Curated playlist
Names inscribed on the Arc de Triomphe
- Louis BonaparteLouis Bonaparte told the people of Holland that he was their Konijn van 'Olland - their Rabbit of 'Olland - rather than their King. The mispronunciation was accidental, the result of a French prince struggling with an unfamiliar tongue.…
- Joachim MuratJoachim Murat, born on the 25th of March 1767 in a small town in southwestern France, died facing a firing squad on the 13th of October 1815 in Pizzo Calabro. He was forty-eight years old. In between those two dates, he rose from an…
- Auguste de MarmontAuguste Frédéric Louis Viesse de Marmont was a man the French came to despise, not for losing battles, but for ending one. Born on the 20th of July 1774 in Châtillon-sur-Seine, he rose from the son of a minor nobleman to become one of…
- Jérôme BonaparteJérôme Bonaparte married Elizabeth Patterson on Christmas Eve, the 24th of December 1803, in Baltimore, against her father's explicit objections. William Patterson had already received an anonymous letter before the ceremony. It detailed…
- Pierre-Charles VilleneuvePierre-Charles Villeneuve commanded the French fleet at the Battle of Trafalgar in 1805. He lost. Napoleon's verdict on the man was precise and unsparing: "Villeneuve does not possess the strength of character to command a frigate. He…
- Charles XIV JohnCharles XIV John of Sweden was born Jean-Baptiste Jules Bernadotte on the 26th of January 1763 in Pau, a small city in the southwestern province of Béarn. He was the son of a local prosecutor, the youngest of five siblings, and a boy who…
- Jean-Baptiste KléberJean-Baptiste Kléber was stabbed four times in a garden in Cairo on the 14th of June 1800 by a theology student who had pretended to beg from him. The assassin drove a dagger into his heart, his stomach, his left arm, and his right cheek,…
- Louis Philippe ILouis Philippe I stepped onto the throne of France in August 1830 having already lived more lives than most kings ever get. He was born in the Palais-Royal on the 6th of October 1773, the eldest son of a prince who would one day vote to…
- Charles Leclerc (general, born 1772)On the 14th of December 1801, Charles Victoire Emmanuel Leclerc sailed out of Brest at the head of a fleet carrying 40,000 troops, bound for the Caribbean colony of Saint-Domingue. He carried a public promise from Napoleon Bonaparte that…
- Charles-Pierre AugereauCharles-Pierre-François Augereau was born on the 21st of October 1757 in Faubourg Saint-Marceau, Paris, the son of a fruit seller. Few soldiers of the age traveled a stranger road to a Marshal's baton. Before Napoleon Bonaparte ever…
- Louis DesaixNews came to Napoleon Bonaparte that Louis Desaix had been killed at Marengo. The First Consul cried out, "Why am I not allowed to weep?" On that same day, Desaix's close friend and comrade Jean-Baptiste Kléber was assassinated in Cairo.…
- Michel NeyMichel Ney stood before a firing squad in Paris on the 7th of December 1815 and refused to wear a blindfold. His reason was simple and devastating: he had spent twenty-five years staring down cannonballs and bullets. He then exercised one…
- Jean Victor Marie MoreauJean Victor Marie Moreau was born on the 14th of February 1763 in Morlaix, Brittany, and died on the 2nd of September 1813 in Louny, in one of history's stranger endings: shot down while standing beside a tsar, on a battlefield fighting…
- Józef PoniatowskiJózef Poniatowski spent more than three decades in uniform, fighting under three different flags before his life ended in a chaotic retreat in Germany. He was born a prince in Vienna, nephew to Poland's last king, at a time when Poland…