I have just recently returned from the beautiful city of Montreal, Canada for the annual International Napoleonic Society Conference, where I presented a lecture entitled “The Tricoloured Shamrock: Franco-Irish Politics” on the politics involved in preparations for Gen. Hoche’s Irish Expedition of 1796. If anyone would like to discuss the issue with me, please either leave a comment or contact me personally.
For those interested, you can follow me or chat with me on Twitter with concerns or questions. I can be found at http://twitter.com/MonsieurStark
For all of those unfamiliar with me or my work, I am a devout young historian, specializing in Napoleonic history. In fact, I have had the honor of being named a Fellow of the International Napoleonic Society, a well established and important community of scholars devoted to the promotion of Napoleonic history. My education is my foremost priority, and I wish to further it as best as I can. I have been accepted into the American University of Paris, where I will be studying Napoleonic history and the French language in great depth. However, I am from a modest income background, and research is expensive, especially in light of the current economic crisis and when you figure in travel costs and the like. For this reason, I ask that anyone who is willing to make a financial contribution to my education please contact me. I am a most devout worker, and I assure you that any and all money will go directly to my schooling and research expenses. If you need any assurance of my qualifications or sincerity, I have provided my Curriculum Vitae on the right hand side bar under “Pages,” which should demonstrate that I am most serious. If you can help me or wish to discuss this issue in more detail, you can contact me at my email address [monsieurstark@yahoo.com] (be sure to enter a subject, so that my spam filter does not block your mail), or at my number provided on the CV. Thank you.
Greetings, everyone! I know I have not posted in a while; the demands of a joint high school and college career are great and overwhelming. I wish to announce that I am preparing a paper to present at the INS conference in Montreal this June. I will be researching the political connection between Ireland and Revolutionary/Napoleonic France. If anyone wishes to aid or discuss this with me, simply post a comment or send me a message.
As you may well know, Ben Weider passed away this weekend, 17 October, at the age of 85. He was not only a gret historian and patron of scholasticism but also a personal friend of mine. He was a very well read individual, and devoted many years of his life on the promotion of Napoleonic History. Although I occassionally disagreed with his evaluation of events, he was very thorough in his research and provided a foundation for future historians. In addition to helping to disband the common misconception of a warmonger Napoleon, he brought to light was might be one of the greatest crimes in history: the murder of Napoleon. Ben, you were a gret person, and I only wish we had known eachother longer. May you rest in peace.
After a lengthy period of contemplation, I have settled upon the basis for my first book. To hear about it, simply click on the following link: Plans for My First Book
My response to a comment made on this blog.
To play the audio, click on the orange letters above.
Originally uploaded by cameronreilly
On 13 July 2008, I met with Cameron Reilly and J. David Markham in Paris, and we spent the next day on the town. Here is a photo of Cameron and me at the Louvre at one of the outdoor second-story cafes.
The duc d’Enghien was sentenced to death after a military trial found him guilty of treason. To this day it is not definitively known whether he was actually the “young prince” revealed by the British-paid terrorist Georges Cadoudal to be involved in what is dubbed the Cadoudal Plot, although all available information and my own intuition point towards his innocence in that matter; however, the fact remains that he was a traitor. He had made a public oath to overthrow the Republic, had taken up arms against France and personally fought against the Republic’s armies, and was in the midst of working on what appears to be another plot when he was arrested, the suggestive evidence being that he and his companions were in the process of burning several sets of papers when the soldiers came for him and the remaining papers detailed secret meetings in Paris, which not only would be illegal for the duc as he was exiled but also had the implication that he could have been in contact with Cadoudal. It is now supposed that he was in fact traveling to Paris to meet with his fiancée, but he made no declaration of this during his trial, nor would it be of much importance. The fact remains that the merciful pardon of émigrés excluded those who had, as it explicitly described, “not taken up against the Republic,” and so his return for any reason was warrant enough for death. Whether or not he was part of the Cadoudal Plot in particular, he was still a traitor, and the price for such treason was death. The argument presented is not on whether or not the proscribed penalty of death for treason is just, but rather that the sentence given him was in fact legal, despite the claims of a sect of naysayers.
By the end of the trial, the duc d’Enghien refused to offer a defense, contenting himself instead with writing to Napoleon for pardon as was permitted by the law, and accepted the final judgment of guilty of the charges:
4 – of placing himself at the head of a group of émigrés and others, funded by England, on the frontiers of France, in the states of Fribourg and Baden.
5 – of having carried out espionage in Strasbourg, of a kind liable to encourage unrest in the neighbouring departments, in order to create a diversion favourable to England.
Of those charges, the only one which he could possibly have been innocent of would have been the 6th, which would have left more than enough warrant for his arrest and execution. As for the issue of his residence in Ettenheim, that must be put into context. At the time, the issue of “national borders” was not as it is today, and there would have been very little problem with officials seizing criminals from the fringes of their territory, as the duc was only on the very edge of France and Ettenheim [which was an independent state, noting that the unified political body of Germany would not exist until 1871 and it was neither part of Prussia nor Austria]. In addition, the duc had violated the terms of his stay in Ettenheim, which was on the conditions that he “did not conspire against the French government, its friends and allies ” and maintained “peaceful and discreet conduct.” Conspiring to reinstate the Bourbon monarchy and plotting with England violate the first condition, and publically swearing to overthrow the Republic and taking up arms against it both violate the second condition.
Ultimately, it was a conspiracy two of Napoleon’s ministers, Savery and Talleyrand, that sealed the duc’s fate. Savery was responsible for, of his own initiative, hassling the trial into moving quicker and of brutally executing the duc in despicable conditions, shooting him in the back of the head in front of a pre-dug grave in the middle of a rainy night, without even pretending to wait for Napoleon’s reply to the request for pardon, and Talleyrand withheld the request from Napoleon until he knew it would be too late. Whether or not he would have been pardoned is a subject for debate, but had it not been for those two self-absorbed and malicious ministers the duc would have met a dignified death at the guillotine during the day and in a better environment. The manner of the duc’s death was disgraceful, but his arrest and sentence were both entirely right and justifiable.
Although I am hardly a fan of Emperor Napoleon III, this is nevertheless an interesting historical account, given by the US’s Confederate newspaper Harper’s Weekly on 2 March 1861:
FRANCE.
THE EMPEROR’S SPEECH.
The French Emperor opened the Chambers on 4th with a speech, in which he said :
“I have endeavored to prove, in my relations with foreign Powers, that France sincerely desires peace, and that, without renouncing a legitimate influence, she does not pretend to interfere in any place where her interests are not concerned; and, finally, that, if she sympathizes with all that is great and noble, she does not hesitate to condemn every thing which violates international right and justice. It is sufficient for the greatness of the country that its rights be maintained in the quarters in which they are incontestible, to defend its honor wherever it may be attacked, and to afford her support where it is supplicated by a just cause. It is thus that we have maintained our rights in causing the recognition of the cession of Savoy and Nice. These provinces are now irrevocably united to France. It is thus that, to avenge our honor in the extreme East, our flag, united with that of Great Britain, floats victoriously over the walls of Pekin, and that the Cross, emblem of Christian civilization, again surmounts in the capital of China the temples of our religion which have been closed for more than a century. It is thus that, in the name of humanity, our troops have gone to Syria, in virtue of a European convention, in order to protect the Christian against a blind fanaticism. At Rome I have considered it necessary to increase the garrison when the security of the Holy Father appeared to be threatened. I have sent my fleet to Gaeta at the moment when it seemed that it must be the last refuge of the Ring of Naples. After having allowed it to remain there four months, I withdrew it. However worthy of sympathy might be a royal misfortune is nobly defended, the presence of our war vessels obliged us to depart every day from the system of neutrality which I had proclaimed, and gave rise to erroneous interpretations; but you know that in policy one hardly believes in the possibility of a pure, disinterested step. Such is a rapid exposition of the general situation. Let any apprehension, therefore, be dissipated, and let confidence be reestablished. Why should not commercial and industrial affairs assume a new development? My firm resolution is not to enter into any conflict in which the cause of France should not be based on right and justice. What, then, have we to fear ? Can a united and compact nation, numbering forty millions of souls, fear to be drawn into struggles the aim of which she could not approve, or be provoked by any menace whatever? The first virtue of a people is to have confidence in itself, and not allow itself to be disturbed by imaginary alarms. Let us, then, calmly regard the future in the full consciousness of our strength as well as in our honorable intentions. Let us engage, without exaggerated preoccupations, in the development of the germs of the prosperity that Providence places in our hands.”
