Napoleon's Day

May 5

Napoleon Bonaparte, emperor of France from 1804-15, is one of the most celebrated individuals in European history and still has many admirers in France. Often referred to as "Le Corse" (from Corsica, where he was born) or "Le Petit Caporal" (the little corporal) for his short stature, Napoleon is best known for the zeal with which he pursued the military expansion of France and for his reforms, which left a lasting mark on the judicial, financial, administrative, and educational institutions of not only France, but much of western Europe.
After finally abdicating in favor of his son on June 22, 1815, Napoleon was exiled to the island of St. Helena in the southern Atlantic with a small group of followers. He died there on May 5, 1821, at the age of only 51. But his legend grew, and in 1840 his remains were taken from St. Helena back to Paris, where a magnificent funeral was held. He was finally entombed under the gold-plated dome of the Church of Saint-Louis, one of the buildings in the compound of the Hôtel des Invalides, where his descendants and admirers still congregate on May 5 each year to attend a commemorative mass.
See also Cape Vincent French Festival

CONTACTS:
Paris Convention and Visitors Bureau
25 rue des Pyramides
Paris, 75001 France
33-8-9268-3000; fax: 33-1-4952-5300
en.parisinfo.com
Napoleon Foundation
148 Blvd. Haussmann
Paris, 75008 France
33-1-5643-4600; fax: 33-1-5643-4601
www.napoleon.org

SOURCES:
AnnivHol-2000, p. 77
(c)

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References in periodicals archive

In Napoleon's day we were known as a nation of shopkeepers which I think we are becoming again instead of being proud to be known in later years as 'The Workshop of the World' and as regards Birmingham, 'The City of a Thousand Trades'.

We can't lose our engineering [...]; Get in touch - tell us what you think Email: letters@birminghammail.co.uk Twitter: @birminghammail Facebook: facebook.com/birminghammail Post: Birmingham Mail, 60 Church Street, Birmingham B3 2DJ

While IPB was not codified in a French field manual in Napoleon's day, this planning tool has proven to withstand the test of time over three centuries of military revolutionary war-fare and across the spectrum of conflict.

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President Sarkozy is also almost exactly the same height as L'EmpE[umlaut]reur, about 5ft 6in, which was, in fact, respectably tall in Napoleon's day.

Sarkozy, Napoleon had distinct similarities, says French commentator

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How good was Napoleon? Serving general and military historian Jonathon Riley uses his personal knowledge of command to assess Napoleon's qualities as a strategist, operational commander and battlefield tactician

He correctly points out that Napoleon was not the only Frenchman in his day (and there remain many in ours) to whom "Anglo-Saxon" constitutions with limited government and loyal but robust opposition parties are "an invitation to social dissolution in a flee-for-all of market forces and factional or corporatist interest." This distrust of politics and its absorption into the State (which Hegel so much admired in Napoleon) may or may not have been necessary in the France of Napoleon's day. But, contrary to Englund's suggestion, this distrust, and the consequent construction of a centralized technocratic State for "a post-political society," is not a "liberal vision."

Moral monster

Musical numbers: "Carpe Diem (The Victim's Ball)," "The Rest of My Life," "Seven Days," "The Road to Glory," "The Dream Within," "Cut Throat Game," "Only in Fantasy," "Billiards," "A Gentleman's Agreement," "The Journey Begins," "Eighteenth of Brumaire," "On That First Night," "The Royal Chorus of Disapproval," "The Republic Ball," "I Am the Revolution," "Calm Before the Storm," "Timor Mortis," "Sweet Victory Divine," "Saint Napoleon's Day," "The Needs of France," "The Last Crusade," "The Friend You Were to Me," "The Hunt," "Russia," "Waiting and Hoping," "Gates of Paris," "Rhapsody of the Turning Tides," "Exile of the Heart," "Finale."

NAPOLEON