Timeline France C: 1796-1869
Return to home
1796 Jan 8,
Jean-Marie Collot d'Herbois (46), French Revolution leader, died in
exile. He was a member of the Committee of Public Safety that ruled
during The Terror.
(MC, 1/8/02)
1796 Mar 9, Napoleon Bonaparte,
age 26, married Josephine Tascher de Beauharnais (32) in Paris.
(AP, 3/9/98)(HN, 3/9/98)
1796 Apr 2, Haitian revolt leader
Toussaint L’Ouverture commanded French forces at Santo Domingo.
(AP, 4/2/99)
1796 Apr 13, Battle at Millesimo,
Italy: Napoleon beat the Austrians.
(MC, 4/13/02)
1796 Apr 22, Napoleon defeated the
Piedmontese at Battle of Mondovi.
(MC, 4/22/02)
1796 May 10, Napoleon Bonaparte
won a brilliant victory against the Austrians at Lodi bridge in Italy.
(HN, 5/10/99)
1796 Jul 16, Jean-Baptiste-Camille
Corot (d.1875), French painter, was born. His work included "Madame
Corot" (1833-1835) and "Interrupted Reading" (1870-1873). He led the
way toward new forms of perspective and composition that was later
mined by impressionism and photography.
(SFC, 6/4/96, p.E5)(WSJ, 10/25/96, p.A15)(WSJ,
3/25/97, p.A16)(MC, 7/16/02)
1796 Nov 17, Napoleon Bonaparte
defeated an Italian army near the Alpone River, Italy, in the Battle of
Arcole.
(HN, 11/17/98)(MC, 11/17/01)
1796 In France Michael Thonet was
born in the Rhenish village of Boppard. He invented the classic bent
wood chair.
(WSJ, 12/4/97, p.A20)
1796 Pierre-Paul Prud’hon
(1758-1823) painted "Marie-Anne-Celestine Pierre de Vellefrey," the
portrait of a little girl.
(WSJ, 4/8/98, p.A20)
1796-1797 Napoleon conquered northern Italy.
(SFEC, 1/18/98, BR p.9)
1797 Jan 14, Napoleon Bonaparte
defeated Austrians at Rivoli in northern Italy.
(HN, 1/14/99)
1797 Feb 19, Pope Pius VI ceded
papal territory to France in the Treaty of Tolentino.
(PC, 1992 ed, p.353)
1797 Feb 22, The last invasion of
Britain took place when some 1,400 Frenchmen landed at Fishguard, in
Wales.
(HN, 2/22/99)
1797 Feb 23, Antoine d'Auvergne
(83), French opera composer (Coquette), died.
(MC, 2/23/02)
1797 Mar 13, Cherubini's opera
"Medee," premiered in Paris.
(MC, 3/13/02)
1797 Apr 14, Adolphe Thiers, 1st
president of 3rd French Republic (1871-77), was born. [see Apr 18]
(MC, 4/14/02)
1797 Apr 18, Louis-Adolphe Thiers,
president of France, was born. [see Apr 14]
(MC, 4/18/02)
1797 Apr 18, France and Austria
signed a cease fire.
(MC, 4/18/02)
1797 Oct 22, French balloonist
Andre-Jacques Garnerin made the first parachute descent, landing safely
from a height of about 3,000 feet; at some 2,200 feet over Paris.
(AP, 10/22/97)(HN, 10/22/98)
1797 Henry-Louis Pernod began to
manufacture absinthe. The drink was made with fennel, aniseed and the
oil of wormwood which contained thujone, a poisonous ketone.
(WSJ, 1/22/99, p.W8)
1797 French forces attacked
Britain at the port of Fishguard. The event was depicted in the
tapestry "The Last Invasion of Britain."
(SFEC, 5/25/97, p.T5)
1797 The wine bottles of Chateau
Lafite that date back to this year are recorked every 25 years to
safeguard the wine and prevent deterioration caused by oxidation
through decayed corks.
(WSJ, 11/26/97, p.A12)
1797 The Republic of Liguria in NW
Italy was set up by Napoleon.
(WUD, 1994, p.830)
1797-1863 Theophile Bra, French academic sculptor.
(SFC, 12/19/98, p.C18)
1798 Feb 20, Pope Pius VI fled
Rome to Siena following an invasion of French forces. He was later
arrested and deported 1st to Florence and then to France.
(www.zum.de/whkmla/region/italy/papalstate17891799.html)(WSJ, 4/14/06,
p.W5)
1798 Apr 26, Ferdinand Eugene
Delacroix (d.1863), French painter, lithograph, etcher (Journal), was
born.
(MC, 4/26/02)
1798 May 19, A French armada of
335 ships carrying nearly 40,000 men set sail for Alexandria, Egypt,
which Napoleon planned to conquer. In 2008 Paul Strathern authored
“Napoleon in Egypt.”
(WSJ, 11/17/08, p.A17)
1798 Jul 1, Napoleon Bonaparte
took Alexandria, Egypt. In 1962 J.C. Herold authored "Bonaparte in
Egypt." A corps of 150 civilian artists and scientists traveled with
Napoleon’s troops to Egypt. In 2007 Nina Burleigh authored “Mirage:
Napoleon’s Scientists and the Unveiling of Egypt.”
(SFC, 9/11/97, p.E3)(HN, 7/1/98)(ON, 12/99,
p.4)(SFC, 12/14/07, p.E3)
1798 Jul 7, Napoleon Bonaparte's
army began its march towards Cairo, Egypt, from Alexandria.
(HN, 7/7/98)
1798 Jul 21, Napoleon Bonaparte
defeated Murad Bey and his Arab Mameluke warriors on the outskirts of
Cairo at the Battle of the Pyramids, thus becoming the master of Egypt.
(WSJ, 11/17/08, p.A17)
1798 Jul 22, Napoleon captured
Cairo, Egypt.
(PC, 1992, p.354)
1798 Aug 1, Admiral Horatio Nelson
routed the French fleet in the Battle of the Nile at Aboukir Bay,
Egypt. Nelson's fleet of 14 ships led the attack on Napoleon's fleet in
Abu Qir Bay, capturing six and destroying seven of the 17 French
vessels. The flagship of Napoleon's fleet, L'Orient, sank in the
battle. It was uncovered by a French team in 1998. More than 1,500
Frenchmen and 200 British soldiers reportedly died in the sea battle.
(AP, 4/19/05)
1798 Aug 21, Jules Michelet,
French historian who wrote the 24-volume "Historie de France," was born.
(HN, 8/21/98)
1798 Sep 2, The Maltese people
revolted against the French occupation, forcing the French troops to
take refuge in the citadel of Valetta in Malta.
(HN, 9/2/98)
1798 Dec 24, Russia and England
signed a Second anti-French Coalition.
(MC, 12/24/01)
1798 Eugene Delacroix (d.1863),
French artist, was born. His work included the "Baron Schwiter."
(WUD, 1994, p.381)(WSJ, 7/1/96, p.A11)
1798 Henri Jomini (d.1869), began
his military career volunteering his services to the French Army. With
the peace of Amiens, he left the army and wrote his "Treatise of Grand
Military Operations." The book impressed Napoleon enough to have Jomini
appointed a staff colonel in 1805, Jomini having volunteered again in
1804. Jomini rose to become chief of staff under Marshall Ney, but left
the French army to fight for Russia in 1813 as a general and
aide-de-camp of Alexander I.
(HNQ, 9/1/00)
1798 Napoleon expelled the Knights
of Malta from their base in Malta. The Sovereign Military Hospitaller
Order of St. John of Jerusalem (SMOM), without citizens or territory,
became a permanent observer at the UN in 1994.
(WSJ, 6/28/01, p.A1)
1798-1857 Auguste Comte, the French founder of the
philosophical system of Positivism.
(WUD, 1994, p.303)(WSJ, 6/22/99, p.A22)
1799 Feb 9, The USS Constellation
captured the French frigate Insurgente off the coast of Wisconsin.
(HN, 2/9/97)
1799 Mar 6, Napoleon captured
Jaffa, Palestine. [see Mar 7]
(MC, 3/6/02)
1799 Mar 7, In Palestine, Napoleon
captured Jaffa and his men massacred more than 2,000 Albanian
prisoners. [see Mar 26]
(HN, 3/7/99)
1799 Mar 12, Austria declared war
on France.
(MC, 3/12/02)
1799 Mar 17, Napoleon Bonaparte
and his army reached the Mediterranean seaport of St. Jean d'Acra, only
to find British warships ready to break his siege of the town.
(HN, 3/17/00)
1799 Mar 19, Napoleon Bonaparte
began the siege of Acre ( later Akko, Israel), which was defended by
Turks.
(AP, 3/19/03)
1799 Mar 26, Napoleon Bonaparte
captures Jaffa, Palestine. [see Mar 7]
(HN, 3/26/99)
1799 Apr 14, Napoleon called for
establishing Jerusalem for Jews.
(MC, 4/14/02)
1799 May 18, Pierre de
Beaumarchais (b.1732), French inventor and dramatist, died. In 2007
Hugh Thomas authored “Beaumarchais in Seville.” In 2009 Susan Emanuel
translated to English “Beaumarchais: A Biography” by Maurice
Lever (d.2006).
(www.theatrehistory.com/french/beaumarchais001.html)(SFC, 5/30/09, p.E2)
1799 May 20, Honore de Balzac,
French novelist, was born in Tours, France. He is considered the
founder of the realistic school and wrote "The Human Comedy" and "Lost
Illusions."
(AP, 5/20/99)(HN, 5/20/99)
1799 May 20, Napoleon Bonaparte
ordered a withdrawal from his siege of St. Jean d'Acre in Egypt. Plague
had run through his besieging French forces, forcing a retreat.
(HN, 5/20/00)
1799 Jun 17, Napoleon Bonaparte
incorporated Italy into his empire.
(HN, 6/17/98)
1799 Jun 22, In France a
scientific congress adopted the length of the meter as one
ten-millionth of the distance along the surface of the Earth from its
equator to its pole, in a curved line of latitude passing through the
center of Paris. The congress used data gathered by astronomers,
Jean-Baptiste-Joseph Delambre and Pierre-François-André
Mechain. The established meter proved to be .2 millimeters too short,
due to incorrect latitude data gathered by Mechain.
(http://etherwave.wordpress.com/2009/01/21/hump-day-history-the-length-of-the-meter/)(ON,
2/09, p.9)
1799 Jul 17, Ottoman forces,
supported by the British, captured Aboukir, Egypt from the French.
(HN, 7/17/99)
1799 Jul 30, The French garrison
at Mantua, Italy surrendered to the Austrians.
(HN, 7/30/98)
1799 Aug 2, Jacques-Etienne
Montgolfier (54), balloonist, died.
(MC, 8/2/02)
1779 Aug 10, Louis XVI of France
freed the last remaining serfs on royal land.
(HN, 8/10/98)
1799 Aug 22, Napoleon slipped
through the British blockade of the Egyptian coast and returned to
France.
(ON, 12/99, p.4)
1799 Aug
29, Pope Pius VI (b.1717) died in Valence, France.
(www.newadvent.org/cathen/12131a.htm)
1799 Oct 7, Napoleon landed at
Saint Raphael, 50 miles east of Toulon.
(ON, 1/02, p.11)
1799 Oct 16, Napoleon arrived in
Paris and met with government leaders.
(ON, 1/02, p.11)
1799 Nov 9, Napoleon Bonaparte
participated in a coup and declared himself dictator, 1st consul, of
France.
(HN, 11/9/98)(MC, 11/9/01)
1799 Dec 10, The metric system was
established in France.
(MC, 12/10/01)
1799 Dec 24, A Jacobin plot
against Napoleon was uncovered.
(MC, 12/24/01)
1799 Dec 25, Napoleon’s new
constitution went into effect. It gave him, as First Consul, powers to
promulgate laws, nominate senior officials, control finances and
conduct negotiations with foreign powers.
(ON, 1/02, p.12)
1799 Honore de Balzac (d..1850),
French novelist, was born.
(WUD, 1994, p.115)
1799 Jacques-Louis David created
his painting “Rape of the Sabines.”
(WSJ, 4/6/05, p.D11)
1799 Jean Baptiste Simeon Chardin
(b.1699), French painter, died.
(WSJ, 7/6/00, p.A24)
1799-1914 This period in France was covered by Robert
Gildea in his 2008 book: Children of the Revolution: The French
1799-1914.”
(Econ, 8/2/08, p.87)
1800 Jan 20, Carolina, the sister
of Napoleon I, married King Joachim Murat of Naples.
(MC, 1/20/02)
1800 Mar 20, French army defeated
Turks at Heliopolis, Turkey, and advanced to Cairo.
(MC, 3/20/02)
1800 May 5, Louis Hachette, French
publisher (Librairie Hachette), was born.
(MC, 5/5/02)
1800 Jun 14, French General
Napoleon Bonaparte pushed the forces of Austria out of Italy in the
Battle of Marengo. In 2007 the sword he wore was auctioned off for over
$6.4 million.
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_Marengo)(SFC, 6/11/07, p.A2)
1800 Jun 14, Jean-Baptiste Kleber
(47), French general, architect, was murdered.
(MC, 6/14/02)
1800 Sep 5, Malta surrendered to
British after they blockaded French troops.
(MC, 9/5/01)
1800 Oct 1, Spain ceded Louisiana
to France in a secret treaty.
(AP, 10/1/97)
1800 Dec 3, Austrians were
defeated by the French at the Battle of Hohenlinden, near Munich.
(HN, 12/3/98)
1800 Robert Fulton (35) tested a
20-foot model of his torpedo-armed submarine on the Seine. He made two
20-minute dives himself.
(WSJ, 9/24/01, p.A22)
1801 Jun 29, Frederic Bastiat
(d.1850), French free-market economist, was born in Bayonne. "The state
is the great fictitious entity in which everyone seeks to live at the
expense of everyone else."
(WSJ, 7/5/01, p.A12)
1801 Jul 16, Pope Pius VII and 1st
consul Napoleon signed a concord.
(MC, 7/16/02)
1801 Oct 6, Napoleon Bonaparte
imposed a new constitution on Holland.
(HN, 10/6/98)
1801 French artist Girodet
depicted Ossian, the mythical 3rd century blind Scottish poet, before
the story was exposed as a fraud.
(WSJ, 7/26/08, p.W8)
1801 Francois Rene de
Chateaubriand (1768-1848), French writer, authored his novel “Atala”
following a trip to the US.
(WSJ, 5/8/08, p.A13)
1801 Napoleon opened the Louvre to
the public.
(SFC, 2/11/97, p.E5)
1801 Napoleon's army in Egypt
surrendered to Turkish and English forces. The French civilian toll
topped 25 of 150, while the military toll topped 25,000 over the 3-year
expedition.
(ON, 12/99, p.4)(SFC, 12/14/07, p.E3)
1801-1806 Alexandre Dumas (d.1870) covered these
years of French history in an 1869 serialized novel printed in the
journal, "The Universal Monitor." In the 1980s Claude Schopp, a retired
French lecturer, discovered the epic novel on microfilm. He got it
published under the title "Le Chevalier de Sainte-Hermine," and in 2005
it became a top ten seller.
(Reuters, 7/20/05)
1802 Jan 25, Napoleon was elected
president of Italian (Cisalpine) Republic.
(MC, 1/25/02)
1802 Feb 26, Victor Hugo (d.1885),
French novelist and poet, was born in Besancon. In 1998 Graham Robb
published the biography: "Victor Hugo." "Initiative is doing the right
thing without being told."
(WSJ, 2/10/98, p.A16)(HN, 2/26/98)(AP, 6/13/99)
1802 Feb, Napoleon sent a large
army under his brother-in-law, Charles Leclerc, to regain control of
St. Domingue. Thousands of soldiers died mainly to yellow fever and
French control was abandoned so as to support military ventures in
Europe. Toussaint L'Ouverture turned to guerrilla warfare inspired by
the ideals of the French Revolution and its motto of "Liberty,
Equality, Fraternity."
(CO, Grolier's, 11/10/95)(AP, 4/7/03)
1802 Mar 27, Treaty of Amiens was
signed. The French Revolutionary War ended.
(HN, 3/27/98)
1802 Apr 8, French Protestant
church became state-supported and controlled.
(MC, 4/8/02)
1802 May 19 Napoleon established
the French Order of Legion d'Honneur award (Legion of Honor). It was a
general military and civil order of merit conferred without regard to
birth or religion, provided that anyone admitted swore to uphold
liberty and equality.
(DrEE, 9/28/96, p.5)(SFC, 10/19/96, A7)
1802 Jul 8, Toussaint L'Ouverture
was sent to France in chains.
(AP, 4/7/03)
1802 Jul 24, Alexandre Dumas
(d.1870), French novelist and dramatist who wrote "The Count of Monte
Cristo" and "The Three Musketeers," was born. Alexandre Dumas, pere,
French author of romantic plays and novels. He wrote "The Man in the
Iron Mask." He was the father of Alexandre Dumas fils (1824-1895),
French author of plays of social realism.
(HFA, '96, p.34)(AHD, 1971, p.403)(WUD, 1994,
p.441)(HN, 7/24/98)
1802 Aug 2, Napoleon Bonaparte was
proclaimed "Consul for Life" by the French Senate after a plebiscite
from the French people.
(HN, 8/2/98)
1802 Aug 7, Napoleon ordered the
re-instatement of slavery on St. Domingue (Haiti).
(MC, 8/7/02)
1802 Aug 25, Toussaint L'Ouverture
was imprisoned in Fort de Joux, Jura, France.
(MC, 8/25/02)
1802 Sep 4, A French aeronaut
dropped eight-thousand feet equipped with a parachute.
(MC, 9/4/01)
1802 Sep 11, Piedmont, Italy, was
annexed by France.
(HN, 9/11/98)
1802 Dec 20, The United States
bought the Louisiana territory from France. [see Jan 11, 1803]
(HN, 12/20/98)
1802 The Rosetta Stone was seized
by the British in Egypt after the defeat of Napoleon’s army and was
sent to England.
(RFH-MDHP, p.182)
1803 Jan 11, Monroe and Livingston
sailed for Paris to buy New Orleans; they ended up buying Louisiana.
[see Dec 20, 1802]
(MC, 1/11/02)
1803 Apr 7, [Francois D] Toussaint
L'Ouverture, Haitian revolutionary, died in a dungeon at Fort Joux in
the French Alps.
(MC, 4/7/02)(AP, 4/7/03)
1803 Apr 26, Villagers of L’Aigle,
France, witnessed a meteor shower. The rocks helped to convince
scientists that meteors were of extraterrestrial origin.
(ON, 7/02, p.5)
1803 May 16, Great Britain and
France renewed their war.
(PCh, 1992, p.362)
1803 May 18, Great Britain
declared war on France after General Napoleon Bonaparte continued
interfering in Italy and Switzerland.
(HN, 5/18/99)(ON, 11/99, p.4)(SC, 5/18/02)
1803 May 23, Lord Elgin and his
family were detained in Paris. Elgin's family was allowed to proceed
but he was arrested and declared a prisoner of war.
(ON, 11/99, p.4)
1803 May 24, Charles LJL
Bonaparte, Corsican, French prince of Canino, Musignano, was born.
(MC, 5/24/02)
1803 Sep 28, Prosper Merimee
(d.1870), archeologist and playwright (Carmen-1845), was born in Paris,
France.
(www.kirjasto.sci.fi/merimee.htm)(www.nndb.com/people/584/000107263/)
1803 Nov 30, Spain, in a ceremony
at New Orleans, completed the process of ceding Louisiana to France,
which had sold it to the United States.
(CO, Grolier’s, 11/10/95)(AP, 11/30/04)
1803 Dec 3, Hector Berlioz, French
composer (Symphony Fantastique), was born. [see Dec 11]
(MC, 12/3/01)
1803 Dec 11, Hector Berlioz
(d.1869), French composer and conductor, was born. He introduced
arresting and gaudy instrumental colors in combinations that had not
been dreamed of before him. He composed "Romeo and Juliet" in 1939 and
conducted its first performance. He also composed the "Death of
Cleopatra." He composed "Symphonie Fantastique" and "La Damnation de
Faust." [see Dec 1]
(T&L, 10/80, p. 58)(SFC, 10/5/96, p.E1)(HN,
12/11/99)
1803 Dec 20, The Louisiana
Purchase was completed as the territory was formally transferred from
France to the United States during ceremonies in New Orleans. French
Prefect Pierre Clement Laussat, US Gov. William CC Claiborne and US
Gen. James Wilkinson signed 4 copies the treaty. The Louisiana Purchase
effectively doubled the size of the existing U.S. With 827,987 square
miles in the deal, that price translates to roughly $18 per square
mile- under 3 cents/acre.
(AP, 12/20/97)(SSFC, 12/21/03, p.A2)
1803 The French Academy of
Sciences insisted that meteorites could not exist because no specimens
had been produced.
(WSJ, 4/2/96, p.A-15)
1803-1815 In 2007 Charles Esdaile covered this period
in his book: “Napoleon’s Wars: An International History, 1803-1815.”
(Econ, 11/10/07, p.103)
1804 Jan 1, Jacques Dessalines
proclaimed the Republic of Haiti and declared independence from France
(National Day).
(WSJ, 3/1/04, p.A16)(SFCM, 5/30/04, p.19)
1804 Mar 21, The French civil
code, later called the "Code Napoleon," was adopted.
(AP, 3/21/08)
1804 Apr 20, Jean-Jacques
Dessalines, Haitian rebel leader, commanded a massacre of the French at
town of Cape Francois. It is generally thought that Dessalines had
around 20,000 French slaughtered in early 1804.
(http://tinyurl.com/yu94s8)(http://tinyurl.com/23fdxf)
1804 May 18, The French Senate
proclaimed Napoleon Bonaparte emperor.
(AP, 5/18/97) (HN, 5/18/98)
1804 Jul 1, George Sand
(Amandine-Aurore Lucille Dupin de Francueil, d.1876), French novelist,
was born in Paris. She wrote some 80 novels that included “Consuelo”
(1842) and “La Comtesse de Rudolstadt” (1843). In 1975 Curtis Cate
published the biography: "George Sand." "I would rather believe that
God did not exist than believe that He was indifferent."
(WUD, 1994, p.1265)(HN, 7/1/01) (AP, 10/17/98)(HN,
7/1/01)(Econ, 7/31/04, p.72)
1804 Jul 21, Victor Schoelcher,
abolished French slavery, was born in Guadeloupe.
(MC, 7/21/02)
1804 Dec 1, Emperor Napoleon
married Josephine de Beauharnais, of Martinique.
(MC, 12/1/01)
1804 Dec 2, Napoleon crowned
himself emperor of France with Josephine as Empress as Pope Pius VII
looked on. In 1807 Jacques-Louis David completed his painting of the
event.
(WSJ, 12/14/04, p.D10)(AP, 12/2/07)
1804 The 118 acre Pere
Lachaise Cemetery of Paris was founded. It was named after a Jesuit
priest, who was confessor to Louis XIV. His order built a house on the
site in 1682.
(SFC, 6/16/96, T-6)
1804 Empress Josephine, wife of
Napoleon I, began a rose collection at Malmaison, and sparked a wide
interest in rose culture.
(SFC, 7/14/99, p.4)
1805 May 26, Napoleon Bonaparte
was crowned king of Italy.
(AP, 5/26/97)
1805 May 28, Napoleon was crowned
in Milan, Italy. [see May 26]
(HN, 5/28/98)
1805 Jul 29, Alexis de Tocqueville
(d.1859), French historian who wrote "Democracy in America, was born."
"America is a land of wonders, in which everything is in constant
motion and every change seems an improvement."
(HN, 7/29/98)(AP, 1/20/01)
1805 Aug 9, Austria joined
Britain, Russia, Sweden and the Kingdom of Piedmont-Sardinia in the
Third Coalition against Napoleonic France and Spain.
(HN, 8/9/98)(HNQ, 10/19/98)
1805 Sep 30, Napoleon's army
entered the Rhine valley.
(MC, 9/30/01)
1805 Oct 20, Austrian general Karl
Mac surrendered to Napoleon’s army at the battle of Ulm.
(HN, 10/20/98)
1805 Oct 21, A British fleet
commanded by Vice Adm. Horatio Nelson defeated a French-Spanish fleet
in the Battle of Trafalgar fought off Cape Trafalgar, Spain. Admiral
Nelson won his greatest victory and though fatally wounded in the
battle aboard his flagship, he lived long enough to see victory. The
crew fittingly preserved his body in rum. Over 8,500 Englishmen,
Frenchmen and Spaniards were lost in the battle or the hurricane that
swept over the ships the next day. In 1807 Nelson’s surgeon William
Beatty authored “authentic narrative of the Death of Lord Nelson.” In
1999 Barry Unsworth authored the novel "Losing Nelson." In 2001 Joseph
F. Callo edited "Nelson Speaks: Admiral Lord Nelson in His Own Words."
In 2005 Adam Nicolson authored “Men of Honour: Trafalgar and the Making
of the English Hero;” Roy Adkins authored “Nelson’s Trafalgar,” and
Adam Nicolson authored “Seize the Fire.”
(WSJ, 5/24/01, p.A20)(Econ, 6/25/05, p.82)(WSJ,
8/19/05, p.W6)(ON, 3/06, p.2)
1805 Nov 19, Ferdinand de Lesseps,
French diplomat and engineer (built Suez Canal), was born.
(MC, 11/19/01)
1805 Dec 2, Napoleon Bonaparte
celebrated the first anniversary of his coronation with a victory at
Austerlitz over a Russian and Austrian army.
(HN, 12/2/98)
1805 Dec 6, Nicholas-Jacques Conti
(b.1755), French pencil maker, died in Paris. He created the number
system used to rate pencil lead hardness: the higher the number, the
harder the graphite.
(SSFC, 1/23/05, p.C2)
1805 Dec 31, The French
Revolutionary calendar law was abolished. France returned to the
Gregorian calendar.
(K.I.-365D, p.43)(MC, 12/31/01)
1805 Pierre-Paul Prud’hon
(1758-1823) painted "Empress Josephine at Malmaison."
(WSJ, 4/8/98, p.A20)
1805 Napoleon defeated Austria and
Prussia. In 1997 Alistair Horne wrote: "How Far from Austerlitz?
Napoleon 1805-1815."
(WSJ, 7/10/96, p.A16)(WSJ, 5/19/97, p.A16)
1805 Liguria was incorporated into
France.
(WUD, 1994, p.830)
1805 Absinthe was popularized by
Henri-Louis Pernod, who opened his first distillery in Switzerland
before moving to Pontarlier, France, in 1805.
(WSJ, 12/24/96, p.A1)(WSJ, 1/22/99, p.W8)(SFC,
3/24/00, p.A3)
1805 Jean-Baptiste Greuze
(b.1725), artist, died. Diderot said: "This man draws like an angel."
(WSJ, 5/14/02, p.D7)
1805-1815 The 1997 book by British historian Alistair
Horne: "How Far From Austerlitz," covered this period Napoleon
Bonaparte.
(SFEC,11/2/97, Par p.10)
1806 Apr 13, Jean-Jacques
Bachelier (~82), French painter, died.
(MC, 4/13/02)
1806 Jun, Lord Elgin was paroled
by the French government.
(ON, 11/99, p.4)
1806 Jul 12, Napoleon granted
Liechtenstein sovereignty.
(AP, 7/12/06)
1806 Aug 22, Jean-Honore Fragonard
(74), French painter, engraver, died.
(MC, 8/22/02)
1806 Oct 8, British forces laid
siege to French port of Boulogne using Congreve rockets, invented by
Sir William Congreve.
(MC, 10/8/01)
1806 Oct 14, The forces of French
Emperor Napoleon I defeated the Prussians in the twin battles of Jena
and Auerstadt.
(AP, 10/14/07)
1806 Oct 27, Emperor Napoleon
entered Berlin.
(HN, 10/27/98)
1806 Nov 21, In the Decree of
Berlin Emperor Napoleon banned all trade with England.
(MC, 11/21/01)
1806 Nov 28, French forces led by
Joachim Murat entered Warsaw.
(AP, 11/28/06)
1806 Dec 26, Napoleon’s army was
checked by the Russians at the Battle of Pultusk.
(HN, 12/26/98)
1806 Jean Ingres painted his
magnificent: "Napoleon I on His Imperial Throne."
(WSJ, 5/28/99, p.W12)
1806 In Paris the 3-mile Canal St.
Marten waterway was built to connect the Seine to northeast France.
(SFEC, 6/28/98, p.T7)
1806 Napoleon issued his Berlin
Decrees. They established the Continental System to restrict European
trade with Britain.
(WSJ, 7/10/96, p.A16)
1806 Napoleon ordered that all
French citizens be vaccinated against smallpox.
(NW, 10/14/02, p.50)
1806-1813 Trieste was held under French rule.
(www.geocities.com/CapitolHill/Rotunda/2209/Trieste.html)
1807 Jan 7, Responding to
Napoleon's blockade of the British Isles, The British blockaded
Continental Europe.
(HN, 1/7/99)
1807 Jan 20, Napoleon convened the
great Sanhedrin in Paris.
(MC, 1/20/02)
1807 Feb 8, At Eylau, Poland,
Napoleon’s Marshal Pierre Agureau attacked Russian forces in a heavy
snowstorm. Like Napoleon, to whom he is most often compared, Alexsandr
Suvorov believed that opportunities in battle are created by fortune
but exploited by intelligence, experience and an intuitive eye. To him,
mastery of the art and science of war was not, therefore, purely
instinctive. Napoleon’s forces ran low on supplies at Eylau and ate
their horses.
(HN, 2/7/97)(WSJ, 9/21/05, p.A8)
1807 Feb 9, French Sanhedrin was
convened by Napoleon.
(MC, 2/9/02)
1807 Apr 4, Joseph Jerome Le
Francaise de Lalande, French astronomer, died.
(MC, 4/4/02)
1807 Apr 20, Aloysius Bertrand
("Gaspard de la Nuit"), French poet, was born.
(HN, 4/20/01)
1807 Jun 25, Napoleon I of France
and Russian Czar Alexander I met near Tilsit, in northern Prussia, to
discuss terms for ending war between their empires.
(AP, 6/25/07)
1807 Jul 4, Giuseppe Garibaldi
(1807-1882) Italian military leader, was born in Nice, France. He led
the movement to make Italy one nation.
(HN, 7/4/98)(IB, Internet, 12/7/98)
1807 Jul 7, Napoleon I of France
and Czar Alexander I of Russia signed a treaty at Tilsit ending war
between their empires. It divided Europe among themselves and isolated
Britain.
(HN, 7/7/98)(AP, 7/7/07)
1807 In Naples Major Leopold Hugo,
the father of Victor Hugo, was promoted after a successful campaign
against the Calabrian banditti.
(WSJ, 2/10/98, p.A16)
1808 Feb 20, Honoré Daumier
(d.1879), French painter, sculptor, caricaturist and lithographer, was
born in Marseilles. He painted Crispin and Scapin.
(AAP, 1964)(WUD, 1994, p.369)(WSJ, 3/10/00,
p.W16)(HN, 2/20/01)
1808 Mar 1, In France, Napoleon
created an imperial nobility.
(HN, 3/1/99)
1808 Mar 23, Napoleon's brother
Joseph took the throne of Spain.
(SS, 3/23/02)
1808 Mar 31, French created the
Kingdom of Westphalia and ordered Jews to adopt family names.
(MC, 3/31/02)
1808 Apr 17, The Bayonne Decree by
Napoleon I of France ordered the seizure of U.S. ships.
(HN, 4/17/98)
1808 Apr 20, Charles Louis
Napoleon (d.1873), nephew of Napoleon Bonaparte, was born. He later
served as president (1848-1852) and as emperor of France (1852-1870).
(WUD, 1994, p.950)(WSJ, 1/13/98, p.A20)(HN, 4/20/98)
1808 May 30, Napoleon annexed
Tuscany and gave it seats in French Senate.
(MC, 5/30/02)
1808 Jul 20, Napoleon decreed that
all French Jews adopt family names.
(MC, 7/20/02)
1808 Aug 1, Joachim Murat
(1767-1815), French marshal and Napoleon's brother in law, became king
of Naples (1808-1815) and Sicily.
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Joachim_Murat)
1808 Aug 21, Napoleon Bonaparte's
General Junot was defeated by Wellington at the first Battle of the
Peninsular War at Vimiero, Portugal.
(HN, 8/21/02)
1808 Pierre-Paul Prud’hon
(1758-1823) painted "Justice and Divine Vengeance Pursuing Crime."
(WSJ, 4/8/98, p.A20)
1808 Napoleon chased Portugal’s
royal family to Brazil.
(Econ, 4/14/07, SR p.5)
1808 Napoleon codified the French
educational curriculum.
(Econ, 12/19/09, p.91)
1809 Jan 4, Louis Braille
(d.1852), inventor of a universal reading system for the blind, was
born in Coupvray, France.
(AP, 1/4/98)(HN, 1/4/99)
1809 Mar 12, Great Britain signed
a treaty with Persia forcing the French out of the country.
(HN, 3/12/99)
1809 Mar 27, Georges-Eugene
Haussmann (d.1891), French town planner, was born. He designed
modern-day Paris.
(HN,
3/27/01)(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Baron_Haussmann)
1809 Apr 10, Austria declared war
on France and her forces entered Bavaria.
(HN, 4/10/99)
1809 Apr 20, Napoleon defeated
Austria at Battle of Abensberg, Bavaria.
(HN, 4/20/98)
1809 Apr 22, At the Battle at
Eckmahl Napoleon beat Austrian archduke Karl.
(MC, 4/22/02)
1809 May 17, The Papal States were
annexed by France. Pope Pius VII responded by excommunicating Napoleon.
(MC, 5/17/02)(PTA, 1980, p.502)
1809 Jul 5, Pope Pius VII was
taken prisoner to France and held there until 1814.
(PC, 1992 ed, p.371)
1809 Jul 5-1809 Jul 6, Napoleon
beat Austria’s archduke Charles at the Battle of Wagram. He annexed the
Illyrian Provinces (now part of Slovenia, Croatia, Bosnia and
Herzegovina, Serbia, and Montenegro), and abolished the Papal States.
(http://tinyurl.com/vx8dk)(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_Wagram)
1809 Jul 27-1809 Jul 28, Arthur
Wellesley led the British army to triumph against the Spanish King
Joseph Bonaparte at Talavera de la Reina against a French army twice
his size. For this he was made Duke of Wellington.
(WSJ, 6/6/96, p.A15)(PC, 1992 ed, p.371)
1809 Oct 14, The Treaty of
Schönbrunn ended hostilities between France and Austria.
(PC, 1992 ed, p.371)
1809 Dec 16, Napoleon Bonaparte
was divorced from the Empress Josephine by an act of the French Senate.
Metternich had convinced Francis I of Austria to offer his daughter
Marie Louise as a bride to Napoleon.
(AP, 12/16/97)(ON, 5/04, p.2)
1809 Nicholas Appert won a French
prize of 12,000 francs for his method of keeping food in glass bottles.
Napoleon had offered the prize with military needs in mind.
(SFC, 9/19/07, p.G6)
1809-1826 Civilians and soldiers who returned home
from Napoleon’s expedition to Egypt (1798-1801) published during this
period in serial form “Description de l’Egypte” (The Description of
Egypt), the most comprehensive view of Egypt to date.
(SFC, 12/14/07, p.E3)(WSJ, 11/17/08, p.A17)
1810 Jan 10, French church
annulled the marriage of Napoleon I & Josephine.
(MC, 1/10/02)
1810 Mar 11, Emperor Napoleon of
France was married by proxy to Archduchess Marie Louise of Austria.
(AP, 3/11/98)(HN, 3/11/98)
1810 May 21, Charles Chevalier
d'Eon de Beaumont (81), French spy, cross dresser, died.
(MC, 5/21/02)
1810 Aug 21, Sweden’s Riksdag
elected Jean-Baptiste Bernadotte, Marshal of France under Napoleon, as
heir apparent to the Swedish throne.
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bernadotte)(Econ,
10/14/06, p.73)
1810 Oct 4, Alexander Walewski,
French earl, foreign minister, son of Napoleon I, was born.
(MC, 10/4/01)
1810 General Count Hugo, the
father of Victor Hugo, governed Central Spain during the Peninsula War.
He exterminated guerrillas and nailed up their severed heads.
(WSJ, 2/10/98, p.A16)
1810-1857 Alfred de Musset, French author: "How
glorious it is -- and also how painful -- to be an exception."
(AP, 5/6/00)
1811 Mar 20, Napoleon II, the Duke
of Reichstadt, was born. He was the son of Napoleon Bonaparte.
(HN, 3/20/99)
1811 Aug 5, C.L. Ambroise Thomas,
French composer (Mignon, Francoise de Rimini), was born.
(MC, 8/5/02)
1811 Aug 31, Théophile
Gautier, French poet, novelist and author of "Art for Art's Sake," was
born.
(HN, 8/31/98)
1811 Napoleon Bonaparte gave to
his wife, Empress Marie Louise, a tiara with 950 diamonds (700 carats).
The original emeralds were later replaced with Persian turquoise. Now
part of the Smithsonian Inst. and bequeathed by Marjorie Merriweather
Post.
(Postcard , Nat’l Mus. Nat. Hist.,1995)
1811-1823 The abbey at Cluny was quarried over this
period. It had been shut down by French Revolutionaries.
(SFEC, 11/21/99, p.T4)
1811-1882 Louis Blanc, French utopian socialist,
proposed the social ideal of "from each according to his ability, to
each according to his needs." The nineteenth-century writer and thinker
had a profound influence on radical thought.
(HNQ, 4/12/99)
1812 Mar 9, Swedish Pomerania was
seized by Napoleon.
(HN, 3/9/98)
1812 Apr 15,
Pierre-Etienne-Theodore Rousseau, painter, was born.
(MC, 4/15/02)
1812 Jun 24, Napoleon crossed the
Nieman River [in Lithuania] and invaded Russia. The French army under
Napoleon crossed the Nemunas River near Kaunas. Prior to his march into
Russia, Napoleon had taken land from Russia and returned it to Polish
control in Warsaw. This assured him safe passage through Poland and
Lithuania on his way to Russia. In 1824 the book “History of the
Expedition to Russia, Undertaken by the Emperor Napoleon in the Year
1812” by Count de Segur, a general in Napoleon’s army, was first
published. An English translation edited by Gerard Shelley was
published in 1928.
(HN, 6/24/98)(WSJ, 8/25/07, p.P9)(H of L, 1931,
p.83-84)
1812 Jul 22, English troops under
the Duke of Wellington defeated the French at the Battle of Salamanca
in Spain.
(AP, 7/22/97)(HN, 7/22/98)
1812 Aug 12, British commander the
Duke of Wellington occupied Madrid, Spain, forcing out Joseph Bonaparte.
(HN, 8/12/98)
1812 Aug 17, Napoleon Bonaparte's
army defeated the Russians at the Battle of Smolensk during the Russian
retreat to Moscow.
(HN, 8/17/98)
1812 Sep 7, On the road to Moscow,
Napoleon won a costly victory over the Russians under Kutuzov at
Borodino. This was the greatest mass slaughter in the history of
warfare until the Battle of the Somme in 1916. In 2004 Adam Zamoyski
authored “Napoleon’s Fatal March on Moscow.”
(HN, 9/7/98)(Econ, 4/17/04, p.81)
1812 Sep 14, Napoleon's invasion
of Russia reached its climax as his Grande Armee entered Moscow--only
to find the enemy capital deserted and burning, set afire by the few
Russians who remained. The fires were extinguished by Sep 19.
(HN,
9/14/98)(http://reference.allrefer.com/encyclopedia/B/Borodino.html)
1812 Sep 18, A fire in Moscow (set
by Napoleon's troops) destroyed 90% of houses and 1,000 churches. [see
Sep 14]
(MC, 9/18/01)
1812 Sep, In France as Napoleon’s
army proceeded to invade Russia it numbered 442,000 troops. In Sept. it
reached Moscow with 100,000 men. The remains of the Grandee Armee
struggled out of Russia in 1813 with 10,000 men. A map drawn by Charles
Joseph Minard plots six variables to depict the march over time: the
size of the army, its location on a 2-dimensional surface, the
direction of the army’s movement, and temperatures on various days
during the retreat from Moscow. In 1970 Curtis Cate published the book:
"The War of the Two Emperors."
(Adv. E. Tufte, 5/18/96, p.4)(SFEC, 6/15/97, Z1 p.3)
1812 Oct 19, French forces under
Napoleon Bonaparte began their retreat from Moscow.
(AP, 10/19/97)(HN, 10/19/98)
1812 Oct 23, There was a failed
coup against emperor Napoleon.
(MC, 10/23/01)
1812 Nov 6, The first winter snows
fell on the French Army as Napoleon Bonaparte retreated form Moscow.
(HN, 11/6/99)
1812 Nov 9, Paul Abadie, French
master builder (renovated Notre Dame), was born.
(MC, 11/9/01)
1812 Nov 14, As Napoleon
Bonaparte's army retreated form Moscow, temperatures dropped to 20
degrees below zero. Michel Ney defended the Napoleon‘s rear during the
retreat from Moscow and was called by Napoleon "The bravest of the
brave." He rejoined Napoleon during the Hundred Days and the Waterloo
campaign. After Napoleon‘s defeat, he was found guilty of treason and
shot. It was later suggested that many soldiers died because their tin
coat buttons deteriorated in the extreme cold.
(HN, 11/14/99)(HNQ, 9/21/00)(SSFC, 6/8/03, p.M2)
1812 Nov 27, One of the two
bridges being used by Napoleon Bonaparte's army across the Beresina
River in Russia collapsed during a Russian artillery barrage.
(HN, 11/27/99)
1812 Nov 29, The last elements of
Napoleon Bonaparte's Grand Armee retreated across the Beresina River in
Russia. Tens of thousands of French troops and civilians perished when
the Russians attacked Napoleon's army as it crossed the Berezina River
in Belarus on the punishing retreat from Moscow. The following Spring
it was recorded that 32,000 bodies were rounded up and burned on the
river banks near Studianka.
(HN, 11/29/99)(AP,
11/26/07)(www.wtj.com/articles/berezina/)
1812 Dec 6, The majority of
Napoleon Bonaparte's Grand Armeé staggered into Vilnius,
Lithuania, ending the failed Russian campaign. An estimated 50,000
soldiers reached Lithuania and as many as 20,000 died there. As many as
450,000 soldiers from France, Italy, Spain, Croatia, Germany and at
least 15 other countries died in the Russian campaign.
(HN, 12/6/99)(Arch, 9/02, p.41)
1812 Dec 13, The last remnants of
Napoleon Bonaparte's Grand Armeé reached the safety of Kovno,
Poland after the failed Russian campaign.
(HN, 12/13/99)
1812 Dec 18, Napoleon Bonaparte
arrived in Paris after his disastrous campaign in Russia.
(HN, 12/18/99)
1812 Jacques-Louis David, French
artist, painted a portrait of Napoleon as a working ruler.
(Econ, 12/23/06, p.126)
1812 Louis-Vincent-Leon Palliere,
French painter, created his work “Ulysses and Telemachus Massacre
Penelope’s Suitors.”
(WSJ, 12/28/05, p.D8)
1812 Pierre-Paul Prud’hon
(1758-1823) painted "Venus and Adonis."
(WSJ, 4/8/98, p.A20)
1812 Georges Cuvier, French
anatomist, published his 4 volume work "Recherches sur les ossemens
fossiles" (Research on Fossil Bones).
(NH, 8/96, p.18)
1813 Feb 28, Russia and
Prussia formed the Kalisz union against Napoleon.
(LHC,2/28/03)
1813 Mar 4, The Russians fighting
against Napoleon reached Berlin. The French garrison evacuated the city
without a fight.
(HN, 3/4/99)
1813 Apr 10, Joseph-Louis Lagrange
(b.1736), Italian-born mathematician, died in Paris. He is considered
to be the greatest mathematician of the eighteenth century.
(www.maths.tcd.ie/pub/HistMath/People/Lagrange/RouseBall/RB_Lagrange.html)
1813 Jun 26, Metternich met with
Napoleon at Dresden and informed him that he must sue for peace if he
wanted continued Austrian support.
(ON, 5/04, p.3)
1813 Jul 15, Napoleon Bonaparte's
representatives met with the Allies in Prague to discuss peace terms.
(HN, 7/15/98)
1813 Aug 23, At the Battle of
Grossbeeren Prussians under Von Bulow repulsed the French.
(MC, 8/23/02)
1813 Aug
26-1813 Aug 27, The Battle of Dresden was Napoleon’s last major victory
against the allied forces of Austria, Russia and Prussia.
(www.napoleonguide.com/battle_dresden.htm)
1813 Oct 16-19, In the Battle at
Leipzig (aka Battle of the Nations) Napoleon faced Prussia, Austria and
Russia and suffered one of his worst defeats.
(DoW, 1999, p.325)
1813 Oct 18, The Allies defeated
Napoleon Bonaparte at Leipzig.
(HN, 10/18/98)
1813 Nov 2, Treaty of
Fulda. After the Battle of Leipzig (Oct 16-19) King Frederick I of
Württemberg (1754-1816) deserted Napoleon’s waning fortunes. By a
treaty made with Klemens Wenzel Nepomuk Lothar von Metternich
(1773-1858) at Fulda, Hessen, Germany he secured the confirmation of
his royal title and of his recent acquisitions of territory, while his
troops marched with those of the allies into France.
(DoW, 1999, p.325)
1813 Nov 12, J. H. St. John de
Crevecouer, French explorer and writer, died. He had spent more than
half of his life in the New World and contributed two important
concepts to the American consciousness. The first is the idea of the
"American Adam," that there is something different, unique, special, or
new about these people called "Americans." The second idea is that of
the "melting pot," that people's "American-ness" transcends their
ethnic, cultural, or religious backgrounds.
(http://cs1.mcm.edu/~cetheridge/crevec.htm)(http://tinyurl.com/3cbq3j)
1813 Dec 31, Some 83,000 Prussian
and Russian soldiers pursued Napoleon across the Rhine at
Pfalzgrafenstein Castle.
(SFEC, 3/15/98, p.T5)
1813 A new 45 carat blue diamond
emerged in France. It was guessed to have been cut from the 112 carat
Blue Diamond of the crown jewels. The 112 carot stone was re-cut in
1673 to 67 carats.
(THC, 12/3/97)(EB, 1993, V6 p.51)
1814 Feb 10, Napoleon personally
directed lightning strikes against enemy columns advancing toward
Paris, beginning with a victory over the Russians at Champaubert.
During the Napoleonic Wars a British naval officer proposed the use of
saturation bombing and chemical warfare to undermine the strength of
Emperor Napoleon.
(HN, 2/10/97)
1814 Feb 27, Napoleon's Marshal
Nicholas Oudinot was pushed back at Barsur-Aube by the Emperor's allied
enemies shortly before his abdication.
(HN, 2/27/98)
1814 Mar 10, Napoleon Bonaparte
was defeated by a combined Allied Army at the battle of Laon, in
France.
(HN, 3/10/99)
1814 Mar 30, Britain and allies
marched into Paris after defeating Napoleon.
(MC, 3/30/02)
1814 Mar 31, Forces allied against
Napoleon captured Paris.
(MC, 3/31/02)
1814 Apr 4, Napoleon Bonaparte
first abdicated at Fontainebleau. He was allowed to keep the title of
emperor. [see Apr 11]
(www.napoleonseries.org/reference/political/legislation/restoration.cfm)
1814 Apr 11, Napoleon Bonaparte
(45) abdicated at Fontainebleau a 2nd time and was banished to the
island of Elba, a small island in the Mediterranean, retaining the
title of emperor and 400 volunteers to act as his guard. He was granted
sovereignty over Elba and a pension from the French government. [see
Apr 6]
(www.napoleonseries.org/reference/political/legislation/restoration.cfm)
1814 Apr 20, Napoleon departed for
exile in Elba.
(Econ, 4/14/07, p.94)
1814 Apr 26, King Louis XVIII
landed on Calais from England.
(MC, 4/26/02)
1814 Apr, The Duke of Wellington
led 60,000 troops against 325,000 French troops at Toulouse and
defeated them just days after Napoleon abdicated the throne.
(WSJ, 1/6/95, A-10)
1814 May 4, Bourbon reign was
restored in France. Louis XVIII was crowned as successor to his
guillotined brother.
(MC, 5/4/02)
1814 May 29, Empress Josephine
(1804-14), first wife of Napoleon Bonaparte, died. She maintained grand
roses at Malmaison, where there were an estimated 250 varieties.
(TGR, 1995, p.2)(SC, 5/29/02)
1814 May 30, The First Treaty of
Paris was declared, after Napoleon's first abdication. It returned
France to its 1792 borders and secured for the British definite
possession of the Cape of Good Hope.
(HN, 5/30/98)(HN, 5/30/99)(EWH, 4th ed, p.884)
1814 Jun 3, Nicolas Appert
(b.1749), French cook, died. He was the winner of a 12,000 franc prize
offered by Napoleon for developing a method to preserve food. His
original canning method took 14 years to develop and used glass jars
sealed with wax reinforced with wire.
(WSJ, 1/21/03, p.A1)(www.foodreference.com)
1814 Sep, The Congress of Vienna
convened in late September and continued to June 8, 1815. Friedrich von
Gentz of Austria served as secretary to the Congress. It was held after
the banishment of Napoleon to Elba. The congress aimed at territorial
resettlement and restoration to power of the crowned heads of Europe
with Prince Metternich of Austria as the dominant figure. Viscount
Castlereagh and the Duke of Wellington represented Britain. Alexander I
stood for Russia. Talleyrand stood for France. Prince von Hardenberg
stood for Prussia. In 2007 Adam Zamoyski authored “Rites of Peace: The
Fall of Napoleon and the Congress of Vienna.” In 2008 David King
authored “Vienna 1814: How the Conquerors of Napoleon Made Love, War
and Peace at the Congress of Vienna.
(Econ, 4/14/07,
p.94)(www.bartleby.com/65/vi/Vienna-C.html)(SSFC, 4/6/08, Books p.4)
1814 Oct 4, Jean Francois Millet
(d.1875), French painter, was born.
(www.artrenewal.org/asp/database/art.asp?aid=745)
1814 Jacques-Louis David created
his painting “Leonidas at Thermopylae.”
(WSJ, 4/6/05, p.D11)
c1814 Pierre Paul Prud’hon
(1758-1823), French artist, drew his "Bust of a Female Figure."
(WSJ, 12/5/96, p.A16)
1814 Alexander I of Russia entered
Paris at the head of an anti-Napoleon coalition.
(WSJ, 6/26/96, p.A16)
1814 The Marquis de Sade died. His
writings included "Justine," "Juliette," and "120 Days of Sodom." In
1999 Neal Schaeffer published "The Marquis De Sade: A Life," and
Francine du Plessix Gray published "At Home With the Marquis De Sade: A
Life."
(SFEC, 7/25/99, BR p.3)
1815 Feb 25, Napoleon left his
exile on the Island of Elba, intending to return to France.
(HN, 2/25/98)
1815 Feb 26, Napoleon, escaped
from the Island of Elba, and 1,200 of his men started the 100-day
re-conquest of France.
(HN, 2/26/98)(AP, 2/26/98)
1815 Mar 1, In France, returning
from Elba, Napoleon landed at Cannes with a force of 1, 500 men and
marched on Paris.
(HN, 3/1/99)
1815 Mar 20, Napoleon Bonaparte
entered Paris, beginning his "Hundred Days" rule. He had escaped from
his imprisonment on the island of Elba off the coast of Tuscany. He
gathered his veterans and marched on Paris. At Waterloo, Belgium, he
met the Duke of Wellington, commander of the allied anti-French forces
and was resoundingly defeated. Napoleon was then imprisoned on the
island of St. Helena in the south Atlantic. In 1997 Gregor Dallas
published: "The Final Act: The Roads to Waterloo." The book includes a
good account of the Congress of Vienna.
(AP, 3/20/97)(V.D.-H.K.p.232)(SFEC,11/2/97, Par
p.10) (HN, 3/20/98)
1815 Apr, British General Arthur
Wellesley, duke of Wellington, began assembling troops at Brussels,
Belgium. 73,000 British troops were joined by 33,000 German, Dutch and
Belgian troops preparing to face Napoleon. Prussian Gen. Gebhard
Leberecht von Blucher gathered an army of 120,000 southeast of Brussels.
(ON, 4/06, p.1)
1815 May 5, Eugene-Marin Labiche,
French playwright, was born.
(MC, 5/5/02)
1815 Jun 16, Napoleon defeated the
Prussians at the Battle of Ligny, Belgium.
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_Ligny)
1815 Jun 16, Emperor Napoleon
Bonaparte marched into Belgium to find himself confronted by two allied
armies, which he tried to split apart. The June 16 French attack at the
crossroads called Quatre Bras, depicted in a painting by W.B. Wollen,
badly mauled the British army, but failed to rout it or to take the
crossroads. Although similarly battered at Ligny that day, the Prussian
army also retired intact. Both armies would face Napoleon again two
days later at Waterloo.
(HNQ, 6/16/98)
1815 Jun 17, A heavy rainstorm
prevented French forces from catching up with Wellington’s army as they
retreated to Waterloo.
(Econ, 7/16/05, p.15)(ON, 4/06, p.3)
1815 Jun 18, British and Prussian
troops under the Duke of Wellington defeated Napoleon Bonaparte and his
forces at the Battle of Waterloo in Belgium. The French elite troops of
the Imperial Guard wore bearskins to appear more intimidating.
Afterwards Britain established towering bear skin hats for soldiers in
ceremonial duties and to guard royal residencies and the Tower of
London. Field Marshal Gebhard Leberecht von Blucher made a short speech
to his troops saying that he was pregnant and about to give birth to an
elephant. He was taken from the front in protective custody and missed
the battle. Napoleon lost over 40,000 men at Waterloo; the British and
Belgians lost 15,000; the Prussians lost 7,000. The total losses in 3
days of fighting was later estimated at 91,800. In 2002 Andrew Roberts
authored "Napoleon and Wellington." In 2005 Andrew Roberts authored
“Waterloo: Napoleon’s Last Gamble.”
(SFEC, 2/28/99, Z1p.10)(WSJ, 9/13/02, p.W10)(Econ,
2/12/05, p.81)(ON, 4/06, p.5)
1815 Jun 22, Napoleon Bonaparte
abdicated a second time.
(AP, 6/22/97)
1815 Jul 7, After defeating
Napoleon at Waterloo, the victorious Allies marched into Paris.
(HN, 7/7/98)
1815 Jul 9, King Louis XVIII left
Ghent for France.
(MC, 7/9/02)
1815 Jul 15, Napoleon Bonaparte
was captured by the British Navy at Rochefort, France, while attempting
to escape to America.
(ON, 4/06,
p.5)(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Napoleon)
1815 Aug 8, Napoleon Bonaparte set
sail for St. Helena, in the South Atlantic, to spend the remainder of
his days in exile. He died there in 1821 at age 51.
(AP, 8/8/97)(SFEC, 8/1/99, Par p.16)
1815 Oct 7, Marshal Ney, one of
Napoleon's most trusted field commanders, was condemned to death and
shot for having left the services of the King.
(HN, 10/7/98)
1815 Oct 13, Joachim Murat,
marshal of France and King of Naples (1808-15), was executed.
(MC, 10/13/01)
1815 Oct 17, Napoleon (d.1821)
arrived in St. Helena.
(MC, 10/17/01)
1815 Nov 20, The treaties known
collectively as the 2nd Peace of Paris were concluded. Austria’s
chancellor Klemens von Metternich helped create a “Concert of Europe,”
a system by which 4-5 big powers kept miscreants in check and managed
the affairs of smaller states for over a decade.
(http://tinyurl.com/2sqgp9)(Econ, 6/9/07,
p.68)(www.newadvent.org/cathen/07398a.htm)
1816 Jan 12, France decreed the
Bonaparte family to be excluded from the country forever.
(MC, 1/12/02)
1816 Jul 3, Dorothea Jordan (65),
French actress, mistress (William IV), died.
(MC, 7/3/02)
1816 Sep 5, Louis XVIII of France
dissolved the chamber of deputies, which had been challenging his
authority.
(HN, 9/5/98)
1816 Jacques Louis David
(1748-1825) painted the portrait: "Comte Henri-Amedee de Turenne".
(WUD, 1994 p.369)
1816 In France Joseph N.
Niepce developed the first photographic negative. His earliest recorded
image, an 1825 print of a man leading a horse, sold for $443,220 in
2002.
(WSJ, 1/11/99, p.R14)(SFC, 7/14/99, p.4)(SFC,
3/22/02, p.A2)
1816 France adopted the Paris
meridian as the standard clock time for the country. Sundials were used
up to this time.
(WSJ, 10/26/99, p.A24)
1816 Dr. Rene Theophile Hyacinthe
Laennec invented the stethoscope.
(ON, 9/00, p.11)
1816 Saartjie Baartman (26), taken
from S. Africa in 1810, fell sick and died penniless and friendless in
France after being exhibited as the "Hottentot Venus." Her body was
dissected, her brain and genitals were bottled, and her skeleton was
wired and exhibited in the Musee de l’Homme in Paris. In 2002 her
remains were returned to S. Africa. In 2003 Barbara Chase-Ribaud
authored the novel "Hottentot Venus" based on the Baartman story. In
2007 Rachel Holmes authored “African Queen: The Real Life of the
Hottentot Venus.”
(SFC, 5/4/02, p.A8)(SSFC, 11/9/03, p.M6)(SFC,
1/1/07, p.D2)
1817 Jul 14, Madame de Stael (51),
writer and daughter of former French finance minister Jacques Necker,
died. She was intimate with Benjamin Constant and their intellectual
collaboration made them one of the most important intellectual pairs of
their time. In 2005 Maria Fairweather authored “Madame de Stael.” In
2008 Renee Winegarten authored the dual biography “Germaine de Stael
& Benjamin Constant.”
(Econ, 3/19/05,
p.88)(www.kirjasto.sci.fi/stael.htm)(WSJ, 6/23/08, p.A15)
c1817-1924 Pierre Joseph Redoute printed "Les Roses."
(SFEM, 4/6/97, p.16)
1818 Jun 17, Charles Francois
Gounod, opera composer of "Faust" and "Romeo et Juliette," was born in
Paris, France.
(MC, 6/17/02)
1818 Aug 7, Henri Charles Litolff,
French composer, pianist, was born.
(MC, 8/7/02)
1818 Theophile Bra, French
academic sculptor, won the Prix de Rome.
(SFEM, 11/1/98, p.4)
1818 Baron Karl de Drais de
Sauerbrun of Germany invented the draisienne, the first 2-wheeled,
rider-propelled machine and exhibited it in Paris. The vehicle came to
be known as the “velocipede,” a 2-wheeled running machine without
pedals.
(Wired, 2/98, p.172)(Econ, 2/5/05, p.77)
1819 Jun 10, J.D. Gustave Courbet
(d.1877), French realist painter (Demoiselles the la Seine), was born.
His realistic landscapes were marked by bold shadows and compositions
fragmented by the play of natural light. This technique was pursued
more fully by the impressionists. His work included "Rock at
HautePierre."
(DPCP, 1984)(WSJ, 3/10/00, p.W16)(MC, 6/10/02)
1819 Jun 20, Jacques Offenbach
(d.1880), French composer (Tales of Hoffmann), was born in Cologne. His
work included the comedy opera "Barbe-Bleue" (Blue Beard).
(MC, 6/20/02)(WSJ, 2/20/98, p.A16)
1819 Sep 17, Jean-Bernard-Leon
Foucault, physicist (pendulum proved Earth rotates), was born. [see Sep
18]
(MC, 9/17/01)
1819 Sep 18, Leon Foucault, French
physicist, was born. [see Sep 17]
(HN, 9/18/00)
c1819 In France a silver soup
tureen was manufactured by Jean-Baptiste Claude Odiot. It fetched over
a million dollars in a 1997 auction.
(WSJ, 10/24/97, p.B18)
1820 Feb 15, Pierre-Joseph Cambon
(63), member of Committee of Public Safety (French Revolution), died.
(MC, 2/15/02)
1820s A road was constructed
through La Mas d'Azil, a tunnel cut by Arize River.
(SFEC, 5/30/99, p.T4)
1821 Feb 11, Auguste Edouard
Mariette, French Egyptologist, (dug out Sphinx 12/16/42), was born.
(MC, 2/11/02)
1821 May 5, Napoleon Bonaparte,
emperor France (1799-1815), died in exile on the island of St. Helena.
He died by slow poisoning at the hands of his companion Charles Tristan
de Montholon on the island of St. Helena. Scottish pathologist Dr.
Hamilton Smith later used Napoleon’s hair to determine that arsenic had
been administered about 40 times from 1820-1821. In 1992 Proctor
Patterson Jones authored "Napoleon, An Intimate Account." In 1999 an
English translation of Jean-Paul Kauffmann's "The Black Room at
Longwood: Napoleon's Exile on St. Helena" was published. In 1904 F. De
Bouirrienne published "Memoirs of Napoleon Bonaparte." In 1988 S. De
Chair edited "Napoleon's Memoirs."
(V.D.-H.K.p.232)(AP, 5/5/97)(SFEC, 1/18/98, BR
p.9)(SFEC, 8/16/98, Z1 p.8)(SFC, 4/8/99, p.C5)(AP, 8/8/97)(SFEC,
8/1/99, Par p.16)(MC, 5/5/02)
1821 Aug 19, There was a failed
liberal coup against French King Louis XVIII.
(MC, 8/19/02)
1821 Dec 12, Gustave Flaubert
(d.1880), French novelist, was born. "Our ignorance of history causes
us to slander our own times." [see May 8, 1880]
(V.D.-H.K.p.278)(AP, 6/19/99)(HN, 12/12/99)
1822 Sep 9, Napoleon J K P
Bonaparte, French prince and member National Convention, was born.
(MC, 9/9/01)
1822 Dec 27, Louis Pasteur
(d.1895), French chemist and microbiologist, was born in Dole, France.
One of his several monumental contributions to science and industry was
pasteurization, the process of heating wine, beer and milk to kill
microorganisms that cause fermentation and disease. Pasteur also
developed important vaccines and his work on molecular asymmetry led to
the science of stereochemistry. He was the first to vaccinate animals
for anthrax and chicken cholera, and in 1885 he proved that his rabies
vaccine could be used successfully on humans when he saved the life of
a 9-year-old boy who had been bitten by a rabid dog. The Pasteur
Institute was formed in Paris in 1888 for research on rabies. Pasteur
ran the institute until his death in 1895.
(WUD, 1994, p.1055)(AP, 12/27/97) (HNPD, 12/27/98)
1822 Pierre-Paul Prud’hon
(1758-1823) painted "A Grief-Stricken Family." It was painted shortly
after his student and mistress, Constance Mayer, slit her throat.
(WSJ, 4/8/98, p.A20)
1823 Jan 27,
Edouard-Victoire-Antoine Lalo, French composer (Symphonie Espagnole),
was born.
(MC, 1/27/02)
1823 Feb 28, Ernst Renan, French
philosopher, historian, scholar of religion, was born.
(MC, 2/28/02)
1824 Jul 27, Alexandre Dumas fils,
French playwright, novelist (Camille), was born.
(MC, 7/27/02)
1824 Jul 30, Gioacchino Rossini
became manager of Theatre Italian in Paris.
(MC, 7/30/02)
1824 The book “History of the
Expedition to Russia, Undertaken by the Emperor Napoleon in the Year
1812” by Count de Segur, a general in Napoleon’s army, was first
published. An English translation edited by Gerard Shelley was
published in 1928.
(WSJ, 8/25/07, p.P9)
1825 May 20, Charles X became King
of France.
(MC, 5/20/02)
1825 Jun 9, Pauline Bonaparte
(44), the sister of Napoleon, died. In 2009 Flora Fraser authored
Pauline Bonaparte: Venus of Empire.”
(Econ, 3/7/09,
p.91)(www.findagrave.com/cgi-bin/fg.cgi?page=gr&GRid=27659636)
1825 Jun 19, Gioacchino Rossini's
"Il Viaggio a Reims," premiered. Rossini wrote the "IL Viaggio a Reims"
opera to celebrate the coronation of Charles X. The libretto by Luigi
Balocchi was intended to show all major European nationalities coming
together to celebrate the event.
(WSJ, 9/29/99, p.A20)(MC, 6/19/02)
1825 Jun 20, Coronation of French
king Charles X, the surviving brother of guillotined Louis XVI.
(MC, 6/20/02)
1825 Oct 17, Franz Liszt's
operetta Don Sanche premiered in Paris
(MC, 10/17/01)
1825 Dec 29, Jacques-Louis David
(b.1748), French painter (Death of Marat), died.
(WUD, 1994 p.369)(MC, 12/29/01)
1825 Jean Anthelme Brillat-Savarin
(1755-1826), French lawyer and professor, invented the genre of food
writing with his book “The Physiology of Taste.”
(WSJ, 5/5/07, p.P10)
1825 A French emissary of Charles
X demanded that Haiti pay 150 million gold francs in exchange for
recognition as French warships cruised over the horizon. The deal
required 5 annual payments of 30 million and required a loan from a
French bank for the 1st payment. Haiti renegotiated the debt in 1838.
(WSJ, 1/2/04, p.A1)
1825 France established its
imperial paramilitary, the Gendarmerie Coloniale, for law enforcement
across its colonial empire.
(WSJ, 2/2/04, p.A12)
1826 Feb 2, Jean Anthelme
Brillat-Savarin (b.1755), French lawyer and epicure, died. “Tell me
what you eat and I will tell you what you are.” His famous work,
Physiologie du goût (The Physiology of Taste), was published in
December 1825, two months before his death.
(WSJ, 7/19/08,
p.W1)(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brillat-Savarin)
1826 Apr 6, Gustave Moreau, French
painter, was born.
(MC, 4/6/02)
1826 Theophile Bra, French
academic sculptor, experienced a nervous breakdown and began to make
visionary paintings.
(SFEM, 11/1/98, p.)
1826 Corot painted "Cascade of
Terni." "Its flat light, monumentalizing simplicity and minimal content
anticipated Courbet, Manet and Cezanne."
(SFC, 6/4/96, p.E5)
1826 In Egypt Jean-Francois
Champollion, French Egyptologist and decipherer of the Rosetta Stone,
began collecting Egyptian artifacts. He convinced Charles X to purchase
the private collections of the French and English consuls in Egypt.
(WSJ, 1/29/98, p.A16)
1826 Dr. Rene Theophile Hyacinthe
Laennec, inventor of the stethoscope, died from tuberculosis.
(ON, 9/00, p.11)
1826-1829 Dumont d’Urville (1790-1842), French
explorer and naturalist, sailed around the Pacific Ocean.
(CW, Spring ‘99, p.3)
1827 Feb 1, Alphonse de
Rothschild, French banker, was born.
(MC, 2/1/02)
1827 Mar 5, Pierre-Simon Laplace
(b.1749), French mathematician, astronomer, physicist, died. He
invented perturbation theory and wrote the 5-volume work "Celestial
Mechanics." In 1998 Charles Couiston Gillespie published his biography
"Pierre-Simon Laplace: A Life in Exact Science."
(WSJ, 2/19/98,
p.A20)(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pierre-Simon_Laplace)
1827 Oct 20, British, French and
Russian squadrons entered the harbor at Navarino, Greece, and destroyed
most of the Egyptian fleet there. The Ottomans demanded reparations.
(EWH, 4th ed,
p.770)(www.ipta.demokritos.gr/erl/navarino.html)
1827 Victor Hugo wrote the
official coronation ode for Charles X, the last Bourbon king.
(WSJ, 2/10/98, p.A16)
1827 The first Egyptian Museum was
housed in the Louvre’s Cour Caree with Jean-Francois Champollion as
curator.
(WSJ, 1/29/98, p.A16)(WSJ, 10/7/98, p.A20)
1827 The lithopane (lithophane)
was patented in Paris. It allowed a picture, embedded in porcelain, to
be viewed in light by varying the thickness of a porcelain base.
Generally credited as being the invention of Baron Paul de Bourguignon,
of Rubelles, France, in 1827, the earliest forms of lithophanes were
actually produced in China many years before other countries produced
them.
(SFC, 3/1/06,
p.G7)(http://bellerosefarm.com/html/_lithopane_history.html)
1827 Joseph Niepce, French
inventor, met with English botanist Francis Bauer, who agreed to
present Niepce’s ground breaking photographic work to the Royal
Society, which rejected the bid. Before leaving London Niepce made a
gift of his 1826 pewter image to Bauer. The pewter image was
re-discovered in 1952 by photo historian Helmut Gernsheim.
(ON, 10/08, p.8)
1828 Feb 8, French author Jules
Verne (d.1905) was born. He is considered the father of science
fiction. Many of his 19th-century works forecast amazing scientific
feats--feats that were actually carried out in the 20th century--with
uncanny accuracy. Verne's 1865 book From the Earth to the Moon told the
story of a space ship that is launched from Florida to the moon and
that returns to Earth by landing in the ocean. Something of a scientist
and traveler himself, Verne's 1870 work about a submarine, "Twenty
Thousand Leagues Under the Sea," and "Around the World in Eighty Days"
also foretold technological advances that seemed fantastic at the time.
(HNPD, 2/8/99)
1828 Apr 16, Francisco Jose Goya y
Lucientes (b.1746), Spanish painter, cartoonist, died at age 82 in
France. He had served 3 generations of Spanish kings as court painter.
In 2002 Julia Blackburn authored "Old Man Goya." In 2003 Robert Hughes
authored "Goya." See link for Goya timeline.
(WSJ, 5/10/02, p.W8)(Econ, 10/18/03,
p.81)(http://tinyurl.com/ngxt7)
1828 Apr 21, Hippolyte Taine,
French philosopher, historian (Voyage in Italy), was born.
(MC, 4/21/02)
1828 Aug 22, Franz Joseph Gall
(70), German-French physician, fraud (phrenology), died.
(MC, 8/22/02)
1828 Sep 20, Gioacchino Rossini’s
opera "Le Comte Ory," premiered in Paris.
(MC, 9/20/01)
1828 Dr. Paul Ferdinand Gachet was
born in Lille. He moved to Paris in 1848 to study medicine and
developed a clientele of artists that included Pissarro and Cezanne. He
accepted paintings in exchanged for services and amassed a sizable
collection. He also painted and used the pseudonym Paul Van Ryssel.
(WSJ, 2/16/99, p.A20)
1828 A perfume and cosmetics house
was established. In 1998 the firm was led by Jean-Paul Guerlain, the
great-grandson of the founder.
(SFC, 6/13/98, p.A11)
1828 In France Louis Daguerre
contacted Joseph Niepce with an offer to work together on the
photographic process that Niepce had developed.
(ON, 10/08, p.8)
1829 Feb 16, Francois-Joseph
Gossec (95), Belgian-French composer (Messe de Morts), died.
(MC, 2/16/02)
1829 Aug 31, Giachinno Rossini's
final opera "William Tell" was produced in Paris.
(MC, 8/31/01)
1829 Dec 14, In France Joseph
Niepce signed a 10-year partnership agreement with Louis Daguerre to
perfect a new photographic imaging process discovered by Niepce.
(ON, 10/08, p.9)
1829 Dec 18, Jean-Baptiste de
Lamarck (~85), French nature investigator, died.
(MC, 12/18/01)
1829 The Obelisk of Luxor, a gift
from Egypt, was transported to the Place de la Concorde.
(WSJ, 10/26/99, p.A24)
1829-1833 Honore Daumier created his bust of Comte de
Lameth. Daumier honed his caricaturing skills with a series of
terra-cotta busts that lampooned the right-wing leaders of the court
party. Lameth had fought for the colonists in the American Revolution
and had voted to abolish the aristocracy during the French revolution.
(WSJ, 3/10/00, p.W16)
1830 Jan 28, Daniel Auber's opera
"Fra Diavolo," premiered in Paris.
(MC, 1/28/02)
1830 Feb, The Comedie-Francaise
performed "Hernani," a play whose hero swears vengeance against Don
Carlo, i.e. King Charles. The play "provoked a brouhaha that heralded
the July Revolution."
(WSJ, 2/10/98, p.A16)
1830 Jul 5, The French occupied
the North African city of Algiers.
(AP, 7/5/97)
1830 Jul 10, Camille Pissarro
(d.1903), French impressionist painter, was born on the island of St.
Thomas in the West Indies. He studied as a child in Paris but spent his
early years as an artist in Caracas, Venezuela. In Paris he became a
devotee of the neo-Impressionist technique.
(WUD, 1994, p.1097)(DPCP 1984)(HN, 7/10/01)
1830 Jul 26, King Charles X of
France issued five ordinances limiting the political and civil rights
of citizens.
(HN, 7/26/98)
1830 Jul 27, A second Revolution
broke out in Paris opposing the laws of Charles X.
(MC, 7/27/02)
1830 Jul 28, Revolution in France
replaced Charles X with Louis Philippe.
(SC, 7/28/02)
1830 Jul 29, Liberals led by the
Marquis of Lafayette seized Paris in opposition to the king's
restrictions on citizens' rights.
(HN, 7/29/98)
1830 Jul 31, Charles X of France
was forcibly ejected from the French throne. [see Jul 28]
(MC, 7/31/02)
1830 Aug 9, Louis Philippe
(d.1850) formally accepted the crown of France, following abdication of
Charles X, last brother of guillotined Louis XVI. He was the son of the
opportunistic Duke d'Orleans, first cousin to the late king, who
renounced his royal heritage and called himself plain Phillipe Egalite.
Louis-Philippe voted for his cousin's death in 1793, but followed him
to the guillotine in 1794.
(MC, 8/9/02)
1830 Dec 8, Henri-Benjamin
Constant de Rebecque (b.1767), Swiss-born thinker, writer and French
politician, died. He was intimate with Anne Louise Germaine de
Staël and their intellectual collaboration made them one of the
most important intellectual pairs of their time. In 2008 Renee
Winegarten authored the dual biography “Germaine de Stael &
Benjamin Constant.”
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Benjamin_Constant)
1830 Etienne Henri Dumaige
(d.1888), French sculptor, was born.
(SSFC, 2/10/02, p.G5)
1830 Stendhal (1783-1842), the nom
de plume of French author Henri Beyle, authored “The Red and the
Black,” the story of a peasant who reaches for upward mobility through
the favors of two mistresses.
(WSJ, 3/15/08, p.W10)
1830 The First Symphony by Berlioz
had its premiere.
(SFC, 6/28/97, p.E1)
1830 The Hotel de Ville (City
Hall), at 29 Rue de Rivoli, was built. It was rebuilt between 1874 and
1882 in the neo-Renaissance style and is used for official city
receptions.
(SFEC, 1/4/98, p.T7)
1830 Henry Philip Hope purchased
the 45 carot blue diamond. It later began to be known as the "Hope
Diamond."
(THC, 12/3/97)
1830 A Frenchman patented a sewing
machine.
(WSJ, 1/11/99, p.R25)
1831 Sep 7, Victorien Sardou,
French stage writer (Madame Sans-Gene, Tosca), was born.
(MC, 9/7/01)
1831 Balzac wrote his story "The
Unknown Masterpiece." It became a parable of modern art.
(WSJ, 1/4/98, p.A8)
1832 Jan 6, Gustave Dore,
illustrator (Inferno, Ancient Mariner), was born in Strasbourg, France.
(MC, 1/6/02)
1832 Jan 23, Edouard Manet
(d.1883), French impressionist painter, was born. His work was a major
influence on the young artists who created the Impressionist movement.
His style was influenced by the Spanish masters, particularly
Velasquez. His work included the "Execution of Maximilian," "Luncheon
on the Grass," the pastel "Portrait of Mademoiselle Lemaire," "In the
Boat," "La Promenade" and "Le Journal Illustre" (ca. 1878-79).
(WUD, 1994, p.871)(WSJ, 7/1/96, p.A11)(SFC, 8/21/96,
p.A9)(AAP, 1964) (WUD, 1994, p.871)(WSJ, 2/13/97, p.A16)(DPCP 1984)
1832 May 31, Evariste Galois
(b.1811), French mathematician who developed a general theory of
equations, died from wounds suffered in a duel. In 2005 Mario Livio
authored “The Equation That couldn’t Be Solved: How Mathematical Genius
Discovered the Language of Symmetry.”
(www-groups.dcs.st-and.ac.uk/~history/Mathematicians/Galois.html)(Econ,
8/27/05, p.68)
1832 Jun 5, In Paris an
insurrection took place during General Lamarque's funeral when
insurgents got as far as the Rue Montorgueil and were then driven back.
(SFC, 6/30/07,
p.E2)(www.marxists.org/archive/marx/works/1848/07/01.htm)
1832 Nov 15, Jean-Baptiste Say
(b.1767), French economist, died. He is remembered for what came to be
called Say’s Law: “the supply (sale) of X creates the demand (purchase)
of Y.” This law can be shown by business-cycle statistics. When
downturns start, production is always first to decline, ahead of
demand. When the economy recovers, production recovers ahead of demand.
A society can’t consume if it does not produce.
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jean-Baptiste_Say)(WSJ, 1/23/08, p.A25)
1832 Dec 15, Alexandre-Gustave
Eiffel, designed named the tower in Paris, was born.
(HN, 12/15/98)
1832 Jean-Hippolyte Flandrin
(1809-1864), French artist, painted “Theseus Recognized by His Father.”
(WSJ, 12/28/05,
p.D8)(www.newadvent.org/cathen/06096a.htm)
1832 Jean Ingres painted the
portrait of the self-made newspaperman "Louis-Francois Bertin."
(WSJ, 5/28/99, p.W12)
1832 Honore Daumier, French
artist, was imprisoned for 6 months for his barbs against King
Louis-Philippe.
(WSJ, 3/10/00, p.W16)
1832 Berlioz composed "Lelio."
(SFC, 6/28/97, p.E1)
1832 Charles-Louis Havas sets up a
foreign newspapers translation agency.
(www.afp.com)
1833 Jan 19, Louis J. Ferdinand
Herold (41), French composer (Zampa), died.
(MC, 1/19/02)
1833 Jul 5, Joseph Nicephore
Niepce (b.1765), French inventor most noted as the inventor of
photography, died. He is well-known for taking some of the earliest
photographs, dating to the 1820s.
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nic%C3%A9phore_Ni%C3%A9pce)
1833 In Paris the St. Vincent de
Paul Society was founded to provide aid to the poor.
(SFC, 9/15/98, p.A9)
1834 Apr 2, Frederic-Auguste
Bartholdi, sculptor (Statue of Liberty), was born in Colmar,
France.
(HN, 4/2/01)
1834 Apr 15, The Honore Daumier
painting "Rue Transnonain, le 15 Avril 1834" showed the ghastly
aftermath of a civilian massacre by government forces.
(WSJ, 5/9/00, p.A24)
1834 May 20, The Marquis de
Lafayette (78), US Revolutionary War hero (Marie Joseph Paul Yves Roche
Gilbert du Motier), died in Paris, France. He was the 1st foreigner to
address Congress. In 2002 Congress moved to make him an honorary US
citizen. In 1983 Olivier Bernier authored “Lafayette, Hero of Two
Worlds.” In 200 Harlow Giles Unger authored “Lafayette.”
(WSJ, 1/15/97, p.A12)(SFC, 7/23/02, p.A2)(ON, 2/09,
p.5)(www.marquisdelafayette.net/)
1834 Jul 19, Hilaire Germain Edgar
Degas (d.1917), French impressionist painter, was born. His mother was
a Creole and he journeyed to New Orleans in the 1870s. His work
included "The Millinery Shop," "Combing the Hair," "Nude Fixing Her
Hair," "Two Dancers" (c1890-1898), "Frieze of Dancers" (1893-1898),
"Self Portrait" (c1863-1865 & c1895-1900) and "Blue Dancers"
(1895). He also collected art and by the time of his death had amassed
more than 500 paintings and 5,000 prints. The collection was auctioned
off in Paris from Mar 1918 to Jul 1919. His time in New Orleans is
covered in the 1997 book "Degas in New Orleans: Encounters in the
Creole World of Kate Chopin and George Washington Cable" by Christopher
Benfey.
(WUD, 1994, p.380)(WSJ, 10/2/96, p.B5)(SFC,
10/22/96,p.E8)(WSJ,10/21/97,p.A20)(SFEC, 1/4/98, BR p.9)(HN, 7/19/98)
1834 Honore Daumier created his
lithograph "The Legislative Belly."
(WSJ, 5/9/00, p.A24)
1834 David Johnston founded a
pottery in Bordeaux, France. He became mayor of Bordeaux in 1838 and
sold his factory to technical director Jules Vieillard in 1845.
(SFC, 8/17/05, p.G5)
1834 A Frenchman invented a wire
nail-making machine.
(SFEC, 5/31/98, Z1 p.8)
1834 Joseph-Marie Jacquard
(b.1752), French loom maker and inventor, died. In 2004 James Essinger
authored “Jacquard’s Web,” a biography that connects Jacquard’s work to
computer technology.
(WSJ, 11/12/04, p.W10)
1834-1910 Leon Walras, French economist. He founded
the marginalist school of economic thought, which held that prices
depend on the level of customer demand. He developed a mathematical
formulation of the mechanics of the price system with equations that
tied together theories of production, exchange, money and capital. His
general equilibrium theory is called "Walrasion general equilibrium"
and is still part of modern economic theory.
(WSJ, 1/11/99, p.R20)
1835 Apr 26, Frederic Chopin’s
"Grand Polonaise Brillante," premiered in Paris.
(MC, 4/26/02)
1835 Jul 28, King Louis Philippe
of France survived an assassination attempt by Giuseppe Maria Fieschi,
who rigged 25 guns together and fired them all with the pull of a
single trigger.
(www.britannica.com/eb/article?tocId=9034220&query=July%20Revolution)
1835 Oct 9, Camille Saint-Saens,
composer (Carnival of the Animals, Organ Symphony, Samson et Dalilah),
was born in Paris, France.
(MC, 10/9/01)
1835 The French government
prohibited political caricature.
(Econ, 12/20/03, p.75)
1835 A foreign newspapers
translation agency, set up by Charles-Louis Havas, became the Agence
Havas, the first worldwide news agency.
(www.afp.com)
1836 Feb 21, Leo Delibes, ballet
composer (Coppelia), was born in Saint-Germain-du-Val, France.
(MC, 2/21/02)
1836 Jun 10, Andre M. Ampere,
French mathematician, physicist (Amp), died.
(MC, 6/10/02)
1836 Jun 26, Claude-Joseph Rouget
de Lisle, author, composer ("La Marseillaise"), died.
(MC, 6/26/02)
1836 Jul 6, French General Thomas
Bugeaud defeated Abd al-Kader's forces beside the Sikkak River in
Algeria.
(HN, 7/6/98)
1836 Nov 6, Charles X (79), King
of France (1824-30), died.
(MC, 11/6/01)
1836 Nov 10, Charles Louis
Napoleon (1808-1873), nephew of Napoleon Bonaparte, failed in an
attempted coup at Strasbourg and was exiled to the US by the government
of Louis Philippe.
(www.infoplease.com/ce6/people/A0859871.html)
1836 Nov 27, Carle [Antoine CH]
Vernet, French painter and lithographer, died.
(MC, 11/27/01)
1836 Auguste Mayer painted "Scene
from the Battle of Trafalgar."
(WSJ, 5/7/02, p.D7)
1836 The 107-foot-tall Egyptian
Obelisk reached Paris.
(SFC, 5/15/98, p.D3)
1836 In France the medieval timber
roof of the Chartres cathedral burned. Architect J.B. Lassus replaced
it with an innovative roof of iron.
(WSJ, 7/5/08, p.W9)
1837 Jan 11, Francois Gerard (66),
French baron, painter, died.
(MC, 1/11/02)
1837 Aug 11, Marie Francois
Carnot, engineer, French pres (1887-94), was born.
(MC, 8/11/02)
1837 Dec 9, Charles Emile
Waldteufel, waltz composer (Skaters), was born in Strasbourg, France.
(MC, 12/9/01)
1837 French explorer Dumont
d’Urville (1790-1842) sailed along a coastal area of Antarctica that he
named the Adélie Coast in honor of his wife. He also named the
Adelie penguin after his wife.
(WSJ, 7/1/97,
p.A6)(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dumont_D'Urville)
1838 Apr 3, Leon Michel Gambetta,
French attorney, premier (1881-82), was born.
(MC, 4/3/02)
1838 Apr 3, Francesco Antommarchi
(57), Napoleon's physician on St Helena, died.
(MC, 4/3/02)
1838 May 17, Charles-Maurice duke
of Talleyrand-Perigord (84), diplomat, revolutionary, bishop and former
PM of France (1815), died. In 2006 David Lawday authored “Napoleon’s
Master: A Life of Prince Talleyrand.”
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Charles_Maurice_de_Talleyrand)(Econ,
9/30/06, p.93)
1838 Sep 4, Henrietta d'Angeville
(1794-1871) became the 1st woman to climb to the top of Mt. Blanc,
France. In 1808 mountain guides had carried Marie Paradis, a local
serving girl, to the top.
(ON, 4/04, p.1)
1838 Sep 10, The opera "Benvenuto
Cellini," by Hector Berlioz, premiered in Paris. It was based on
Cellini's autobiography.
(MC, 9/10/01)(WSJ, 12/16/03, p.D10)
1838 Oct 25, Georges
Alexandre-Cesar-Leopold Bizet, French composer (Carmen), was born.
(HN, 10/25/98)(MC, 10/25/01)
1838 Nov 8, Victor Hugo's "Ruy
Blas," premiered in Paris.
(MC, 11/8/01)
1838 Nov 30, Mexico declared war
on France.
(HN, 11/30/98)
1838 France agreed to reduce
Haiti's 1825 "debt" to 60 million fold francs to be paid over 30 years.
The final payment was made in 1883.
(WSJ, 1/2/04, p.A6)
1839 Jan 2, French photographic
pioneer Louis Jacques Mande Daguerre took the first photograph of the
moon. Soon after his first photograph of people was a shoeshine scene
on a Paris boulevard.
(HN, 1/2/99)(SFEC, 1/16/00, Z1 p.2)(ON, 4/00, p.10)
1839 Jan 9, The Daguerreotype
photo process was announced at the French Academy of Science. Louis
Daguerre had the influential astronomer Dominique-Francois-Argo make an
announcement at the Academy of Sciences in Paris of the daguerreotype,
a photographic process using fumes of iodine to sensitize a silver
plate, vapor of mercury to bring out the image, and common salt to fix
the image. [See 1765-1833, Nicephore Niepce, French lithographer, and
1816].
(http://www.articleworld.org/index.php/Louis_Daguerre)(http://tinyurl.com/arl5k5)(WSJ,
9/14/95, p.A-16)(ON, 10/08, p.9)
1839 Jan 19, Paul Cezanne
(d.1906), French painter, was born in Aix-en-Provence in southern
France. He was considered a founding figure in 20th century art. He
departed from the Impressionists in his desire to render perspective
through color. His work had a profound influence on the Cubists. A
catalogue of his work was made by John Rewald (1912-1994) and published
posthumously as: "The Paintings of Paul Cezanne: A catalogue Raisonne."
His work includes: "The Feast" (late 60s), "Portrait of Achille
Emperaire" (1869-70), "Self-Portrait" (c1875), "Rocks at L’Estaque"
(1879-82), "Flowerpots" (c1885), "Chestnut Trees at Jas de Bouffan"
(1885-86), "The Kitchen Table" (1888-90), "Madame Cezanne in a Yellow
Chair" (1893-95), "The Lac d’Annecy" (1896), "Pyramid of Skulls"
(1898-1900), "Garden at Le Lauves" (c1906), "Large Bathers" (1906),
"Mont Ste.-Victoire Seen from Les Lauves." He is best remembered for
his works Card Players and L'Oeuvre.
(SFC, 5/30/96, p.E1)(WSJ, 2/10/96, p.A16)(DPCP
1984)(HN, 1/19/99)
1839 Aug 19, At a meeting of the
French Academy of Sciences in Paris a new photographic process
was unveiled by Louis-Jacques-Mande Daguerre. He "was able to capture
images directly onto small, silvered plates; and in England where
William Henry Fox invented what he called "photogenic drawing." This
process produced a negative image on paper from which positive images
could be made... but it took more than an hour to take a picture and
the fuzzy prints were difficult to see. The daguerreotype enabled the
photographer to create a highly detailed image. The process consisted
of polishing a copper plate, using iodine to sensitize it, and
developing it over mercury after exposing it to light in a camera.
Daguerreotypes became so popular in the United States that New York
City boasted more than 70 daguerreotype studios by 1850.
(Smith., 5/95, p.72)(HNQ, 10/28/98)
1839 Stendhal, Marie-Henri Beyle,
wrote his novel "Charterhouse of Parma" in 52 days. A 1st edition from
the library of Marie Louise, 2nd wife of Napoleon, sold for $157,310 in
1999.
(WSJ, 1/2/96, p. A-7)(WSJ, 3/25/97, p.A16)
1839 Jeanne Jugan founded the
Little Sisters of the Poor to take care of the destitute elderly. She
supported her project by begging house to house.
(WSJ, 12/17/05, p.A6)
1839 France began to mass produce
women’s corsets about this time. See the discussion by Marilyn Yalom in
her 1997 book: "History of the Breast."
(SFEC, 2/9/97, z1 p.3)
1839 Parisian tailors revolted and
destroyed the new sewing machines.
(WSJ, 1/11/99, p.R25)
1839 The photoelectric effect was
1st discovered by French physicist Alexandre Becquerel. He observed
that light could generate an electric current between 2 metal
electrodes immersed in a conductive fluid.
(Econ, 3/10/07, TQ p.23)
1839-1899 Alfred Sisley, impressionist artist,
was born in Paris of English parents. He studied in London and then in
Paris in the studio of Charles Gleyre. He painted landscapes almost
exclusively. His work included "A Turn in the Road" (1873).
(DPCP 1984)
1840 Feb 11, Gaetano Donizetti's
Opera "La Fille du Regiment," premiered in Paris.
(MC, 2/11/02)
1840 Mar 30, "Beau" Brummell
(b.1778), English dandy and former favorite of the prince regent, died
of syphilis in a French lunatic asylum for paupers. In 2006 Ian Kelly
authored the biography “Beau Brummel.”
(HN, 3/30/99)(WSJ, 5/7/06, p.P9)
1840 Apr 2, Emile Zola (d.1902),
French novelist, reporter (Nana) , was born. He tried to wake the
consciousness of the fin de siecle.
(HN, 4/2/98)(SFC, 12/29/00, p.C6)(V.D.-H.K.p.279)
1840 May 27, Nicolo Paganini (57),
Italian legendary violinist, died in Nice. The local bishop refused to
bury him in consecrated ground due to his scandal-ridden past. His
remains were transferred to Parma in 1876. His 1742 violin, "the
Canon," was put to rest in a museum in Genoa and later played annually
by the winner of the Int'l. Paganini Competition. In 1980 John Sugden
authored the biography "Nicolo Paganini: Supreme Violinist or Devil’s
Fiddler"
(SFC, 8/15/96, p.D5)(SFC, 11/12/98, p.E1)(SFC,
4/26/99, p.E2)(ON, 3/02, p.7)
1840 Jun 29, Lucien Bonaparte
(65), prince of Canino, Musignano, died.
(MC, 6/29/02)
1840 Nov 12, Auguste Rodin, French
sculptor who created "The Kiss," was born.
(HN, 11/12/98)
1840 Nov 14, Claude Monet
(d.1926), French Impressionist painter, best known for his late work
done at Giverney, northwest of Paris after 1890. He came up with the
idea of series pictures, which feature a single subject shown again and
again under varying conditions of light and weather. He studied in
Paris with Charles Gleyre, a Swiss academic painter, and there met
Frederic Bazille, Pierre-Auguste Renoir and Alfred Sisley. Together
they developed open-air painting which came to be known as
Impressionism.
(WSJ, 7/25/95, p.A-10)(HN, 11/14/98)
1840-1916 Odilon Redon, French painter and etcher.
(WUD, 1994, p.1203)
1841 Jan 14, Berthe Morisot
(d.1895) French impressionist painter, was born in Bourges.
(NMWA, 12/04, p.10)
1841 Jan 18, Alexis-Emmanuel
Chabrier, French composer (Louise), was born.
(MC, 1/18/02)
1841 Feb 25, Pierre Auguste Renoir
(d.1919), French painter, was born. He was an Impressionist painter,
father of Jean Renoir, and founder of the French Impressionist
movement. He was the son of a Paris tailor and began his career as a
porcelain painter in the Sevres china factory. His paintings included
"Luncheon of the Boating Party," "Self-portraits" (1875 & 1899) and
"Sleeping Girl With a Cat" (1880). [see 1894, J. Renoir]
(HFA, '96, p.22)(WSJ, 8/13/96, p.A9)(DPCP 1984)(HN,
2/25/99)
1841 Jun 28, The ballet "Giselle,"
also called Les Wilis, was premiered in Paris. It was the brain-child
of Theophile Gautier, a leading voice of the Romantic Age. It told of a
dance-loving peasant girl who dies of a broken heart when Albrecht, a
philandering nobleman, betrays her.
(SFEM, 3/28/99, p.12)(WSJ, 4/22/99, A20)
1841 Sep 28, Georges Clemenceau,
premier of France during World War I, was born. He served as premier
from 1906-09 and 1917-1920.
(HN, 9/28/98)(MC, 9/28/01)
1841 Lord Elgin died in Paris at
age 75.
(ON, 11/99, p.4)
1842 Jan 7, Gioacchino Rossini's
"Stabat Mater" premiered in Paris.
(MC, 1/7/02)
1842 Mar 18, Stephane Mallarme
(d.1898), French essayist and symbolist poet, was born. "Every soul is
a melody which needs renewing."
(AP, 7/17/98)(HN, 3/18/01)
1842 Mar 23, Stendhal [Marie-Henri
Beyle], French author (b.1783), died at 59.
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stendhal)
1842 May 12, Jules Massenet
Montaud (d.1912), French composer, was born. His work included "Manon,"
"Thais" and "Le Cid."
(SC, Internet, 5/12/97)(WSJ, 11/9/00, p.A24)
1842 May 15, Emanuel ADMJ Count de
las Cases (76), French historian (Napoleon), died.
(MC, 5/15/02)
1842 France claimed the Marquesas
Islands.
(SFEC, 8/25/96, p.T6)
1842 The French declared a
protectorate over the Wallis and Futuna Islands. They had been
discovered by the Dutch and the British in the 17th and 18th centuries.
In 1959, the inhabitants of the islands voted to become a French
overseas territory.
(www.cia.gov/cia/publications/factbook/geos/wf.html)
1843 Jan 4, Gaetano Donizetti's
opera "Don Pasquale," premiered in Paris.
(MC, 1/4/02)
1843 Jul 2, Samuel Hahnemann
(b.1755), German physician and founder of homeopathy, died in Paris.
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Samuel_Hahnemann)
1843 Sep 19, Gustave-Gaspard
Coriolis (b.1792), French engineer and mathematician, died. He showed
that the laws of motion could be used in a rotating frame of reference
if an extra force called the Coriolis acceleration is added to the
equations of motion.
(www.gap-system.org/~history/Mathematicians/Coriolis.html)
1843 Oct 30, A. G. Henri Regnault,
French water colors painter, was born.
(MC, 10/30/01)
1843-1848 The Chateau de Boursault was built by the
widow Clicquot. She contributed to the development of the
champagne-making process.
(Hem., 10/97, p.104)
1844 Feb 21, Charles-Marie Widor,
composer, professor (Paris Conservatory), was born in Lyons, France.
(MC, 2/21/02)
1844 Apr 16, Anatole France
(d.1924), French novelist and essayist, was born. He won the Nobel
Prize in literature in 1921. His love for Madame de Caillavet, whose
salon helped make him famous, formed the backdrop for his novel "Le Lys
Rouge," (The Red Lily). "All the historical books which contain no lies
are extremely tedious."
(WSJ, 2/20/96, p.A-14)(AP, 10/11/98)(HN, 4/16/01)
1844 May 21, Henri Rousseau
(d.1910), French painter (Dream), was born in Laval.
(HN, 5/21/01)
1844 Oct 23, Sarah Bernhardt,
French actress, was born. [see Oct 22]
(HN, 10/23/00)
1844-1833 Celestine Chaumette from the French village
of Chassignolles saved her personal letters. They were later found and
published by British writer Gillian Tindall as "Voices from a French
Village."
(SFC, 6/16/96, BR p.4)
1845 Apr 2, H.L. Fizeau and J.
Leon Foucault took the 1st photo of Sun.
(MC, 4/2/02)
1845 May 12, Gabriel Urbain Faure,
French composer, was born in Pamiers. His work included "Requiem" and
"Ballade."
(SC, Internet, 5/12/97)(MC, 5/12/02)
1845 Sep 8, A French column
surrendered at Sidi Brahim in the Algerian War.
(HN, 9/8/98)
1845 Oct 22, Sarah Bernhardt
(d.1923), legendary stage actress, was born in Paris. "Life begets
life. Energy creates energy. It is by spending oneself that one becomes
rich." [see Oct 23]
(AP, 10/22/97)(AP, 2/20/00)(WUD, 1994 p.141)
1846 Jul 24, Louis Napoleon (67),
French king of the Netherlands (1806-10), died.
(MC, 7/24/02)
1846 Aug 16, Gioacchino Rossini
married Olympe Pelissier in Paris and stopped composing operas.
(MC, 8/16/02)
1846 Dec 6, Hector Berlioz' opera
"La Damnation de Faust" was produced in Paris.
(MC, 12/6/01)(WSJ, 7/1/03, p.D8)
1847 Nov 26, Alfred de Musset's
"Un Caprice," premiered in Paris.
(MC, 11/26/01)
1847 Cartier jewelers opened in
Paris.
(WSJ, 1/11/99, p.R34)
1848 Feb 24, King Louis-Philippe
abdicated and the 2nd French republic was declared. [see Feb 26]
(MC, 2/24/02)
1848 Feb 26, The Second French
Republic was proclaimed. [see Feb 24]
(AP, 2/26/98)
1848 Apr 28, The last slaves in
French colonies were freed.
(MC, 4/28/02)
1848 Jun 7, Paul Gauguin, French
post-impressionist painter, was born in Paris. He abandoned his family
to focus on his work.
(AP, 6/7/97)(HN, 6/7/99)
1848 Jun 23, A bloody insurrection
of workers in Paris erupted to protest inflation, unemployment and
corruption. The insurrection was ruthlessly suppressed by Gen.
Cavaignac.
(HN, 6/23/98)(SFEC, 6/28/98, p.T9)(WSJ, 3/13/09,
p.A9)
1848 Jul 4,
Vicomte Francois-Rene de Chateaubriand (b.1768), French writer and
statesman, 79, died in Paris.
(WUD, 1994, p.250)
1848 Jul 26, The French army
suppressed the Paris uprising.
(HN, 7/26/98)
1848 Nov 21, Alfred de Musset's
"Andre del Sarto," premiered in Paris.
(MC, 11/21/01)
1848 Dec 10, Napoleon III, Louis
Napoleon Bonaparte (nephew of Napoleon Bonaparte), was elected
president of France. In 1852 he dismantled the Republic and replaced it
with the Second Empire of France, with himself as emperor.
(PC, 1992 ed, p.446)(WUD, 1994, p.950)
1848 France abolished slavery.
Victor Schoelcher was a major force in the abolition of slavery in
France.
(WSJ, 2/26/02, p.A22)
1848 Edouard Manet (1832-1883) at
age 16 failed the French naval exam and after 3 months at sea became
convinced that he would rather be a painter.
(WSJ, 12/3/03, p.D12)
1848-1894 Gustave Caillebotte, French impressionist
painter, he was a Jewish lawyer turned painter with a crisp, almost
photographic style. He is best know for "Paris Street: Rainy Day" done
in 1877.
(WSJ, 2/23/95, p.A-10)
1849 Apr 6, Giacomo Meyerbeer's
opera "Le Prophete," premiered in Paris. [see Apr 16]
(MC, 4/6/02)
1849 Apr 16, Giacomo Meyerbeer's
Opera "Le Prophete," premiered in Paris. [see Apr 6]
(MC, 4/16/02)
1849 Apr 30, Giuseppe Garibaldi,
Italian republican patriot and guerrilla leader, repulsed a French
attack on Rome.
(HN, 4/30/98)(ON, 10/06, p.5)
1849 Jul 19, F.A. Alphonse Aulard,
French historian, was born.
(MC, 7/19/02)
1849 Aug 18, Benjamin Louis Paul
Godard, composer, was born in Paris.
(MC, 8/18/02)
1849 Oct 17, Composer and pianist
Frederic Chopin died in Paris of tuberculosis at the age of 39. The
1945 film "A Song to Remember" was about Chopin."
(HN, 10/17/00)(SFC, 11/25/02, p.A15)
1849 Gustave Boulanger
(1824-1888), French artist, painted “Ulysses Recognized by Eeurycleia.”
(WSJ, 12/28/05, p.D8)
1849 Alphonse Karr, French: "The
more things change, the more they stay the same."
(SFCM, 10/14/01, p.36)
1849 Victor Hugo addressed an
appeal for European unity to Germany, France and Russia.
(Econ, 5/7/05, p.50)
1849 Joseph Naudet, director
France’s L’Enfer library, which started in the 1830s, described the
library as a hiding place to lock up books that were very bad. The
collection hid books and other documents from the public that were
deemed dangerous for public morality.
(SFC, 12/7/07, p.E9)
1849 French brothers Adolphe and
Edouard-Jean Cointreau created a brand of liqueur called Cointreau and
soon founded their own distillery in Angers. The liqueur was a secret
blend of orange peels and pure sugar-beet alcohol.
(SFC, 11/1/06, p.G2)
1849 French officer Claude-Etienne
Minie invented a bullet that changed the face of warfare. The Minie
ball was shot from a grooved bore, i.e. a rifle, and expanded when shot
to clean out the grooves of the bore.
(WSJ, 7/24/98, p.W10)
1850 Aug 17, Jose Francisco de San
Martin (b.1778), Argentine-born South American revolutionary hero, died
in France. In 2009 John Lynch authored “San Martin: Argentine Soldier,
American Hero.”
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jos%C3%A9_de_San_Mart%C3%ADn)(Econ,
4/25/09, p.87)
1850 Aug 18, Honore de Balzac
(b.1799), French novelist, died at age 51.
(WUD, 1994, p.115)(MC, 8/18/02)
1850 Aug 26, Charles Richet,
French physiologist (anaphylaxis-Nobel 1913), was born.
(MC, 8/26/02)
1850 Gustave Courbet (1819-1877),
French artist, painted "Burial at Ornans."
(WSJ, 11/28/06, p.D8)
1850s The Petite Ceinture was a
rail line built to haul merchandise between the major train stations of
Paris. It was shut down in 1934 but opened again by the Germans during
WW II.
(SFEC, 6/28/98, p.T9)
1851 Jan 6, Leon Foucault
(d.1868), French scientist, watched a pendulum swing and shift its
plane of motion. This he realized was due to the rotation of the Earth.
In 2003 Amir D. Aczel authored "Pendulum: Leon Foucault and the Triumph
of Science."
(WSJ, 8/28/03, p.D18)
1851 Mar 27,
Paul-Marie-Theodore-Vincent d'Indy, composer (Symphonie Cevenole), was
born in Paris.
(MC, 3/27/02)
1851 May 29, Leon Bourgeois,
French premier (1895-96, Nobel 1920), was born.
(SC, 5/29/02)
1851 Jul 10, Louis-Jacques-Mand
Daguerre, French painter (daguerreotype), died.
(MC, 7/10/02)
1851 Oct 2, Ferdinand Foch, French
Allied commander in WW I, was born.
(MC, 10/2/01)
1851 Oct 19,
Marie-Therese-Charlotte (72), daughter of Louis XVI and
Marie-Antoinette died.
(MC, 10/19/01)
1851 Oct, The first of 17 ships
arrived in SF from France following a lottery by the government of
Louis Napoleon, which provided passage to some 3,000 for the gold rush.
(SFCM, 4/30/06, p.4)
1851 Nov 2, Louis Napoleon
staged a coup and took power in France as Napoleon III of the Second
Empire.
(WSJ, 2/10/98, p.A16)(DoW, 1999, p182)
1851 Nov 13, The London-to-Paris
telegraph opened.
(HN, 11/13/98)
1851 Dec 4, Pres. Louis Napoleon
Bonaparte forces crushed a coup d'etat in France.
(MC, 12/4/01)
1851 Victor Hugo sought refuge on
the Channel island of Guernsey where he wrote "Les Miserables" and
other works.
(WSJ, 2/10/98, p.A16)
1851 The Chateau
Pichon-Longueville was built in the Bordeaux region of France.
(USAT, 5/9/03, p.2D)
1851 Paul Julius Reuter, a
German-born immigrant, began transmitting stock-market quotes between
London and Paris over the new Dover-Calais submarine telegraph cable.
(http://about.reuters.com/home/aboutus/history/informationandinnovation.aspx)
1852 Jan 6, Louis Braille (43)
died of tuberculosis in France. He had been blinded by an accident
during childhood and spent years developing a system to read by touch.
In 1997 Russell Freedman wrote "Out of Darkness: The Story of Louis
Braille."
(SFEC, 7/6/97, BR p.10)(ON, 10/04, p.9)(
http://www.brailler.com/braillehx.htm)
1852 Feb 2, Alexandre Dumas Jr.’s
"Le Dame aux Camelias," premiered in Paris.
(MC, 2/2/02)
1852 May 25, Louis Franchet
d'Espèrey [Desperate Frankey], French marshal (WWI), was born.
(SC, 5/25/02)
1852 Sep 24, Henri Giffard, a
French engineer, flew over Paris in the 1st dirigible flight.
(www.spartacus.schoolnet.co.uk/AVgifford.htm)
1852 Dec 2, Louis Napoleon, the
little nephew of Napoleon Bonaparte, established the Second Empire in
France (1852-1870) and called himself Napoleon III. He married the
Spanish beauty Eugenie and ran a semi-liberal autocracy for 18 years.
(WUD, 1994, p.950)(WSJ, 3/14/95, p.A16)(MC, 12/2/01)
1852 Eugene Delacroix painted
"Desdemona Cursed by Her Father."
(WSJ, 9/24/98, p.A16)
1852 Maria Vernet Worth, a
Parisian shop clerk, became the 1st professional model when her husband
found that he sold more dresses when she helped.
(SFEC, 2/6/00, Z1 p.2)
1852 France established its penal
colony at Devil’s Island, French Guiana. It was one of 3 islands called
the Iles du Salut (Islands of Salvation). Some 70,000 convicts were
sent there until 1946. The penal colony operated until 1951.
(SSFC, 12/15/02,
p.L5)(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/French_Guiana)
1852-1935 Paul Bourget, French author: "We had better
live as we think, otherwise we shall end up by thinking as we have
lived."
(AP, 2/11/00)
1853 Jan 16, Andre Michelin,
French industrialist and tire manufacturer (Michelin), was born.
(MC, 1/16/02)
1853 Jan 19, Napoleon III married
Eugenie de Montijo.
(MC, 1/19/02)
1853 Apr 2, Lucie de la Tour du
Pin (83), born as Henriette-Lucie Dillon and former lady-in-waiting to
Marie Antoinette, died Paris. Her memoir, “Journal of a Woman of Fifty
Years,” was not published until 1906. In 2009 Caroline Moorhead
authored “Dancing to the Precipice: Lucie de la Tour du Pin and the
French Revolution.”
(Econ, 3/7/09, p.91)(http://tinyurl.com/co3xor)
1853 May 11, Baron Nathaniel de
Rothschild of England purchased Chateau Mouton in Bordeaux, France, for
1,125,000 gold francs.
(www.pageaday.com)
1853 Oct, Henry Bessemer
(1813-1898), English mechanical engineer, invented a new type of
artillery shell. He presented it to the War Department for use in the
Crimean War, but they were not interested. He then offered it to
France’s Napoleon III, who agreed to test the shells. The larger shells
demanded a new type of cannon made of stronger metal, which led to his
experiments in making iron.
(ON, 9/06, p.4)
1853 Jun 29, Napoleon III met with
Georges-Eugene Haussmann to outline plans for the “strategic
beautification” of Paris and assigned him to modernize the city. For
the next 17 years Haussman, as prefect of the Seine, transformed Paris.
He is responsible for the tree lined grand boulevards, the Bois de
Boulogne, several railroad stations, the aqueducts, and a tourist
friendly sewer system. Haussmann employed one Parisian in five and
financed his projects using private capital raised with bonds. The
project forced some 200,000 residents from their homes. He used
surpluses in his operational budget to cover deficits in his capital
budgets. The debts paralyzed the city until the Gaullist era.
(WSJ, 1/17/1995, p.A-16)(SFEC, 6/28/98, p.T9)(WSJ,
12/9/98, p.A20)(ON, 9/06, p.9)
1853 French wines were first
ranked at the order of Napoleon. The top grades were selected on the
basis of price, not taste.
(SFEC, 2/1/98, p.T4)
1853 The island of New Caledonia
was made a French possession. It served as a penal colony for four
decades after 1864. Agitation for independence during the 1980s and
early 1990s has dissipated.
(www.cia.gov/cia/publications/factbook/geos/nc.html)
1854 Mar 28, During the Crimean
War, Britain and France declared war on Russia.
(AP, 3/28/97)
1854 Apr 29, Henri Poincare
(d.1912), French mathematician, astronomer, philosopher, was born. He
investigated the idea of space and led to the notion that space is too
complex for mathematics. Rather space is an assumption, and it can be
described and controlled only so far as we assume it. In other words
there is no such thing as space. Instead, there are as many spaces as
there are people... for every person can assume an indefinite number of
different spaces.
(V.D.-H.K.p.272)(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Henri_Poincar%C3%A9)
1854 Sep 14, Allied armies,
including those of Britain & France, landed in Crimea.
(MC, 9/14/01)
1854 Oct 20, Arthur Rimbaud
(d.1891), French poet (Illuminations), was born in Charlesville.
(WUD, 1994 p.1234)(HN, 10/20/00)(MC, 10/20/01)(SFC,
2/12/02, p.D3)
1854 Oct 25, During the Crimean
War, a brigade of British light infantry was destroyed by Russian
artillery as they charged down a narrow corridor in full view of the
Russians. The Crimean War is largely remembered for the Charge of the
Light Brigade, a hopeless but gallant British cavalry charge against a
heavily defended Russian force. The battle began when the Russians
attacked the British-French supply depot at Balaclava near Chersonesos,
some eight miles from Sevastopol, on the Black Sea Crimean Peninsula.
Taken by surprise, the British counterattacked but failed to follow up.
Through a staff error, Gen. Lord Cardigan's Light Brigade of 673
horsemen was ordered to charge the Russian position through a mile-long
valley and prevent them from carrying away some captured cannon. The
Light Brigade advanced up the valley, taking casualties all the way,
and reached the guns. But once there, they could not hold their
position and were forced to retreat. Of the 673 men who took part in
the senseless charge, only 195 were present at roll call that night.
The Charge of the Light Brigade ended the battle, but Balaclava
remained in the hands of the British-French Allies. The event was
described in a poem by Tennyson.
(SFC,12/190/97, p.F6)(AP, 10/25/97)(HNPD,
10/25/98)(HN, 10/25/98)
1854 Nov 5, The British and French
defeated the Russians at Inkerman, Crimea.
(HN, 11/5/98)
1854 Gustave Courbet painted "The
Meeting [Bonjour, Monsieur Courbet!]." It depicted a meeting with his
patron, art collector Alfred Bruyas (1821-1877).
(SFC, 1/22/05, p.E1)
1854 Eugene Delacroix painted
"Arabs Stalking a Lion."
(WSJ, 9/24/98, p.A16)
1854 The Marriage Freres tea shop
at 30 Rue du Bourg-Tibourg was founded. It has a small 2nd floor museum
of tea implements from around the world.
(SFEC, 1/4/98, p.T7)
1854 Eugene Delacroix painted "The
Riding Lesson."
(WSJ, 9/24/98, p.A16)
1854 Franz Xaver Winterhalter
painted a portrait of Empress Eugenie, wife of Napoleon III.
(WSJ, 4/3/03, p.D8)
1855 Jun 13, Verdi's opera "Les
Vepres Sicilenne" was produced (Paris).
(MC, 6/13/02)
1855 Jun 17, Heavy French-British
shelling of Sebastopol killed over 2000.
(MC, 6/17/02)
c1855 Alexandre Marie Colin
painted a portrait of Napoleon III.
(WSJ, 4/3/03, p.D8)
1855 Degas (21) painted a portrait
of his 1-year-old brother Rene de Gas.
(SFC, 8/29/01, p.E1)
1855 Gustave Courbet, French
artist, painted "The Studio of the Painter."
(WSJ, 11/28/06, p.D8)
1855 Camille Pissarro (1830-1903),
French impressionist, moved to France from his native St. Thomas in the
Virgin Islands.
(WSJ, 1/14/97, p.A16)(Hem., 1/97, p.124)(WUD, 1994,
p.1097)
1855 Napoleon III ordered up a
list of the best wines of Bordeaux and ranked the best according to
quality and price. Those at the top became known as the first growths
and included Châteaux Haut-Brion, Lafite Rothschild, Latour, and
Margaux. Mouton Rothschild was elevated in 1973.
(WSJ, 4/23/04, p.A1)(SFC, 10/1/04, p.W6)
1856 Jan 5, Pierre J. David (67),
[David d'Angers], French sculptor, died.
(MC, 1/5/02)
1856 Feb 17, Heinrich Heine (58),
German poet, died in Paris.
(MC, 2/17/02)
1856 Mar 30, Russia signed Peace
of Paris ending the Crimean War.
(MC, 3/30/02)
1856 Apr 24, Henri Philippe
Pétain, French Marshall, was born. He was known as the 'hero of
Verdun' but collaborated with the Nazis after the fall of France in
1940 and convicted of treason in 1945. Petain was executed in 1951.
(HN, 4/24/99)(Econ, 5/21/05, p.84)
1856 May 3, Adolphe Charles Adam
(52), French composer, critic (Giselle), died.
(MC, 5/3/02)
1856 May 20, Henri E. Cross
(d.1910), French painter, was born. His real surname was Delacroix but
was changed in 1881.
(MC, 5/20/02)
1856 Oct 1, The first installment
of Gustav Flaubert’s novel Madame Bovary (Emma Bovary) appeared in the
Revue de Paris after the publisher refused to print a passage in which
the character Emma has a tryst in the back seat of a carriage. It was
later considered as the first novel of a liberated woman in modern
literature. In 1998 Dacia Maraini published "Searching for Emma." A TV
version for Masterpiece Theater was shown in 2000.
(HN, 10/1/00)(SFEC, 6/28/98, Par p.18)(WSJ, 2/4/00,
p.W6)
1856 Francois Flameng (d.1923),
French painter, was born. He painted imagined scenes from the domestic
life of Napoleon Bonaparte.
(MT, Fall/03, p.13)
1856 The ballet "Le Corsaire" (The
Corsair) was first performed in Paris to a score by Adolph Adam. It was
based on a work by Lord Byron.
(SFC, 12/20/99, p.E1)
1856 The order of nuns known as
the "Poor Clares of Perpetual Adoration" was founded in France. It was
named after a 13th century saint who jettisoned her family's wealth for
a life of poverty. The nuns spent their time praying on behalf of
others.
(WSJ, 9/19/03, p.A1)
1856 Emperor Napoleon III decided
to quell an impending revolt in Algeria by sending a magician, who
would demonstrate the power of the Europeans to the natives. He sent
Jean-Eugene Robert Houdin (1805-1871). The 1998 novel "The Magician’s
Wife" by Brian Moore is based on the historic events. The magician is
named Henri Lambert.
(WSJ, 1/13/98, p.A20)(SFEC, 1/25/98, BR p.5)
1856 The Countess de Castiglione
(Virginia Oldoini) became the mistress of Napoleon III. She was chosen
by her cousin Camillo Cavour, prime minister of Sardinia under King
Victor Emanuel, to win the emperor's support for a war against the
Austrians.
(WSJ, 12/27/00, p.A10)
1856 Theodore Chasseriau (b.1819),
Dominican-born artist, died in Paris. His paintings included "The
Toilette of Esther."
(WSJ, 11/26/02, p.D8)
1857 Feb 7, A French court
acquitted author Gustave Flaubert of obscenity for his serialized novel
"Madame Bovary."
(AP, 2/7/08)
1857 Feb 12, Eugene Atget, French
photographer, was born. He took over 10,000 photographs documenting
Paris.
(HN, 2/12/01)
1857 Mar 3, Under pretexts,
Britain and France declared war on China.
(HN, 3/3/99)
1857 Nov 2, Joseph F.F. Babinski,
Polish-French neurologist (Babinski reflex), was born.
(MC, 11/2/01)
1857 Jean-Francois Millet painted
"The Gleaners."
(WSJ, 7/12/99, p.A26)
1857 Paul Broca, a French
neurologist, discovered that particular regions of the brain are
specialized for particular functions. In 1861 he authored a classical
paper that detailed damage in the brain’s left temporal lobe to loss of
speech.
(WSJ, 10/11/02,
p.AB1)(http://psychclassics.yorku.ca/Broca/perte-e.htm)
1857-1926 Emile Coue, French pharmacist. In 1920
[1910] he devised the mantra "Every day, in every way, I’m getting
better and better" to promote his theory of self-improvement through
auto-suggestion.
(NH, 7/98, p.20)(SFEC, 6/20/99, Z1 p.8)
1858 Jan 14, Emperor Napoleon III
and Empress Eugenie escaped unhurt after an Italian assassin threw a
bomb at their carriage as they traveled to the Paris Opera. The hoop
skirt was first worn by Empress Eugenie to conceal her pregnancy.
(HN, 1/14/99)(SFEC, 7/23/00, Z1 p.2)(AP, 1/14/08)
1858 Feb 11, Bernadette Soubirous
(14), a French miller’s daughter, claimed for the first time to have
seen a vision of the Virgin Mary near Lourdes.
(AP, 2/11/97)(HN, 1/11/02)
1858 Mar 18, Rudolf Diesel, German
mechanical engineer, was born in Paris. He designed the
compression-ignition engine (1893).
(HN, 3/18/99)(AP, 3/18/08)
1858 Jul 13, Louis Martin and
Zelie Guerin married in Alencon, France, and for 10 months refrained
from sex in a “Josephite marriage.” Assured by a priest that raising
children was a sacred activity they went on to have 9 children, 5 of
whom joined religious order. Their youngest daughter became famous as
St. Theresa of Liseux, The Little Flower,” canonized in 1925.
(WSJ, 10/17/08, p.W11)
1858 Sep 15, Charles E Vicomte de
Foucauld (d.1916), French explorer and hermit, was born in Strasbourg,
France.
(www.manntaylor.com/foucauld.html)
1858 Oct 21, Jacques Offenbach's
opera "Orphee aux Enfers," premiered in Paris. The Can-Can music was
part of the opera. Dancers in Paris displayed their tail feathers in a
high kick routine called the "cancan." The word was a diminutive form
of "canard," the word for duck, whose evenly displayed feathers were
likened to those of the dancers.
(SFEC, 3/23/97, z1 p.7)(MC, 10/21/01)
1858 Dec, The French government’s
Council of State limited the ability of Paris to condemn property. Land
could be seized for roads but properties along the projected roads
could not be expropriated.
(ON, 9/06, p.10)
1858 Charles Frederick Worth, an
English tailor in Paris, began haute couture. He was hired by Napoleon
to create a suitable wardrobe for Princess Eugenie and trigger a demand
for French fashion.
(WSJ, 1/11/99, p.R40)
1859 Mar 19, The opera "Faust" by
Charles Gounod premiered in Paris.
(AP, 3/19/97)
1859 Apr 4, Giacomo Meyerbeer's
Opera "Dinorah" was produced in Paris.
(MC, 4/4/02)
1859 Apr 16, Alexis de Tocqueville
(b.1805), French writer, died in Cannes. His collected writings filled
17 volumes and included "Democracy in America" (1835) and "The Old
Regime and the French Revolution." In 2001 a new English translation by
Harvey C. Mansfield and Delba Winthrop was published. In 2001 Sheldon
S. Wolin authored "Tocqueville Between Two Worlds." In 2006 Hugh Brogan
authored “Alexis de Tocqueville: Prophet of Democracy in the Age of
Revolution – A Biography.”
(WSJ, 9/26/01,
p.A18)(www.tocqueville.org/chap1.htm)(Econ, 11/25/06, p.85)
1859 Apr 29, In the Italian
Campaign some 150,000 Piedmontese troops invaded Piedmontese territory
as the French army raced to support them and the Austrian army
mobilized to oppose them.
(HN, 4/29/00)
1859 May 3, France declared
war on Austria.
(HN, 5/3/98)
1859 May 9, Threatened by the
advancing French army, the Austrian army retreated across the River
Sesia in Italy.
(HN, 5/9/00)
1859 May 10, French emperor
Napoleon III left Paris to join his troops preparing to battle the
Austrian army in Northern Italy.
(HN, 5/10/02)
1859 May 15, Pierre Curie,
physicist (Nobel 1903), was born. He and his wife discovered
radium.
(HN, 5/15/99)(MC, 5/15/02)
1859 May 28, The French army
launched a flanking attack on the Austrian army in Northern France.
(HN, 5/28/00)
1859 Jun 2, French forces crossed
the Ticino River, the last natural barrier between themselves and Milan
with the Austrians in retreat.
(HN, 6/2/00)
1859 Jun 4, The French army under
Napoleon III took Magenta from the Austrian army after a bloody battle
in northern Italy.
(HN, 6/4/99)
1859 Jun 24, At the Battle of
Solferino, also known as the Battle of the Three Sovereigns, the French
army led by Napoleon III defeated the Austrian army under Franz Joseph
I in northern Italy. Some 6,000 men died in the battle and thousands of
wounded were effectively abandoned as witnessed by Henri Dunant (31), a
Swiss businessman seeking Napoleon for a land development proposal. In
1862 Dunant published “A Memory of Solferino” and began a campaign for
a volunteer society to aid wounded soldiers.
(HN, 6/24/99)(ON, 4/08, p.11)
1859 Jun 30, French acrobat
Blondin (born Jean Francois Gravelet) crossed Niagara Falls on a
tightrope as 5,000 spectators watched.
(AP, 6/30/97)(HN, 6/30/98)
1859 Jul 8, With the signing of
the truce at Villafranca Austria ceded Lombardy to France. France also
received Nice and Savoy.
(HN, 7/8/99)
1859 Oct 9, Alfred Dreyfus, French
artillery officer who was falsely accused of giving French military
secrets to foreign powers, was born.
(HN, 10/9/98)
1859 Oct 18, Henri Bergson
(d.1941), French philosopher (Creative Evolution- Nobel 1927), was
born. He is said to have taught that man acts first and thinks later as
opposed to Descartes who said man thinks before he acts. He won the
1927 Nobel Prize for Literature. His dualistic philosophy held that
man's intellect enables him to appraise the world and his intuition
tells him something of the all-pervading life force, or elan vital. He
was a spokesman for "process philosophy." "Only those ideas that are
least truly ours can be adequately expressed in words."
(AHD, 1971, p.125)(WSJ, 11/21/95, p.A-12)(SFC,
3/27/99, p.C2)(WSJ, 6/22/99, p.A22)(AP, 10/18/99)(MC, 10/18/01)
1859 Nov 12, The first
flying-trapeze circus act was performed by Jules Leotard at the Circus
Napoleon in Paris. He designed the garment that bears his name.
(HN, 11/12/00)(MC, 11/12/01)
1859 Dec 2, George Seurat
(d.1891), French artist, was born in Paris. He entered the Ecole des
Beaux Arts in 1875. His method of painting with bright colors
juxtaposed as tiny dots was called pointillism, often called
Neo-Impressionism.
(SFC, 5/6/97, p.E4)(WUD, 1994, p.1306)(DPCP
1984)(HN, 12/2/98)
1859 Jean-Francois Millet painted
"The Angelus," and it became the most reproduced painting of the 19th
century.
(SFEC, 8/22/99, BR p.3)
1859 One of the first reports
relating tobacco to cancer was published in France.
(HNQ, 11/10/98)
1859 Gaston Plante, French
physicist, invented the first lead-acid rechargeable battery.
(Econ, 3/8/08, TQ p.23)(Econ, 3/7/09, TQ p.4)
1859 Leon Benouville (b.1821),
French painter, died. His paintings included “The Wrath of Achilles”
(1847).
(www.insecula.com/us/contact/A005594.html)
1860 Apr 6, Rene Lalique (d.1945),
French goldsmith, jeweler, glassmaker and artist, was born. He helped
mold the shape of 20th century art nouveau, art deco and architectural
ornamentation.
(SFC, 3/26/97, z1 p.7)(Hem., 6/98, p.134)(MC, 4/6/02)
1860 Jun 25, Gustave Charpentier,
French composer (Louise), was born.
(MC, 6/25/02)
1860 Oct 12, British and French
troops captured Beijing.
(MC, 10/12/01)
1860 Britain forswore most import
duties. Britain and France signed a free-trade treaty, which
drastically reduced the duty on French wines.
(Econ, 9/1/07, p.74)(Econ, 12/19/09, p.132)
1860 Savoy was ceded to France.
(WUD, 1994, p.1272)
1860 The Parc Monceau in Paris was
taken over by the state to enable Baron Haussmann to complete the
Boulevard Malesherbes.
(SFEC, 3/26/00, p.T12)
1860 France sent 5,000 troops to
Syria to stop the massacre of Maronite Christians at the hands of the
Druze, which the Ottoman authorities were neither willing nor able to
stop.
(SFC, 9/7/08, Books p.5)
1860 The 1st French gendarmes
arrived in Vietnam.
(WSJ, 2/2/04, p.A12)
1860 Parisian inventor
Edouard-Leon Scott de Martinville captured 10-second clip of a woman
singing "Au Clair de la Lune,” using a phonautograph, a device that
created visual recordings of sound waves.
(AP, 3/28/08)
1860 In France the Yonne
Department had almost 99,000 acres of grapevines for wine. Diseases
such as oidium and phyloxera destroyed the Chablis vines in the late
19th century. The Carmenére grape was wiped out in France. In
1994 it was found to be thriving in Chile.
(SFC, 7/16/97, Z1 p.4)(WSJ, 12/28/01, p.A17)
1867 Ernest Michaux, a Parisian
blacksmith, added pedals and brakes to an iron “velocipede,” a
2-wheeled machine that used wooded wheels and was nicknamed “the
boneshaker.”
(WSJ, 10/22/04, p.A1)(Econ, 2/5/05, p.77)
1860-1910 Auguste Moreau, a bronze sculptor, worked
over this period. His art included the sculpture "Eglantine" (wild
rose), which depicted a woman draped in a vine of roses. It was used as
the design for a clock c1900. His bronzes were copied in spelter, a
soft white metal that’s mostly zinc.
(SFC, 2/18/98, Z1 p.3)(SFC, 3/11/98, Z1 p.5)
1861 Dec 8, Aristide Maillol,
French painter and sculptor (Seated Woman), was born.
(MC, 12/8/01)
1861 Dec, French, British and
Spanish troops landed at Veracruz, Mexico, seeking to force Benito
Juarez to resume his financial obligations.
(PCh, 1992, p.485)
1861 Pierre-Auguste Renoir,
impressionist painter, entered the Ecole des Beaux Arts and studied
with Charles Gleyre.
(DPCP 1984)
1861 Germain Sommeiller (d.1871),
French engineer, began work on the Mount Cenis Tunnel (Frejus Tunnel)
between France and Italy, using his newly developed pneumatic drills.
Work proceeded from opposite ends and connected on Dec 26, 1870.
(ON, 2/03, p.8)
1861 Protestant banker Edouard
Andre (d.1894) married Catholic painter Nelie Jacquemart and caused a
minor scandal.
(SFEC, 3/26/00, p.T12)
1862 Feb 28, Karl Goldmark's opera
"The Queen of Sheba," premiered in Paris.
(MC, 2/28/02)
1862 Mar 28, Aristide Briand,
premier of France (1909-22), was born.
(HN, 3/28/98)
1862 May 1, Marcel Prevost, French
publisher, writer (Les demis-vierges), was born.
(MC, 5/1/02)
1862 May 5, At the Battle of
Pueblo, a [2,000] 5,000 man Mexican force (cavalry), loyal to Benito
Juarez and under the leadership of Gen’l. Ignacio Zaragoza, defeated
6,000 French troops sent by Napoleon III. The event became memorialized
in the Cinco de Mayo annual festival. Napoleon intended to march
through to the US and help the Confederacy in the Civil War.
(SCal, May 1995)(SFEM, 4/27/97, p.6)(AP, 5/5/97)
(SFEC,11/9/97, p.T6)(SFEC, 11/8/98, p.T8)(SFC, 5/1/99, p.A13)
1862 Jun 24, U.S. intervention
saved the British and French at the Dagu forts in China.
(HN, 6/24/98)
1862 Jun 30, Gustave Flaubert
completed "Salammbo."
(MC, 6/30/02)
1862 Aug 22, Claude Debussy
(d.1918), composer (La Mer, Clair de Lune), was born in St.
Germain-en-Laye.
(MC, 8/22/02)
1862 Oct 19, Auguste Lumiere,
French film pioneer, was born. He made the 1st film: "Workers Leaving
Lumiere Factory."
(MC, 10/19/01)
1862 Nov 24, M. Levy published
Gustave Flaubert’s "Salammbo."
(MC, 11/24/01)
1862 Dec 8, Georges Feydeau,
French playwright (La Dame de Chez Maxim's), was born.
(MC, 12/8/01)
1862 Claude Monet (22) began
studying painting with Charles Gleyre, a retired artist in Paris.
(ON, 9/06, p.6)
1862 Victor Hugo published "Les
Miserables." The novel covers events in France from 1815 to 1833. In
2004 Mario Vargas Llosa authored his book-length Spanish essay: “The
Temptation of the Impossible: Victor Hugo and ‘Les Miserables.’ The
English translation came out in 2007.
(WSJ, 4/30/98, p.A17)(SFC, 6/30/07, p.E2)
1863 Jun 7, Mexico City was
captured by French troops.
(HN, 6/7/98)
1863 Jul, The European public
first learned of Angkor in Cambodia from the posthumously published
journal of French naturalist Henri Mouhot.
(SFEC, 7/26/98, p.T6)
1863 Sep 30, The George Bizet
(1838-1875) opera "Les Pecheurs de Perles" (Pearl Fishers) premiered in
Paris.
(www.operaphilly.com/03-04/bizet-bio.shtml)
1863 Jules Verne (1828-1905)
authored his novel “Five Weeks in a Balloon.” This was his first
published book.
(WSJ, 9/18/07, p.D8)
1863 The Paris Salon des Refuses
was a group show of artists rejected by the mavens of the official
salon. The hit and scandal of the show was Edouard Manet’s "Le Dejeuner
sur l’Herbe" which depicted a happy foursome picnicking in the woods
with the two women undressed. Other refused artists included Cezanne,
Pissarro, and other impressionists.
(WSJ, 6/14/95, p.A-14)
1863 French forces captured
Puebla, Mexico.
(SFEC,11/9/97, p.T6)
1863 Eugene Delacroix (b.1798),
French artist, died.
(WUD, 1994, p.381)
1863-1874 This decade in France was covered in the
2006 book “The Judgement of Paris: The Revolutionary Decade That Gave
the World Impressionism,” by Ross King. He focused on the period
between two famous exhibitions, the scandalous Salon des Refuses in
1863 and the first Impressionist showing in 1874.
(SSFC, 2/5/06, p.M6)
1864 Mar 14, Rossini's "Petite
Messe Solennelle," premiered in Paris.
(MC, 3/14/02)
1864 Mar 19, Charles Gounod's
opera "Mireille" premiered in Paris.
(MC, 3/19/02)
1864 Apr 19, Naval Engagement at
Cherbourg, France: USS Kearsarge vs. CSS Alabama. [see Jun 19]
(MC, 4/19/02)
1864 Jun 19, The CSS "Alabama" was
sunk by the USS "Kearsarge" off Cherbourg, France. The Alabama had
captured, sank or burned 68 ships in 22 months.
(DT, 6/19/97)(HN, 6/19/98)(HNQ, 11/28/00)
1864 Jul 31, Louis Hachette (64),
French publisher, died.
(MC, 7/31/02)
1864 Sep 5, British, French &
Dutch fleets attacked Japan in Shimonoseki Straits.
(MC, 9/5/01)
1864 Nov 24, Henri
Toulouse-Lautrec, French post-impressionist painter, was born.
(HN, 11/24/98)
1864 Gustave Moreau, French
painter, created his work "Oedipus and the Sphinx." His students
included Georges Rouault, Albert Marqyet, and Henri Matisse.
(WSJ, 6/1/99, p.A20)
1864 Phyloxerra was 1st noted on
grapevines in Roquemaure, France. It ravaged the vineyards there for
nearly 20 years. In 1872 it reached Austria and Portugal. In 1875 it
appeared in Australia and in 1886 in South Africa.
(SSFC, 3/27/05, p.E3)
1864 A meteorite was found near
Orgueil, France, that was later believed to be a fragment of a comet.
It was later found to show traces of amino acids.
(SFC, 12/19/01, p.A8)
1864-1910 Jules Renard, French educator and author:
"Talent is like money; you don't have to have some to talk about it."
(AP, 4/16/97)
1865 Apr 28, Giacomo Meyerbeer's
opera "L'Africaine," premiered in Paris.
(MC, 4/28/02)
1865 May 17, The International
Telegraph Union, later the International Telecommunication Union (ITU)
was set up in Paris to standardize and regulate international radio
communications.
(Econ, 9/26/09, SR
p.18)(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/International_Telecommunication_Union)
1865 Oct 1, Paul Abraham Dukas,
composer (Sorcerer's Apprentice), was born in Paris, France.
(MC, 10/1/01)
1865 Frederic Bazille painted
"Beach at Sainte-Adresse."
(WSJ, 3/9/99, p.A20)
1865 Monet painted "A Cart on the
Snowy Road at Honfleur."
(SFC, 1/29/99, p.D6)
1865-1866 Edouard Manet painted "The Tragic Actor
(Rouviere as Hamlet)" about this time.
(WSJ, 4/16/03, p.D10)
1865 Emile Zola wrote a diatribe
against the annual French state-sponsored art show called the Salon. He
mocked the jurors who had rebuffed Edouard Manet amongst others.
(WSJ, 8/1/96 p.A13)
1865 Eduard Rene Lefebvre de
Laboulaye, a scholar, proposed a monument for America's centennial and
strengthen the democratic cause in France. The monument took form as
the Statue of Liberty.
(SFEC, 6/20/99, p.T10)
1865 The St. Anne Prison was built
in Avignon, France, atop the ruins of a 13th century insane asylum. The
prison was closed in 2003 and in 2007 the government offered to sell it
for transformation to a luxury hotel.
(SFC, 12/28/07, p.A18)
1865 A Latin Monetary Union was
established amongst France, Belgium, Italy, Switzerland and Greece, but
quickly weakened as members pursued their own economic policies.
(WSJ, 1/13/98, p.A1)
1865-1867 Honore Daumier created his painting "The
Strong Man" during this period.
(SFC, 3/24/00, p.B1)
1866 May 17, Erik Alfred Leslie
Satie, French composer, was born.
(HN, 5/17/01)
1866 May 18, French Government of
De Putte resigned.
(SC, 5/18/02)
1866 Jul 29, Barbe-Nicole Clicquot
(b.1777), head of the Clicquot champagne business, died. She was
widowed at age 27 and transformed her husbands struggling business into
one of the great champagne houses of France. In 2008 Tilar J. Mazzeo
authored “The Widow Clicquot.”
(WSJ, 11/5/08,
p.A21)(http://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Barbe-Nicole_Clicquot-Ponsardin)
1866 Nov 17, Ambroise Thomas'
opera "Mignon" was produced (Paris).
(MC, 11/17/01)
1866 Gustave Courbet, French
artist, painted "The Waterspout" and “Origin of the World.”
(WSJ, 11/28/06, p.D8)
1866 Edouard Manet painted "Young
Lady in 1866." The painting helped pave the way for Impressionism.
(WSJ, 8/3/01, p.W2)
1866 Jean-Francois Millet painted
"Flight of Crows."
(WSJ, 7/12/99, p.A26)
1866 Monet created his painting
"Jar of Peaches."
(WSJ, 12/12/01, p.A16)
1866 Edouard Seguin (1812-1880),
French physician, authored “Idiocy and Its Treatment.” He had
established schools in France and the US for the intellectually
handicapped, which stressed the importance of developing self-reliance
and independence.
(ON, 3/07,
p.3)(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Edouard_Seguin)
1866 French colonial officials
sent an expedition to explore the Mekong River and check its commercial
potential.
(Econ, 1/3/04, p.29)
1866-1954 Ernest Dimnet, French priest, lecturer and
author: "The happiness of most people we know is not ruined by great
catastrophes or fatal errors, but by the repetition of slowly
destructive little things."
(AP, 9/6/98)
1867 Jan 14, Jean-August-Dominique
Ingres, a French neo-classical painter, and one of the major portrait
painters of the 19th century, died.
(http://tinyurl.com/cheny)
1867
Apr 1, The International Exhibition, Exposition Universelle,
opened in Paris.
(OTD)(ON, 9/06, p.11)
1867 Apr 27, Charles Gounod's
Opera "Romeo et Juliette" was produced in Paris.
(MC, 4/27/02)
1867 Aug 31, [Pierre-]Charles
Baudelaire (46), French poet (Journaux Intimes), died.
(MC, 8/31/01)
1867 Oct 3, Pierre Bonnard
(d.1947), French painter and illustrator, was born. He wrote that he
wanted to “show what one sees when one enters a room all of a sudden.”
He married Marthe de Meligny in 1925 and during his life painted some
384 images of her. In 1998 John Elderfield and Sarah Whitfield
published “Bonnard.”
(WSJ, 6/24/98, p.A16)(SFEC, 8/2/98, BR
p.9)(www.youtube.com/watch?v=o_H_AseJpss)
1867 Nov 7, Marie Curie (d.1934),
Polish-born French scientist, was born in Warsaw as Marya Salomee
Sklodowska. Her discoveries included polonium, radium, which she
isolated from pitchblende, and the radioactivity of thorium. She was
awarded the Nobel Prize in physics in 1903 with her husband, and in
chemistry in 1911. "You cannot hope to build a better world without
improving the individuals. To that end each of us must work for his own
improvement, and at the same time share a general responsibility for
all humanity."
(AHD, 1971, p.323)(AP, 10/26/98)(HN, 11/7/98)
1867 Claude Monet painted "The
Beach at Sainte Adresse" and "Road by Saint-Simeon Farm Winter" while
living in Normandy.
(DPCP 1984)(SFC, 1/29/99, p.D6)(SFC, 6/17/06, p.E10)
1867 The French opera comedy "La
Grande’ tante," was composed by Jules Massenet.
(WSJ, 11/9/00, p.A24)
1867 The opera “The Fair Maid of
Perth” by Georges Bizet premiered in France.
(ON, 5/06, p.11)
1867 The facade of the new Paris
Opera House, built to the glory of Emperor Napoleon III, was completed.
(SFC, 6/21/00, p.E5)(ON, 9/06, p.11)
1867-1868 Degas painted "Mlle. Fiocre in the Ballet
‘La Source’."
(SFEC, 6/21/98, BR p.8)
1868 Feb 11, Jean Bernard Leon
Foucault (b.1819), French physicist, died. He discovered the 1st
physical proof of Earth's rotation (1851) and invented the gyroscope.
(WUD, 1994 p.560)(MC, 2/11/02)(WSJ, 8/28/03, p.D18)
1868 Mar 9, Ambrois Thomas' opera
"Hamlet" premiered in Paris.
(MC, 3/9/02)
1868 Apr 1, Edmond Rostand, French
dramatist (Cyrano de Bergerac), was born.
(HN, 4/1/01)
1868 May 6, Gaston Leroux, French
novelist (The Phantom of the Opera), was born.
(HN, 5/6/01)
1868 May 29, Frederic baron
d'Erlanger, French composer, banker, was born.
(SC, 5/29/02)
1868 Jean-Francois Millet painted
"Path Lined With Trees Near Vichy."
(WSJ, 7/12/99, p.A26)
1868 Claude Monet painted "The
River." It shows the water of the Seine and was an early attempt by the
artist to depict shimmering light on water.
(DPCP 1984)
1868 The first known bicycle race
was held in Paris.
(WSJ, 1/11/99, p.R34)
1868-1841 Emile Bernard, French poet. He founded the
Pont-Aven Group of Symbolists.
(SFCM, 10/14/01, p.34)
1868-1955 Paul Claudel, French author: "Why must all
the churches be closed at night? How often has the wanderer groaned in
front of those closed doors?"
(AP, 12/27/98)
1869 Mar 1, Alphonse MLP de
Lamartine (78), French poet (History of Girondins), died.
(SC, 3/1/02)
1869 Mar 8, Louis Hector Berlioz
(b.1803), French composer (Symphony Fantastic), died. He was later
hailed as the most blazing musical innovator of the early 19th century.
In 1969 David Cairns translated his memoirs “The Memoirs of Hector
Berlioz.”
(WSJ, 4/8/03, p.D4)(WSJ, 3/1/08,
p.W8)(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hector_Berlioz)
1869 Apr 12, Henri-Desire Landru
(Bluebeard), French sex murderer, was born.
(MC, 4/12/02)
1869 Apr, France’s Emp. Louis
Napoleon ordered the dissolution of the Public Works Fund.
(ON, 9/06, p.12)
1869 May 1, Folies Bergere opened
in Paris.
(MC, 5/1/02)
1869 Jul 15, Margarine was
patented by Hippolye Mega-Mouriss for use by French Navy.
(MC, 7/15/02)
1869 Oct 13, Charles-Augustin
Sainte-Beuve, French writer (Tableau Historique), died.
(MC, 10/13/01)
1869 Nov 17, The Suez Canal was
opened in Egypt, linking the Mediterranean and the Red seas. The 100
mile canal eliminated a 4000-mile trip around Africa. Empress Eugenie,
the wife of Napoleon III, together with Ferdinand de Lesseps, chief
architect of the canal, led the first file of ships from on board the
French imperial yacht Aigle. It was financed by the Rothschild banking
empire. In 2003 Zacharay Karabell authored "Parting the Desert: The
Creation of the Suez Canal."
(I&WWI, p.1041)(SFC, 7/12/96, p.A11)(AP,
11/17/97)(MC, 11/17/01)(WSJ, 7/10/03, p.D8)
1869 Nov 22, Andre Gide (d1951),
French novelist and critic (Lafcadio's Adventures- Nobel 1947), was
born. "There are very few monsters who warrant the fear we have of
them." "Believe those who are seeking the truth; doubt those who find
it." "The color of truth is gray."
(AP, 10/31/97)(AP, 3/24/98)(SFEC, 6/28/98, Z1
p.8)(MC, 11/22/01)
1869 Dec 31, Henri Matisse
(d.1954), French artist best known for his paintings "Woman with a Hat"
and "The Red Studio," was born. His work included the "Dance II," now
at the Hermitage in Moscow. In 1998 Hilary Spurling authored "The
Unknown Matisse: A Life of Henri Matisse, Vol. 1: 1869-1908."
(WSJ, 7/5/96, p.A5)(SFEC, 12/13/98, BR p.9)(HN,
12/31/98)
1869 Claude Monet painted "The
Seine at Bougival, Evening."
(SFC, 7/11/01, p.D1)
1869 Renoir and Monet sat side by
side and painted views of the bathing house, La Grenouillleres and its
patrons.
(WSJ, 9/10/96, p.A16)(SFC, 10/30/96, p.E2)
1869 Camille Pissarro painted "The
Versailles Road at Louveciennes."
(SFEM, 1/31/99, p.18)
1869 In Paris the Bon Marche
department store, founded by Aristide and Marguerite Boucicaut, began
displaying its wares for customers to inspect and introduced price tags.
(Econ, 10/2/04, p.18)(Econ, 7/15/06, p.15)
1869 Pierre and Ernest Michaux
built the first motorcycle. It was powered by a steam engine.
(SFEC, 7/27/97, Z1 p.7)
Go to
1870