Towards the end of the months of festivities and celebrations following Napoleon's marriage to Marie-Louise, yet another ball was held in honor of the Emperor and his new Empress, on 1 July 1810, this time by the Austrian ambassador, the Prince of Schwarzenberg. A fire broke out, caused by a drooping candle setting one of …
Tag: Letters
“Pronounce my fate unsparingly”
Following his final defeat against Austria at the battle of Tolentino at the beginning of May 1815, Murat made a hasty retreat to Naples. Advised by Caroline to depart the kingdom, as the Austrians and English flat-out refused to deal with him, Murat left Naples the day after his return, and soon made his way …
“We would be driven to a state of barbarism”
Continuing with Louise Murat's memoirs, we arrive at Murat's decision, in 1815, to march in support of Napoleon following his brother-in-law's triumphant return from Elba. Murat had been urged by Joseph Bonaparte to try to convince Emperor Francis of Austria to ally himself to Napoleon; but the letter Murat ends up sending Francis towards the …
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“You can never know how attached to you I am”
Today--25 March--is the shared birthday of Joachim & Caroline Murat (in 1767 & 1782, respectively), so I've put together a little something to provide some insight into their relationship. There's one period in particular during which an abundance of letters exists from Caroline to Joachim: their long separation(s) during most of 1810. Joachim and Caroline …
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“The false words attributed to him”
Emmanuel-Augustin-Dieudonné-Joseph, Count de Las Cases, was one of the few men to voluntarily accompany Napoleon into exile on Saint Helena, along with his son. There, he served the deposed Emperor as a secretary, recording numerous conversations with Napoleon and taking extensive notes, which he later turned into the Mémorial de Sainte-Hélène following his expulsion from the island …
“I am for you now only the man who is tolerated with difficulty”
Murat's relationship with Napoleon was tempestuous, and at some point in the near future I'm planning to attempt a thorough, multi-part write-up on it. I've covered a lot of the events/correspondence between them in 1813 leading up to Murat's defection, but it should be understood that their relationship had been in a fairly steady decline …
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“You have deigned to notice that I was a bit late…”
I translated a couple amusing little letters exchanged between Murat & Eugène de Beauharnais recently as part of a longer write-up on their relationship in response to a query from a Tumblr friend of mine, so I figured I'd post them here as well. In June of 1805, Napoleon made his stepson Eugène the Viceroy …
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“I could not help being struck by the contrast…”
We have come, at long last, to the final letter Murat wrote to Napoleon before signing his treaty with Austria. In the final of days of 1813, General Adam Albert, the Count of Neipperg, arrived in Naples carrying an ultimatum from Metternich; either Murat was to finally commit himself, after months of vacillating, to the …
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“You will lose yourself, you will lose us all!”
As his negotiations with Austria and England continued, an indecisive Murat wrote his New Year's greeting to Napoleon on 21 December 1813. Murat used this as an opportunity to once again urge Napoleon to make peace, as he had in his letter from five days earlier. "Sire, a new year is about to commence. May …
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“I have fully acquitted my debt towards the Empire and towards Your Majesty”
Continuing on, after a long pause, with my translations of Murat's final letters to Napoleon in 1813 leading up to his defection at the beginning of 1814. I'm including two letters in this post because the first one is too short to merit its own; but the second more than makes up for it, at …
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Project Murat 