This past December, headlines screamed “First Christmas Without Mass in Notre Dame Cathedral in Two Hundred Years.” What happened two hundred years ago both to interrupt and to reinstate that structure’s sacred use? The French Revolution and Napoleon Bonaparte. Tragically, the photo above explains why there wasn’t a mass in 2019. On April 15, the …
A BOOK REVIEW: To Befriend an Emperor: Betsy Balcombe’s Memoirs of Napoleon Bonaparte on St Helena, edits and introduction by J. David Markham, Ravenhall Books, 2005. (Originally published in 1844 as Recollections of the Emperor Napoleon on the Island of St Helena, by Lucia Elizabeth Balcombe Abell.) As I covered in my last blog, Napoleon’s …
A BOOK REVIEW: To Befriend an Emperor, Betsy Balcombe’s Memoirs Read More »
In 1815, a few days before Napoleon Bonaparte arrived on St Helena, a fast sloop brought the governor news that the island had been chosen for the defeated emperor’s exile. The surprised authorities scrambled to find a secure residence for their illustrious prisoner, but the remote South Atlantic island offered few choices. They settled on …
The Briars, Napoleon’s First St Helena Residence Read More »
