Artilleryman, strategist, statesman, legislator… One of the things that sets Napoleon Bonaparte apart from other military leaders and politicians is his extraordinary ability to excel in various fields. Well, there is one more quality to add to the most famous Corsican of all time, though it is practically unknown to most: that of a writer. […]
Napoleon
Posted inModern Era
Larrey, the French Surgeon who Created the First Ambulance Service, Treating Allies and Foes at Waterloo
June 18, 1815. Napoleon’s attempt to rebuild his empire, after escaping exile on the island of Elba and regaining control of France, came to an abrupt and disastrous end near a place called Mont Saint-Jean, which has gone down in history as the Battle of Waterloo. During the retreat, Prussian soldiers captured him while trying […]
Posted inModern Era
Louis Bonaparte, Napoleon’s Brother who Was King of Holland and Confronted Him after the Invasion of the Country by the French
It was the year 1851 when the prince president of France ordered the demolition of the old – and dilapidated – parish church of Saint-Leu-Saint-Gilles in Paris. In its place, another church was built at his expense to house a family crypt. Among others, the mortal remains of his father, who had died in Livorno […]
Posted inModern Era
The failed siege of Acre, Napoleon’s first major setback
On May 20, 1799, Napoleon Bonaparte ordered the lifting of the siege of Acre, marking the end of a campaign that resulted in his failure to conquer Syria and, along with Egypt, permanently block the British passage to India. This ill-fated adventure cost him almost half of his forces (including those left in the Middle […]
Posted inModern Era
When the Pope had to be Crowned with a Tiara made of Papier-mâché, because Napoleon had taken away the Gold and Silver ones
In the coat of arms of the Vatican, we see, on a field of gules, two crossed keys tied with a cord; one is made of gold and the other of silver, and they represent the dual power, spiritual and earthly, of the Church. But what interests us here is the element above them: the […]
Posted inModern Era
How the battlefields of the Napoleonic Wars were cleaned up
Year 1807, at the end of the bloody battle of Eylau: the French soldier Jean Baptiste de Marbot wakes up, after several hours unconscious, covered in blood and on a cart, surrounded by corpses. He is completely naked and only keeps his hat because all his clothes and belongings have been taken away because he […]
Posted inHistory, Modern Era
Charles Joseph Bonaparte, who founded the FBI, was Napoleon’s great-nephew
We find relatives of Napoleon everywhere and many of them with interesting lives. For instance, Louis Napoleon was in the French Resistance during the Second World War or Eugenio Luis, son of Napoleon III and the Spanish Eugenia de Montijo, fighting against the Zulus. Today we are going to review the story of another descendant, […]
