
The battlefield at Waterloo is getting ready to welcome over 3,000 re-enactors from all over the world for its five-yearly re-enactment event. The programme for the three-day event is as follows:
Friday 18 June
10pm: firework display and pyrotechnic competition.
Saturday 19 June
10am - 5pm: Napoleonic bivouacs
6pm: troops pass out
7pm: a battle re-enactment will take place in the fields close to the village of Plancenoit.
Sunday 20 June
9.30am: troop movements
10am: the battle of Waterloo will be re-enacted.
200 YEARS AGO
The Imperial Marriage: a British press review
On 9 April, 1810, the Moniteur referred to the fact that news of Napoleon's wedding had reached England. Indeed, there were articles on the subject in many newspapers throughout March and April. What follows is a selection, derived from the British Library's remarkable online database, British Newspapers 1600-1900 (external link). The London Morning Post, dated 9 April, 1810, reported on the imperial couple leaving Compiègne at 11 am on 30 March. They noted that the prefects of the departments of the Oise, and Seine and Oise, and Seine, 'repaired, each attended by a splendid retinue, to the verge of their respective departments, to receive their majesties. The whole of the road from Compiegne to St Cloud was crowded with spectators. Triumphal arches were erected in a number of villages. [...] The concourse of spectators to Compiègne, to witness the reception of the empress, was prodigious. Not only were the inns, but the warehouses and barns were filled with lodgers. The town of Compiègne was illuminated in the most brilliant style."
The Bury and Norwich Post dated 11 April reported how, "by his marriage Bonaparte becomes related to almost all the Royal Families of Europe. Besides being son-in-law to the Emperor of Austria, and nephew to the Archduke Charles, he is great nephew to the Queen of Naples, first cousin to Ferdinand the VIIth, and to the Prince Regent of Portugal - he is also cousin to the daughter of Louis the XVth, the Duchess of Angouleme."
The London Examiner dated 15 April (pp. 227-8) gave a detailed report on the religious ceremony of the marriage, and the Lancaster Gazette republished the same report six days later.
The Hull Packet (dated 24 April) noted that French imperial press was trumpeting "Bonaparte's marriage [...] as the panacea for all the evils which have afflicted the continent. This event has even been noticed in the Russian Court Gazette."
We should perhaps not be surprised to see that Napoleon's marriage was considered newsworthy throughout Europe…
150 YEARS AGO
First sound recording
For many years, Thomas Edison was recognised as the first man to record sound with his "Mary had a little lamb" recording made in 1877. In 2008, a team of American scientists and audio historians succeeded in playing back a recording of "Au Clair de la Lune" made on 9 April, 1860, by the French printer and inventor Edouard-Léon Scott de Martinville. Scott de Martinville's invention is known as the phonautograph, built in 1857, and was, as the name suggests, never intended to play back sound but merely record it in visual form. Scott's device used a large barrel-like funnel to channel sound towards a membrane in the machine. The membrane would vibrate, which in turn would move an attached stylus, etching the sound waves onto soot-blackened paper mounted on a cylinder. It is believed that Scott de Martinville modelled his invention on the workings of the human ear. High-resolution scans were taken of the paper and fed into a computer program by the team of American scientists at Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory, which used a virtual stylus to read the sound waves and reproduce them in audible form. Although acknowledged today to be the earliest known recording of sound, Scott de Martinville died believing that his invention had been used by Edison in his research and that the American inventor had stolen the acclaim that was rightfully his.
A brief interview with the American audio historians, which includes examples of the reproduced audio recordings, can be downloaded from the NPR (USA) website (external link).
Wishing you an excellent "Napoleonic" week,
Peter Hicks & Hamish Davey Wright
Historians and web-editors
THE NAPOLEON.ORG BULLETIN, N° 537, 9 - 15 April, 2010
Interested in the work of the Fondation Napoléon? Why not participate, either generally or in a specific project, by making a donation?
© 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
Easter opening times
Between Monday 19 April and Thursday 29 April, the library will be open:
Tuesday, Wednesday: 1.30pm-6pm
Thursday: 10am-3pm
(Closed Monday and 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:
According to Apple, users downloaded in one day more than 250,000 digital books from the technology giant's iBookstore, as well as more than one million applications.
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
Press review
- Book review: Parisians: An Adventure History of Paris and The Invention of Paris: A History in Footsteps
- Revue Napoléon: the marriage of Napoleon I and Marie-Louise of Austria
- The Guardian: history teaching in British schools
- Sehepunkte: demythologising the 1809 Tyrolean uprising
EVENTS
On now
A selection of events taking place now or in the coming weeks, taken from our What's on listings.
Dinner and cruise
- Souvenir Napoléonien gala dinner and cruise, Paris, France [05/05/2010]
Full details
Study days
- "Into Africa": the British army's impact on two hundred years of African Culture, London, UK [10/04/2010 - 11/04/2010]
Full details
Re-enactments
- "Waterloo 1815", Waterloo, Belgium [18/07/2010 - 20/07/2010]
Full details
Exhibitions
- "The imperial honeymoon: Paris 1810", Fontainebleau, France [02/04/2010 - 02/07/2010]
Full details
- "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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