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ST. ELIZABETH OF THE TRINITY (1880-1906): From Loss and Suffering to “Praise of Glory.”

St. Elizabeth of the Trinity’s brief but influential life demonstrates how suffering, personal loss, contemplative prayer, and unwavering devotion to the Holy Trinity transformed an ordinary young French woman into one of the Church’s great modern mystics, whose writings continue to guide souls toward deeper union with God.

By John P. Walsh.

Early Life and Family Tragedy

St. Elizabeth of the Trinity (1880-1906) actually has two different feast days depending on the liturgical calendar used. Born Élisabeth Catez in 1880 at a military camp near Bourges, France, she was the first child of Captain Joseph Catez and Marie Rolland, and was baptized in the camp’s small chapel. Much like her slightly older contemporary, St. Thérèse of Lisieux, Elizabeth suffered the devastating loss of a parent at a young age; her father died suddenly when she was only seven years old. Because Captain Catez was a devout Catholic, his passing collided directly with the fierce anti-Catholic, secularist political movement gripping France at the time. Actively working to scrub all religious influence from public life, state authorities heavily restricted the Catholic military honors and public funeral processions typically granted to officers. Elizabeth witnessed this political alienation firsthand as her grieving family was abruptly thrust out of their secure military housing into immediate financial strain.

The three western entrance portals of St Michel in Dijon. The western façade of Saint-Michel in Dijon is a masterpiece of the French Renaissance, carved in stone over a Gothic structure. It was through these exact heavy wooden doors, beneath the carving of Saint Michael fighting the dragon, that seven-year-old Elizabeth walked in 1887 to make her first confession and later communion and resolved to conquer her own explosive temper. The three portals depict a complete theological narrative centered on Creation and the Fall of Man (north portal), the Incarnation (south portal), and the Last Judgment and St Michael (central portal), with an emphasis on angelic warfare.
Elizabeth was highly conscious of her fiery nature, famously writing in her childhood diaries about the “war” she had to wage against her own violent temper.
Walking under the central portal of Saint-Michel—where the Archangel Michael is carved aggressively crushing the dragon—provided her with a powerful, real-world visual metaphor for her own internal struggles. She did not view her spiritual life as a passive, soft devotion; instead, her early journals reflect a gritty, warlike determination. She explicitly resolved after her first confession to “conquer” her anger and treat her soul as a battlefield where grace had to systematically defeat her volatile impulses, mimicking the very triumph of Saint Michael she passed beneath each day for Mass.
She would later shift her language from this “warlike combat” of her childhood to the profound, quiet interior silence found in her famous mature prayer, “Holy Trinity, Whom I Adore.” PHOTO: “Dijon – Église Saint-Michel – Portails occidentaux” by Benjamin Smith, licensed under CC BY-SA 4.0 (Wikimedia Commons).

A Childhood of Upheaval and Conversion

This sudden family upheaval triggered in seven-year-old Elizabeth a fearful, explosive anger. The family subsequently relocated to a modest apartment in Dijon. It was there, after making her first confession in late 1887 and First Communion at Saint-Michel on April 19, 1891, to which she always looked back as the true moment of her spiritual “conversion” where she resolved to conquer her fiery, explosive temper. On June 8, 1891, Elizabeth received her Confirmation at the Church of Notre-Dame. Though she remained inherently passionate and intense like her mother, she began exercising rigorous, grace-filled self-control over her volatile temper. Playing the piano became both an artistic expression of her musical talents—winning first prize at the local conservatory—and served as a healthy emotional outlet for her deep passions.

Saint Elisabeth of the Trinity as a young child playing the piano. Public Domain.

The western façade of the High Gothic Notre-Dame of Dijon where St. Elizabeth of the Trinity made her Confirmation on June 8, 1892. Begun in the early 13th century, the parish church was within a rising quarter of local merchants and craftsmen and is famed for its rows of sculpted gargoyles. Author’s photograph. March 1992.

A Soul Drawn to the Trinity

At an early age, she received a profound, infused understanding of the Trinity. This insight did not come primarily through academic study, spiritual conferences, or formal theological instruction, but through a deeply personal dialogue with God Himself, which sparked an ardent, lifelong devotion to the Holy Trinity. As a young laywoman, Elizabeth visited the sick, sang in her parish choir, and taught religion to impoverished children working in local factories to help support their families. It was a period of social transition in which child labor reforms, though motivated by compassion, sometimes left struggling families facing even greater economic hardship.

Originally, the third Carmelite convent in France was founded in Dijon in 1605 on Rue Victor Dumay. The nuns were expelled during the French Revolution, and today only the highly ornate, richly sculpted Baroque stone façade of the Chapelle des Carmélites de Dijon survives as a protected historic monument. When the Carmelite presence was reestablished in Dijon during the nineteenth century, a new monastery was constructed at what became 4 Boulevard Carnot, then known as Boulevard de la Préfecture. Situated at the intersection of Boulevard Carnot and the Place du 30-Octobre, this convent stood in the very heart of the city, only a short two-minute walk from Elizabeth’s childhood apartment and her home parish of Saint-Michel.

It was this new monastery that St. Elizabeth entered on August 2, 1901. Although the nineteenth-century buildings in which she lived have since been demolished, the site remains in downtown Dijon. The Carmelite community eventually relocated to its present, more secluded monastery in nearby Flavignerot in 1979.

Following her death from Addison’s disease at the age of twenty-six, Elizabeth was buried on November 12, 1906, in the Carmelite section of Dijon’s Cimetière des Péjoces. In accordance with both Church and civic custom, she was laid to rest alongside her deceased religious sisters in the communal cemetery rather than within a church. During the formal investigation of her cause for beatification in 1931, her remains were exhumed and transferred to a private crypt within the chapel of her own monastery at 4 Boulevard Carnot.

When the Carmelites departed the city center for Flavignerot in 1979 and sold the Boulevard Carnot property, Elizabeth’s relics were moved once more. This final translation brought her back to the parish that had shaped so much of her spiritual life: Saint-Michel Church in Dijon, where her sacred remains rest permanently today.

PHOTO: “Dijon – Chapelle des Carmélites” by Benjamin Smith, licensed under CC BY-SA 4.0 (Wikimedia Commons).

The Call to Carmel

Drawn to an intense life of prayer, Elizabeth felt a strong call to the strict cloister of the Discalced Carmelite Order. Her mother adamantly opposed the vocation, urging Elizabeth to accept one of her many marriage proposals so she could secure a wealthy, comfortable lifestyle. Elizabeth declined them all, determined to praise God in the monastery located just a short distance from her home in Dijon. The close proximity to the monastery on Boulevard Carnot (formerly known as Boulevard de la Préfecture) in the heart of Dijon. is why Elisabeth wrote that she could constantly hear the Carmelite monastery bells ringing throughout her childhood days. She finally entered the Dijon Carmel on August 2, 1901, famously writing of her ordinary duties: “I find Him everywhere, while doing the wash as well as while praying.”

Saint Elizabeth of the Trinity wearing her Carmelite habit was taken circa 1902–1904 at the Carmel of Dijon in France. It is frequently dated to December 1902, captured shortly before she made her final religious profession. Public Domain.

Mystic of the Interior Life

Her life behind the convent walls was a mixture of profound mystical highs and painful, dark interior trials. Throughout these valleys, she wrote extensively about her need for an even richer immersion into God’s infinite love. Toward the end of her short life, she took on the spiritual mantle of “Laudem Gloriae” (Praise of Glory), anticipating her eternal role in Heaven. Through her diary, poetry, and vast correspondence with family and friends, she outlined her heavenly mission: “I think that in Heaven my mission will be to draw souls by helping them to go out of themselves in order to cling to God by a wholly simple and loving movement, and to keep them in this great silence which will allow God to communicate Himself to them and to transform them into Himself”—a beautiful description of the mystical process of theosis, or divinization.

Final Suffering and Holy Death: To Light, to Love, to Life!

Elizabeth died in the monastery at the age of twenty-six from Addison’s disease, which was incurable at the time. Her death was agonizingly painful, marked by violent nausea, high fevers, and sleepless days and nights. Yet, she gratefully accepted her three years of escalating physical suffering as a sacrificial gift from God. Anchored in a profound intimacy with the indwelling Trinity, her legendary final words were: “I am going to Light, to Love, to Life!”

Why Two Feast Days?

Though she passed away on November 8, 1906, the Universal Church assigns November 9 as her official feast day. Because November 9 is also the major universal feast of the Dedication of the Lateran Basilica (the Pope’s cathedral in Rome), the Carmelite Order celebrates her memorial on November 8. This clever calendar shift effectively “cleared the path,” ensuring their beloved mystic would receive an unhindered, solemn celebration within her own religious family.

Path to Canonization

The formal path to her saintly recognition began in Dijon in 1931, where church authorities meticulously collected and examined her life, death, and writings. Pope John XXIII officially introduced her cause in October 1961, declaring her a Servant of God. Following an extensive review of her heroic virtues, she was declared Venerable in 1982. After the validation of a medical miracle, Pope John Paul II beatified her in Paris in November 1984 during his historic apostolic visit to France. In March 2016, following the approval of a second miracle, Pope Francis cleared her way for formal sainthood, canonizing her later that year, on October 16, 2016.

Legacy and Patronage

Today, St. Elizabeth of the Trinity—whose most famous contemplative prayer is titled “Holy Trinity, Whom I Adore”—is widely venerated as the patron saint of sick people, those battling chronic illness, and individuals mourning the loss of a parent.

The famous prayer “Holy Trinity, Whom I Adore” (Ô mon Dieu, Trinité que j’adore) was written by St. Elizabeth of the Trinity (Élisabeth Catez) on November 21, 1904, inside her cell at the Discalced Carmelite Monastery in Dijon, France.

Elizabeth wrote this down on a loose sheet of paper during her convent’s annual retreat. It was never intended for publication; it was a completely raw, private act of interior praise. Her prioress only discovered the written prayer among Elizabeth’s personal papers after her death in 1906.

The prayer serves as the ultimate summary of her deep, mystical theology of theosis—the total emptying of oneself (“let me entirely forget myself”) so that the indwelling Trinity can fully possess, consume, and transform the soul into a living reflection of Christ.

St. Elizabeth of the Trinity left behind influential letters, poetry, retreats, and prayers, especially “Holy Trinity, Whom I Adore.”

O my God, Trinity whom I adore, let me entirely forget myself that I may abide in you, still and peaceful as if my soul were already in eternity; let nothing disturb my peace nor separate me from you, O my unchanging God, but that each moment may take me further into the depths of your mystery! Pacify my soul! Make it your heaven, your beloved home, and the place of your repose; let me never leave you there alone, but may I be ever attentive, ever alert in my faith, ever adoring and all given up to your creative action.

O my beloved Christ, crucified for love, would that I might be for you a spouse of your heart! I would anoint you with glory, I would love you — even unto death! Yet I sense my frailty and ask you to adorn me with yourself; identify my soul with all the movements of your soul, submerge me, overwhelm me, substitute yourself in me that my life may become but a reflection of your life. Come into me as Adorer, Redeemer, and Saviour.

O Eternal Word, Word of my God, would that I might spend my life listening to you, would that I might be fully receptive to learn all from you; in all darkness, all loneliness, all weakness, may I ever keep my eyes fixed on you and abide under your great light; O my Beloved Star, fascinate me so that I may never be able to leave your radiance.

O Consuming Fire, Spirit of Love, descend into my soul and make all in me as an incarnation of the Word, that I may be to him a super-added humanity wherein he renews his mystery; and you, O Father, bestow yourself and bend down to your little creature, seeing in her only your beloved Son in whom you are well pleased.

O my ‘Three’, my All, my Beatitude, infinite Solitude, Immensity in whom I lose myself, I give myself to you as a prey to be consumed; enclose yourself in me that I may be absorbed in you so as to contemplate in your light the abyss of your Splendour!

See – Le Carmel de Dijon – Carmel de Flavignerot – accessed November 8, 2026.

Her reconstituted convent cell at the Carmel of Dijon (now preserved at Flavignerot), where her personal items—including this statue on the wall shelf—are kept. The statue on the table of Our Lady of Lourdes is either the exact same statue in the October 1906 feature photograph or an identical one. PHOTO: “Convent Cell of Elisabeth of the Trinity” by Willuconquer is licensed under CC BY-SA 3.0

This explanatory article may be periodically updated.

Auvers, 1890: The Final Chapter That Secured Vincent van Gogh’s Place in Modern Art.

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FEATURE Image: Vincent Van Gogh (1853-1890), L’église d’Auvers-sur-Oise, vue du chevet (“The Church at Auvers”), June 1890, oil on canvas, 94 cm x 74 cm (37 in x 29.1 in), Musée d’Orsay, Paris. Vincent Van Gogh (1853-1890), staying in Auvers starting on May 20, 1890, liked the small farm town about 20 miles west of Paris with its artistic pedigree (Corot, Daubigny, Cézanne) and spoke of settling into permanent quarters in the village after renting an attic room in a local café. About his experience at Auvers Van Gogh wrote: “[C]es toiles vous diront ce que je ne sais dire en paroles, ce que je vois de sain et de fortifiant dans la campagne” (“[T]hese canvases will tell you what I can’t say in words, what I consider healthy and fortifying about the countryside.”) During his more than two months stay in Auvers, the artist made more than 100 drawings and paintings of local landscapes, gardens, and village scenes such as its Catholic church. On the evening of July 27, 1890, Van Gogh had acquired a pistol and shot himself in the chest near the Auvers chateau. After languishing in pain for two days, he died on the morning of July 29, 1890. Vincent Van Gogh was 37 years old. Public Domain.

Auvers-sur-Oise was the decisive final chapter of Vincent van Gogh’s life and career, where in just over two months he created an extraordinary body of work that secured his enduring place in artistic modernism, even as his life moved toward its tragic conclusion. In May 2005 I made a pilgrimage to the town where I visited the places associated with the artist’s final days, including Ravoux Inn, Dr. Gachet’s house, the church at Auvers, the wheat fields, and his grave.

Vincent van Gogh, Garden in Auvers, July 1890, oil on canvas, 64×80 cm, private collection. Though Van Gogh died in July 1890 his modernist artistic influence forged deep ties with the European avant-garde art movement throughout the 1890’s and beyond. Public Domain.

By John P. Walsh

Auvers-sur-Oise: Van Gogh’s Final Home

In a peripatetic life, the last place where Vincent Van Gogh (1853-1890) lived was Auvers-sur-Oise, a small commune, a short distance northwest of Paris. Since Auvers was on a rail line in the orbit of Paris, Van Gogh moved to the small town with its farming community so he could live independently yet remain close to his art dealer younger brother Theo Van Gogh (1857-1891) who lived with his wife and family in the hustle and bustle of Paris. After leaving Saint-Paul Asylum, Saint-Rémy, where Van Gogh had admitted himself as a patient since May 1889, he traveled to the French capital in May 1890 where he visited Theo and Jo. He was then onwards to Auvers where, by arrangement of Theo, the artist was under the supervision of Dr. Paul Gachet (1828-1909), a mental health physician who was also an avid modern art collector and had his house, family and practice in the town.

After leaving the asylum at Saint-Rémy in May 1890, Van Gogh settled in Auvers-sur-Oise under the supervision of Dr. Paul Gachet while remaining close to his brother Theo in Paris.

Author at the graves of Vincent Van Gogh (1853-1890) and his brother, Paris art dealer Theo Van Gogh (1857-1891). They have been side by side in the Auvers cemetery in France since 1914. Photo: Author’s collection. May 2005.

During his stay from May to July 1890, Van Gogh produced more than 100 drawings and paintings, making it one of the most prolific periods of his career.

Life at the Ravoux Inn

Vincent arrived to Auvers on May 20, 1890 and stayed in the Saint-Aubin hotel until he moved into a rented attic room in a café of Arthur Gustave Ravoux and his wife, Adeline Louise Touillet, who charged him three and a half francs per night for room and board. Located in Place de la Mairie, a 5-minute walk from the train station, the artist’s daily schedule involved rising at dawn and going outside to draw and paint.

Entrance to Vincent Van Gogh’s rented room in Ravoux’s inn in Auvers. It was here that the artist lived for two months in the town. This is the same room is where Van Gogh returned after he shot himself on July 27, 1890, and died two days later here surrounded by family and friends. Author’s photograph, May 2005.

After roaming the town where he made friends of villagers, visited Dr. Gachet’s, and journeyed into nearby farm fields, Van Gogh returned to Ravoux’s café for lunch that was served at noon. In the afternoon he might sometimes work in the “painters’ room” at the inn or visit with other painters staying at the inn, such as compatriot Anton Matthias Hirschig (1867-1939) and Spanish painter Martinez de Valdivielse. These acquaintances proved more significant for history insofar as they provided eyewitness testimony of Van Gogh’s death and funeral. Following dinner at Ravoux’s, Van Gogh climbed the inn’s simple staircase to his single room in the center of the attic landing and retired at about nine in the evening.

Vincent Van Gogh, View of Vessenots near Auvers, May 1890, oil on canvas, 55×65 cm, Thyssen-Bornemisza, Madrid, Spain. Public Domain.

Fields of Auvers. Author’s photograph, May 2005.

Vincent Van Gogh, Daubigny’s Garden, midJune 1890, oil on canvas, 51 cm x 51.2 cm, Van Gogh Museum, Amsterdam. Other versions of Daubigny’s Garden are in the Hiroshima Museum of Art in Japan. see – https://www.hiroshima-museum.jp/en/collection/eu/vangogh.html – retrieved March 11, 2024) and the Van Gogh Museum in Amsterdam (see – https://www.vangoghmuseum.nl/en/collection/s0104V1962 – retrieved March 11, 2024. The square-format flat decorative painting, painted on a simple tea towel that was mounted to canvas, became Van Gogh’s first painted attempt of the garden. It acts as a modernist talisman reminiscent of Paul Sérusier’s 1888 cigar box painting and looks ahead to the decorative landscapes of the Nabis in the 1890’s and of Gustave Klimt (1862-1918) 15 years later. Public Domain.

Vincent Van Gogh, Daubigny’s Garden, 1890, oil on canvas, 56 cm × 101 cm (22 in × 39.8 in), Kunstmuseum Basel, Basel, Switzerland. Van Gogh made three versions of the Auvers garden of Barbizon artist Charles-François Daubigny (1817-1878) between May and July 1890. Daubigny, who moved to Auvers in 1860. was a landscape artist who painted en plein aire. A short walk from the Ravoux inn, Daugigny’s widow still lived in the house in Auvers in 1890. For this painting Van Gogh stepped outdoors into Daubigny’s garden to look back towards the house (the Church of Auvers is distinctly drawn in the painting’s upper right corner). Van Gogh admired Daubigny since the 1870’s as he other Barbizon painters such as Jean-François Millet (1814-1875) and Camille Corot (1796-1875). see – https://www.vincentvangogh.org/garden-of-daubigny.jsp – retrieved March 11, 2024. Public Domain.

Van Gogh’s Auvers paintings reveal artistic innovations that anticipated later modernist movements and influenced future generations of artists.

Little has changed in appearance in Auvers from the time of Van Gogh’s stay in May-July 1890. Author’s photograph, May 2005.

Irises bloom along the side of a road in Auvers that leads to Dr. Gachet’s house. Author’s photograph, May 2005.

Vincent Van Gogh, Still Life Pink Roses, June 1890, oil on canvas, 32 x 40.5 cm, Ny Carlsberg Glyptotek, Copenhagen, Denmark. Public Domain.

Van Gogh, Dr. Gachet (second version), June 1890, Musée d’Orsay, Paris. As a token of friendship, Van Gogh painted two authenticated versions of Dr. Gachet’s portrait in June 1890 at Auvers. Van Gogh came to Auvers because of the role Dr. Gachet played as the artist’s therapist. The well-regarded physician was an avid modern art collector and painter who had participated in art circles since the 1850’s with Gustave Courbet (1819-1877). Dr. Gachet was instrumental in having Paul Cézanne come to Auvers to paint in 1873. In anticipation of Vincent’s arrival from Saint-Rémy, it was Camille Pissarro (1830-1903) living in Pontoise who recommended Dr. Gachet to Theo Van Gogh. Vincent Van Gogh thought fondly of Dr. Gachet as a brother. When Dr. Gachet visited Theo in Paris in early July 1890, he told him he believed that Vincent was “completely recovered” and “that there need be no fears of a further attack” (quoted in Complete Paintings, p. 718). Van Gogh saw Dr. Gachet as another brand of eccentric and painted him in these portraits as a deep thinker who reflected a sensitive nature tending to melancholy. Public Domain.

Van Gogh, Portrait of Adeline Ravoux, June 1890, oil on canvas, 52x 52 cm, Cleveland Museum of Art. In their therapeutic conversations, Dr. Gachet in June 1890 encouraged Van Gogh to make portraits of local sitters in Auvers. Van Gogh had done portraits of Arlesiens in the “Studio of the South” in 1888 and many self-portraits. Adeline Ravoux was the 15-year-old daughter of Van Gogh’s Auvers innkeepers. About one month after this portrait was made, the girl with her parents witnessed Vincent’s return to the café after he shot himself. Later, in a memoir she wrote: “Vincent walked bent, holding his stomach, again exaggerating his habit of holding one shoulder higher than the other. Mother asked him: “M. Vincent, we were anxious, we are happy to see you to return; have you had a problem?” He replied in a suffering voice: “No, but I have…” He did not finish, crossed the hall, took the staircase and climbed to his bedroom.” see – http://www.vggallery.com/misc/archives/a_ravoux.htm – retrieved March 11, 2024. Public Domain.

Van Gogh, Young Girl Standing Against Wheat, late June 1890, 66.7 x 45.8 cm (26 1/4 x 18 1/16 in.), National Gallery of Art, Washington, D.C. The painting’s lack of horizon creates a flat wall behind the sitter who appears in close proximity to the picture plane as she fills the pictorial space. Van Gogh shadowed her face under her hat and gave her a “distant, unfocused” gaze. All of these elements contribute to the portrait’s emotional distance. see – Painting the Difference: Sex and Spectator in Modern Art by Charles Harrison, University of Chicago Press, 2006. Public Domain.

Van Gogh, Marguerite Gachet at the Piano, June 1890, chalk on paper, 30.5 cm x 23.8 cm, Van Gogh Museum, Amsterdam. Marguerite Gachet was the daughter of Dr. Gachet. In this sketch which resulted in a similarly composed painting, the sitter had recently turned 21 years old. For the painting that is today in the Kunstmuseum Basel, Van Gogh made two sketches in late June 1890. https://www.vangoghmuseum.nl/en/collection/d0427V1962r – retrieved March 11, 2024. Public Domain.

Van Gogh, L’église d’Auvers-sur-Oise, vue du chevet (“The Church at Auvers”), June 1890, oil on canvas, 94 cm x 74 cm (37 in x 29.1 in), Musée d’Orsay. Public Domain.

As in Van Gogh’s 1890 painting above, the church at Auvers (“Notre-Dame-de-l’Assomption”), situated in a bright midday sun, sits in deep shadow. Author’s photograph, May 2005.

An Extraordinary Final Burst of Creativity

Van Gogh proved quite productive in Auvers, painting several notable canvasses in and around the town and countryside, particularly landscapes and other outdoor subjects en plein aire. In these two months, the painter produced 74 paintings and 33 drawings, including the portraits of Dr. Gachet and Adeline Ravoux, The Church of Auvers, and Field of Wheat with Crows. In a letter of around July 10, 1890, Van Gogh wrote to Theo and Jo that he painted three large canvases at Auvers since visiting them in Paris on July 6, 1890. During that visit the artist also met with Henri Toulouse-Lautrec (1864-1901) and art critic Gabriel-Albert Aurier (1865-1892). In addition to Daubigny’s Garden, these large canvasses likely included Wheatfield with Crows and Wheatfields Thunderclouds (both Van Gogh Museum Amsterdam). Van Gogh described them as “immense stretches of wheatfields under turbulent skies…searching to express sadness [and] extreme loneliness” (“immenses étendues de blés sous des ciels troublés… chercher à exprimer de la tristesse, de la solitude extreme”). See – https://vangoghletters.org/vg/letters/let898/print.html – retrieved March 11, 2024.

Vincent Van Gogh, Sorrowing Old Man (“At Eternity’s Gate”), 1890, 80 cm × 64 cm (31.5 in × 21.2 in), oil on canvas, Kröller-Müller Museum, Otterlo, The Netherlands. The painting was completed at St. Rémy shortly before Van Gogh moved to Auvers-sur-Oise.

Van Gogh, Wheatfield with Crows. July 1890, oil on canvas, 50.2 cm × 103 cm (19.8 in × 41 in), Van Gogh Museum, Amsterdam. Many have claimed this to be Van Gogh’s last painting.

At the wheatfield in Auvers where Van Gogh painted “Wheatfield with Crows,” one of his last paintings, in July 1890. Author’s photograph, May 2005.

Van Gogh, Wheatfield Thunderclouds, July 1890, oil on canvas, 50.4 cm × 101.3 cm (19.8 in × 39.9 in), Vincent Van Gogh Museum, Amsterdam.

Auvers fields. Author’s photograph, May 2005.

The Tragic Events of July 1890

On July 27, 1890, Vincent, as he did each day, went into the fields to paint. Though the artist appeared to be in good spirits, the artist shot himself later that day near the chateau after going for a walk towards evening. Though able to walk the 10 minutes back mortally wounded to Ravoux’s inn, he told them nothing upon entering the café. The Ravoux’s, sensing something was wrong, called for Mazery, the village doctor and Dr. Gachet. Though these doctors bandage the wound, Van Gogh’s condition is inoperable. In the hot attic room, Van Gogh suffered into the next day, when Theo was sent for. He arrived immediately on July 28 from Paris to be by his brother’s side. Van Gogh died the next morning of July 29, 1890.

Funeral in the Wheat Fields

This suicide sent ripples of shock through the village, as some townspeople had witnessed these events. During my visit to Auvers in May 2005, after exiting Van Gogh’s room where he died, I told the innkeeper that the story was sad (“c’est triste”). She countered, “C’est emouvante” (“It’s moving”). Vincent was buried the next day, July 30, 1890, in Auvers’ new graveyard. His funeral was attended by Theo, Dr. Gachet, the Ravoux’s, assorted villagers, and friends from Paris. These last included artists Emile Bernard (1868-1941), Charles Laval (1862-1894), and Lucien Pissarro (1863- 1944), Camille Pissarro’s son. Petit boulevard art dealer and art materials supplier Julien (Père) Tanguy (1825-1894) was also in attendance. Van Gogh’s casket was strewn with yellow dahlias and sunflowers and Dr. Gachet gave remarks as did Theo Van Gogh. Later, in a letter to his wife, Theo wrote about the proceedings: “[Vincent] was buried in a sunny spot among the cornfields, and the cemetery does not have that unpleasant character of Parisian cemeteries.” (see- Kort geluk, 1999, p. 281). The mortal remains of Van Gogh were transported to the cemetery by a rented hearse from the next town because Auvers’ Catholic priest would not allow the community’s hearse to be used. A proposed church service was also cancelled. The homiletics were left to Dr. Gachet who said: “Vincent was an honest man and a great artist, and there were only two things for him – humanity and art. Art mattered to Vincent Van Gogh more than anything else and he will live on through it” (quoted in Complete Paintings, p. 719).

Graves of Vincent and Theo Van Gogh, Auvers-sur-Oise, France. Author’s photograph, May 2005.

Eyewitness Accounts of Van Gogh’s Last Days

Three days after the funeral, Emile Bernard wrote to Aurier about “our dear friend Vincent.” Aurier had written in January 1890 about the intense fixity of Van Gogh’s art. The art critic conjectured that it may be the catalyst for change in French art. In his essay entitled Les Isolés: Vincent van Gogh published in Mercure de France, Aurier prophesied for an artist-savior figure: “A man must come, a Messiah, a sower of Truth, to rejuvenate our geriatric art, indeed perhaps the whole of our geriatric, feeble minded, industrial society” (quoted in Complete Paintings, p. 698). Van Gogh, aware of these statements, did not think he was Aurier’s man. On August 2, 1890 Emile Bernard wrote to Aurier: “On Sunday evening [Vincent] went out into the countryside near Auvers, placed his easel against a haystack and went behind the chateau and fired a revolver shot at himself. Under the violence of the impact (the bullet entered his body below the heart) he fell, but he got up again, and fell three times more, before he got back to the inn where he was staying (Ravoux, place de la Mairie) without telling anyone about his injury. He finally died on Monday evening, still smoking his pipe which he refused to let go of, explaining that his suicide had been absolutely deliberate and that he had done it in complete lucidity…. On the walls of the room where his body was laid out all his last canvases were hung making a sort of halo for him and the brilliance of the genius that radiated from them made this death even more painful for us artists who were there. The coffin was covered with a simple white cloth and surrounded with masses of flowers, the sunflowers that he loved so much, yellow dahlias, yellow flowers everywhere. It was, you will remember, his favorite color, the symbol of the light that he dreamed of as being in people’s hearts as well as in works of art….The sun was terribly hot outside. We climbed the hill outside Auvers talking about him, about the daring impulse he had given to art, of the great projects he was always thinking about, and of the good he had done to all of us. We reached the cemetery, a small new cemetery strewn with new tombstones. It is on the little hill above the fields that were ripe for harvest under the wide blue sky that he would still have loved…perhaps.Then he was lowered into the grave…Then we returned. Theodore Van Ghog [sic] was broken with grief; everyone who attended was very moved, some going off into the open country while others went back to the station…” see – https://www.webexhibits.org/vangogh/letter/21/etc-Bernard-Aurier.htm – retrieved March 11, 2024.

Van Gogh, Two Women Crossing the Fields, July 1890, oil on paper on canvas, Marion Koogler McNay Art Museum, San Antonio, Texas.

By contrast, Anton Hirschig, the Dutch artist who roomed next door to Van Gogh at Ravoux’s, wrote a letter much later, in 1911, to Albert Plasschaert (1874-1941) in which he recounted a more terrible scene following Van Gogh’s shooting himself. Hirschig wrote: “He lay in his attic room under a tin roof. It was terribly hot. It was August. He stayed there alone for some days. Perhaps only a few. Perhaps many. It seemed to me like a lot. At night he cried out, cried out loud. His bed stood just beside the partition of the other attic room where I slept: Isn’t there anyone willing to open me up! I don’t think there was anyone with him in the middle of the night and it was so hot. I don’t think I ever saw any other doctor like his friend the retired army doctor: It’s your own fault, what did you have to go kill yourself for? He didn’t have any instruments this doctor. He lay there until he died.”

The Beginning of a Legacy

Theo Van Gogh died in Holland on January 25, 1891, nearly 6 months to the day after Vincent’s death. Theo was buried in Holland but exhumed and reinterred next to his older brother Vincent’s grave in Auvers cemetery in 1914. While Vincent Van Gogh, the man, was never larger than life, as an artist he produced an explosion of life on paper and canvas. Van Gogh came to art late (30 years old in 1883) and produced incessantly for the next 7 years. His oeuvre was beautifully powerful, and none of it more remarkably for the future of modernism than that done in Auvers-sur-Oise in May to July 1890.

SOURCES –

Harrison, Charles. Painting the Difference: Sex and Spectator in Modern Art. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2006.

Musée d’Orsay. “Van Gogh à Auvers-sur-Oise: Les derniers mois.” Accessed March 8, 2024. https://www.musee-orsay.fr/fr/agenda/expositions/van-gogh-auvers-sur-oise.

Van Gogh Letters. “Bibliography.” Van Gogh Museum / Huygens Institute. Accessed March 8, 2024. https://vangoghletters.org/vg/bibliography.html.

Van Gogh Museum. “Collection.” Accessed March 10, 2024. https://www.vangoghmuseum.nl/nl?page=3263&collection=451〈=en.

Van Gogh Museum. “Collection Item d0427V1962r.” Accessed March 11, 2024. https://www.vangoghmuseum.nl/en/collection/d0427V1962r.

Van Gogh Route. “Van Gogh in Auvers-sur-Oise.” Accessed March 8, 2024. https://vangoghroute.com/france/auvers-sur-oise/.

Van Gogh Route. “Van Gogh in Cemetery.” Accessed March 8, 2024. https://vangoghroute.com/france/auvers-sur-oise/cemetery/.

Vincent van Gogh Gallery. “Archives: Adeline Ravoux.” Accessed March 11, 2024. http://www.vggallery.com/misc/archives/a_ravoux.htm.

Walther, Ingo F., and Rainer Metzger. Vincent Van Gogh: The Complete Paintings. Cologne: Benedikt Taschen, 1996.

WebExhibits. “Van Gogh’s Letters: Letter to Émile Bernard / G.-Albert Aurier.” Accessed March 8, 2024. https://www.webexhibits.org/vangogh/letter/21/etc-Bernard-Aurier.htm.

http://www.vincentvangogh.org. “Portrait of Dr. Gachet, 1890 by Vincent van Gogh.” Accessed March 10, 2024. https://www.vincentvangogh.org/portrait-of-dr-gachet.jsp.

Van Gogh, View of Auvers-sur-Oise, July 1890, oil on canvas, 34 x 42.1 cm (13 3/8 x 16 9/16 inches), Museum of Art, Rhode Island School of Design. See – https://risdmuseum.org/art-design/collection/view-auvers-sur-oise-35770?return=%2Fart-design%2Fcollection%3Fsearch_api_fulltext%3Dvan%2Bgogh%26op%3D#content__section–description–1567076 – retrieved March 11, 2024.

From Simon de Montfort to Maurice Ravel: A Thousand Years of Montfort-l’Amaury in France.

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FEATURED image: Manuscript 16th century (detail): Queen consort Anne of Brittany (1477-1514) receiving a Book of Hours from her Dominican confessor, Antoine Dufour (d.1509). Montfort L’Amaury returned to the crown of France after Anne of Brittany married Charles VIII “the Affable” (1470-1498) in 1491.

Thirty miles from Paris, Montfort-l’Amaury condenses a thousand years of French history into one small town, where medieval fortifications, Renaissance religious art, royal patronage, and modern cultural figures reveal the continuous evolution of France from the age of crusaders to the twenty-first century.

Started in the 11th century, L’Église St. Pierre anchors part of the centre ville of Montfort L’Amaury, a town in France about 30 miles west of Paris. The photograph is taken from the ruins of the chateau on the town’s heights. The late 10^th century Frankish king Robert II built a castle in the hills of Montfort. From the start of the 11th century, Montfort-l’Amaury was the stronghold of the Montfort family. March 2002. Author’s photograph.

At the north edge of the Rambouillet forest the city of Montfort L’Amaury spreads along the restored ruins of its ancient fortified castle. Founded under the Capetian kings, the city owes its fame to Simon de Montfort (1208-1265), Anne de Bretagne (1477-1514), the Valois royal dynasty, and Henry IV (1553-1610). Its monuments begin in the 11th century, stretch towards exceptional Renaissance stained-glass windows and half-timbered houses as its civilization has attracted writers, artists, and musicians to live there. This would include the house of Maurice Ravel (1875-1937) called Le Belvédère where he lived from 1921 until his death and where we were invited to sit at, and play, the piano where Ravel composed Boléro. It was in March 2002 during a visit to Paris and the Île-de France that we ventured through Yvelines by train to Montfort-L’Amaury for a day trip which included a memorable déjeuner in a restaurant that has since disappeared.

L’Église Saint-Pierre

Interior, L’Église Saint-Pierre (Church of St. Peter), late 15^th century, Montfort L’Amaury, France. March 2002. Author’s photograph.

The interior of Saint Pierre church is bright and intimate. Like other French monuments, today’s Saint-Pierre was completed over many centuries. Its origin is in the 11th century. A notable reconstruction of the edifice began in the late 15^th century by initiative of Queen Consort, Anne of Bretagne. There is a vast ambulatory around both sides of the nave. Since 1840, the church has been an historic monument because of its unique ensemble of 37 stained glass windows. The oldest date from the 1540s and 1570s. The others were installed in the late16^th century. That ecclesial project was started by Catherine de Medicis (1519-1589) in 1562. The windows were installed during the time of the Council of Trent (1545-1563) and some of the glass commemorates that event. As none of the glasswork is signed, it is not known whether its painters are from Montfort L’Amaury or elsewhere.

South exterior of L’Église Saint-Pierre along Rue de Dion in Montfort L’Amaury. March 2002. Author’s photograph.

The exterior wall shows flying buttresses designed in the French Renaissance style as well as gargoyles that were sculpted in the late 15^th century. The building is constructed of calcified stone that came from towns to the north, precisely, Maule, and a more distant Vernon on the Seine. The interior ambulatory that surrounds the nave on both sides and ends at the chevet expresses the building’s gothic aspect. Street lamps and a narrow street with tight parking has room for a small tree next to the church.

St. Peter Window. L’Église Saint-Pierre, Montfort L’Amaury, France. Public Domain.

Throughout France starting in the 1540s there was a growing taste and demand for stained glass windows in their local churches. The experimentation in glasswork and painting by the middle of the 16^th century allowed for the iconography in these stained glass windows to express numerous details and refined techniques.

Detail. St. Peter Window. Public Domain.

Detail. Nativity Window. Public Domain.

Historic 16th-century half-timbered house located in Montfort-l’Amaury

Montfort L’Amaury has half-timbered houses dating to the 16^th century. March 2002. Author’s photograph.

This is no. 16, Place de la Libération, just steps from the front entrance of Église St. Pierre. The building features a classic colombage (half-timbered) facade with vertical wood beams, diagonal braces, and traditional window shutters. Houses like this were common during the 15th and 16th centuries in the region.

Victor Hugo

At the beginning of October 1825 young Victor Hugo (1802-1885) lived in Montfort L’Amaury for a few days. He wrote a letter to his father in Paris and described it as “a charming little town ten leagues from Paris, where there are ruins, woods, and one of my friends…”

Portrait de Victor Hugo sur fond de Notre-Dame de Reims, Jean Alaux, 1825, Maison de Victor Hugo – Hauteville House, oil on cardboard. Public Domain.
https://www.parismuseescollections.paris.fr/fr/maison-de-victor-hugo/oeuvres/portrait-de-victor-hugo-sur-fond-de-notre-dame-de-reims

Victor Hugo stayed in Montfort-l’Amaury primarily to visit his close friend, the poet Adolphe de Saint-Valry. At the beginning of October 1825, a young, 23-year-old Victor Hugo and his wife, Adèle, spent several days at Saint-Valry’s family home located on Rue de la Treille. Saint-Valry was a fellow literary intellectual and one of the co-founders of the conservative romantic journal La Muse française.

The trip profoundly influenced French literature in two major ways: first, upon returning to Paris, Hugo wrote a letter to his father describing Montfort-l’Amaury as described above; and second, during Hugo’s wanderings through the village, the future author of The Hunchback of Notre Dame (1831) became captivated by the crumbling medieval fortifications and the 12th-century castle keep (The Tower of Anne de Bretagne). This inspired him to write his famous poem, “Aux ruines de Montfort-L’Amaury” (published in his 1828 collection Odes et Ballades). It marks the very first time Hugo integrated the romantic grandeur of medieval ruins into his poetry—a thematic hallmark he would develop extensively throughout the rest of his legendary career.

View of the church from the east. March 2002, Author’s photograph.

The church of Saint Pierre is of late gothic origin. It was rebuilt and decorated in the 15th, 16^th, and early 17^th centuries. Following the French Revolution and its aftermath, the church building received an extensive restoration in the mid19^th century, including a new steeple. Except for one stained glass window that was restored in situ, all the 16^th century stained-glass windows were taken out, restored, and reinstalled by a master painter in Metz between 1851 and 1857.

Chevet. L’Église Saint-Pierre. Public Domain.

Taken from Rue Pétau de Maulette, the historic photograph captures the apse and side facade of the Church of Saint-Pierre de Montfort-l’Amaury. Built largely under the patronage of Queen Anne of Brittany in the late 15th and early 16th centuries, the lower structure features the dramatic flying buttresses, pointed arches, and intricate stone tracery characteristic of late Flamboyant Gothic architecture. The upper galleries and the grand rounded apse roof visible in the foreground display the classical proportions, decorative balustrades, and orderly lines of the French Renaissance style of the later 16th century. The building is a remarkable architectural hybrid, illustrating the transition between two major eras in French history. It also houses one of France’s most important and complete collections of Renaissance stained-glass, dating from 1530 to 1580. These 37 monumental windows are celebrated for their vivid colors, exceptional draftsmanship, and richly detailed biblical and historical narratives.

Place de la Libération with Rue de la Libération just beyond. March 2002. Author’s photograph.

On Saint Pierre’s front stoop is busy Place de la Libération. Like many town squares throughout France, this area was renamed to commemorate the town’s liberation from Nazi occupation during World War II. Montfort-l’Amaury was officially liberated on August 18, 1944, when American military forces entered the village center. Following a brief firefight with a heavily armed detachment of retreating German soldiers, the town was successfully freed, bringing an end to the local German Kommandantur. Prior to this 20th-century renaming, the historic area was known as the Place Normande—the dark site where the municipal guillotine was briefly erected during the height of the French Revolution. At the end of the street is the rounded 16^th century La Porte Bardoul, one of gateways to the chateau. It was named in the 16th century for the captain who built the ramparts of Montfort L’Amaury in the 11th century (Hugues Bardoul).

Charles Aznavour (1924-2018), dubbed France’s Frank Sinatra, didn’t live in Montfort L’Amaury but for 60 years, the singer lived a five–minute car ride away in neighboring Galluis. In those many years, Aznavour frequently came to Montfort L’Amaury, sometimes to go shopping or visit friends or eat at one of its restaurants. In 2018 Aznavour was buried in the cemetery in Montfort L’Amaury and it has become a pilgrimage site for his many fans. PHOTO: “Charles Aznavour – Disque D’Or” by Piano Piano! is licensed under CC BY 2.0.

The cemetery at Montfort-l’Amaury. Fair Use.

The cemetery at Montfort-l’Amaury dates to the sixteenth century and is a fascinating site for its history, architecture, and the notable individuals buried there. For centuries, the dead were interred in the ground as they are today, but as burial space became scarce, especially during recurring epidemics, older graves were exhumed and the bones transferred to ossuaries to make room for the newly deceased. Built to resemble the arcades of a cloister, these elegant galleries are in fact a vast communal repository of human remains. The contrast between their graceful architecture and their somber purpose gives the cemetery a distinctive atmosphere, combining historical necessity with the melancholy charm of a Romantic-era bone yard.

The initial fortified stronghold on this strategic hill was erected by Amaury I of Montfort around the turn of the 11th century under the orders of King Robert II of France.

Ruins of the castle of Montfort-l’Amaury. The Tour d’Anne de Bretagne (the castle keep) stands as the focal point of the medieval Château. In the foreground is Le Belvédère, the house of Maurice Ravel. PHOTO: Montfort-l’Amaury Donjon by ℍenry Salomé (Jaser !) 08:12, 21 November 2006 (UTC) – Cliché personnel, own work is licensed under CC BY-SA 3.0

The role of Montfort l’Amaury as a town began to develop in the High Middle Ages when Capetian king, Robert II (976-1031), built a castle there in the forest of Yvelines which was then a royal prerogative. William of Hainaut built the castle whose walls were finished around 1050. Hugues Bardoule was captain of the castle and thus a later 16^th century gateway is named after him. It is in the 11^th century that L’Église Saint-Pierre and L’Église Saint Laurent begin to be built. Robert II was married three times, and excommunicated by the Catholic Church – one of the early examples of French royals who married as they wished.

In the twelfth century, Bertrade de Montfort (1070-1117), after giving birth to a boy who would become King of Jerusalem, left her husband, the Duke of Anjou, Fulk IV (1043-1109) in 1092. She married the king of France, Philip I “the Amorous” whose spouse, Bertha of Holland, was also still living.

Philip was so in love with Bertrade that he refused to leave her even when threatened and finally excommunicated by Pope Urban II (1035-1099) in 1095. Because of his excommunication Philip was prevented from taking part in the First Crusade (1096-1099).

Montfort-l’Amaury reflects major themes in French history, including crusading movements, dynastic politics, the Wars of Religion, and the growth of royal power.

Bertrade de Montfort and King Philip I “the Amorous.” Chroniques de Saint-Denis (ou de France), British Library, Royal 16 G VI f. 271. 14th Century (1332-1350). https://www.bl.uk/IllImages/Kslides%5Cbig/K137/K137596.jpg

The ramparts and castle. The specific, octagonal brick-and-stone residential keep tower in the photo were erected by Queen Anne of Brittany in the late 1490s. She added the elegant Renaissance-style tower to make the defensive castle a comfortable royal manor. When the castle was dismantled and blown apart in the 1600s, the front and back walls of the tower collapsed entirely, leaving only the structural core intact giving appearance of two towers. March 2002. Author’s photograph.

The ramparts and castle were destroyed by the English during the Hundred Years’ War in the 15^th century. After the battle of Agincourt in 1419, the English occupied the French domain and it was during this time that the castle at Montfort was destroyed. The two rebuilt towers were named for Anne of Brittany after she assisted in the castle’s restoration. From this height, the fort overlooked the old Roman road from Beauvais to Chartres.

Also from this place, troops assembled at Montfort L’Amaury in the 12^th century as Amaury III raised lords and knights to fight alongside Louis VI (1081-1137) against the Emperor of Germany. Simon IV fought alongside Philippe II Auguste (1165-1223) against the English as well as to the Crusades in the Middle East and the Albigensian Crusade in southern France. The Montforts distinguished themselves especially in this crusade against the Cathars.

At the beginning of the Third Crusade (1189-1192), not wanted by King Philippe Auguste (1165-1223), the future Louis VIII “the Lion” (1187-1226) was looking for companions. Simon IV, Lord of Montfort (1175-1218), embarked on the crusade where victory was equalled by its terror.

Stained glass (detail) Chartres cathedral: Simon de Montfort V (1208-1265). Simon was born in the chateau in 1208. Whereas his brother Amaury V (1191-1241) inherited his father’s French properties, including in the south of France owing to his father’s Cathar crusade, Simon V is known to history as having a major role in the constitutional development of England where he successfully led the barons’ opposition to the absolute rule of King Henry III (1207-1272) of England. During his rule of England Simon de Montfort V called two famous parliaments, one of which recognized the voices of ordinary town citizens in the affairs of government making him one of the progenitors of modern parliamentary democracy. Public Domain.

In January 1238, Montfort married Eleanor of England, daughter of King John and Isabella of Angoulême and sister of English King Henry III. While this marriage took place with the king’s approval, the act itself was performed secretly and without consulting the great barons. Eleanor had previously been married and swore a vow of perpetual widowhood after her husband died. This vow was broken when she married Montfort and, for that reason, the Archbishop of Canterbury condemned it. The English nobles protested the marriage of the king’s sister to a foreigner who was only of modest rank. Most notably, Richard, 1^st Earl of Cornwell, the king’s and Eleanor’s brother, rose up in revolt over the marriage. King Henry III eventually bought off his brother and peace was restored. The marriage brought property to Montfort and when a child was born of the union in late 1238, he was baptized Henry, in honor of his uncle, the king. In February 1239, Montfort was finally invested as Earl of Leicester where he acted as the king’s advisor and became godfather to Henry’s eldest son, Edward, who became King Edward I (“Longshanks”).

Eleanor of England who married Simon de Montfort V in 1238 in an early-fourteenth-century Genealogical Roll of the Kings of England. Public Domain.

The author at the ramparts. March 2002. Author’s collection.

These fortifications were originally built over 1000 years ago in the early 11th century by Amaury I. The walls run from east to west creating a superficial size of Montfort at about 4 to 5 hectares (one hectare equals about two and a half acres). Portions of the wall were dismantled during the 100 Years War but rebuilt during the Wars of Religion (1562-1598) as well as Montfort’s reception of a royal charter by Charles IX in the mid16th century. The rebuilt wall had to expand to meet the development of Montfort under Anne de Bretagne a half a century before, though substantial portions of the original 11^th century wall were incorporated into the construction.

Manuscript 16th century (detail): Queen consort Anne of Brittany (1477-1514) receiving a Book of Hours from her Dominican confessor, Antoine Dufour (d.1509). Montfort L’Amaury returned to the crown of France after Anne of Brittany married Charles VIII “the Affable” (1470-1498) in 1491.

From Montfort L’Amaury, the lords continued to assist the French kings in the crusades. After John I, only a daughter allowed the continuity of the Montfort family. Beatrice d’Albidon married Robert, Count of Dreux. The Comté de Montfort was related to the Duchy of Brittany following the marriage of Yolande de Dreux-Montfort (1263-1330) with Arthur II of Brittany (1261-1312) in 1294. With their marriage in February 1492, Anne of Brittany became the first Queen of France crowned in St. Denis basilica. The marriage contract of Anne to Charles VIII “the Affable” stipulated a union of France and Brittany though the ruthless Charles forbade her to reign with her title, “Duchess of Brittany.” The contract also stated that if the queen were to die first and was childless, the king would inherit all her property. In this pre-nuptial agreement, it further stipulated that if Charles VIII died first Anne must marry his successor. This would be his cousin and brother-in-law, the handsome and seductive Louis II of Orléans, later, Louis XII (1462-1515). Though Charles and Anne often lived apart, she was pregnant for most of her married life with a child on average every fourteen months that produced two sons who died and two daughters who lived. After the accidental death of warring Charles in April 1498 (he hit his head on a door lintel), there was no male heir and 22-year-old Anne duly married Louis. Before she married French kings, Anne was engaged 8 times and briefly was married in 1490 to the Holy Roman Emperor, Maximilian, which the French did not like. Anne was still a married woman when she and Charles the Affable exchanged vows in December 1491. To prevent scandal the marriage had to be regularized by the pope who annulled Anne’s marriage to Maximilian in February 1492 and granted the royal couple a dispensation for each marrying their relative. Before new king Louis XII could marry Anne he had his 22-year marriage to Joan of France – a marriage of longer duration than Anne was then alive – annulled. In 1476 Louis believed he had had Joan forced on him by Louis XI (“The Universal Spider”) and never really cared for her. In what has been described as one of the seamiest lawsuits of the Middle Ages, Joan went on childless from her disappeared marriage to die in a nunnery. In 1499 it was the king’s second marriage and Anne’s third. Anne was quite aware that she was no longer a child but a 33-year-old woman, divorced and widowed with two children. She proceeded to actively insist at court on her rights and prerogatives. Though King Louis XII ruled Brittany, he officially recognized Anne’s title Charles had forbade and Louis promulgated decisions in her name. Their contract stipulated that Anne’s second child with Louis XII would rule Brittany. But with Anne’s death at 36 years old in 1514 this was not honored. Anne was coronated again in St. Denis basilica in 1504. She lived mostly at Blois and was an important patron of the Italian and French fine arts. Louis XII died the next year without a legitimate heir and his cousin and son-in-law Francis I mounted the throne. The couple were buried in St. Denis basilica. During the French Revolution in the wake of the frenzy of having decapitated the king in January 1793, revolutionaries made their way to St. Denis basilica and desecrated the graves of Anne of Brittany and Louis XII and threw their remains into a mass grave. This 15-16th century union of Brittany and France brought increased benefits to Montfort L’ Amaury compared to a union with Brittany alone. The new period saw the town’s castle ruins restored and there was new construction everywhere. The cemetery was relocated outside city walls. Churches were rebuilt and enhanced with that day’s art. While reaping these material improvements from its royal benefactors, Montfort maintained a semi-autonomy from the crown of France that would not be changed until 1550 when Brittany and the French Crown finally united under a single sovereign, Henry II (1519-1559).

Jean Perréal (1455-1529), Portrait Louis XII, c. 1514, Windsor collections de S.M. la Reine d’Angleterre. Jean Perréal’s most important attribution is this portrait of Louis XII who was King of France from 1498 to 1515. Louis XII was married three times – the first annulled; the second leaving the king a widower, and, in his last three months of life, to Mary Tudor (1496-1533), the favorite sister of King Henry VIII of England. Despite these wives, the king had no living sons. The Salic Law prohibited his line to continue on the French throne through his daughters. When Louis died in 1515, his throne eventually passed to his cousin, Francis I.

Under the Valois the Yvelines region of which Montfort is a central part received royal favor. Catherine de Medici (1519-1589) was named the Lady of Montfort in 1561. When the Wars of Religion broke out (1562-1598), the king, Charles IX (1550-1574), offered to the city home-rule in exchange for the reconstruction of its medieval ramparts at his expense. At the end of these wars, the passage of the future king, Henry IV (1553-1610) on the road that led him to Paris to take power, allowed Montfort L’Amaury to prove its loyalty to the new king. Montfort provided Henry Navarre with weapons and later obtained special rights in exchange. During the reigns of the first two Bourbon kings of France, Henry IV and Louis XIII (1601-1643), there are frequent royal visits to Montfort L’Amaury.

A canonized Catholic saint: Joan of Valois (1464 – 1505), sister of Charles VIII, and betrothed of Louis XII.

Portrait of Joan of Valois as abbess by Jean Perréal (1455-1530).

The second daughter of Louis XI (1423-1483) and Charlotte of Savoy (1411-1483), Joan of Valois was a fleeting Queen of France as the wife of King Louis XII following the death of her brother, King Charles VIII. Her marriage was soon annulled so that Louis could, as pre-arranged by contract, marry Charles VIII’s widow, Anne of Brittany.

Joan’s demeanor was characterized by an accepting and placid countenance. When she retired from court politics to become Duchess of Berry, the former Queen of France remarked: “If so it is to be, praised be the Lord.”

In Bourges, Joan of Valois founded a monastic order of sisters and served them as their abbess. In terms of her personality, Joan could be autocratic as an administrator of her nuns, which may have been a vestige of her former high-born role. Joan was canonized in May 1950, almost 450 years after her death.

Anne of Brittany, Catherine de’ Medici, and other royal figures helped shape the town’s development during the Renaissance.

Workshop of François Clouet. Catherine de’ Medici wears the black cap and veil of widow, after 1559. Upon seeing Catherine in the flesh, an Italian diplomat noted that “her mouth is too large and her eyes too prominent and colorless for beauty. But she is very distinguished-looking, has beautiful skin, a shapely figure, and exquisitely made hands.”

Portrait de Henri IV, roi de France et de Navarre (1553-1610) 1600 / 1700 (XVIIe siècle), Atelelier de Frans Pourbus II Louvre. Hung in Versailles chateau. https://collections.louvre.fr/en/ark:/53355/cl010057776

Marie de’ Medici, 1616, Frans Pourbus the Younger (Flemish, 1569-1622), oil on canvas, The Art Institute of Chicago. Marie de Medici (1575-1642) married Henry IV of France in 1600. After the king was assassinated in Paris in 1610, Marie de Medici served as the regent for their young son, Louis XIII. Marie de Medici brought Frans Pourbus to the French court to make regal portraits of the royal family.

Louis XIII between the figures of two young women symbolizing France and Navarre. 1636/38, School of Simon Vouet (1590-1649). Louvre, Paris. https://collections.louvre.fr/en/ark:/53355/cl010062003

Le Belvédère at Montfort L’Amaury: the House of Maurice Ravel from 1921 to his death in 1937. The coexistence of castle ruins, Gothic architecture, Renaissance art, historic houses, and literary and musical associations makes the town an unusually rich historical destination.

The author in front of Le Belvédère, the house of Maurice Ravel, and ready to go inside for a visit. March 2002. Author’s collection.

Inside Le Belvédère. The salon. March 2002. Author’s photograph.

Pianist Jacques Février with Maurice Ravel in 1925 in Le Belvédère, the house of the composer in Montfort-l’Amaury. Public Domain.

Ravel’s house sits on an ascent from the centre ville where Ravel could look out his garden-side window to back towards town and south and east to the green countryside between Montfort and Paris. March 2002. Author’s photograph.

Classic theater paperback anthology titled Jean Anouilh: Five Plays published as part of the celebrated Mermaid Dramabook series by Hill and Wang in 1958. He lived in Montfort-l’Amaury for roughly a decade, from 1951 to the early 1960s. PHOTO: “George Maas” by Crossett Library Bennington College is licensed under CC BY-NC-SA 2.0.

A master stylist, Jean Anouilh lived in Montfort-L’Amaury as he rejected the conventional realism that dominated much of contemporary theater, instead treating the stage as an elaborate and self-conscious game, an approach reflected in the categories and cycles into which he organized his plays. His dramas became powerful psychological mirrors of the moral and political trauma left by the German occupation of France. Drawing on classical mythology, Anouilh explored themes of moral purity, compromised integrity, and the devastating cost of saying “no” to corrupt authority. He possessed a rare gift for transforming ancient Greek myths into modern drama, replacing epic poetry with sharp, colloquial, and psychologically charged dialogue that resonated deeply with twentieth-century audiences.

Anouilh’s 1944 play, Antigone, was an adaptation play of Sophocles’ play of the same name. The 34-year-old Anouilh’s work was seen as an attack on the Vichy government of Marshal Pétain (1856-1951) in World War II.

This anthology is particularly important to theater history because it gathers the landmark works that introduced Anouilh’s genius to English-speaking audiences, foremost among them Antigone, his crowning achievement. For many French spectators, the defiant Antigone embodied the spirit of the French Resistance, while the pragmatic and authoritarian Creon evoked the collaborationist Vichy regime. By recasting an ancient conflict as a modern moral dilemma, Anouilh created one of the most enduring and controversial dramas of the twentieth century, a work that continues to challenge audiences with its unsettling questions about conscience, obedience, and resistance.

Anouiih also wrote Becket. The original French play is titled Becket ou l‘Honneur de Dieu. It was staged in Paris at the Théâtre Montparnasse-Gaston Baty in October 1959 and directed by Anouilh. The play dramatizes historical martyr and Catholic saint Thomas Becket (1120-1170), the Archbishop of Canterbury In England.

Anouilh’s Becket became an international sensation. Successive productions in English translation were mounted in London (starring Christopher Plummer and Eric Porter) and in New York City (starring Laurence Olivier and Anthony Quinn). In 1964 Becket became a major motion picture starring Richard Burton and Peter O’Toole which won the Academy Award for Best Screenplay.

SOURCES:

Comité d’organisation des fêtes. 1972. Montfort-L’Amaury. Montfort-l’Amaury: Le Syndicat d’Initiative des Fêtes et des Arts de Montfort-L’Amaury et ses Environs.

Coulson, John, dir. 1957. The Saints: A Concise Biographical Dictionary. New York: Guild Press.

De Finance, Laurence, et Marie-Huguette Hadrot. 1994. Montfort-L’Amaury : Les verrières de l’église paroissiale Saint-Pierre (Yvelines). Paris: Centre de Documentation du Patrimoine.

France Bleu. 2018. « Du monde à Montfort l’Amaury pour se recueillir sur la tombe de Charles Aznavour. » ICI (France Bleu Paris Île-de-France), 3 novembre 2018. https://www.francebleu.fr/infos/medias-people/du-monde-a-montfort-l-amaury-pour-se-recueillir-sur-la-tombe-de-charles-aznavour-1541236036.

Hadrot, Marie-Huguette. 2002. Montfort L’Amaury : De l’an mil à nos jours. Paris: Somogy Éditions d’Art.

Kuzmina, Maria. 2007. « L’histoire de la ville. » Montfort-l’Amaury : Un millénaire d’histoire, 17 juin 2007. http://www.montfortlamaury.free.fr/fr/index.php/Montfort-l-amaury-un-millenaire-d-histoire.

Montjoye. 2026. « Château de Montfort-l’Amaury. » Montjoye.net. https://montjoye.net/chateau-de-montfort-lamaury.

Wikipédia. 2026. « Anne de Bretagne. » Dernière modification le 2 octobre 2026. https://fr.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anne_de_Bretagne.

Ramparts, Montfort L’Amaury. March 2002. Author’s photograph,

Empire, Defeat, and Exile: Napoleon Bonaparte at Saint Helena at the 200th anniversary of his death on May 5, 1821.

Napoleon Bonaparte (1769-1821) transformed France and Europe through military genius, political ambition, and administrative reform, yet the same drive that built an empire ultimately led to its collapse. His final years, exile on the remote island of Saint Helena, and the creation of his death mask contributed to a legend that outlived both the man and the empire he forged.

The Emperor Napoleon in His Study at the Tuileries, 1812, Jacques-Louis David (1748-1825), National Gallery of Art, Washington, D.C.

Major facts of the life of Napoleon Bonaparte (1769-1821) are well known. Known as Napoleon I, the French Emperor who died two centuries ago was a shrewd, ambitious and skilled military leader who conquered much of Europe in the early 19th century.

Born on the island of Corsica that had recently handed authority from Italy to France, Napoleon rose rapidly in the French military during the unsettled period of the French Revolution after 1789 and until 30-year-old Napoleon seized power in a coup d’état in 1799.

Napoleon rose from a young Corsican artillery officer to become Emperor of the French in 1804.

In 1804 Napoleon crowned himself emperor in Notre Dame Cathedral in Paris in the presence of the pope. In the next decade Napoleon successfully waged war against various coalitions of European nations and expanded his empire. Following his disastrous French invasion of Russia in 1812 explored in some detail in this post, Napoleon abdicated his throne in 1814 and was exiled to the island of Elba not far from his native Corsica in the Mediterranean Sea near Italy.

In 1815, he escaped Elba and returned to France where he briefly returned to power in his Hundred Days campaign. He received a crushing defeat at the Battle of Waterloo in today’s Belgium and was exiled until his death on May 5, 1821 to the remote island of Saint Helena in the South Atlantic Ocean. Napoleon Bonaparte was just 51 years old at the time of his death stemming from mysterious circumstances, though likely something such as stomach cancer.¹

Napoleon on St. Helena, Franz Josef Sandmann (1805-1856), c. 1820. Musée national des châteaux de Malmaison et de Bois-Préau.

In 2021, the bicentenary of the death of Napoleon I is commemorated. While 200 years is a long time ago, in terms of History it is a relatively short span amount of time. In other words, Napoleon, who might have come to the United States (New Orleans) after his exile, is not very far away from modern times.

Napoleon Bonaparte, born in Corsica which had just switched allegiance from Italy to France, was born in 1769. In 1821 when he died on May 5 he was 51 years old. The former French emperor died far away from Europe on the island of Saint Helena in the middle of the South Atlantic Ocean. Napoleon had been exiled there following his defeat at Waterloo in Belgium in 1815 and escape from Elba in the Mediterranean, the British Government’s first location for his confinement.

Between the continents of Africa and South America, St. Helena is much more remote. The island built its first airport only in 2011.

Napoleon lived on St. Helena for about 6 years and died there, somewhat unexpectedly, at Longwood House. Napoleon’s permanent residence was completed for him in December 1815.

Napoleon was buried on St. Helena. In 1840, stirring old wounds of controversy, the remains of the warring General and French despot were transferred to Paris. Napoleon’s tomb in Les Invalides had been a military hospital whose construction was by Louis XIV (1638-1715).

His death mask became one of the most famous relics associated with any historical figure.

Napoleon’s plaster death mask, known as the Malmaison mask, May 1821. The death mask was made on Saint Helena about two days after the former French Emperor’s death there on May 5, 1821 at Longwood House. see – http://www.lautresaintehelene.com/autre-sainte-helene-articles-malmaison2.html – retrieved May 5, 2021.

On St. Helena, Longwood House was Napoeleon’s permanent residence completed for him by his British captors in December 1815. In 1858, French emperor Napoleon III, nephew of Napoleon I, purchased Longwood House and various other lands associated with Napoleon I on St. Helena for the French government. Though Napoleon’s remains were returned to France in 1840, Napoleon III’s purchase on St. Helena remains the property of France. It is administered by a French representative under the authority of the French Ministry of Foreign Affairs. (see – https://fondationnapoleon.org/en/activities-and-services/preserving-heritage/operation-st-helena/ – retrieved May 5, 2021). PHOTO: “Longwood House (c) St Helena Tourism” by sthelenatourism is licensed under CC BY-ND 2.0.

His military victories reshaped Europe and spread many principles of the French Revolution across the continent. The Napoleonic Code became one of his most enduring legacies, influencing legal systems worldwide.

Napoléon at Battle of Wagram, July 5-6, 1809, Joseph Chabord (Chambèry 1786-Paris 1848), 293 cm (115.3 in) x 224 cm (88.1 in), Museo Napoleónico, Rome, Italy. On July 5-6, 1809, the Battle of Wagram took place north of Vienna and was the greatest battle in world history up to that time. It was Napoleon’s last and greatest victory. The battle opposed the Austrian army led by Archduke Charles, Duke of Teschen (1771-1847) against the Franco-Italo-German army under Napoleon I, Emperor of the French, King of Italy, Protector of the Confederation of the Rhine. The painting depicts the plain of Wagram, the scene of the battle with the dominant figure of Napoleon, perfectly settled upon a wild-eyed horse. The emperor wears the uniform of Colonel of the Chasseurs on Horseback with the insignia of the Legion of Honor and the Iron Crown. The grandeur of the rider-horse group, which contrasts with the small figures of the soldiers in the background, accentuates the heroic character of Napoleon, a charismatic strategist who dominates events. The commemoration painting probably was linked to an official commission. The painting was in the collection of Hortense de Beauharnais (1783-1837), the daughter of Napoleon’s first wife, Joséphine de Beauharnais. in Arenenberg, where the former Queen of Holland lived from 1817 until her death. It remained there until 1905, when the last owner of the castle, the former Empress Eugenie, wife of Napoleon III, donated it to Count Giuseppe Primoli. Public Domain. See – https://www.museonapoleonico.it/it/percorsi/percorsi_per_sale/sale_i_e_ii_il_primo_impero/napoleone_sul_campo_di_battaglia_di_wagra

THE YEAR 1812: A BAD ECONOMY, CONTINENTAL BLOCKADES, AND A DISASTROUS INVASION OF RUSSIA BY NAPOLEON

During the War of 1812 which had ramifications for the U.S., world domination by Napoleon was being attempted within a sagging, uncooperative economy in Europe.

France had 300,000 French troops and a rafter of French generals occupying Spain to keep the blockaded British from invading. Napoleon, in a near constant state of war since 1793, had created an Empire whose subjected parts didn’t cooperate. In 1812, Napoleon had to choose between losing his blockade in Spain or in Russia.

Since the Treaty of Tilsit in 1807 which followed the Battle of Friedland where Napoleon defeated the Russian army, Russia continued to transact business with England. This was a violation of the agreement and the pretext for Napoleon’s invasion of Russia in 1812.

While over 1,500 miles away from Paris, Napoleon wanted to shut down Russia’s economy and take full control. For Russia, Napoleon’s invasion required the defense of their homeland.

NAPOLEON’S NEW WAR NEEDED 700,000 FRESH CONSCRIPTS

Napoleon needed fresh conscripts but a third of Napoleon’s French draftees didn’t report for duty. Many of Napoleon’s generals advised the dictator to stay in Paris and enjoy life’s spoils. Napoleon refused. He explained that he would not rest until he fulfilled the dream to form a United States of Europe.²

Napoleon assembled 700,000 men with the monumental task to pay for it. For years the Emperor had been stockpiling supplies along the route to Russia and even arranged for their delivery on the battlefield.

Napoleon left St. Cloud for Moscow in June 1812. His high stakes gamble would affect not just Napoleon’s fortunes but the Empire’s inhabitants.

The disastrous Russian campaign of 1812 marked a turning point in his fortunes.

Ernest Meissonier (1815-1891), Campaign of France, 1814, 1864. Oil on wood, 51.5 x 76.5 cm, Paris, Musée d’Orsay.

This was the artist’s first painting produced in a cycle of Napoleon’s conquests. Though the episode Meissonier depicts was painted for the fiftieth anniversary of Napoleon’s invasion of France from Elba in 1814, it captures the overall desolation that surrounded the former French Emperor by the time of his invasion of Russia in 1812.

The series made by the 49-year-old artist, an admirer of seventeenth-century Flemish and Dutch small-format painting, not only captures the desolate landscape the Grande Armée endured, it also shows a solitary, unusually unkempt, and tenuous figure of Napoleon who is leading the General Staff and troops in an over-extended military campaign that spelled defeat.

For the painting, the artist’s imagination was informed by historical documentation and interviews of surviving eyewitnesses, including the detail of the emperor’s grey coat. Its realist style was a prevailing aspect of mid-19th century artistic taste during the Second Empire headed by Napoleon III from 1852 to 1870.

(see –https://www.musee-orsay.fr/en/collections/works-in-focus/painting/commentaire_id/campaign-of-france-1814-8947.html?tx_commentaire_pi1%5BpidLi%5D=509&tx_commentaire_pi1%5Bfrom%5D=841&cHash=41368ad16b#:~:text=Campagne%20de%20France%2C%201814%20%5BCampaign,demonstrates%20his%20nimble%2C%20polished%20style. – retrieved May 5, 2021.

FAILURE OF THE SUPPLY CHAIN AND “THE ENEMY OF LIBERTY”

The army marched 1,200 miles to Lithuania to engage the Russian army. But the Russians had retreated. Napoleon’s men had to march another 550 miles to Moscow. The generous supply lines got snarled. French troops turned sick and exhausted.

In the Battle of Smolensk, the French invaders—viewed by some to be fighting for a united liberal Europe over small state autocrats—set that town on fire. Napoleon’s criminal reputation preceded him – he murdered without mercy and often by treachery. Royalists criticized him but also articulate liberals like Alexis de Tocqueville (1805-1859) and François-René de Chateaubriand (1768-1848). The emperor was the enemy of liberty. Chateaubriand wrote: “Les Français vont indistinctement au pouvoir, ils n’aiment pas la liberté, l’égalité est leur idole. Or l’égalité et le despotisme ont des liaisons secrètes” (“The French go to power indiscriminately, they don’t like liberty, equality is their idol. But equality and despotism have secret links”).

Portrait of Chateaubriand by Anne-Louis Girodet de Roussy-Trioson, 1809, the Musée d’Histoire de la Ville et du Pays Malouin in Saint-Malo, France. Of Napoleon Chateaubriand wrote: “Les Français vont indistinctement au pouvoir, ils n’aiment pas la liberté, l’égalité est leur idole. Or l’égalité et le despotisme ont des liaisons secrètes” (“The French go to power indiscriminately, they don’t like liberty, equality is their idol. But equality and despotism have secret links”).

The Sly Old Fox of the North

With casualties for the Battle of Smolensk around 15,000 for both sides, the Czar appointed Mikhail Kutuzov (1745-1813) as commander of Russian forces. Napoleon called Kutuzov, “The sly old fox of the north“ (cited in Roger Parkinson, The Fox of the North, 1976). At 67 years old, Kutuzov was lazy and lecherous, but knew how to fight—and, regarding Napoleon’s invasion of Russia, how to retreat strategically. It made Napoleon’s thirst for further battle on his own terms impossible.

Portrait of Mikhail Kutuzov, 1829, George Dawe (1781–1829). Oil on canvas, State Hermitage Museum, Winter Palace War Gallery, St. Petersburg, Russia.

70 MILES WEST OF MOSCOW, THE BATTLE OF BORODINO PITS 242,000 TOTAL COMBATANTS WITH OVER 1,000 BIG GUNS ON SEPTEMBER 7, 1812

In his address to troops before the Battle of Borodino General Kutuzov told his men: “Napoleon is a torrent we are yet unable to stem. Moscow will be the sponge that sucks him dry.”³ Napoleon knew what he was up against. Without supplies, Napoleon ordered his men to keep marching: “Motion alone keeps this army together.”⁴

The march from Smolensk to Moscow took 3 weeks. Many soldiers of the Grande Armée died on the march. Kutuzov set up a defensive position in Borodino, about 70 miles west of Moscow. On Sept. 7, 1812, French forces engaged the Russians. Both sides were evenly matched – Napoleon had 587 guns and 130,000 troops and the Russians had 640 guns and 112,000 troops.

Hanging over the battlefield was the feeling that the destiny of Europe lay in the balance. The battle’s outcome was a draw. The French were masters of the field as the Russians retreated. It was another day for war’s slaughter— combined French and Russian losses was 80,000 soldiers.

Battle of Moscow (or Borodino), the Capture of the Great Redoubt. Engraving by unknown artist, 1820’s. State Borodino Military Historical Museum, Russia.

Battle of Moscow (or Battle of Borodino) in 1812. Attack of the Lithuanian Life Guards Regiment, oil on canvas, 1912, Nikolay Semyonovich Samokish (1860-1944). State Borodino Military Historical Museum, Russia.

General Uvarov at Borodino, Auguste-Joseph Desarnod (1788-1840), State Hermitage Museum, St. Petersburg, Russia.

In the War of 1812 Fedor Petrovich Uvarov (1769 -1824) commanded the 1st Cavalry Corps and then the Cavalry of the 1st and 2nd Russian Armies. With the Cossacks of Matvei Platov (1753-1818), Uvarov distinguished himself in the Battle of Borodino when he turned the left flank of the French army and made a raid to its rear. The Russian attack of the main French forces delayed Napoleon’s battle plans for two crucial hours.

WHEN LEJEUNE’S BATTLE-PICTURES WERE SHOWN IN LONDON, EAGER CROWDS CAME TO SEE THEM FOR THEIR REALISTIC, DETAILED DEPICTIONS OF SIGNIFICANT CONTEMPORARY EVENTS.

Battle of Borodino, 7th September 1812, 1822, Louis-François Lejeune (1775-1848).

In the French invasion of Russia in 1812, Lejeune was made général de brigade and chief of staff to Davout (1770-1823). During the retreat, Lejeune was frostbitten on the face and left his post where he was subsequently arrested on Napoleon’s orders.

During his military service, Lejeune produced a series of important battle-pictures based on his experiences. They were generally executed from sketches and studies made on the battlefield. Known for their lofty perspective which, according to Chase Maenius in The Art of War[s], “offer[ed] a panoramic view of the totality of the battle’s events,” the Battle of Borodino… of 1822 is considered his masterwork.

In his Memoirs of Baron Lejeune, aide-de-camp to marshals Berthier, Davout, and Oudinot (translation, 1897), Lejeune related one of the many wretched scenes that the Napoleonic Wars produced. He wrote: “As we were pushing on the next day, we came upon two poor creatures at a turn in the road whose condition tore our hearts. They were a handsome well-built man of about forty and a woman of about thirty, also with a fine figure, both stark naked. They approached us and said to us in very good French, ‘Our home has been sacked by Cossacks, who stripped us of everything and left us as you see us. For pity’s sake help us.’ We could do nothing for them but give them a little food, and we felt very wretched as we turned away. The next day at a bivouac some distance off a fresh irresistible demand was made upon our pity, and our stock of provisions was so much reduced that I don’t know what we should have done but that some German peasants brought us a few sheep, with which we replenished our larder.” p. 158, https://archive.org/details/memoirsbaronlej01maurgoog/page/n170/mode/2up
—retrieved May 5, 2021.)

The bodies of dead soldiers of Napoleon’s Grand Armée left on the bridge over the River Kolocha after the Battle of Borodino, 1812. Christian Wilhelm von Faber du Faur (1780-1857), published 1830’s.

Gen. Kutuzov at the conference of Fili deciding to surrender Moscow to Napoleon, Aleksey Kivshenko (1851–1895), 1880, oil on canvas, Tretyakov Gallery, Moscow.

Following the Battle of Borodino on September 7, 1812, the Russian army retreated towards Moscow and camped near Fili. A military council led by General Kutuzov assembled in a hut in Fili where, despite objections from younger generals, Kutuzov insisted on his plan to abandon Moscow.

The action not only saved the remains of the Russian army but worked to stymie and ultimately defeat Napoleon’s invasion drive. The personalities in the painting include Prince Michael Andreas Barclay de Tolly (1761-1818), who was replaced by Kutuzov on order of the Czar and sits in the corner below the Virgin Mary and Child Jesus icon. Fyodor Uvarov sits near Barclay holding a paper. Nikolay Raevsky (1771-1829) sits by the window with his fingers locked together. Aleksey Petrovich Yermolov (1777-1861) stands on the far right. The much younger Yermolov resented old general Kutuzov’s plan and demanded to fight the enemy.

Napoleon and about 100,000 French troops reached Moscow on September 8, 1812, Napoleon found only Russia’s poor and displaced. Moscow was Russia’s largest city, its capital, and its Holy City—and French troops of the Enlightenment set it ablaze. The fires burned for 4 days as Napoleon’s army looted it.

Napoleon wrote a letter of apology and condolence to the Czar, Alexander I Pavlovich, the Blessed (1777-1825). One result was that Tthe Russians resolved never to surrender to their would-be conqueror. Only some of the wealthy in Russia looked to negotiate with Napoleon mainly out of fear of losing their assets, that is, the serfs. Napoleon surmised, “I beat the Russians every time—but that does not get me anywhere.”⁵ Old general Kutuzov’s inaction attained his objective to defend Russia whereas 43-year-old Napoleon failed to rally his men for his Empire these many hundreds of miles from home.

In Ridley Scott’s Napoleon, after trudging with his conscripts through most of Europe, the French Emperor (Joaquin Phoenix) reaches Moscow in Russia. Itching for a fight, the Holy City is, instead, deserted. Disappointed and mocked, Moscow is looted and set ablaze by Napoleon’s men before they retreat.

Posthumous Portrait of Czar Alexander I of Russia, 1826, George Dawe, State Hermitage Museum, St. Petersburg, Russia.

Napoleon’s interest became retreat. There was an intended coup d’état in Paris that Napoleon had to raise more fresh recruits to crush. Other parts of the Empire also raised their head following Napoleon’s inglorious retreat. But it grew worse to become one of world history’s worst defeats.

Weather in Russia turned to snow and ice. The Russians retreated into Mother Russia before they were defeated. The French retreated to the west in defeat. Reports of cannibalism among Napoleon’s army is recorded. Turning back to Paris, the French army lost another half of their men. All of Napoleon’s supply lines had been sacked. Adding further injury, the French were chased out of Russia by Kutuzov’s 80,000 troops.

Famous tell-all graph by French civil engineer Charles Joseph Minard (1781-1870) showing the size of Napoleon’s Grande Armée as it marched towards Moscow (top gray line, left to right) in summer of 1812 and its retreat (bottom black line, from right to left) in the late fall of 1812. Frozen temperatures during the humiliating retreat are plotted on the bottom graph.

On the retreat, surviving warriors fought among themselves over any existing supplies. Napoleon’s retreat included the humiliation of being chased out of Russia by Kutuzov’s redeployed 80,000 troops. The old man’s hot pursuit did not allow Napoleon, the once young Enlightenment military figure, to rest.

Under military surgeon Baron Dominique Jean Larrey (1766-1842), the Grand Army’s medical and sanitary measures were the finest in the world but the retreat route offered no food and no medical care. As a remedy for possible future ills, including his capture, Napoleon convinced his doctor to give him a vial of poison which the dictator could ingest if conditions deteriorated to become inescapably dire.

Portrait of Dominique-Jean Larrey, oil on canvas, 1804, Marie-Guillemine Benoist (1768-1826), Musée des Augustins, Toulouse, France.

Baron Dominique Jean Larrey was a French surgeon and military doctor who distinguished himself during the near endless wars of the French Revolution and under Napoleon. Baron Larrey served as the Grand Army’s medical and sanitation leader and was an important innovator in triage who is considered the first modern military doctor and surgeon.

Napoleon: Retreat, 1812. /Ncrossing The Beresina River In Russia During The Retreat Of The Grand Army Under Napoleon Bonaparte, December 1812; Baggage Carts And Ambulances Have Been Abandoned In The Foreground. Watercolor, c. 1812, attributed to General François Louis Fournier-Sarlovèze (1773-1827). During the Russian Campaign, Fournier commanded a brigade of light cavalry composed of French, German, and Central European horsemen, and led a noted cavalry charge at the Battle of Smolensk.

Generals Kutuzov and Wittgenstein attacked at a bridge crossing in what today is Belarus. Hundreds of Frenchmen drowned. To slow the attack, Napoleon ordered the bridges destroyed. In the process the general stranded hundreds of his troops to enemy gunfire.

Napoleon now told his aide-de-camp, Armand-Augustin-Louis de Caulaincourt, what the Russian campaign taught him: “I can hold my grip on Europe only from the Tuileries.” In Warsaw, Napoleon met Abbé de Pradt, his ambassador, and told him: “From the sublime to the ridiculous is but a step.”⁶

As Tchaikovsky’s 1812 Overture with its famous climax using cannon fire, ringing chimes and brass fanfare, commemorates a Russian defensive victory, French losses were staggering. Of Napoleon’s 700,000 men led into Russia, only 30,000 survived. Only 1,000 soldiers returned to active duty.⁷

NAPOLEON IN RUSSIA, HIS FORCES LOSE THE PENINSULAR WAR IN SPAIN; THE FOLLOWING YEAR, IN 1813, NAPOLEON LOSES THE BATTLE OF LIEPZIG, THE LARGEST LAND BATTLE UNTIL WORLD WAR I.

Simultaneous with the debacle of Napoleon’s Russian invasion, French forces lost the long fight (since 1808) in Spain and Portugal to keep the British off the Continent.

Significant losses in the east and west of the Empire were followed in 1813 by the Battle of Leipzig, Napoleon’s penultimate defeat by an international coalition that included Austria, Prussia, Russia and Sweden.

DEFEATED, FORCED TO ABDICATE AND EXILED TO ELBA IN 1814, HE BRIEFLY RETURNED TO POWER DURING THE AUDACIOUS HUNDRED DAYS IN 1815. NAPAOLEON MET HIS WATERLOO ON JUNE 18, 1815.

After Napoleon withdrew into France, in March 1814 these allied forces captured Paris. By early April 1814 Napoleon was forced to abdicate as Emperor. Napoleon had to go for his pursuit of glory had become a menace to his country and the world.

With the Treaty of Fontainebleau, Napoleon was exiled to Elba, and, following his brief escape into France in 1814, he was defeated for the final time at the Battle of Waterloo and exiled to St. Helena which held him until his death at 51 years old on May 5, 1821.

Center of Wellington’s Line

This vantage point looks straight down the Allied‑Coalition center under the Duke of Wellington, facing south toward Napoleon’s army. The road cutting through the field is the Chaussée de Charleroi (today’s Route N5), the main axis of Napoleon’s plan to drive north, seize Brussels, and split the Allied and Prussian forces.

La Haye Sainte: The Breakwater

The white, walled farm complex beside the road is La Haye Sainte, held on June 18 by the King’s German Legion (expatriated Hanoverians). This fortified farmhouse became the immovable center of Wellington’s line, blocking the French advance up the main road for most of the day.

D’Erlon’s Assault and the Heavy Cavalry Counter‑Charge

The east field (left) was the killing ground for Count d’Erlon’s I Corps early that afternoon. Across this slope, British heavy cavalry—including the Scots Greys—launched their legendary, chaotic counter‑charge, smashing d’Erlon’s infantry columns before overextending and being cut down in turn.

Ney’s Mass Cavalry Attacks

The rising west field (right) hosted Marshal Ney’s massive cavalry charges. Wellington’s infantry met them in a checkerboard of roughly 20 defensive squares, each holding 500–1,000 men. The French horsemen funneled through narrow gaps, unable to break the squares and instead becoming trapped, jumbled, and exposed to disciplined musket fire. It was like as Agincourt all over again.

Portrait of the Duke of Wellington, by Sir Thomas Lawrence, c. 1815–1816, Apsley House, Apsley House, London. Public Domain.

The creation of the Lion’s Mound between 1820 and 1826 permanently reshaped the original 1815 battlefield. King William I of the Netherlands ordered the monument to mark the exact spot where his son, the Prince of Orange, was wounded. To build the 141‑foot conical hill, engineers with 2,000 workers moved an enormous volume of earth—roughly 300,000 to 400,000 cubic meters—an amount equal to over 40,000 standard dump truck loads packed back-to-back—by scraping and excavating the battlefield itself rather than importing soil. In doing so, they erased key contours, slopes, and defensive features that had defined Wellington’s position during the Battle of Waterloo. The alteration was so drastic that when Wellington returned in 1827, he reportedly reacted with fury, declaring, “They have altered my field of battle!”

Exiled to the remote South Atlantic island of Saint Helena, he spent his remaining years dictating memoirs and reflecting on his career. Napoleon died on May 5, 1821, at age 51. Two centuries after his death, historians continue to debate whether he was a liberator, dictator, military genius, or all three.

Napoleon Crossing the Alps, Jacques-Louis David, 1801, oil on canvas, 102 1⁄3 × 87 in., Château du Malmaison.

NOTES:

“Napoleon Bonaparte,” HISTORY, last modified April 28, 2026, https://www.history.com/topics/france/napoleon.
Will Durant and Ariel Durant, The Age of Napoleon (New York: Simon & Schuster, 1975), 698.
Trevor Royle, ed., A Dictionary of Military Quotations (London: Routledge, 1989), sec. 105, quote 13.
“Napoleon’s Maxims,” Military-Info, accessed May 5, 2021, http://www.military-info.com/freebies/maximsn.htm.
“The Napoleon Legend—A New Look; How can we know the man whose transformation into a myth began long before his death?; Napoleonic Legend,” New York Times, April 5, 1964, https://www.nytimes.com/1964/04/05/archives/the-napoleon-legenda-new-look-how-can-we-know-the-man-whose.html.
John Bartlett, Bartlett’s Familiar Quotations, 13th ed. (Boston: Little, Brown, 1955), 199.
Stephan Talty, “What Blown Tire? How Typhus, Transmitted by Lice, Wiped Out Napoleon’s Grand Armée,” Slate, December 21, 2012, https://slate.com/technology/2012/12/napoleon-march-to-russia-in-1812-typhus-spread-by-lice-was-more-powerful-than-tchaikovskys-cannonfire.html.

Music, Liturgy, and Marian Devotion in Marc-Antoine Charpentier’s Messe et Motets Pour La Vierge (1702).

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FEATURE image: “Jordi Savall à l’Arsenal.” by iJuliAn is licensed under CC BY-NC-SA 2.0.

Marc-Antoine Charpentier’s sacred music stands among the most eloquent artistic expressions of the French Baroque, uniting theological depth, emotional power, and musical innovation to transform Catholic devotion into a profoundly moving spiritual and cultural experience. Through works such as Messe et Motets pour la Vierge, Charpentier helped shape the religious and artistic identity of Louis XIV’s France while creating music that continues to resonate centuries later.

Le Concert des Nations in 2005. Fair Use.

Le Concert des Nations is a period instrument orchestra founded in 1989 by Catalan maestro and viola da gamba virtuoso Jordi Savall (b. 1941) whose repertoire spans the Baroque era, the Age of Enlightenment, and the Romantic period. Performing orchestral, choral, and symphonic works with historical authenticity, the ensemble takes its name from Le Concert des Nations, a 1726 chamber music masterpiece by celebrated French Baroque composer and musical theorist François Couperin (1668-1733). Savall chose the name because Couperin’s work represented a symbolic bridge where national musical styles—French, Spanish, Italian, and German—coexisted and harmonized. This perfectly mirrored Savall’s organizational vision: an international orchestra primarily bringing together specialists from Latin nations to revitalize historical European repertoires under a singular, unified artistic spirit.

Presumed portrait of François Couperin by 17th century anonymous French artist. oil of canvas. see- http://collections.chateauversailles.fr/#c5bd04a2-447c-430a-8d49-40848da99695

François Couperin: “Couperin the Great”

A presumed portrait of French Baroque composer, organist, and harpsichordist François Couperin (1668-1733), often referred to as Couperin le Grand (“Couperin the Great”), is preserved today in the collection of the Palace of Versailles. The unsigned oil painting, dated c. 1730, depicts Couperin dressed in an elegant chamber robe with a lace cravat and holding a scroll of sheet music. The prominent inclusion of a quill and silver inkwell on the table beside him underscores his stature not only as a performer but also as a composer and influential musical theorist.

Couperin was arguably the most important figure in French instrumental music between the eras of Jean-Baptiste Lully and Jean-Philippe Rameau. His reputation rests in large part on his four published books of harpsichord (clavecin) pieces, comprising more than 230 works, as well as his landmark 1716 treatise, L’art de toucher le clavecin (The Art of Harpsichord Playing). This revolutionary manual on keyboard technique and interpretation exerted a lasting influence on generations of musicians, including Johann Sebastian Bach and Johannes Brahms. Equally significant was Couperin’s role as a mediator between national traditions, becoming the foremost advocate for a synthesis of French elegance and Italian expressiveness.

Charpentier and Couperin: A Shared Musical World

While no surviving documentary evidence confirms that Couperin and Marc-Antoine Charpentier (1643-1704) ever met, the two composers worked within the same Parisian musical environment and shared important artistic affinities. Charpentier belonged to an older generation and served as a crucial pioneer whose innovations helped shape the musical landscape inherited by Couperin.

The Italian Influence in France

At a time when the French musical establishment dominated by Lully often regarded Italian music with suspicion, Charpentier took the bold step of traveling to Rome to study with Giacomo Carissimi. There he absorbed the expressive possibilities of Italian sacred music, cantatas, and sonatas, later introducing many of these elements into French religious composition. His music expanded the emotional range and harmonic vocabulary of French sacred works while demonstrating that Italian and French styles could coexist productively.

Laying the Groundwork for the High Baroque

Charpentier’s achievements helped prepare the way for the next generation of French composers. As Couperin developed his own sonatas, motets, and keyboard works, he embraced many of the possibilities opened by Charpentier’s example. What Charpentier had pioneered, Couperin refined and systematized, ultimately perfecting a celebrated union of Italian dramatic vitality and French courtly grace.

This stylistic reconciliation would become one of the defining artistic achievements of the French High Baroque. In that sense, although Charpentier and Couperin belonged to different generations, they may be viewed as collaborators across time: one laying the foundation, the other bringing the project to its fullest realization.

Print (c. 1680’s) of M. Charpentier in the lower left corner with two ladies displaying a sheet of musical notations. Public Domain.

Messe et Motets pour la Vierge by Marc-Antoine Charpentier (1702):
Canticum in honorem Beate Virginis Mariae inter hominess et angelos (H.400)
In Nativitatem Domini Canticum: nuit (H.416)
Stabat Mater pour des religieuses (H.15)
Litanies de la Vierge a 6 voix et 2 dessus de violes (H.83)
Missa Assumpta Est Maria (H.11a)

What is Charpentier’s Messe et Motets Pour La Vierge about?

Marc-Antoine Charpentier (French, 1643-1704) was a prolific composer who had a diverse list of clients in Paris and the composer continually adapted his work. His religious music is complex for its musical relationships and its theological structures.

Starting in the sixteenth century one of the Catholic Church’s responses to Protestant reformers during the so-called “Catholic Counter Reformation” was the renewal of its devotion to the Virgin Mary.

Charpentier’s composition of Messe et Motets Pour La Vierge is not trivial. It supports varied and comprehensive expressions of Marian devotion. This includes a didactic dialogue in her honor (Canticum in honorem Virginis Mariae Beatae homines…); a sorrowful Virgin at the foot of the Cross (Stabat mater dolorosa); a litany of the Virgin; and a great Mass in her honor for God’s glory (Assumpta est Maria…).

Added to the theological variety of musical forms are its different musical styles for soloists, chorus and orchestra.

Charpentier’s final product is sublime and leads directly to the Mass worship on the Feast of Mary’s assumption into heaven which is August 15.

His Messe et Motets pour la Vierge reflects the Catholic Church’s renewed devotion to the Virgin Mary during the Counter-Reformation in a composition that incorporates multiple forms of Marian devotion, including hymns, litanies, motets, and a Mass honoring the Virgin.

Louis XIV with his mother and brother, 1643, Philippe de Champaigne (1602-1674), Kunsthalle Hamburg. The crown of France being offered to the young Louis (future King Louis XIV) by the Virgin Mary while his mother (Anne of Austria) and brother (Philippe, Duke of Anjou) attend. Public Domain.

Charpentier’s Messe and the Palace of Versailles

Intriguing facts coincide in this live early music performance of the Messe et Motets Pour La Vierge (Mass and Motets for the Virgin) by Charpentier and the Palace of Versailles in whose Royal Chapel it was recorded in 2007. The ninety-one-minute music video in this post is directed by Olivier Simonnet and broadcast by MEZZO.

In the Jules Hardouin-Mansart-designed chapel of 1699 (completed in 1710) is performed some of the greatest music ever composed by early music ensemble Hespèrion XXI and period instrument orchestra Le Concert des Nations led by Jordi Savall.

Fourteen miles west of Paris, there are many ways to visit Versailles’ château and grounds as it is very big and expansive. The château has over two thousand windows (exact count: 2,153).

Performances at the Royal Chapel of Versailles connect Charpentier’s music to the cultural and artistic ambitions of the Sun King’s France. His compositions reveal how music, architecture, liturgy, and royal patronage intersected in Baroque Europe

The vaulted ceiling in the Royal Chapel at Versailles (1699-1710). Hardouin-Mansart (1646-1708) designed it without transverse ribs so to create a unified surface, It is dedicated to the Holy Trinity: iGod the Father in his Glory by Antoine Coypel (1661-1722) is in the center. In the apse is The Resurrection by Charles de La Fosse (1636 – 1716). Above the Royal tribune is The Descent of the Holy Ghost by Jean-Baptiste Jouvenet (1644– 1717).

Portrait of Jules Hardouin-Mansart (1646-1708), Premier architecte du Roi by François de Troy (9 January 1645 – 21 November 1730), 1699. Palace of Versailles. see – http://collections.chateauversailles.fr/#14206cd6-00df-409f-8ae8-600784935955

Chateau de Versailles – Galerie des Glaces. “File:Chateau Versailles Galerie des Glaces.jpg” by Myrabella is licensed under CC BY-SA 3.0[/caption]

From the United Center to the Court of the Sun King

In 2012, when former Chicago Bulls superstar Michael Jordan listed his estate for sale, it hit the market at a staggering $29 million. For that price, the legendary athlete’s residence boasted an impressive 32,683 square feet situated on seven acres of prime land near Chicago.

Yet, how does the King of B-ball stack up against Louis XIV’s Palace of Versailles? The royal French château spans an unimaginable 720,000 square feet anchored across two thousand acres of land. A visitor who finishes wandering the 30 rooms of Jordan’s mansion could transition to wandering Versailles’ twenty-three hundred rooms.

A Treasury of Baroque Art

As one might expect, there is an overwhelming amount of historic art to absorb inside the château. By official inventories, the palace walls and vaults play host to 6,123 paintings, 1,500 drawings, 15,000 engravings, 2,000 individual sculptures, and more than 5,000 pieces of masterfully crafted period furniture.

While the structural expansion of the palace took place in waves beginning in the 1670s, it is particularly fascinating to hear Marc-Antoine Charpentier’s Messe et Motets Pour La Vierge performed inside its Royal Chapel. Composed in 1702, this brilliant piece of contemporary liturgical music was uniquely hosted in an architectural space that, at the time, was also brand new. The sacred structure was eventually completed in 1710 under the direction of the First Architect to the King.

The Masterpieces of Hardouin-Mansart

The genius French Baroque architect Jules Hardouin-Mansart was the mastermind who designed both the breathtaking Galerie des Glaces (the Hall of Mirrors) and the soaring Royal Chapel at the Palace of Versailles.

While they share a designer, their production timelines and artistic decorators varied across the decades:

The Hall of Mirrors: Construction began in 1678 and concluded in 1684. Its magnificent vaulting ceiling was painted entirely by the King’s first painter, Charles Le Brun.
The Royal Chapel: Construction began much later in 1699. Because Le Brun had passed away years prior, the chapel’s majestic, vaulted ceilings were instead adorned with sweeping biblical frescoes painted by Baroque masters Antoine Coypel, Charles de La Fosse, and Jean Jouvenet.

Charpentier’s music blends soloists, chorus, and orchestra into an integrated religious and artistic expression while his legacy endures through modern historically informed performances that bring early music to contemporary audiences including Messe et Motets pour la Vierge which demonstrates the sophistication of French sacred music at the dawn of the eighteenth century.

Performance Vocalists and Musicians

Emmanuel Bardon, countertenor
Yves Bergé, bass
Pascal Bertin, countertenor
Daniele Carnovich, bass
Raphaële Kennedy, soprano
Jean François Novelli, tenor
Jordi Ricart, baritone
Arianna Savall, soprano
Judit Scherrer-Kleber, mezzo-soprano
Elisabetta Tiso, soprano
Luis Vilamajo, tenor

Jordi Savall, pardessus de viole
Guido Balestracci, bass viol
Bruno Cocset, bass violin
Imke David, haute-contre de viole
Xavier Diaz-Latorre, theorbo
Luca Guglielmi, organ and harpsichord
Marc Hantai and Charles Zebley, transverse flutes
Xavier Puertas, violone
Joanna Valencia, tenor viol

Early Life and Family Tragedy

A Childhood of Upheaval and Conversion

A Soul Drawn to the Trinity

The Call to Carmel

Mystic of the Interior Life

Final Suffering and Holy Death: To Light, to Love, to Life!

Why Two Feast Days?

Path to Canonization

Legacy and Patronage

St. Elizabeth of the Trinity left behind influential letters, poetry, retreats, and prayers, especially “Holy Trinity, Whom I Adore.”

O my ‘Three’, my All, my Beatitude, infinite Solitude, Immensity in whom I lose myself, I give myself to you as a prey to be consumed; enclose yourself in me that I may be absorbed in you so as to contemplate in your light the abyss of your Splendour!

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Auvers-sur-Oise: Van Gogh’s Final Home

After leaving the asylum at Saint-Rémy in May 1890, Van Gogh settled in Auvers-sur-Oise under the supervision of Dr. Paul Gachet while remaining close to his brother Theo in Paris.

During his stay from May to July 1890, Van Gogh produced more than 100 drawings and paintings, making it one of the most prolific periods of his career.

Life at the Ravoux Inn

Van Gogh’s Auvers paintings reveal artistic innovations that anticipated later modernist movements and influenced future generations of artists.

An Extraordinary Final Burst of Creativity

The Tragic Events of July 1890

Funeral in the Wheat Fields

Eyewitness Accounts of Van Gogh’s Last Days

The Beginning of a Legacy

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L’Église Saint-Pierre

Historic 16th-century half-timbered house located in Montfort-l’Amaury

Victor Hugo

The initial fortified stronghold on this strategic hill was erected by Amaury I of Montfort around the turn of the 11th century under the orders of King Robert II of France.

Montfort-l’Amaury reflects major themes in French history, including crusading movements, dynastic politics, the Wars of Religion, and the growth of royal power.

A canonized Catholic saint: Joan of Valois (1464 – 1505), sister of Charles VIII, and betrothed of Louis XII.

Anne of Brittany, Catherine de’ Medici, and other royal figures helped shape the town’s development during the Renaissance.

Le Belvédère at Montfort L’Amaury: the House of Maurice Ravel from 1921 to his death in 1937. The coexistence of castle ruins, Gothic architecture, Renaissance art, historic houses, and literary and musical associations makes the town an unusually rich historical destination.

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Napoleon rose from a young Corsican artillery officer to become Emperor of the French in 1804.

His death mask became one of the most famous relics associated with any historical figure.

His military victories reshaped Europe and spread many principles of the French Revolution across the continent. The Napoleonic Code became one of his most enduring legacies, influencing legal systems worldwide.

THE YEAR 1812: A BAD ECONOMY, CONTINENTAL BLOCKADES, AND A DISASTROUS INVASION OF RUSSIA BY NAPOLEON

NAPOLEON’S NEW WAR NEEDED 700,000 FRESH CONSCRIPTS

The disastrous Russian campaign of 1812 marked a turning point in his fortunes.

FAILURE OF THE SUPPLY CHAIN AND “THE ENEMY OF LIBERTY”

The Sly Old Fox of the North

70 MILES WEST OF MOSCOW, THE BATTLE OF BORODINO PITS 242,000 TOTAL COMBATANTS WITH OVER 1,000 BIG GUNS ON SEPTEMBER 7, 1812

WHEN LEJEUNE’S BATTLE-PICTURES WERE SHOWN IN LONDON, EAGER CROWDS CAME TO SEE THEM FOR THEIR REALISTIC, DETAILED DEPICTIONS OF SIGNIFICANT CONTEMPORARY EVENTS.

NAPOLEON IN RUSSIA, HIS FORCES LOSE THE PENINSULAR WAR IN SPAIN; THE FOLLOWING YEAR, IN 1813, NAPOLEON LOSES THE BATTLE OF LIEPZIG, THE LARGEST LAND BATTLE UNTIL WORLD WAR I.

DEFEATED, FORCED TO ABDICATE AND EXILED TO ELBA IN 1814, HE BRIEFLY RETURNED TO POWER DURING THE AUDACIOUS HUNDRED DAYS IN 1815. NAPAOLEON MET HIS WATERLOO ON JUNE 18, 1815.

Center of Wellington’s Line

La Haye Sainte: The Breakwater

D’Erlon’s Assault and the Heavy Cavalry Counter‑Charge

Ney’s Mass Cavalry Attacks

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François Couperin: “Couperin the Great”

Charpentier and Couperin: A Shared Musical World

The Italian Influence in France

Laying the Groundwork for the High Baroque

What is Charpentier’s Messe et Motets Pour La Vierge about?

His Messe et Motets pour la Vierge reflects the Catholic Church’s renewed devotion to the Virgin Mary during the Counter-Reformation in a composition that incorporates multiple forms of Marian devotion, including hymns, litanies, motets, and a Mass honoring the Virgin.

Charpentier’s Messe and the Palace of Versailles

Performances at the Royal Chapel of Versailles connect Charpentier’s music to the cultural and artistic ambitions of the Sun King’s France. His compositions reveal how music, architecture, liturgy, and royal patronage intersected in Baroque Europe

From the United Center to the Court of the Sun King

A Treasury of Baroque Art

The Masterpieces of Hardouin-Mansart

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