Blog archives: December 2017
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New Year’s Day in Paris in the 1800s
December 29, 2017
New Year’s Day was a bigger celebration than Christmas in 19th-century France. New Year’s Day in Paris was a remarkable experience.
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Christmas Eve in Early 19th-Century Pennsylvania
December 22, 2017
European immigrants brought many Christmas traditions to America between the 17th and 19th centuries. Pennsylvania, with its mix of Swedish, Dutch, Quaker, German, French, Welsh, Scots-Irish and other settlers, had a rich assortment of Christmas customs to draw upon. Joseph Bonaparte and the other Napoleonic exiles who settled in the Philadelphia area after 1815 probably encountered some of the Christmas Eve traditions described in this article.
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Christmas Gift Ideas from the 19th Century
December 15, 2017
If you’re doing some Christmas shopping, consider these Christmas gift ideas from the 19th century. Presents ranged from “a well-chosen book” to “elegant preparations for the toilet” to bread, bullocks, and coal.
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What did Americans think of the Napoleonic exiles?
December 8, 2017
In writing Napoleon in America, it was easy to find French exiles in the United States in the early 1820s who could fictionally help Napoleon carry out his schemes. From Napoleon’s brother Joseph Bonaparte to scoundrels like Louis-Joseph Oudart, many Bonapartists fled to the United States after Napoleon’s 1815 defeat, to avoid persecution by the government of Louis XVIII. What was the American attitude toward the Napoleonic exiles in their midst?
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The Bedroom Adventures of a Napoleonic Soldier
December 1, 2017
The adventures of a Napoleonic soldier in the bedroom can be as entertaining as his exploits on the battlefield. At least that’s the case when Jean-Roch Coignet, a grenadier in Napoleon’s Imperial Guard, tells the tale. In late 1809, at the age of 33, Coignet was back in Paris after the Austrian campaign, during which he had been promoted to sergeant. Wanting to improve his appearance to suit his new rank, he bought some false calves – padded attachments for the lower limbs – to make his legs look more shapely. Shortly thereafter, Coignet was invited to dinner at his captain’s house, along with some “distinguished military men and citizens and ladies of high degree.”
We must confess that fate, which sports with man, makes merry work with the affairs of this world.
Napoleon Bonaparte