Vandamme was such a meme

Cabbages, carrots and rooster feathers, these were the ingredient to chosen to create cheap military officers. But professor Napoléon accidently add an extra ingredient to the concoction : Légion d'honneur. Thus THE POWERPUFF MARSHALS were born!

Happy Birthday to the king and queen of Naples

Let's Judge The Signatures Of Dead Frenchmen - Marshals of the Empire Edition

plus some bonuses at the bottom

This is a shitpost I've just wanted to do ever since I noticed Masséna's signature.

I know signatures are not meant to be legible, god knows mine isn't, but look at it, it's all the same letter!

I'm lazy so I'm only going to judge the ones on wikimedia and a few extra from letters, sorry to Marmont and others who did not get their signatures scanned and then made transparent for osme reason who is going to forge a dead frenchman's signature

Of course Bessières has a nice one:

Berthier is also pretty nice:

Loopy! Wait as has been pointed out to me, that could be an Alex. Did anyone ever call him Alex or Al

I love Lannes' because he circles his name!

A fancy guy like Murat's gotta have a fancy one, right?

Nice but not as loopy as Berthier's, honestly not the fanciest here

Davout has a nice legible one

Let's look at Soult's-

Woah, he's taking up a bit of space there! Where are you going with that t, champ?

Augereau is nice and straight I'm in awe as someone physicalyl incapable of writing in a straight line even on lined paper

Mortier is also really nice!

but also Ed Mortier. He called himself Ed. Do you think his friends also called him Ed or perhaps Eddie

MacDonald is Massena tier

can you guess who this next one is

hint: not french

Lefebvre's goin for the loop:

Jourdan is all classical:

Cant find Bernadotte pre-kinging but dude why is your kingograph so large who transcribed it like this

@phatburd linked me St Cyr's and

Very nice!

Victor lets see

I think I see a V in there. And a treble clef.

Oudinot:

I can kinda make it out!

But anyway I've been saving the best for last.

I have no words for this artistic masterpiece by Marshal Michel Ney.

Is that an umlaut or an emoticon? What are the two lines doing - error of transcription or part of the actual signature? Why do the loops just keep on going????

Is he just self conscious of how short his name is?????

Bonus!

Eugène de Beauharnais how's your-

he just didnt know when to stop.

Junot:

circle! pretty circle! napoleon did say he has pretty handwriting

Duroc:

Man he turned that c into an underline

This was fun! Next I'll rate all their coat of arms of something

The more fancy the signature, the bigger the ego... ahem. XD

Marie Louise’s reaction to Napoleon’s death

— Marie Louise’s letter to Countess Victoire (1821)

Source: Compiled by Charles A. Shriner, Wit, Wisdom and Foibles of the Great: Together With Numerous Anecdotes Illustrative of the Characters of People and Their Rulers

Marie Louise, deeply upset at not being informed of the news by her family in Vienna:

Source: Edith E. Cuthell, An Imperial Victim: Marie Louise, Archduchess of Austria, Empress of the French, Duchess of Parma

Ive decided to edit the finished paintings of a triology together because its something different to see them together then strewn over my chaotic Page XD first one will be the Murat one because its the most recently finished one. Concept was to depict napoleonic personalities in 3 different stages: Military, civil life and their end. I most likely post the other compilations of lannes and junot over the next days because i still need one to finish ney and 2 for davout

And here is the finished painting of murat and three of his children. Maybe im going to post some Detail shots too

Idk if someone asked this already and if they did my bad, but how did yall get into the Napoleonic era? I'm curious to know how yall got into this rabbit hole that's Napoleon and the events surrounding him.

My story might not be interesting but my first introduction into the community was by seeing a video by Oversimplified on Napoleon (this was around late January of last year). After that I began researching surface-level info on Naps and was starting to become fascinated with what I was reading. On February I drew Naps for the first time and the rest is history. Like I said my story is NOT interesting AT ALL!!

I even remember the day (Feb 11) cuz I was listening to this song on repeat while working on the drawing and now whenever I listen to that song it reminds me of Naps haha. Enough of me, I wanna read yall's story!

At school at 13, ten years ago.

My last year at middle school began in a really exciting way and I was a whole bundle of nerves and yipeees all the time. I met my very first crush, got my first period and most of all was determined to thrive at my first exam. Next year I would be changing school again and it was relieving. That was the reason why I was determined to study better and give a damn to what I learned.

And guess what, history class was opened by Napoleonic era. I studied that, focused on his namesake, bought a very basic biography and watched Piero Angela's documentary about him, who contained inserts of the 2002 miniseries just like EVERY. OTHER. NAPOLEON DOCUMENTARY I'VE SEEN SINCE THEN.

(That's why I find it boring. To me it just seems made to be a stock for documentary fillers in costume).

But no matter my first sources, many facts of Napoleon's (and Josephine's) life struck me a lot. Napoleon seemed such a cold and powerful figure, and looked like the least person who could ever inspire some empathy.

Then I found about his childhood, how he failed to restore his roots at home, and that saddened me deeply. Of course I was particularly fond of his youth, it was easier for me to relate with someone who's nearier to my age.

I still do that very much.

Had the french revolution and napoleon in school 10 years ago. We talked about the Crossing of the alps painting. It awoke my interest. Had a hard time with classmates in school and at home so i kinda started to hyperfixate on this topic after reading about his youth. Already started to produce Art about it then XD

Had my A-levels in history about him and just started to research him and his time more and more over time. We talked about his influence on church history also in University a few times and i wrote a term paper about the use of religion and nationalism in germany during the napoleonic wars. But i only started getting deeper into it again during the last year artwise

Oh boy, here we go. Picture it, Sicily, 1912... (ROFL) - Okay, more like September, 1989. (this is long, I'll try to summarize/put it under a cut if I can.

Oh dear… so, I’m currently 23 years old, but my journey started at about 7 years old. I had a history encyclopedia at home with an entire chapter dedicated to Frev and been fascinated by Frev ever since. The encyclopedia had a rather positive bias towards the Jacobins, so I grew up with the mindset of idolizing them and understanding their position.

I’m not exactly the Old Guard on Tumblr tho. First I joined the Frev community a couple of years ago (shoutout to @saintjustitude and @frevandrest for educating me so much!) and eventually started to post my reviews on Frev fiction works, as I felt I had to bring something to the table but lacked academic expertise to do the Serious History Stuff ™️.

And then I met @tairin , @amypihcs , @josefavomjaaga , @joachimnapoleon, @maggiec70 … aka my Neighbors in terms of our eras of interest overlapping. Chiefly the credit goes to @tairin , but I learned a lot about Napoleon and his marshals from the entire community actually!

So eventually I caved in and joined the dark side the Napoleonic community and started to make my Malmaison Media Salon reviews here as well. I will probably contribute more as an author in the future as well tho, since I can write but can’t draw.

Of course, that’s only the short version of the story but yeah. Here we are!

It was all born with Piero and Alberto Angela's dvd documentary and from then a passion accompanying me for all my school years that bloomed in lockdown. In lockdown i read the Saint Helena memorial (instead of studying fro my high school finals... maturità 2020, italians will understand) and then looking up articles, stuff on the internet. Until i found tumblr and joined the community and that's my first ever tumblr community!

It was the summer of 2017, and I was stuck in a job that was rapidly sucking my soul dry. I went to the public library and was browsing the history section, in the mood for something different than my then-usual fare of 18th/19th century U.S. history. I came across a book titled The Illustrious Dead: The Terrifying Story of How Typhus Killed Napoleon's Greatest Army, by Stephan Talty. It caught my attention. I knew almost nothing about Napoleon at this point; I knew he had lost in Russia and been driven into exile and lost again at Waterloo, and that was about it. Napoleonic Europe was one of those subjects I had always kind of wanted to study some day, but I had been daunted by the idea of it because it was such a vast subject encompassing so many different countries and complicated politics and I just didn’t really know where to start. But Talty’s book intrigued me so I checked it out of the library. I know the book has come in for some criticism, but it absolutely hooked me on the subject. Talty is a good storyteller and I was absolutely enthralled by the drama of the 1812 campaign, the descriptions of the battles, and the personality of Napoleon. Before I was even halfway through it I knew I’d found a new passion. I followed it up with Andrew Roberts’ biography of Napoleon, and soon because obsessed with learning about Murat. Before long I was coming home from work and just spending hours painstakingly translating Murat’s letters by hand (I have three binders full of handwritten translations—these became the foundation for my book). This newfound passion came along exactly when I needed it, it helped get me through a miserable situation, and I’ve made some great friends here and on Facebook as a result. And all from a random trip to the library. :)

A WHITE MARBLE BUST OF MARÉCHAL SOULT (1769-1851) by Jean-Antoine Houdon (Versailles 1741-1828 Paris), 1813)

'There are only two known marble busts of Maréchal Soult by the great French sculptor Jean-Antoine Houdon. The first was created for the salle des Maréchaux in the Palais des Tuileries and was displayed among other portrait busts of France's leading marshals, generals and navy men. However the bust disappeared in 1871 following the great fire at the Tuileries. The second bust was given to Soult's family, and is mostly likely the present sculpture. This second bust is recorded to be dated 1812, while our bust is dated 1813. However, the pen inscription to the reverse indicates that the bust descended from the family of Count Pierre de Mornay Soult de Dalmatie, Marquis de Mornay Montchevreuil (1837-1905), who was the grandson of Maréchal Soult via Soult's daughter, Joséphine Louise Hortense Soult de Dalmatie (1804-1862).'

(Source)

I have not read the article in its entirety yet. I'm just fascinated by the idea that Murat's many uniforms require wargamers to have a whole set of tiny Murats for every occasion...

I just read the article and there is a Murat for each major campaign, so Murat probably had a themed wardrobe for each campaign, or maybe multiple themed wardrobes since paintings can only capture so much in real time. It is amusing though, that Murat's love of uniforms meant many tiny little Murat figurines 😂

What a great image: Murat standing in front of his mobile wardrobe wondering what to wear for a campaign in Spain... 😋

I found this neat portrait of Roustam Raza made by Hortense de Beauharnais! Circa 1800s

Roustam was Napoleon’s bodyguard and valet, and Hortense was Napoleon’s stepdaughter. Roustam was an Armenian Mameluke in Egypt, originally from Tbilisi. He became employed by Napoleon during the Egypt campaign in 1799, following him back to Europe, and remained by his side until Napoleon’s abdication in 1814. He lived the rest of his life in France.

TEFAF Maastricht

from Roustam’s memoirs:

(He was recovering from falling off of a horse, hence his legs hurting)

I had no idea Hortense was so good at painting! Do you know where any more of her art can be found?

I got curious too! And here's what I discovered:

The man at Napoleon's arm is Desgenettes. The one covering his mouth is intended to be Bessieres!

Apparently Gros and Bessieres had some sort of beef. And painting Bessieres like this was an act of artistic revenge. At least that is what Justin Tripier Le Franc claims in his biography of Gros. Furthermore, it seems like he heard the story straight from the horse's mouth, so to speak - that is, Gros told him about the snub himself.

Thanks @orsuliya! I never would’ve guessed it was Bessières in a million years. He UNPOWDERED Bessières, the absolute blasphemy of it all. I want to learn more about this quarrel.