Marcel Marceau was born in Strasbourg, France. At 16, his Jewish family was forced to flee their home when France entered the Second World War. He later joined Charles de Gaulle's Free French Forces and, because of his excellent English, worked as a liaison officer with General Patton's army. His father, a kosher butcher, was arrested by the Gestapo and murdered in Auschwitz concentration camp. He was married three times and has four children. (He is unrelated to actress Sophie Marceau).

After having seen Charlie Chaplin, he became interested in acting. After the war, he enrolled in 1946 as a student in Charles Dullin's School of Dramatic Art in the Sarah Bernhardt Theatre in Paris, where he studied with teachers like Charles Dullin and the great master, Etienne Decroux, who had also taught Jean-Louis Barrault. The latter noticed Marceau's exceptional talent[citation needed], made him a member of his company, and cast him in the role of Arlequin in the pantomime entitled Baptiste – which Barrault himself had interpreted in the world famous film Les Enfants du Paradis. Marceau's performance won him such acclaim that he was encouraged to present his first "mimodrama", called Praxitele and the Golden Fish, at the Bernhardt Theatre that same year. The acclaim was unanimous and Marceau's career as a mime was firmly established.

Career and signature characters

In 1947, Marceau created "Bip", the clown, who in his striped pullover and battered, beflowered silk opera hat — signifying the fragility of life — has become his alter-ego, even as Chaplin's "Little Tramp" became that star's major personality. Bip's misadventures with everything from butterflies to lions, on ships and trains, in dance-halls or restaurants, were limitless. As a style pantomime, Marceau was acknowledged without peer. His silent exercises, which include such classic works as The Cage, Walking Against the Wind, The Mask Maker, and In The Park, and satires on everything from sculptors to matadors, were described as works of genius. Of his summation of the ages of man in the famous Youth, Maturity, Old Age and Death, one critic said, "He accomplishes in less than two minutes what most novelists cannot do in volumes."

In 1949, following his receipt of the renowned Deburau Prize (established as a memorial to the 19th century mime master Jean-Gaspard Deburau) for his second mimodrama, "Death before Dawn", Marceau formed his Compagnie de Mime Marcel Marceau – the only company of pantomime in the world at the time. The ensemble played the leading Paris theaters – Le Theatre des Champs-Elysees, Le Theatre de la Renaissance, and the Sarah Bernhardt, as well as other playhouses throughout the world. During the 1959-60, a retrospective of his mimodramas, including the famous Overcoat by Gogol, ran for a full year at the Amibigu Theatre in Paris. He has produced 15 other mimodramas, including Pierrot de Montmartre, The 3 Wigs, The Pawn Shop, 14th July, The Wolf of Tsu Ku Mi, Paris Cries—Paris Laughs, and Don Juan – adapted from the Spanish writer Tirso de Molina.

World recognition

He performed all over the world in order to spread the "art of silence" (L'art du silence).

He first toured the United States in 1955 and 1956, close on the heels of his North American debut at the Stratford Festival of Canada. After his opening engagement at the Phoenix Theater in New York, which received rave reviews, he moved to the larger Barrymore Theater to accommodate the public demand. This first US tour ended with a record breaking return to standing room only crowds in San Francisco, Chicago, Washington, Philadelphia, Los Angeles and other major cities. His extensive transcontinental tours included South America, Africa, Australia, China, Japan, South East Asia, Russia and Europe. His last world tour covered the United States in 2004 and returned to Europe in 2005 and Australia in 2006.

Marceau's art became familiar to millions through his many television appearances. His first television performance as a star performer on the Max Liebman Show of Shows won him the television industry's coveted Emmy Award. He appeared on the BBC as Scrooge in A Christmas Carol in 1973. He was a favorite guest of Johnny Carson, Merv Griffin, Mike Douglas and Dinah Shore, and he also had his own one-man show entitled "Meet Marcel Marceau". He teamed with Red Skelton in three concerts of pantomimes.

He also showed his versatility in motion pictures such as First Class, in which he played 17 different roles, Shanks, where he combined his silent art, playing a deaf and mute puppeteer, and his speaking talent, as a mad scientist; as Professor Ping in Barbarella, and as himself in Mel Brooks' Silent Movie, in which he is the only actor with a speaking part, the single word "Non!". A further example of Marceau's multiple talents was the mimodrama Candide, which he created for the Ballet company of the Hamburg Opera. He directed this work and also performed the title role. He also had a role in a low-budget film roughly based on his life story called Paint It White. The film was never completed because another actor in the movie, a life-long friend with whom he had attended school, died halfway through shooting.

Children have been delighted by his highly acclaimed Marcel Marceau Alphabet Book and Marcel Marceau Counting Book. Other publications of Marceau's poetry and illustrations include his La ballade de Paris et du Monde, which he wrote in 1966, and The Story of Bip, written and illustrated by Marceau and published by Harper and Row. In 1982, Le Troisième Oeil, (The Third Eye), his collection of ten original lithographs, have been published in Paris with an accompanying text by Marceau. Belfond of Paris published Pimporello in 1987. In 2001, a new photo book for children titled Bip in a Book, published by Stewart, Tabori & Chang, appeared in the bookstores in the US, France and Australia.

In 1978, he established his own school in Paris: École Internationale de Mimodrame de Paris, Marcel Marceau (International School of Mimodrame of Paris, Marcel Marceau). In 1996, he established the Marceau Foundation to promote mime in the United States.

In 1995, vocalist, dancer, choreographer and mime Michael Jackson and Marceau conceived a concert for HBO, but the project was frozen at the stage of rehearsals, never being completed because of the singer's illness at the time.

In 2000, Marceau brought his full mime company to New York City for presentation of his new mimodrama, The Bowler Hat, previously seen in Paris, London, Tokyo, Taipei, Caracas, Santo Domingo, Valencia (Venezuela) and Munich. From 1999, when Marceau returned with his classic solo show to New York and San Francisco after 15-year absences for critically-acclaimed sold out runs, his career in America enjoyed a remarkable renaissance with strong appeal to a third generation. He latterly appeared to overwhelming acclaim for extended engagements at such legendary American theaters as The Ford's Theatre in Washington, DC, the American Repertory Theatre in Cambridge, MA, and the Geffen Playhouse in Los Angeles, demonstrating the timeless appeal of the work and the mastery of this unique artist.

Marceau's new full company production Les Contes Fantastiques (Fantasy Tales) opened to great acclaim at the Theatre Antoine in Paris.

Acclaim and honors

The French Government conferred upon Marceau its highest honor, making him an "Officier de la Legion d'honneur", and in 1978 he received the Medaille Vermeil de la Ville de Paris. In November of 1998, President Chirac named Marceau a Grand Officer of the Order of Merit; and he
was an elected member of the Academy of Fine Arts in Berlin, the Academy of Fine Arts in Munich, the Académie des Beaux-Arts of the Institut de France. The City of Paris awarded him a grant, which enabled him to reopen his International School, which offered a three-year curriculum.

Marceau held honorary doctorates from Ohio State University, Linfield College, Princeton University, and the University of Michigan – America's way of honoring Marceau's creation of a new art form, inherited from an old tradition.

In 1999, the city of New York declared March 18 Marcel Marceau Day.

Marceau accepted the honor and responsibilities of serving as Goodwill Ambassador for the United Nations Second World Assembly on Aging, which took place in Madrid, Spain, in April 2002.

Early years

Verne was born in Nantes to Pierre Verne, an attorney, and his wife Sophie. The oldest of the family’s five children, he spent his early years at home with his parents, on a nearby island in the Loire River. This isolated setting helped to strengthen both his imagination and the bond between him and his younger brother Paul. At the age of nine, the pair were sent to boarding school at the Nantes lycée.

There Jules studied Latin, which was used later in his short story Le Mariage de Monsieur Anselme des Tilleuls (mid-1850s). The following legend was created by his second French biographer, Marguerite Allotte de la Fuye: Verne’s fascination with adventure asserted itself at an early age, inspiring him at one point to stow away on a ship bound for Asia. His voyage was cut short, however, as he found his father waiting for him at the next port.

Literary debut

After completing his studies at the lycée, Verne went to Paris to study for the bar. About 1848, in conjunction with Michel Carre, he began writing librettos for operettas. For some years his attentions were divided between the theatre and work, but some travellers’ stories which he wrote for the Musée des Familles seem to have revealed to him the true direction of his talent: the telling of delightfully extravagant voyages and adventures to which cleverly prepared scientific and geographical details lent an air of verisimilitude.

When Verne’s father discovered that his son was writing rather than studying the law, he promptly withdrew his financial support. Consequently, he was forced to support himself as a stockbroker, which he hated, although he was a successful at it. During this period, he met the authors Alexandre Dumas and Victor Hugo, who offered him some advice on his writing.

It was during this period he met Honorine de Viane Morel, a widow with two daughters. They married on January 10, 1857. With her encouragement, he continued to write and actively try to find a publisher. On August 4, 1861, their son, Michel Jean Pierre Verne, was born. A classic enfant terrible, he married an actress over Verne’s objections, and had two children by his underage mistress.

Verne’s situation improved when he met Pierre-Jules Hetzel, one of the most important French publishers of the 19th century, who published also Victor Hugo, George Sand, and Erckmann-Chatrian, among others. Hetzel read a draft of Verne’s story about the balloon exploration of Africa, which had been rejected by other publishers on the ground that it was “too scientific”. With Hetzel’s help, Verne rewrote the story and in 1863 it was published in book form as Cinq semaines en ballon (Five Weeks in a Balloon).

Verne became wealthy and famous. From that point on, and for nearly a quarter of a century, scarcely a year passed in which Hetzel did not publish one or more of his stories. The most successful of these include: Voyage au centre de la terre (Journey to the Center of the Earth, 1864); De la terre à la lune (From the Earth to the Moon, 1865); Vingt Mille Lieues sous les mers (20,000 Leagues Under the Seas, 1869); and Le tour du monde en quatre-vingts jours (Around the World in Eighty Days), which first appeared in Le Temps in 1872. After his first novel, most of his stories were first serialised in the Magazine d’Éducation et de Récréation, a Hetzel biweekly publication, before being published in the form of books. His brother, Paul Verne, contributed to the 40th French climbing of the Mont-Blanc, added to his brother’s collection of short stories Doctor Ox in 1874. He remains the most translated novelist in the world, in 148 languages, according to the UNESCO statistics.

Reputation in the English-speaking countries

In France he is renowned for writing good French that boys will be interested in reading. In those countries for which his works were accurately translated as well, his scientific and political abilities are also noted. Not so in the English-speaking countries.

The British Empire was often criticized by him, and it happened that his first translator was the Reverend Lewis Page Mercier, writing under a pseudonym, who cut out such passages, for example the political action of Captain Nemo. Mercier and subsequent British translators especially had trouble with the metric system that Verne used – sometimes they converted the units to Imperial, sometimes they dropped significant figures, sometimes they just kept the metric number and changed the unit to an Imperial one. This made Verne’s calculations, exact for his age, into gibberish. Artistic passages and whole chapters were cut in the need to fit the work in the space for publication, regardless of what it meant to the plot.

Hence Verne’s work acquired a reputation in English-speaking countries of not being an adult work in any regard. Because he was not considered a littérateur, it was not seen fit to have his works re-translated. So the translations of Mercier and others were reprinted decade after decade. Finally, in 1965, the first translations into English since the nineteenth century were published. But still Verne is not fully rehabilitated in the English-speaking countries.

The last years

On March 9, 1886, as Verne was coming home, his nephew, Gaston, charged at him with a gun. As the two wrestled for it, it went off. The second bullet entered Verne’s left shin. He never fully recovered. Gaston spent the rest of his life in an asylum.

After the deaths of Hetzel and his beloved mother in 1887, Jules began writing works that were darker, such as a story of a lord of a castle infatuated with an opera singer who turns out to be just a hologram and a recording, and others concerned with death. In 1888, he entered politics and was elected town councillor of Amiens where he championed several improvements and served for 15 years. Ill with diabetes, Verne died at his home, 44 Boulevard Longueville, (now Boulevard Jules-Verne). Michel oversaw publication of his last novels Invasion of the Sea and The Lighthouse at the End of the World.

In 1863, he wrote a novel called Paris in the 20th Century about a young man who lives in a world of glass skyscrapers, high-speed trains, gas-powere
d automobiles, calculators, and a worldwide communications network, yet cannot find happiness, and comes to a tragic end. Hetzel thought the novel’s pessimism would damage Verne’s then booming career, and suggested he wait 20 years to publish it. Verne put the manuscript in a safe, where it was discovered by his great-grandson in 1989. It was published in 1994.

Partial list of works

• Cinq semaines en ballon (Five Weeks in a Balloon, 1863)
• Paris au XXe siècle (Paris in the 20th Century 1863, not published until 1994)
• Voyage au centre de la Terre (Journey to the Center of the Earth, 1864)
• De la Terre à la Lune (From the Earth to the Moon, 1865)
• Les enfants du Capitaine Grant (In Search of the Castaways, 1867-1868)
• Vingt Mille Lieues sous les mers (20,000 Leagues Under the Sea, 1870)
• Le tour du monde en quatre-vingt jours (Around the World in Eighty Days, 1872)
• L’île mystérieuse (Mysterious Island, 1874)
• Michel Strogoff (Michael Strogoff, 1876)
• Les Indes noires (1877)
• Les tribulations d’un chinois en Chine (1879)
• Le rayon vert (1882)
• Mathias Sandorf (1885)
• Robur le conquérant (Robur the Conqueror or The Clipper of the Clouds, 1886)
• Deux ans de vacances (1888)
• L’île à hélice (1895)
• Le beau Danube jaune (1901)
• Le village aérien (1901)

This article is licensed under the GNU Free Documentation License. It uses material from Wikipedia . 

Napoléon Bonaparte (August 15, 1769 – May 5, 1821) functioned as effective ruler of France beginning in 1799 and as emperor of France as Napoléon I from May 18, 1804 to April 6, 1814; he also conquered and ruled over much of western and central Europe. He was the first ruler of the Bonaparte dynasty. Napoleon was one of the so-called “enlightened monarchs”.

Early years and rise in the military

He was born Napoleone Buonaparte in the city of Ajaccio on the island of Corsica one year after Corsica had been sold to France by the Republic of Genoa. He later adopted the more French sounding spelling of Napoléon Bonaparte, the first known instance of this spelling appearing in an official report dated 28 March 1796. His family was of minor Corsican nobility. His father Carlo Buonaparte arranged for Napoléon’s education in France and he moved there at the age of nine.

Napoléon initially considered himself a foreigner and an outsider, not learning the French language until the age of ten; accusations of being a foreigner would dog him throughout his life, especially since he spoke French with an Italian accent. He had become an officer in the French army when the French Revolution began in 1789. Napoléon returned to Corsica, where a nationalist struggle sought separation from France. Civil war broke out, and Napoléon’s family fled to France. Napoléon supported the Revolution and quickly rose through the ranks. In 1793, he freed Toulon from the royalists and from the British troops supporting them. In 1795, when royalists marched against the National Convention in Paris, he had them shot.

Nicknamed the Little Corporal, Napoléon was a brilliant military strategist, able to absorb the substantial body of military knowledge of his time and to apply it to the real-world circumstances of his era. An artillery officer by training, he used artillery innovatively as a mobile force to support infantry attacks. When appointed commander-in-chief of the ill-equipped French army in Italy, he managed to defeat Austrian forces repeatedly. In these battles, contemporary paintings of his headquarters show that he used the world’s first telecommunications system, the Chappe semaphore line, first implemented in 1792. Austrian forces, led by Archduke Charles, had to negotiate an unfavorable treaty; at the same time, Napoléon organized a coup in 1797 which removed several royalists from power in Paris.

Invasion of Egypt, rise to dictatorship
In 1798, the French government, afraid of Bonaparte’s popularity, charged him to invade Egypt in order to undermine Britain’s access to India. An indication of Napoléon’s devotion to the principles of the Enlightenment was his decision to take scholars along on his expedition: among the other discoveries that resulted, the Rosetta Stone was translated. He was defeated by Cezzar Ahmet in Syria near the Castle of Saida. Napoléon’s fleet in Egypt was completely destroyed by Nelson at The Battle of the Nile, so that Napoléon became land-bound.

A coalition against France formed in Europe, the royalists rose again, and Napoléon abandoned his troops and returned to Paris in 1799; in November of that year, a coup d’état made him the ruler and military dictator (“First Consul”) of France. According to the French Revolutionary Calendar, the date was 18 Brumaire.

Napoléon instituted several lasting reforms in the educational, judicial, financial and administrational system. His set of civil laws, the Napoleonic Code or Civil Code, has importance to this day in many countries. The Code was largely the work of Jean Jacques Régis de Cambacérès, who held the office Second Consul under Bonaparte from 1799 to 1804.

Struggle in Europe, rise to emperor
In 1800, Napoléon attacked and defeated Austria again; afterwards, the British also signed a peace treaty.

In 1802, Napoléon sold a large part of northern America to the United States as part of the Louisiana Purchase; he had just faced a major military setback when his army sent to conquer Santo Domingo and establish a base in the western world was destroyed by a combination of yellow fever and fierce resistance led by Toussaint L’Ouverture. With his western forces diminished, Napoléon knew he would be unable to defend Louisiana and decided to sell (see Louisiana Purchase).

After Napoléon had enlarged his influence to Switzerland and Germany, a dispute over Malta provided the pretext for Britain to declare war on France in 1803 and support French royalists who opposed Napoléon. Napoléon, however, crowned himself Emperor on December 2, 1804. Claims that he seized the crown out of the hands of Pope Pius VII during the ceremony in order to avoid subjecting himself to the authority of the Pontiff are apocryphal; after the Imperial regalia had been blessed by the Pope, Napoléon crowned himself before crowning his wife Josephine as Empress. Then at Milan’s cathedral on May 26, 1805, Napoléon was crowned King of Italy.

A plan by the French, along with the Spanish, to defeat the British Royal Navy failed dramatically at the Battle of Trafalgar (21 October 1805), and Britain gained lasting control of the seas.

By 1805 the Third Coalition against Napoléon had formed in Europe; Napoléon attacked and secured a major victory against Austria and Russia at Austerlitz (2 December 1805) and, in the following year, humbled Prussia at the Battle of Jena-Auerstedt (14 October 1806). As a result, Napoléon became the de facto ruler over most of Germany. Napoléon marched on through Poland and then signed a treaty with the Russian tsar Alexander I, dividing Europe between the two powers. In the French part of Poland, he established the restored Polish state of Grand Duchy de Varsovie with the Saxonian King as a ruler.

Then on May 17, 1809 Napoléon ordered the annexation of the Papal States to the French empire.

Battles in Spain, Austria, and Russia
Napoléon attempted to enforce a Europe-wide commercial boycott of Britain called the “Continental System”. He invaded Spain and installed his brother Joseph Bonaparte as king there. The Spanish rose in revolt, which Napoléon was unable to suppress. The British invaded Spain through Portugal in 1808 and, with the aid of the Spanish nationalists, slowly drove out the French. While France was engaged in Spain, Austria attacked in Germany, but after initial success suffered defeat at the Battle of Wagram (6 July 1809).

Alexander I of Russia had become distrustful of Napoléon and refused to co-operate with him against the British. Napoleon invaded Russia in 1812. Napoleon didn’t take into account the advice of Poles, who predicted long-term war instead of quick victorious campaign. They proposed to gradually retrieve former Polish areas from the Russian hands and build there the base for the further war. As Poles predicted, the Russians under Kutuzov retreated instead of giving battle. Outside of Moscow on 12 September, the Battle of Borodino took place. The Russians retreated and Napoléon was able to enter Moscow, assuming that Alexander I would negotiate peace. Moscow began to burn and within the month, fearing loss of control in France, Napoléon left Moscow. The French Grand Army suffered greatly in the course of a ruinous retreat; the Army had begun as over 500,000 men, almost half of it was Poli
sh, but in the end fewer than 10,000 crossed the Berezina River (November 1812) to escape. Encouraged by this dramatic reversal, several nations again took up arms against France. The decisive defeat of the French came at the Battle of Leipzig, also called “The Battle of the Nations” (October 16-19 1813).

Defeat, Exile in Elba, Return and Waterloo
In 1814 Great Britain, Russia, Prussia and Austria formed an alliance against Napoléon. Although the defense of France included many battles which the French won, the pressure became overwhelming. Paris was occupied on 31 March 1814. The marshals asked Napoléon to abdicate, and he did so on April 6 in favor of his son. The Allies, however demanded unconditional surrender and Napoléon abdicated again, unconditionally, on April 11. In the Treaty of Fontainebleau the victors exiled the Corsican to Elba, a small island in the Mediterranean 20 km off the coast of Italy. They let him keep the title of “Emperor” but restricted his empire to that tiny island.

Napoléon tried to poison himself and failed; on the voyage to Elba he was almost assassinated. In France, the royalists had taken over and restored King Louis XVIII to power. On Elba, Napoléon became concerned about his wife and, more especially, his son, in the hands of the Austrians; the French government refused to pay his allowance and he heard rumors that he was about to be banished to a remote island in the Atlantic. Napoléon escaped from Elba on February 26, 1815 and returned to the mainland on March 1, 1815. The French armies sent to stop him received him as leader. He arrived in Paris on March 20 with a regular army of 140,000 and a volunteer force of around 200,000 and governed for the Hundred Days.

Napoléon’s final defeat came at the hands of Arthur Wellesley, 1st Duke of Wellington and of Gebhard Leberecht von Blücher at the Battle of Waterloo in present-day Belgium on 18 June 1815.

Off the port of Rochefort, Napoléon made his formal surrender while on the HMS Bellerophon, July 15, 1815.

Napoléon’s exile to Elba is the inspiration for the famous palindrome: “Able was I ere I saw Elba.”

Exile in Saint Helena and Death
Napoléon was imprisoned and then exiled by the British to the island of Saint Helena (2,800 km off the Bight of Guinea) starting on October 15, 1815. There, with a small cadre of followers, he dictated his memoirs and criticized his captors. In the last half of April 1821, he wrote out his own will and several codicils (a total of 40-odd pages) himself. His last words were: “France, the Army, Joséphine.”

In 1955 the diaries of Louis Marchand, Napoleon’s valet, appeared in print. He describes Napoléon in the months leading up to his death, and led many to conclude that he had been killed by arsenic poisoning. Arsenic was at the time sometimes used as an undetectable poison, administered over a long period of time. In 2001 Pascal Kintz, of the Strasbourg Forensic Institute in France, added credence to this claim with a study of arsenic levels found in a lock of Napoleon’s hair preserved after his death, with seven to thirty-eight times normal levels.

More recent analysis on behalf of the magazine Science et Vie showed that similar concentrations of arsenic can be found in Napoléon’s hair in samples taken from 1805, 1814 and 1821. The lead investigator (Ivan Ricordel, head of toxicology for the Paris Police) stated that if arsenic was the cause, he should have died years earlier. Arsenic was also used in some wallpaper, as a green pigment, and even in some patent medicines, and the group suggested that the most likely source in this case was a hair tonic. Prior to the discovery of antibiotics, arsenic was also a widely used, but ineffective, treatment for syphilis. This has led to speculation that Napoléon might have suffered from syphilis.

Napoléon married twice, first to Josephine de Beauharnais (whom he crowned as Empress Josephine, and by whom he had no heirs, leading to a divorce) and second to Archduchess Marie Louise of Austria, who became his second empress. He had one child by Marie-Louise: Napoléon Francis Joseph Charles Bonaparte (1812-1833), King of Rome (known as Napoleon II of France although he never ruled). Napoléon also had at least two illegitimate children: Charles, Count Léon, (1806 – 1881) (son of Louise Catherine Eléonore Denuelle de la Plaigne 1787 – 1868) and Alexandre Joseph Colonna, Count Walewski, (1810 – 1868) (son of Maria, Countess Walewski 1789 – 1817), whom both had descendants.

There is other information saying he had more illegitimate children, Emilie Louise Marie Francoise Josephine Pellapra, (daughter of Francoise-Marie LeRoy), Karl Eugin von Mühlfeld (son of Victoria Kraus), and Barthélemy St. Hilaire (unknown). Also Helene Napoleone Bonaparte (daughter of Countess Montholon).

He had asked in his will to be buried on the banks of the Seine, but when he died in 1821 he was buried on Saint Helena. In 1840 his remains were taken to France and entombed in Les Invalides, Paris.

Napoleon’s marshals included:Jean Baptiste Bessieres, Jean Baptiste Bernadotte, Joachim Murat, Louis Nicolas Davout, Louis Alexandre Berthier, Michel Ney, Josef Antoni Poniatowski, Pierre Francois Charle Augereau, Emmanuel Grouchy, Jean Lannes, Auguste Marmont, Laurent, Marquis de Gouvion Saint-Cyr, Nicolas Oudinot, Nicolas Jean de Dieu Soult, Guillaume Brune, Francois Christophe Kellerman, Francois Lefebvre, Jean Baptiste Jourdan, Bon Adrien Moncey, Jacques Macdonald, Andre Massena, Eduoard Mortier, Claude Perrin Victor, Dominique Perignon, Jean Mathieu Serrurier, Louis Gabriel Suchet

]]> http://www.france.com/people/napoleon_i_france/feed/ 0 http://www.france.com/people/jacques_brel/?utm_source=rss&utm_medium=rss&utm_campaign=jacques_brel http://www.france.com/people/jacques_brel/#comments Sat, 24 Jan 2004 16:50:00 +0000 France.com http://www.france.com/jacques_brel/

Jacques Brel (April 8, 1929 – October 9, 1978) was a Belgian author-composer with such a strong power of expression in his lyrics that he has been considered a poet as well. He also had some minor activity as an actor and director. He was born in Schaerbeek, Belgium, a small city north of Brussels.

In the early 1950s he went to Paris, writing music and singing in the city cabarets and music-halls, where on stage he expressed his songs with grand physical gestures. By 1956 he was touring Europe and he recorded the song Quand on n’a que l’amour that brought him his first major recognition. He appeared in a show with Maurice Chevalier and Michel Legrand.

He composed and recorded his songs almost exclusively in French, but he occasionally included parts in Flemish as in Marieke, although he had many grievances towards Flemish.  Les Flamandes, is considered comic and only incidentally associated to the Flemish who serve as a mere pretext to vilify humanity in general.

Although France was Brel’s “spiritual nation” and he expressed contradictory statments about his native Belgium, many overlook this matter as some of his best compositions pay tribute to Belgium, like Le plat pays or Il neige sur Liège.

His themes are extremely diverse, exploring love (Je t’aime, Litanies pour un retour, Dulcinéa), society (Les singes, Les bourgeois, Jaurès) and spiritual concerns (Le bon Dieu, Dites, si c’était vrai, Fernand). His work is not limited to one style. He was as proficient in funny compositions (Les bonbons, Le lion, Comment tuer l’amant de sa femme…) as in heart-breaking ones (Voir un ami pleurer, Fils de…, Jojo).

Brel’s acute perception made him an innovative and creative painter of daily life with rare poetic ease. He was a master poet. His intelligent use of words was striking and simple, exhibiting a very visual and meaningful vocabulary. Few of his peers are considered to match his skill in fitting as much novelty and meaning in a sentence from a few words of common use.

Brel had also a bright sense of metaphor, as in Je suis un soir d’été where the narrator is a summer’s evening telling what he observes as he falls on a city. Although regarded a master with lyrics, his musical themes were of the first standard, and also here he was not limited to one style. He composed both rhythmic, lively and captivating tunes (L’aventure, Rosa, Au printemps) as well as sad and solemn songs. (La quête, J’en appelle, Pourquoi faut-il que les hommes s’ennuient?)

He is widely recognized in French-speaking countries as one of the best French-language composers of all time.

He played in the musical L’homme de la Mancha that he also wrote and directed, and appeared in films to both critical and public acclaim. For twenty years he was a major star gaining recognition beyong French audiences. In 1973 he retreated to French Polynesia, remaining there until 1977 when he returned to Paris and recorded his well-received final album.

Brel died of lung cancer and was buried in the Altuona Cemetery, Altuona, Hiva-Oa, Iles Marquises, French Polynesia only a few yards away from painter Paul Gauguin.

JACQUES BREL IS ALIVE AND WELL AND LIVING IN PARIS was an American musical revue of the art of Jacques Brel. It has played around the world for years.

Songs include:

Ne me quitte pas
Amsterdam
Quand on n’a que l’amour
La chanson des vieux amants
La valse à mille temps
Une île
Les bonbons

Acting roles in film include:

L’aventure c’est l’aventure
Mon oncle Benjamin
L’emmerdeur
Les risques du métier

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General Charles de Gaulle of France

Table of contents [showhide] 
1 1912-1940: Military career

2 1940-1945: The Free French Forces

3 1946-1958: The desert crossing

4 1958: The collapse of the Fourth Republic

5 1958-1969 The Fifth Republic

6 1969 The retirement

7 Retrospect

8 Footnote

9 Works

9.1 French Editions
9.2 English Translations

10 Things named after Charles de Gaulle

11 External link
 

1912-1940: Military career
Born in Lille, de Gaulle was the son of a teacher and was educated at the École Spéciale Militaire de Saint-Cyr. He graduated in 1912 and joined the infantry. In World War I he was taken prisoner in March 1916 during the Battle of Verdun.

When the war ended, he remained in the military, serving on the staff of Gen. Maxime Weygand and then Gen. Philippe Pétain. During the Polish-Soviet war in 1919-1920, he volunteered to the Polish army and was an infantry instructor. He fought and distinguished himself in fighting near the river Zbrucz and received the highest Polish military award, Virtuti Militari. He was promoted to mayor and offered possibility of a further career in Poland, but chose instead to return to France. He was heavily influenced by that war, namely by the use of tanks, fast manouvres and lack of trenches.

Based partially on his observations during war in Poland, which was so different from experiences from WWI, he published a number of books and articles on the reorganisation of the army, particularly Vers l’Armée de Métier (published in English as “The Army of the Future”) in which he supported the new ideas of mechanised troops and specialised armoured divisions in preference to the static theories exemplified by the Maginot Line.

While Heinz Guderian and the German Army General Staff were influenced by de Gaulle, Pétain rejected most of de Gaulle’s theories, and the relationship between them became strained. French politicians also dismissed de Gaulle’s theories with the notable exception of Paul Reynaud who would later play a major role in de Gaulle’s career.

At the outbreak of World War II he was a colonel, by May 1940 he was a brigadier general and in command of the 4th Armoured Division in Alsace.

On May 17, 1940 de Gaulle attacked the German tank forces at Montcornet. With only 200 French tanks and no air support, the offensive had little impact on stopping the German advance. There was more success on May 28, when de Gaulle’s tanks forced the German armour to retreat at Caumont. He became the first and only French commanding officer to force the Germans to retreat during the invasion of France.

On June 6, 1940 Paul Reynaud appointed him under-secretary of state for national defence and war and put him in charge of coordination with the United Kingdom. As a member of the cabinet he resisted proposals to surrender. De Gaulle was in England when on June 16 Pétain became premier with the intention of seeking an armistice with Germany.

De Gaulle decided to reject French capitulation and to set about building a movement which would appeal to overseas French opponents of a separate arrangement with Germany.

1940-1945: The Free French Forces
On June 18, de Gaulle prepared to speak to the French people, via BBC radio, from London. The British Cabinet attempted to block the speech, but was overruled by Churchill. In France, de Gaulle’s “Appeal of June 18″ could be heard nationwide, at 7:00 p.m. To this day, it remains one of the most famous speeches in French history.

From London, de Gaulle formed and led the Free French movement. Whereas the USA continued to recognise Vichy France, the British government of Winston Churchill supported de Gaulle, initially maintaining relations with Vichy but subsequently recognising the Free French.

On July 4, 1940, a court-martial in Toulouse sentenced de Gaulle in absentia to four years in prison. At a second court-martial on August 2, 1940, de Gaulle was condemned to death for treason.

In his dealings with his British allies and the United States, de Gaulle insisted at all times in retaining full freedom of action on behalf of France, even where this might embarrass or inconvenience his partners in the war: “France has no friends, only interests” is one of his best-remembered statements. “Of all the crosses I have had to bear during this war, the heaviest has been the Cross of Lorraine [de Gaulle's symbol of Free France]” is one of Churchill’s.

Working with the French resistance and supporters in France’s colonial possessions in Africa, after the Anglo-American invasion of North Africa in November 1942, de Gaulle moved his headquarters to Algiers in May 1943, becoming first joint head (with the less resolutely independent Gen. Henri Giraud, the candidate preferred by the United States) and then sole chairman of the Committee of National Liberation.

At the liberation of France following Operation Overlord, he quickly established the authority of the Free French Forces in France, avoiding a Allied Military Government for Occupied Territories in France. On his return to Paris, he moved back into his office at the War Ministry, thus proclaiming continuity of the Third Republic and denying the legitimacy of Vichy France.

After the war he served as the President of the provisional government from September 1944 but resigned on January 20, 1946, complaining of conflict between the political parties, and disapproving of the draft constitution for the Fourth Republic which he believed placed too much power in the hands of parliament with its shifting party alliances.

1946-1958: The desert crossing
De Gaulle’s opposition to the proposed constitution failed as the parties of the left supported a weak presidency to prevent any repetition of the Vichy regime. The second draft constitution narrowly approved at the referendum of October 1946 was even less to de Gaulle’s liking than the first.

In April 1947 de Gaulle made a renewed attempt at transforming the political scene with the creation of the Rassemblement du Peuple Français (Rally of the French People, or RPF), but the movement lost impetus after initial success. In May 1953 he withdrew again from active politics, though the RPF lingered until September 1955.

He retired to Colombey-les-deux-Églises and wrote his war memoirs, Mémoires de guerre. During this period of formal retirement, de Gaulle however maintained regular contact with past political lieutenants from wartime and RPF days, including sympathisers involved in political developments in Algeria.

1958: The collapse of the Fourth Republic
The Fourth Republic was tainted by political instability, its failures in Indochina and its inability to resolve the Algerian question.

On May 13, 1958, the settlers seized the government buildings in Algiers, attacking what they saw as French government weakness in the face of demands among the Arab majority for Algerian independence. A ‘Committee of Civil and Army Public Security’ was created under the presidency of General Jacques Massu, a Gaullist sympathiser. General Raoul Salan, Commander-in-Chief in Algeria, announced on radio that the Army had ‘provisionally taken over responsibility for the destiny of French Algeria’.

Under the pressure of Massu, Salan declared “Vive de Gaulle!” from the balcony of the Algiers Government-General building on May 15. De Gaulle answered two days later that he was ready to “assume the powers of the Republic” (assumer les pouvoirs de la République). Many worried as they saw this answer as support to t
he army.

On May 19 de Gaulle asserted again (at a press conference) that he was at the disposition of the country. He declared that, “at sixty-seven, he had no intention to begin a career as a dictator”. A republican by conviction, de Gaulle maintained throughout the crisis that he would accept power only from the lawfully constituted authorities of the state.

The crisis deepened as French paratroops from Algeria seized Corsica and a landing near Paris was discussed. Political leaders on all sides agreed to support the General’s return to power, except François Mitterrand, and the Communist Party (which misguidedly denounced de Gaulle as the agent of a fascist coup). On May 29 the French President, René Coty, appealed to the “most illustrious of Frenchmen.” to become the last Prime Minister of the Fourth Republic.

De Gaulle remained intent on replacing the constitution of the Fourth Republic, which he blamed for France’s political weakness. He set as a condition for his return to be given wide emergency powers for 6 months and that a new constitution1 shall be proposed to the French people. On June 1, 1958 de Gaulle became premier and was given emergency powers for 6 months by the National Assembly.

On September 28, 1958, a referendum took place and 79.2% of those who voted supported the new constitution and the creation of the Fifth Republic. The colonies (Algeria was officially a part of France, not a colony) were given the choice between immediate independence and the new constitution. All colonies voted for the new constitution except Guinea, which thus became the first French African colony to gain independence, at the cost of the immediate ending of all French assistance.

1958-1969 The Fifth Republic
In the November 1958 elections de Gaulle and his supporters (initially organised in the Union pour la Nouvelle République-Union Démocratique du Travail, then the Union des Démocrates pour la Vème République and later still the Union des Démocrates pour la République) won a comfortable majority, in December de Gaulle was elected President with 78% of the vote, he was inaugurated in January 1959.

He oversaw tough economic measures to revitalise the country, including the issuing of a new Franc (worth 100 old Francs). Internationally he rebuffed both the USA and the USSR, pushing for an independent France with its own nuclear weapons. He set about building Franco-German coooperation as the cornerstone of the EEC (now the European Union), and he took the opportunity to deny the British entry for the first time (January 1963).

De Gaulle believed that while the war in Algeria was militarily winnable it was not defensible internationally, and he became reconciled to the country’s independence. This stance created huge anger among the French settlers and their metropolitan supporters, and de Gaulle was forced to suppress two uprisings in Algeria by French settlers and troops, in the second of which (April 1961) France herself faced threatened invasion by rebel paratroops. He was also targeted by the settler OAS terrorist group. In March 1962 de Gaulle arranged a cease-fire in Algeria and a referendum supported independence, finally accomplished on July 3.

In September 1962 he sought a constitutional amendment to allow the president to be directly elected by the people. Following a defeat in the National Assembly, he dissolved that body and held new elections, the Gaullists won an increased majority. Although the Algerian issue was settled the prime minister, Michel Debré, still resigned over the final settlement and was replaced with Georges Pompidou. v
State Portrait of President de Gaulle

In December1965 de Gaulle was returned as President for a second seven-year term, but only after a second round of voting in which he defeated François Mitterrand. Internationally de Gaulle continued to pursue an independent policy, again rejecting British entry into the EEC (December 1967), condemning the US over Vietnam and the Israelis over the Six Day War, and withdrawing France from the common NATO military command (February 1966).

On an official State visit to Canada in July 1967 to celebrate that country’s 100 years of nationhood, President de Gaulle ignited a storm of controversy in the anglophone world when he stood before a crowd of 100,000 Quebecers in Montreal and declared: Vive le Québec libre! While this implied support for Québec’s independence was a monumental diplomatic blunder and interference into another country’s private affairs, it was one that inflamed the passion of some nationalist Quebecers and inspired members of the emerging secession movement.

Following de Gaulle’s remark, the Prime Minister of Canada, Lester B. Pearson, cancelled plans for de Gaulle’s visit to the capital of Ottawa, and asked the French President to leave the country. Criticised at home in France for the remarks, his opponents reminded the wartime general of the thousands of Canadian soldiers (see: Vimy Ridge) buried in France who fought and died for France’s freedom in both World Wars. Critics also drew the parallel for interference between Quebec independence and past Franco-German contestation of ownership of Alsace-Lorraine.

The huge demonstrations and strikes in France in May 1968 were another challenge, in the course of which de Gaulle briefly flew to meet Massu, now French commander in Germany (to discuss army intervention against the protesters, it has been alleged), while Pompidou sent tanks into the suburbs of Paris as a precautionary measure.

But de Gaulle offered to accept some of the reforms the demonstrators sought. He again considered a referendum to support his moves, but Pompidou persuaded him to dissolve parliament (in which the government had all but lost its majority in the March 1967 elections) and hold new elections instead. The June 1968 elections were a major success for the Gaullists and their allies: when offered the spectre of revolution or even civil war, the majority of the country rallied to him. His party won 358 of 487 seats, but Pompidou was suddenly replaced by Maurice Couve de Murville in July.

1969 The retirement
Charles de Gaulle resigned on April 28, 1969 following the defeat of his proposals to transform the Senate into an advisory body while giving extended powers to regional councils. The general retired once again to Colombey-les-deux-Églises, where he died in 1970.

Retrospect
Though controversial throughout his political career, not least among ideological opponents on the left and among overseas strategic partners, de Gaulle continues to command enormous respect within France, where his presidency is seen as a return to political stability and strength on the international stage.

Domestically, for all its flaws, his regime presided over a return to economic prosperity after an initially sluggish postwar performance, while maintaining much of the social contract evolved in previous decades between employers and labour. The associated dirigisme (state economic interventionism) of the Fifth Republic’s early decades remains at odds with the trend of western economic orthodoxy, though French living standards remain among the highest in Europe.

De Gaulle’s presidential style of government was continued under his successors. Internationally, the emphasis on French independence which so characterised de Gaulle’s policy remains a keynote of foreign policy, together with his alignment with the former rival Germany, still seen in both countries as a foundation for European integration.

Footnote
1 As he commissioned the new constitution and was responsible for its overall framework, de Gaulle is sometimes described as the author of the constitution. De Gaulle’s political ideas were written into a constitutional by Michel Debré who then guided the text through the enactment process. Thus while the constitution reflects de Gaulle’s ideas, Michel Debré was the actual author of the text.

Works

French Editions

La D
iscorde Chez l’Ennemi (1924)
Histoire des Troupes du Levant (1931) Written by Major de Gaulle and Major Yvon, with Staff Colonel de Mierry collaborating in the preparation of the final text.
Le Fil de l’Epée (1932)
Vers l’Armée de Métier (1934)
La France et son Armée (1938)
Trois Etudes (1945) (Rôle Historique des Places Fortes; Mobilisation Economique à l’Etranger; Comment Faire une Armée de Métier) followed by the Memorandum of January 26, 1940.
Mémoires de Guerre
Volume I – L’Appel 1940-1942 (1954)
Volume II – L’Unité, 1942-1944 (1956)
Volume III – Le Salut, 1944-1946 (1959)
Mémoires d’Espoir
Volume I – Le Renouveau 1958-1962 (1970)
Discours et Messages
Volume I – Pendant la Guerre 1940-1946 (1970)
Volume II – Dans l’attente 1946-1958 (1970)
Volume III – Avec le Renouveau 1958-1962 (1970)
Volume IV – Pour l’Effort 1962-1965 (1970)
Volume V – Vers le Terme 1966-1969

English Translations
The Edge of the Sword (Le Fil de l’Epée). Tr. by Gerard Hopkins. Faber, London, 1960 Criterion Books, New York, 1960
The Army of the Future. (Vers l’Armée de Métier). Hutchinson, London-Melbourne, 1940. Lippincott, New York, 1940
France and Her Army. (La France et son Armée). Tr. by F.L. Dash. Hutchinson London, 1945. Ryerson Press, Toronto, 1945
War Memoirs: Call to Honor, 1940-1942 (L’Appel). Tr. by Jonathan Griffin. Collins, London, 1955 (2 volumes). Viking Press, New York, 1955.
War Memoirs: Unity, 1942-1944. (L’Unité). Tr. by Richard Howard (narrative) and Joyce Murchie and Hamish Erskine (documents). Weidenfeld and Nicholson, London, 1959 (2 volumes). Simon and Schuster, New York, 1959 (2 volumes).
War Memoirs: Salvation, 1944-1946. (Le Salut). Tr. by Richard Howard (narrative) and Joyce Murchie and Hamish Erskine (documents). Weidenfeld and Nicholson, London, 1960 (2 volumes). Simon and Schuster, New York, 1960 (2 volumes).

Things named after Charles de Gaulle
Many streets and public buildings in France bear the name of Charles de Gaulle. Let us cite:

Charles de Gaulle International Airport
Charles de Gaulle aircraft carrier
Charles de Gaulle plaza

Marie-Henri Beyle (January 23, 1783 – March 23, 1842), better known as Stendhal, was a 19th century French writer.

Born in Grenoble, France, he had a miserable childhood in stifling provincial France but blossomed in the military and theatrical worlds of the First French Empire. He travelled extensively in Germany and visited Russia (as part of Napoleon’s army), but formed a particular attachment to Italy, where he spent much of the remainder of his career, serving as French consul and writing.

Beyle used the pseudonym “Stendhal”, supposedly chosen as an anagram of “Shetland” (although Georges Perec may have invented this explanation – references to Le Rouge et le Noir feature extensively in Perec’s unfinished last novel 53 jours). — Alternative explanation: some scholars believes he borrowed his nom de plume from the german city of Stendal.

Contemporary readers did not fully appreciate Stendhal’s realistic style during the Romantic period in which he lived; he was not fully appreciated until the beginning of the 20th century. He dedicated his writing to “the Happy Few”, referring to those who would one day recognise his own genius. Today, Stendhal’s works attract attention for their irony and psychological and historical aspects.

Stendhal was an avid fan of music, particularly the composers Cimarosa, Mozart, and Rossini, the latter of whom he wrote an extensive biography, Vie de Rossini (1824), now more valued for its wide-ranging musical criticism than its historical accuracy.

He died in Paris in 1842 and is interred in the Cimetière de Montmartre.

Stendhal’s brief, saucy memoir, Souvenirs d’Egotisme (Memoirs of an Egotist) was published posthumously in 1892.

Novels include:

• Armance (1827)

• Le Rouge et le Noir (1830) (variously translated as Scarlet and Black, Red and Black, The Red and the Black)

• La Chartreuse de Parme (1839) (The Charterhouse of Parma)

• Lucien Leuwen (1835-) (unfinished)

• Lamiel (1840-) (unfinished)

His other work includes short stories, journalism, travel books (among them Rome, Naples et Florence and Promenades dans Rome) and L’amour, a singular treatise in which the author gives his views on love and records one of his own failed relationships.

Jules Dumont d’Urville (May 23, 1790 – May 8, 1842) was a French explorer.

Jules Sébastien César Dumont d’Urville was born in Condé-sur-Noireau, Basse-Normandie, France, was a French Rear Admiral and explorer of the south and western Pacific, Australia, New Zealand, and Antarctica.

His first feat that brought him much acclaim and proved to be his most significant, happened in 1820 while on an expedition to the Greek islands he recognized the true value of a recently unearthed statue as an ancient masterpiece carved sometime between 150 and 100 BC. He immediately arranged for the government of France to acquire one of the most valuable and famous statues in the world. The Venus de Milo now stands in the Louvre in Paris.

In 1822 he sailed on a voyage around the world under Captain Duperray, and brought home a very fine collection of animals and plants.

In 1826 he was sent to the Pacific, surveyed the coasts of New Guinea, New Zealand, and other islands, and found out the probable place of the death of La Perouse.

In 1837, on an expedition to the South Polar regions, he sailed along a coastal area of Antarctica that he named the Adélie Coast for his wife.

On his return in 1840, he was made rear admiral.

Later, in honor of his many valuable chartings, the D’Urville Sea, off Antarctica, Cape d’Urville, Irian Jaya, Indonesia, and D’Urville Island (New Zealand) were named after him.

Jules d’Urville was killed with his wife and son in a railroad accident near Meudon, France. He is buried in the Cimetiere de Montparnasse, Paris, France.

His name belongs to a street in Paris, Rue Dumont d’Urville, located in the 8th district, near the Avenue des Champs Élysées.

The account of his voyages was published in twenty-four volumes, with six large volumes of illustrations.

]]> http://www.france.com/people/jules_dumont_durville/feed/ 0 http://www.france.com/people/napoleon_iii/?utm_source=rss&utm_medium=rss&utm_campaign=napoleon_iii http://www.france.com/people/napoleon_iii/#comments Mon, 12 Jan 2004 11:34:00 +0000 France.com http://www.france.com/napoleon_iii/

He was elected President (1848-1852) of the Second Republic of France and subsequently Emperor (1852-1870), reigning as Napoleon III (Second French Empire). In a situation that resembles the case of Louis XVIII of France, the numbering of Napoleon's reign assumes the existence of a legitimate Napoleon II of France who never actually ruled.

Charles Louis Napoleon Bonaparte (April 20, 1808 – January 9, 1873) was the son of King Louis Bonaparte and Queen Hortense de Beauharnais; both monarchs of the Kingdom of Holland.

He was elected President (1848-1852) of the Second Republic of France and subsequently Emperor (1852-1870), reigning as Napoleon III (Second French Empire). In a situation that resembles the case of Louis XVIII of France, the numbering of Napoleon’s reign assumes the existence of a legitimate Napoleon II of France who never actually ruled.

Imprisoned after the second of two abortive coup attempts (October 1836 and August 1840), he escaped to the United Kingdom in May 1846, returning after the revolution of February 1848 to win the presidential election December 2 that year on a platform of strong government, social consolidation and national greatness. President Bonaparte then on December 2, 1851 violently overthrew the Second Republic and seized dictatorial powers. He became Emperor exactly one year later and established the Second French Empire. That same year, he began shipping political prisoners and criminals to penal colonies such as Devil’s Island or (in milder cases) New Caledonia. On April, 28th, 1855 he survived an attempted assassination.

Napoleon’s challenge to Russia’s claims to influence in the Ottoman Empire led to France’s successful participation in the Crimean War (March 1854-March 1856). He approved the launching of a naval expedition in 1858 to punish the Vietnamese and force the court to accept a French presence in the country. On January 14, 1858 Napoleon escaped another assassination attempt. In May-July 1859 French intervention secured the defeat of Austria in Italy. But intervention in Mexico (January 1862-March 1867) ended in defeat and the execution of the French-backed Emperor Maximilian, and France saw her influence further eroded by Prussia’s crushing victory over Austria in June-August 1866.

An important change during his reign was the rebuilding of Paris. This was done to reduce the ability of future revolutionaries to challenge the government. Large sections of the city were razed and the old convoluted streets were replaced with many broad avenues, with the intent of allowing cannon to be used easily within the city. The rebuilding of Paris was directed by Baron Haussmann (1809-1891; Prefect of the Seine 1853-1870).

He also directed the building of the French railway network. The design was very inefficient, however, as all routes lead to Paris. There was a Paris to Lyon lines, and a Paris to Caen, and a Paris to Marseilles, but no lines connecting the other cities to each other. Thus to travel from Marseilles to Bordeaux one needed to go via Paris, a great inefficiency. This was economically inefficient, and also militarily made the French far slower to organize than the more rationally organized Prussians.

Hoping to achieve military glory to match his uncle Louis and forced by the diplomacy of the German chancellor Otto von Bismarck, Napoleon began the Franco-Prussian War in 1870. This war proved disastrous, and was instrumental in giving birth to the German Empire. In battle against Prussia in July 1870 the Emperor was captured at the Battle of Sedan (September 2) and was deposed by the forces of the Third Republic in Paris two days later. He died in exile in England on January 9, 1873.

Married to Empress Eugenie, a Spanish noble of Scottish and Spanish descent, Napoleon III had one son, Eugene Bonaparte.

He is buried in the Imperial Crypt at Saint Michael’s Abbey, Farnborough, Hampshire, England.

]]> http://www.france.com/people/napoleon_iii/feed/ 0 http://www.france.com/people/louis_xvi-2/?utm_source=rss&utm_medium=rss&utm_campaign=louis_xvi-2 http://www.france.com/people/louis_xvi-2/#comments Sun, 11 Jan 2004 19:11:00 +0000 France.com http://www.france.com/louis_xvi-2/ Louis XVI of France (August 23, 1754 - January 21, 1793) succeeded his grandfather (Louis XV of France) as King of France on May 10, 1774; he was crowned on June 11, 1775. His father, the dauphin, had died in 1765.

On May 16, 1770 he married Marie Antoinette, daughter of Francis I of Austria and Empress Maria Theresa , a Habsburg. They had four children:

Marie-Therese Charlotte (December 20, 1778 - October 1851);
Louis-Joseph-Xavier-François (October 22, 1781 - June 4, 1789);
Louis-Charles (March 27, 1785 - 1795);
Sophie-Beatrix (July 9, 1786 - June 19, 1787).

]]> Louis XVI of France (August 23, 1754 – January 21, 1793) succeeded his grandfather (Louis XV of France) as King of France on May 10, 1774; he was crowned on June 11, 1775. His father, the dauphin, had died in 1765.

On May 16, 1770 he married Marie Antoinette, daughter of Francis I of Austria and Empress Maria Theresa , a Habsburg. They had four children:

Marie-Therese Charlotte (December 20, 1778 – October 1851);
Louis-Joseph-Xavier-François (October 22, 1781 – June 4, 1789);
Louis-Charles (March 27, 1785 – 1795);
Sophie-Beatrix (July 9, 1786 – June 19, 1787).

The government was deeply in debt, the radical reforms of Turgot and de Malesherbes disaffected the nobles (parlements) and Turgot was dismissed and de Malesherbes resigned in 1776 to be replaced by Jacques Necker. Louis supported the American Revolution in 1778, but in the Treaty of Paris (1783) the French gained little except an addition to the country’s enormous debt. Necker had resigned in 1781 to be replaced by de Calonne and de Brienne before being restored in 1788. A further taxes reform was sought, but the nobility resisted at the Assembly of Notables (1787).

In 1788 Louis ordered the first election of an Estates-General (États Généraux) since 1614 in order to have the monetary reforms approved. The election was one of the events that transformed the general malaise into the French Revolution, which began in June 1789. The Third Estate had been admitted to the assembly and had proved radical, Louis’ attempts to control them resulted in the Tennis Court Oath (Jeu de Paume, June 20) and the declaration of the National Assembly. In July , an act which provoked the storming of the Bastille on July 14, 1789. In October the royal family were forced to move to the Tuileries palace in Paris.

Louis himself was very popular and not unobliging to the social, political and economic reforms of the Revolution, but the bad influence of his wife in politics caused him to reject the principles of the Revolution. This caused his popularity to drop dramatically and the mistrust against him grew, thus undermining his position as monarch. Other persons who had bad influence on him were his brothers, the comte d’Artois and the comte de Provence. Especially Artois had much influence on Louis’ reactionary tedencies.

On June 21, 1791 Louis attempted to flee secretly from France to Germany with his family, but on the way they were recognized at Varennes and captured by the revolutionaries. He was returned to Paris where he remained as constitutional king until 1792. In August 1792 the National Assembly abolished the office of King. Louis was arrested (August 10), tried (from December 11) and convicted of treason before the National Assembly. He was sentenced to death (January 17) by guillotine with 361 votes to 288, with 72 effective abstentions.

King Louis XVI was beheaded in front of a cheering crowd on January 21, 1793. On his death, his eight-year-old son, Louis-Charles de France, automatically became to royalists the de jure King Louis XVII of France, the ‘lost dauphin’.

His wife, Marie Antoinette, followed him to the guillotine on October 16, 1793.

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