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Monthly Archives: March 2014

On Madame de Staël

12 Wednesday Mar 2014

Posted by michelinewalker in Literature, Salons, The Enlightenment, The French Revolution

≈ 5 Comments

Tags

Benjamin Constant, Coppet, Exile, Jacques Necker, Madame de Staël, Napoleon's fears, Salons, Suzanne Curchod

Le Château de Coppet
Le Château de Coppet, Madame de Staël’s residence on the shores of Lake Geneva (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

untitled

Madame de Staël, the daughter of Swiss-born Jacques Necker (30 September 1732 – 9 April 1804), Louis XVI’s Finance Minister, is a legendary figure. For one thing, Napoleon I was so afraid of her that he would not let her live in or near Paris. She was born in Paris, but, in 1784, her father had bought a lovely home in Switzerland, on the shores of Lake Geneva. When Germaine de Staël was exiled from France, by Napoleon Bonaparte, Napoleon I, she took refuge at Coppet.

Germaine de Staël

French-Swiss Anne Louise Germaine de Staël (22 April 1766 – 14 July 1817; aged 51), may well be the most prominent intellectual, and salonnière (salonist) of her era, an era that spans the French Revolution, Napoleon’s Empire (Napoléon I) and the beginning of the Bourbon restoration. After Napoleon’s defeat, France was a monarchy, but not an absolute monarchy. It had to be a Constitutional Monarchy, or a form of parliamentary Monarchy, as was the wish of the signatories of the Tennis Court Oath. Madame de Staël joined the National Assembly, constituted by members of the Third Estate, le tiers-état, from rich bourgeois to impoverished peasants still living on feudal seigneuries and paying taxes. The National Assembly (13, 1789 to July 9, 1789) was soon replaced by the Legislative Assembly, which takes us to 1792 and the National Convention. It lasted from 21 September 1792 to 26 October 1795, or 28 July 1794, when Robespierre and Saint-Just were guillotined. (See The French Revolution, Wikipedia.)  

Suzanne Curchod and Jacques Necker

Madame de Staël is the daughter of Suzanne Curchod (1737 – 6 May 1794), a salonnière whose salon could be compared favorably to the salon where Madame Geoffrin (26 June 1699 – 6 October 1777), the daughter of a banker who had entertained and dined distinguished guests on Monday and on Wednesday. Salonnières had “days.” Madame Geoffrin, the finest hostess of the Age of Enlightenment, attracted to her salon the leading intellectual, literary, artistic and political figures of the Age of Enlightenment, and, among them, Voltaire, a Freemason, encyclopédistes Denis Diderot and Jean le Rond d’Alembert and, to a significant degree, Jean-Jacques Rousseau (28 June 1712 – 2 July 1778), an encyclopédiste who challenged the reign of reason and is, therefore, a precursor, if not the founder, of Romanticism. Remember La Querelle des Bouffons.

Nearly a generation later, during the 1770s and 178Os, madame Necker’s salon du vendredi, the Friday salon, would attract exceptional figures, one of whom, Jean-François Marmontel, has been somewhat neglected by posterity. Marmontel was secretary-for-life (lifetime) of the Neuf Sœurs (The Nine Sisters), the leading Masonic Lodge of the Grand Orient of France. Moreover, from 1771 until 1793, Louis-Philippe II, Duke of Orleans (Philippe Égalité) was its Grand Master. France also had English-speaking lodges.

Madame Necker also entertained Swiss expatriates Madame Geoffrin and the Marquise du Deffand. When Madame Necker left Paris, in 1790, she missed her salon. Four years later, she died.

Suzanne Curchod Necker

Suzanne Curchod Necker

Jacques Necker, by Joseph Duplessis (Château de Versailles) (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

Jacques Necker, by Joseph Duplessis (Château de Versailles) (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

As for Madame de Staël’s father, Swiss-born Jacques Necker (30 September 1732 – 9 April 1804), he was Louis XVI’s finance minister (1788–89, 1789–90). Jacques Necker had become extremely wealthy, richissime in fact, during the Seven Year’s War. He made savvy speculations, perhaps not altogether above-board, but speculations that earned him a fortune and put him in a position to lend money to the Crown, so to speack, In 1764, he married Suzanne Curchod (1739 – 1794) put him in a position to lend money to the “Crown,” so to speak. In 1764, he married Suzanne Curchod (1739 – 1794),the cultivated daughter of a Vaudois* pastor who was considering marrying historian Edward Gibbon. Suzanne Necker became a prominent salonnière or salonist.

*from the Swiss Canton (township) of Vaud

Jacques Necker, a Protestant, would not allow his beloved daughter Germaine to marry a Catholic. In 1786, Madame de Staël was therefore married to the Swedish ambassador in Paris, Baron Erik de Staël-Holstein. It was, of course, a marriage of convenience, ended formally in 1797, but Madame de Staël was now at court, meeting statesmen. Madame de Staël and Erik de Staël had four children, three of whom survived childhood: Auguste (b. 1790), who edited his mother’s complete works; Albert (b. 1792); and Albertine (b. 1796). Albertine married Victor de Broglie, 9th Prime Minister of France. Gustavine (b. 1887) died in 1789.

One of the children may have been fathered by Benjamin Constant (25 October 1767 – 8 December 1830), the author of Adolphe (1816) and, for some 14 years (1794 – 1809), Madame de Staël’s lover. He and Madame de Staël shared the same liberal views. Benjamin’s writings were influenced by Karl Wilhelm Friedrich von Schlegel and his brother August Wilhem Schlegel, who were leading “Romantics.” (See Romanticism, Wikipedia.)

Madame de Staël had a fifth child, Alphonse, born in 1812 when Germaine was 46. In all likelihood, he was fathered by Albert de Rocca who legitimated him as Louis- Alphonse Rocca. Albert was twenty-three years younger than madame de Staël’s. The couple married after Napoleon’s defeat at Waterloo and lived in Paris. Although sources differ concerning the date on which the marriage took place, my best information is that Albert de Rocca and Germaine de Staël married on 10 October 1816. She had a seizure in early 1817 and died on July 14, 1817. Albert de Rocca suffered from tuberculosis. He died on 31 January 1818.

Madame de Staël & Napoleon

The coup d’état of 18 Brumaire (9 November 1799) had made Bonaparte the self-declared head of state, in France (see Napoleon, Wikipedia), a position he consolidated in 1804 by proclaiming himself and his Créole wife, Joséphine, Emperor and Empress of France, leaving no voice to the people. After the execution of Louis XVI, madame de Staël therefore switched to moderate Republicanism.

Having read her writings, I would suspect that, intellectually, Madame de Staël may have been Charles-Maurice de Talleyrand-Périgord‘s equal, except that their roles differed. Madame de Staël was a political thinker, but Talleyrand, a shrewd politician, a survivor, and Napoleon’s éminence grise, to a point. However, although Napoleon Bonaparte    proved quite an adroit statesman, he was, first and foremost, an extraordinary general, which brought both his rise and his demise. Moreover, he had taken possession of France, not to mention Europe.

At any rate, a rather cowardly Napoleon had madame de Staël chased throughout Europe and banished her. Her refuge was the Château de Coppet, on Lake Léman (Lake Geneva), the property purchased by Jacques Necker, Madame de Staël’s doting father, in 1784. Germaine spent approximately ten years, at Coppet which she described as her Dix années d’exil (Ten Years of Exile). Scholar Mona Ozouf[i] speaks of Madame de Staël’s inquiétude (worriness). Who would catch her when she fell: “descendre sans appui” (to fall without support)? She did not moan, except privately, and in her Dix années d’exil (published posthumously, in 1821, as were other works), but isolation was a major burden to a conversationalist, hence the title of her book on her banishment: Dix années d’exil. Madame de Staël was a woman, a wife, and a mother who dared to write. (Ozouf, p. 121)

Madame de Staël (1766 - 1817),  Firmin Massot

Madame de Staël (1766 – 1817), Firmin Massot

Le Groupe de Coppet

However, unexpectedly, during the ten years (an approximate number) Madame de Staël spent at Coppet, Coppet, not Paris, was the appropriate destination for men of letters, intellectuals, writers and various  dignitaries.  Helen Phillio Jenkins[ii] quotes French novelist Stendhal, the pen name of Marie-Henri Beyle (23 January 1783 – 23 March, 1842. Stendhal is the author of Le Rouge et le Noir (1830) and many classics of 19th-century French literature. The Red and the Black is on my list of future posts. Stendhal describes a triumphant summer feast in 1816, Madame de Staël’s last summer.  

“There was here on the coast of Lake Geneva last autumn the most astonishing reunion. It was the states general of European opinion. The phenomenon rises even to political importance. There were here six hundred persons, the most distinguished of Europe. Men of intellect, of wealth, of the greatest titles–all came here to seek pleasure in the salon of the illustrious woman for whom France weeps today.” The Review Politique, 1880, says: “It was a parliament whence came forth political doctrines, a race [breed] of statesmen, a school of thinkers, which have filled with their combats, their triumphs or their defeats, more than half a century of our history.”[iii]

Romanticism

No, although she grieved, Germaine did not moan. She learned German and took an interest in German Romanticism. She met Johann Wolfgang von Goethe (28 August 1749 – 22 March 1832) known as Goethe, and Johann Christoph Friedrich von Schiller (10 November 1759 – 9 May 1805), known as Friedrich Schiller. She is therefore associated with Sturm und Drang (late 1760s to early 1780s). 

However, Madame de Staël’s knowledge of Geneva-born Jean-Jacques Rousseau‘s  (28 June 1712 – 2 July 1778) works had fully prepared her to understand and to contribute to the development of European Romanticism. Madame de Staël had studied Rousseau and written about his works: 1) Letters on the Works and the Character of J.-J. Rousseau (1788). Although Madame de Staël had published two works before she was 21, she entered the world of letters when she started writing analytical works: political theory, literary theory, thoughts on various subjects, sociology avant la lettre:

  1. Lettres sur les ouvrages et le caractère de Jean-Jacques Rousseau (1788) ;
  2. De l’influence des passions sur le bonheur des individus et des nations (1796) ;
  3. De la littérature considérée dans ses rapports avec les institutions sociales (1800).

Jean-Jacques had rehabilitated sentiment, a subject debated from the day René Descartes published, in French, his Discours de la Méthode (1637). By and large, seminal ideas stem from intuition, but are then examined methodically. 

As for Madame de Staël, she wrote 2) A Treatise on the Influence of the Passions upon the Happiness of Individuals and of Nations, published in 1796. French-Swiss Benjamin Constant, the author of Adolphe (1816) and Madame de Staël’s lover, also studied sentiment.

Madame de Staël is also the author of 3) The Influence of Literature upon Society (1800). It’s a fascinating topic. However, Madame de Staël’s De l’Allemagne (Germany), written between 1810 and 1813, is her magnum opus. Yet, her novel entitled Delphine (1802), is also a classic. 

Conclusion

In this post, we have seen Germaine de Staël as an intellectual and a salonnière, but a salonnière who played an active role in the conversation and was a thinker. She was in fact, both hostess and guest, and her guests included such individuals as Lord Byron, the Duke of Wellington, Madame Récamier.

She was a novelist, Delphine (1802)and Corinne (1807), but, first and foremost a thinker. Philosopher Auguste Comte, the father of sociology, included her in his “Calender of Great Men.”

In literature, she helped create a new hero well-exemplified by Chateaubriand‘s René, a French Werther, Goethe’s Werther. Our new hero suffers from le mal du siècle and le vague des passions. He stands tall compared to the rest of humanity, but he lives in a garret, his genius unrecognized. Reason had not been crushed, but it had been carefully circumscribed.

Politically, moderation guided her thinking.  After the execution of Louis XVI, she was a moderate Republican. In fact, she was always a moderate.

And then comes Coppet, the unrivalled meeting-place of Europe’s intellectual elite. Whenever I think of Madame de Staël, she is in Coppet.

—ooo—

RELATED ARTICLE

  • Giovanni Battista Pergolesi, revisited

Sources:  

  • Descartes: The Discourse on Method, Project Gutenberg [EBook #59]EN
  • Benjamin Constant: Adolphe, Project Gutenberg [EBook #13861]EN
  • Staël Delphine (1802), Project Gutenberg  [EBook #7812]EN
  • Madame de Staël: Corinne, or Italy (1807)EN
  • De l’Allemagne (1810-1803) may be read online (a 1852 edition).FR
  • De l’Allemagne, edited by Henri Heine, is an online publication.FR
  • Madame de Staël: De l’Allemagne, translated by Heinrich Heine (Amazon)EN
  • Considerations on the Principal Events of the French Revolution (1818) (Amazon)EN
  • Paul Gautier: Chateaubriand et madame de Staël (Revue des Deux Mondes, Tome 17, 1903 Chateaubriand et madame de Staël d’après les lettres inédites de Chateaubriand (1903)FR
  • Paul Gautier: Madame de Staël et Napoléon (1904)
  • Édouard Hérriot (1872 – 1957): Madame Récamier et ses amis
  • Video:
    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-2gmVKMvBV0  (Michel Winock sur Madame de Staël)FR
  • art:  Varvara Ivanovna Narishkine, by Vigée Le Brun, 1801

Please accept my apologies for the long absence.  I was not feeling well. Kind regards to all of you.

_________________________

[i] Mona Ozouf, Les Mots des femmes ; essai sur la singularité française (Paris : Fayard, 1995), p. 113.

[ii] Helen Philleo Jenkins, “Madame de Stael,” in Mary Kavanaugh Oldham, ed. The Congress of Women: Held in the Woman’s Buiding, World’s Columbia Exposition, Chicago, U. S. A. 1893 (Chicago: Monarch Book Company, 1894), pp. 686-690).

Johann Baptist Vanhal, (12 May 1739 – 20 August 1813)
Symphony in G minor, II Adagio

MADAME~1

© Micheline Walker

12 March 2014

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Madame de Staël as Corinne,
Élisabeth Vigée Le Brun
(Photo credit: Wikipedia)

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The Nineteenth Century in France

05 Wednesday Mar 2014

Posted by michelinewalker in 19th-Century France, France, French Literature, History

≈ 4 Comments

Tags

1848 Revolution, 19th-Century France, Emperors, Franco-Prussian War, July Revolution 1830, Kings, Louis XVII of France, Philippe II of France, Presidents, The Congress of Vienna

Louis Stanilas Xavier de France, Comte de Provence, Maurice Quentin de la Tour, 1762

Louis Stanislas Xavier de France, Louis XVIII, Comte de Provence, Maurice Quentin de la Tour, 1762 (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

The French Revolution

I would like to provide you with an overview of the history of 19th-century France. It has several insurrections and coups d’état. The first coup d’état took place on 19 Brumaire Year VIII, or 9 November 1799. It therefore precedes the nineteenth century by about six weeks. On 19 Brumaire, Napoleon I became First Consul and his government was the French Consulate. However, in April 1804, the French Sénat named him Emperor of the French, and he was crowned Napoleon I on 2 December 1804. Joséphine was crowned impératrice (Empress), by the new Emperor, her husband.

Events Preceding the First Republic

At the beginning of the 19th century, France was an unofficial Empire. As First Consul, Napoleon was the de facto ruler of France. He started rising to power during the National Convention (1792 – 1795) and continued empowering himself throughout the French Directory (1795 – 1799) as General Napoleon Bonaparte. The French Directory is identified as the third stage of the French Revolution.

The first stage of the Revolution begins with the meeting of the Estates-General of 1789. Significant events are: 

  • the Tennis Court Oath of 14 June 1789,
  • the Storming of the Bastille, on 14 July 1789,
  • the Women’s March on Versailles (5 October 1789),
  • the Day of the Daggers (28 February 1791),
  • the Champ de Mars Massacre (17 July 1791),
  • the Storming of the Tuileries (10 August 1792)

The Revolution was radicalized (i.e. the King became an enemy) by the Flight to Varennes (June 1791). The Flight to Varennes was followed by the Declaration of Pillnitz (August 1791) and Brunswick Manifesto. The levée en masse (conscription of 23 August 1793) gave Napoleon and France a huge army.

After the monarchy was abolished, we reach the second stage of the French Revolution or the counterrevolution.  

  1. The First Republic was founded on 22 September 1792, by the newly-established National Convention.
  2. The National Convention: 21 September 1792 to 26 October 1795 (4 Brumaire IV). The Thermidorian Reaction (27 July 1794) put an end to the Reign of Terror.
  3. The Directory: 2 November 1795 to 10 November 1799. There were five Directors and the Directory doubled up as a style (neoclassicism). Neoclassicism became a style as a result of the Coup of 18 Fructidor or 4 September 1797. Eighteenth (18) Fructidor was a genuine coup d’état, involving the military.
  4. The Consulate (18 Brumaire [9 November 1799] – 1804). As First Consul, Napoleon I ruled unopposed.

The First Empire

Although the French Sénat named Napoleon Emperor of the French, on 18 May 1804, Napoleon was a mostly self-proclaimed Emperor. He was crowned on 2 December 1804. He then crowned his Créole wife Joséphine impératrice. She kept that title when Napoleon married Marie-Louise of Austria.

Napoleon suffered severe losses during the French invasion of Russia (1812) and at the Battle of Leipzig, faught in October 1813. France was invaded and the First Empire, dissolved. In fact, the First Empire ended twice. It ended first on 4 April 1814,[i] when Napoleon I abdicated and was exiled to the Mediterranean island of Elba, off the coast of Tuscany. Napoleon escaped and he returned to power. This period of the Napoleonic Wars (1803 – 1815) is called the Hundred Days (111 to be precise).

The First Empire ended a second time, when Napoleon I was defeated at Waterloo, on 18 June 1815. After Waterloo, Napoleon was exiled to a distant island, Saint Helena, where he died of stomach cancer in 1821.

The Congress of Vienna (1815)

The First Empire was followed by the Congress of Vienna, the foremost social and political event of the nineteenth century, conducted before and after Napoleon I’s Hundred Days.

The main players were:

  • Clemens von Metternich (Austria),
  • Tsar Alexander I (Russia),
  • Lord Castlereagh and the Duke of Wellington (Britain),
  • Karl August von Hardenberg (Prussia), 
  • Charles-Maurice de Talleyrand-Périgord (France), a late arrival, but a key figure
  • replacements and aides.

The decisions made in Vienna laid the groundwork for various insurrections and, ultimately, World War I. However, the Congress of Vienna was the first meeting of a united Europe or European nations seeking peaceful coexistence. (See Concert of Europe, Wikipedia.)

The Two Monarchies and Three Monarchs

Napoleon’s Hundred Days, his return from Elba, complicated the installation of Louis XVIII, portrayed above. What a lovely child!

Our Monarchs are:

  • 1815-1830: Louis XVIII & Charles X, (House of Bourbon) and
  • 1830-1848: Louis-Philippe I (House of Orleans, elected King of the French), Louis Philippe III is the son of Philippe Égalité, or Louis-Philippe II, who was guillotined on 6 November 1793; aged 46. Louis-Philippe II was the son of Louis-Philippe I, the brother of Louis XIV. The king’s brother may be called Monsieur and his wife Madame.

Comments on Charles X

Charles X undermined his reputation and popularity because of the Anti-Sacrilege Act (1825 – 1830) and because he proposed financial indemnities for properties confiscated during the 1789 Revolution (the French Revolution). His actions led to the July Revolution of 1830, when Louis-Philippe III (House of Orleans) was elected King of the French.

Louis XVII  Louis-Charles de France

Louis XVII, Titular, Alexandre Kucharski
Louis-Charles de France (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

Exclusions

  • Louis XVII became titular (having the title of) King of France on 21 January 1893, the day his father was executed. He died of a form of tuberculosis in on 8 June 1895. He never reigned.
  • Louis-Philippe II, Duc d’Orléans or Philippe Égalité (13 April 1747 – 6 November 1793; by guillotine). Louis-Philippe II did not reign.

The 1848 Revolutions

King Louis-Philippe I was deposed during the 1848 Revolution. In 1848, there were revolutions in many European countries, including France. In France, certain matters had to be settled: suffrage (who votes?); the right to employment, etc.

The Second Republic & Second Empire

In 1848, Louis-Napoleon Bonaparte was the elected President of France, now a Republic. However, on 2 December 1851, Louis-Napoleon Bonaparte staged a coup d’état that transformed him into Napoleon I. He was the nephew of Emperor Napoleon I. Napoleon III and l’impératrice Eugénie, his wife, fled France after a Prussian victory at the Battle of Sedan, fought on 1 September 1870 during the Franco-Prussian War (19 July 1870 – 10 May 1871).

Famed French author Victor Hugo fled to Guernsey when Louis-Napoleon Bonaparte transformed himself into an Emperor. (See Sources, below.) As for Karl Marx, he wrote an analysis of Louis-Napoleon Bonaparte’s 18 Brumaire. It can be read online. (See Sources, below.)

Napoleon  II, Titular

Napoleon II, Titular (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

Exclusion

Napoleon II (b. Tuileries, 1811 – d. Vienna, 1832) was named Emperor by his father Emperor Napoleon I, on 4 September 1814, the day his father abdicated. He is titular (has the title of) Emperor, but never ruled France. He died at the age of 21, of tuberculosis.

Napoleon II in Literature

Napoleon II (the Duke of Reichstadt) was born in Paris, in 1811, and died in Vienna, in 1832. His mother was Marie-Louise of Austria. French playwright Edmond Rostand wrote a 6-act play entitled L’Aiglon (the eaglet), a Project Gutenberg Publication [EBook #30012], based on Napoleon II’s life. The very famous Sarah Bernhardt was l’aiglon (produced on 30 March 1900) and the play was a success, but not as great a success as Cyrano de Bergerac (1897). The real Napoleon II was:

King of Rome (1811 – 1814)
Prince of Parma (1814 – 1817)
Duke of Reichstadt (1818 – 1832)
 

Comments on Louis-Napoleon Bonaparte:

Louis-Napoleon Bonaparte is the same person as Napoleon I. Louis-Napoleon Bonaparte organized the coup d’état of 2 December 1851, staged on the forty-eighth anniversary of his uncle’s, Napoleon I, coronation: 11 Frimaire XIII (2 December 1804).

Hubert Robert

Le Tapis vert (The Green Rug, detail), Hubert Robert (Photo credit: Google)

The Children of France

Louis XVI (23 August 1754 – 21 January 1793; by guillotine) and Marie-Antoinette (2 November 1755 – 16 October 1793; by guillotine) were married in 1870. They had four children:

  1. Marie-Thérèse de France, Duchesse d’Angoulème (b. 1778 –  d. 1851);
  2. Louis-Joseph Dauphin de France (heir apparent (b. Versailles, 22 October 1781 – d. Paris, 4 June 1789);
  3. Louis-Charles, fils de France and, in 1789, Dauphin (Louis XVII) (b. Versailles, 27 March 1785 – d. Paris, 8 June 1795);
  4. Princesse Sophie (b. Versailles, 9 July 1786 – d. Versailles, 19 June 1787).

Louis XVII was titular King of France from 21 January 1793 to 8 June 1795. He never reigned.

The Third Republic (1871 – 1940)

  • Adolphe Thiers was elected President in 1871, but lost power in 1873;
  • Patrice de Mac-Mahon, 1st Duke of Magenta (1873-1879).

Conclusion

The above adds up to:

two Monarchies (three monarchs):

  • Louis XVIII, Charles X, 1815 to 1830; July Revolution: Louis-Philippe III (1830 -1848; Revolution of 1848

two Empires:

  • Napoleon I: coup d’état of 9 November 1799 to 1815; defeat at Waterloo
  • Napoleon III: coup d’état of 2 December 1851 to 1870; Franco-Prussian War

Two Republics: Second & Third Republics

  • Louis-Napoleon Bonaparte: 1848 to 1851;  coup d’état of 2 December 1851
  • Adolphe Thiers (1871 – 1873) lost power to Patrice de Mac-Mahon, 1st Duke of Magenta (1873 -1879)

The Nineteenth century in France was an experiment in democracy. It was also a period of drastic changes. Feudalism survived until the French Revolution, so the 19th century was France’s Industrial Revolution. Previous forms of government were revisited, revealing tentativeness on the part of the French nation.

Some idealized the Monarchy (Gustave Flaubert‘s Madame Bovary  [EBook #2413]). However, in the 19th century, only Emperors resembled Absolute Monarchs; King Louis-Philippe III was elected King of the French. The Church of France had to rebuild. It’s wealth had been confiscated in the early days of the French Revolution, at the suggestion, on 10 October 1789, of Charles-Maurice de Talleyrand-Périgord,[ii] an ordained priest and a bishop.

Terms:

un fils de France: son of a reigning king (France)
Madame Royale: title sometimes given the eldest living unmarried daughter of a reigning monarch (France)
le Dauphin: the heir apparent (France)
 
Monsieur: the King’s brother
Madame: Monsieur’s wife 
un coup d’état: the overthrow of a government usually planned within a previous government (an “inside job,” close to treason)
 
The Congress of Vienna (Photo credit: David King)

The Congress of Vienna, (Photo credit: David King)

Napoleon I's Hundred Days (Photo credit: David King)

Napoleon I’s Hundred Days (Photo credit: David King) 

  1. Louis XVI: guillotined (21 January 1793)
  2. Napoleon I: (9 November 1799 – 1815) Emperor from the coup d’état of 19 Brumaire, Year III until 1815 (defeated at Waterloo)
  3. Louis Joseph, Dauphin de France (22 October 1781 – 4 June 1789) (born to Marie-Antoinette and Louis XVI)
  4. Louis XVII (Versailles, 27 March 1785 – Paris, 8 June 1795; died in prison) (born to Marie-Antoinette and Louis XVI)
  5. Louis XVIII: reigned from 1815 until 1824 (grandson of Louis XV)
  6. Charles X: reigned from 16 September 1824 until 2 August 1830 (grandson of Louis XV)
  7. Louis-Philippe d’Orléans, Duke of Chartres (Philippe-Égalité): guillotined on 6 November 1793 as Louis-Philippe II
  8. Louis-Philippe III: reigned as elected King of the French from 1830 to 1848 (son of Philippe-Égalité or Louis-Philippe II)
  9. Napoleon II, titular, the Duke of Reichstag: (20 March 1811 – 22 July 1832) (born to Napoleon I and Marie-Louise of Austria)
  10. Louis-Napoleon Bonaparte: (20 April 1808 – 9 January 1873) in power as President of the Second Republic (1848 – 1851) (nephew and heir to Napoleon I)
  11. Napoleon III: (20 April 1808 – 9 January 1873) Emperor from the coup d’état of 2 December 1851 until – c. 1870 (Franco-Prussian War)
  12. The Third Republic (1871 – 1940) (not covered in this post)

SOURCES:

Victor Hugo: Little Napoleon: Project Gutenberg [EBook #20580]EN
Victor Hugo: Napoleon Le Petit: Project Gutenberg[ EBook # 22045)FR
Karl Marx: The Eighteenth Brumaire of Louis Bonaparte (online)EN
Congress of Vienna (online account)EN[iii]
Gustave Flaubert’s Madame Bovary is a Project Gutenberg publication [EBook #2413]EN
Edmond Rostand’s L’Aiglon is a Project Gutenberg Publication [EBook #30012]EN
David King‘s Vienna 1814 is an account of the Congress of Vienna
 
____________________
[i] See Treaty of Paris (1814), Wikipedia. 
[ii] André Castelot, Talleyrand ou le cynisme (Paris: Librairie académique Perrin, 1980), p. 64.
[iii] In The Eighteenth Brumaire of Louis Bonaparte, Karl Marx writes that the coup d’état occurred between December 1851 and March 1852.
http://www.marxists.org/archive/marx/works/1852/18th-brumaire/index.htm
 

Napoleon I: “La Marseillaise”

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© Micheline Walker
5 March 2014
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Louis-Charles de France,
Louise Élisabeth Vigée Lebrun
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