Eugénie Hortense Auguste Napoléone, known as Eugénie de Beauharnais, princess of Leuchtenberg (22 December 1808, Milan – 1 September 1847, Freudenstadt) was a Franco-German princess. She was the second daughter of Eugène de Beauharnais and Princess Augusta of Bavaria, and a member of the house of Beauharnais. In 1826 she married Constantine, Prince of Hohenzollern-Hechingen.

Early years

Schloss Eugensberg in 1850

Born and raised as a Catholic, Eugénie grew up in the Palais Leuchtenberg on Ludwigstraße in Munich and frequently spent the summer months with her parents at Schloss Eugensberg, a castle built on Lake Constance (at what is now Salenstein) by her father. The family's behaviour was princely in every aspect - the French envoy Coulomb wrote in 1822: "Prince Eugène de Beauharnais lives in greater luxury than [Napoleon's] court". Their Palais in Munich had been built by the famous Bavarian architect Leo von Klenze for over 2 million guilders. Besides Munich and Schloss Eugensberg, the family had manors at Eichstätt and Ismaning. On her father's death in 1824, Eugénie inherited Schloss Eugensberg.

Marriage

In 22 May 1826 Eugénie married the Catholic erbprinz Constantine in Eichstätt. Eugénie brought hofkavalier Gustav von Billing (born in Leuchtenberg) to Hechingen as her financial advisor - he managed her large dowry on her mother's behalf and quickly won Konstantin trust as an advisor. From 1833 Eugénie and her husband lived at Schloss Lindich near Hechingen, the chief city of the Hohenzollern-Hechingen house, though they also spent much of the summer months at Schloss Eugensberg, thus keeping in contact with her aunt Hortense and her cousin Louis Napoleon, who later became Napoleon III. /wiki/Eugenie_de_Beauharnais

HAPPY EASTER for all of my readers

Fabergé Egg - First Imperial (Hen) Egg (1885),
 presented by Alexander III to Maria Fyodorovna

First-Hand Descriptions of Napoleon

First-Hand Descriptions of Napoleon

By Tom Holmberg

Napoleon was 5 feet 6½ inches tall, average height at the time. In his early years he was quite lean and only after 1806 did he become heavy. In his younger years he was often described as sickly in appearance, his skin having a yellowish pallor. He had fine white teeth, which he was proud. His nose was slightly curved, with a "sharp and delicate modelling, [but] was less prominent than one is inclined to suppose from the evidence of his portraits." His eyes, deep-set, were reportedly gray or gray-blue. 

Chateaubriand described him, during the Consulate: "His face made a favourable impression on me, for up to now I had seen him only in the distance. His smile is friendly and winning, his eyes wonderful, especially in the way they are set deep under his forehead and overshadowed by his eyebrows. There is nothing of the charlatan in his appearance, nothing theatrical or artificial....An extraordinary imagination animated this cold politician; lacking the inspiration of this Muse, he could never have attained such heights."

Mary Berry also saw Napoleon in 1802, stating that his 'mouth, when speaking...has a remarkable and uncommon expression of sweetness. His eyes are light grey, and he looks full in the face of the person to whom he speaks. To me always a good sign.'

charles-von-steuben-napoleons-hats

In the same year, an Englishwoman, Fanny Burney, described his face being 'of a deeply impressive cast, pale even to sallowness, while not only in the eye but in every feature-care, thought, melancholy and meditation are so strongly marked, with so much of character, nay, genius, and so penetrating a seriousness, or rather sadness, as powerfully to sink into an observer's mind.' She also described his demeanor as 'more the air of a student than a warrior.' 

Read all: napoleon-series.org/research/napoleon/c_description

Old pictures of Paris

1798, première Exposition au Champ de Mars à Paris.

A partir de ce moment, les Expositions allaient se succéder rapidement, leur importance allant toujours croissant.

1798, 1801, 1802, 1806, 1819, 1823, 1827, 1834, 1839, 1844, 1849... puis en 1855, la douzième et première Exposition universelle en France. lemog3d.blogspot 

L'idée des Expositions universelles est née en France, la première aurait dû avoir lieu en 1849, mais à la suite des événements politiques de l'époque qui troublèrent le pays, le projet traversa la Manche pour donner deux ans plus tard la naissance à Londres de la première Expositions universelle de 1851.

Madame de Staël

  

Books as foodle-chateau-de-coppet

Anne Louise Germaine Necker was born in 22 April 1766 in Paris, France. Her father was the prominent Swiss banker and statesman Jacques Necker, who was the Director of Finance under King Louis XVI of France. 

 

wiki/Suzanne_Curchod

Her mother was Suzanne Curchod, almost equally famous for being the early love of Edward Gibbon, 

wiki/Edward_Gibbon

Being the wife of Necker herself, and being the mistress of one of the most popular salons of Paris. 

wiki/Jacques_Necker

Mother and daughter had little sympathy for each other. Mme Necker, despite her talents, her beauty and her fondness for philosophic society, was strictly decorous, somewhat reserved, and wanted to bring up her daughter with the discipline of her own childhood. Anne Louise was from her earliest years energetic and boisterous. She began very early to write, though not to publish. She was said to have injured her health by excessive study and intellectual excitement. But in reading all the accounts of Mme de Staël's life which come from herself or her intimate friends, it must be carefully remembered that she was the most distinguished and characteristic product of the period of sensibility — the singular fashion of ultra-sentimentalism — which required that both men and women, but especially women, should be always palpitating with excitement, steeped in melancholy, or dissolved in tears. Still, her father's dismissal from the ministry and the consequent removal of the family from the busy life of Paris were probably beneficial to her.

During part of the next few years, they resided in the Swiss village of Coppet at the Château de Coppet, her father's estate on Lake Geneva, which she herself made famous. But other parts were spent in travelling, chiefly in southern France. They returned to Paris, or at least to its neighborhood, in 1785, and Mlle Necker resumed writing miscellaneous works, including a novel, Sophie, printed in 1786, and a tragedy, Jeanne Grey, published in 1790.

 Read on: wiki/Germaine_de_Stael