May 21st is St Helena Day, when the local population celebrates the remote island’s discovery in 1502. For the 4,500 residents, it’s a big holiday with speeches, parades and picnics. I haven’t found any historical record of Napoleon Bonaparte joining in the festivities during his exile there. In all likelihood, he preferred that the place […]
Finding Napoleon (and Shakespeare) on St Helena Day Read More »
Last November I posted about Ernest Meissonier’s paintings of Napoleon Bonaparte. This month I came across another of Meissonier’s paintings (shown above) in the Walters Museum in Baltimore, Maryland. It depicts a sad but stoic Napoleon at the end of his reign. Meissonier painted his images of Napoleon Bonaparte fifty years after the emperor’s defeat.
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Whenever I travel, I’m on the lookout for signs of Napoleon Bonaparte’s influence. I didn’t expect to find any on a recent trip to Costa Rica and Panama, but there’s a statue of his great-nephew in Panama City. In 1877, Lucien Napoleon Bonaparte Wyse, the grandson of Emperor Napoleon’s brother Lucien, obtained the first agreement from
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When I recently rediscovered Georgette Heyer’s historical novel, AN INFAMOUS ARMY, I realized it was the first Napoleonic novel I had ever read. I was thirteen when my mother introduced me to Heyer’s famous Regency novels. Most of them are love stories in the mode of Jane Austin. AN INFAMOUS ARMY is a strange mixture:
My favorite Novel about Napoleon Bonaparte (sort of) Read More »
In this election season when Americans are focused on winners and losers, I came across two relevant paintings of Napoleon Bonaparte. The first shows the Emperor in 1807 at the height of his power. The second shows the Emperor seven years later in the midst of failure. Ernest Meissonier painted them during France’s Second Empire
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For your amusement, a comic strip “honoring” Napoleon Bonaparte on the anniversary of man’s July 20, 1969 landing on the moon: Napoleon Bonaparte: it’s hard to keep a determined man in check. 🙂 Thank you, XKCD.com.
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On October 27, 1806, Emperor Napoleon Bonaparte marched his Grande Armée into Berlin. He spent the night at the Charlottenburg Palace, home to the Prussian King Frederick William III and his queen, Louise.
Finding Napoleon in Berlin – Part 2 Read More »
The city’s iconic Brandenburg Gate gained international prominence on October 27, 1806, when Napoleon Bonaparte paraded his victorious Grand Armée through its arches. The Quadriga, a bronze statue of Victory and her four-horse chariot by the artist Johann Gottfried Schadow (1764- 1850) graced the arcade, as it does now. That day in 1806, Napoleon Bonaparte instructed his cultural minister Vivant Denon to send it home to Paris.
Finding Napoleon in Berlin Read More »
Napoleon and Josephine Bonaparte’s Anniversary On March 9, 1796, twenty-six-year-old Napoleon Bonaparte married the thirty-two-year-old widow, Josephine de Beauharnais. The groom, enraptured with his more nonchalant bride, is known to have written passionate love letters, including one containing the line, “I shall see you soon—do not wash.” Nevertheless, while poring over military maps on his
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This portrait of Napoleon, painted in 1812 before the Emperor’s departure on the disastrous Russian expedition, is one of my favorites. The Duke of Hamilton, who, as a Stuart, considered himself the rightful heir to the Scottish throne, commissioned Jacques-Louis David to paint it. It hangs now in the National Gallery of Art in Washington, DC,
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