Category: Research

Posts in which we talk about research

Fireworks and tightropes

Updated on July 3, 2013 by Janet Mullany

Happy 4th!

Although firework displays were common throughout the Georgian period I tend to associate them with pleasure gardens. Here’s a description of the famed Madame Saqui (1786-1866) in 1816 who walked the highwire at Vauxhall Gardens while fireworks exploded all around:

Suddenly a bell rings, the music ceases, away runs the whole party, you follow, unknowing why or whither. But in spite of the tumult and chattering you shortly arrive at the end of one of walks and perceive that fireworks are about to be let off. In a moment the whole air is ablaze, crowns, hearts, initials and various figures show themselves in meteoric flashes and disappear, attended by sudden flashes which gleam on all sides through the wreathing smoke and culminate in a terrifically grand spectacle: the heroine of the piece [Saqui] appears as a rope-dancer, ascends the cord which at a considerable angle is rigged to a height of seventy or eighty feet. Through the smoke and flames she rapidly climbs the blazing pinnacle to the top where rockets seem to graze her in her course, exploding above, beneath, around her and spangling her flimsy dress with their scintillations. Every moment you expect to see the rope severed, to see her precipitated from the dizzy height. But still she supports herself like those fabled Elves which ride upon the storm.

Have a great holiday. Are fireworks tonight in your holiday plan?

Posted in Research | 1 Reply

Rotten Row rewind

Updated on June 30, 2013 by Diane Gaston

The Beau Monde is the Regency Chapter of the Romance Writers of America. I’ve been a member for years and it is my go-to place for any questions about historical accuracy. To several of you, this comes as no surprise. You are probably members of Beau Monde as well, and you will have seen this information.

I just could not resist passing these treasures on.

Readers of Regency romance are familiar with Rotten Row, that part of Hyde Park where gentlemen and their ladies could ride on horseback, usually in the morning. This is not to be confused with the “fashionable hour” when gentlemen and ladies rode through the park in their curricles or high-perch phaetons.

This week on the Beau Monde loop, I learned of these treasures.

First is Kathryn Kane’s very thorough, very well-researched article on Rotten Row for The Regency Redingote (What a treasure trove her blog is! Scroll around in it a little)

I learned a new term from this blog–hacking–meaning, riding for pleasure. I also learned that Rotten Row was available for grooms to exercise their employers’ horses. I had not ever thought about where grooms exercised the horses or when.

But there was so much more there.

Angelyn was the person who pointed us to a video of Hyde Park. This is from the 1930s, but it is not too difficult to imagine it from a century earlier.

SPRING IN HYDE PARK – ROTTEN ROW

Thank also to the British Pathe for that video!

On my 2003 trip to England, on the Regency Tour organized by Patty Suchy of Novel Explorations, Amanda and I joined authors Brenda Hiatt, Galen Foley, and my friend Julie for a walk across Hyde Park. It was one of the highlights of the trip! Here they are, from L to R Amanda, Brenda, Galen, and Julie:

Have you ever been to Hyde Park? Seen Rotten Row?

What park is your favorite for a nice long walk?

Posted in Regency, Research | 6 Replies

Napoleon Invades Russia

Updated on June 24, 2013 by Diane Gaston

Two hundred and one years ago on June 24, 1812, Napoleon began his invasion of Russia.

Tsar Alexander had angered Napoleon by ceasing to continue the blockade against British goods which was ruining the Russian economy. So, to teach the Tsar a lesson, Napoleon amassed an army of 450,000 men to march into Russia. Napoleon was convinced the whole affair would be finished in 20 days and that the Tsar would capitulate, but if ever weather changed the course of history, it was during this campaign. Weather and the fortitude of the Russian people.

As the French army marched into Russia, the Russian army refused to give them any true engagement. Instead they retreated, burning the countryside behind them. Because Napoleon’s armies replenished their supplies through pillage and plunder, the burning of crops denied the soldiers sustenance.

On June 27, Napoleon conquered Vilna with barely a fight, but that very night a huge electrical storm killed many troops and horses, with freezing rain, hail, and sleet. Later the oppressive heat would kill more troops. Others would desert looking for food and plunder

It was September before the first major battle was fought at Borodino. By then Napoleon had already lost 150,000 soldiers to exhaustion, sickness, or desertion. The Battle of Borodino was an extremely bloody one with total casualties on both sides of 70,000. The Russians withdrew and Napoleon marched triumphantly on to Moscow.

Except the Russians burned Moscow and its stores, leaving only hard liquor. Most of its citizens had fled. Napoleon, nonetheless, waited three weeks in Moscow, expecting the Tsar to request negotiation.

Instead it started to snow and Napoleon realized he and his army could not survive a Russian winter. He ordered the retreat but the Russians blocked his chosen route, forcing his army to retreat over the already burned and barren land from which they had come. The winter came early and was particularly harsh, with high winds, snow, and sub-zero temperatures. Thousands more died of exposure. It was said that soldiers split open dead animals and crawled inside for warmth or stacked dead bodies for insulation.

By the time in late November when the Grande Armée crossed the frigid Berezina River, its numbers were depleted to 27,000 from that original 450,000.

Still, Napoleon stated it was a victory.

Instead it turned the tide of Napoleon’s perceived invincibility. Prussia, Austria, and Sweden rejoined Russia and Great Britain against Napoleon. Although he was still able to raise an army to continue the fight against them, it was never the fighting force it once had been.

Three times in History armies tried to invade Russia only to have their efforts further their demise. Napoleon tried it in 1812; Charles XII of Sweden tried it in 1708; Hitler tried it in 1941. For each the Russian winter and the scorched earth policy took a horrific toll.

The Weather Channel will be airing a new series, Weather That Changed the World. “Russia’s Secret Weapon” to be aired June 30 at 9 pm, will be about the disastrous winter that changed Napoleon’s fate.

Do you have an example of when weather changed the world?

Posted in Regency, Research, Risky Regencies | 4 Replies

Land of the free?

Updated on June 19, 2013 by susanna

The initial inspiration for my upcoming release, A Dream Defiant, came several years ago when I read Simon Schama’s Rough Crossings: The Slaves, the British, and the American Revolution.

Rough Crossings Cover

The book introduced me to a side of the American Revolution I’d never encountered in the sanitized, idealistic version of that war presented in my school’s American History classes, nor even in the grittier, more nuanced takes I’d found in historical fiction as a teen and adult. Turns out that if you were a slave, fighting for freedom meant fighting on the British side. Lord Dunmore, the Royal Governor of Virginia, issued a proclamation in 1775 offering freedom to all slaves of revolutionaries who were willing to take up arms for the British side, and thousands took him up on his offer. While few of them were armed as soldiers, many supported the British war effort as laborers, scouts, spies, etc., and at war’s end about 3000 men, women, and children were evacuated to Nova Scotia. While the Americans argued for their return as stolen property, even in defeat the British honored their commitment to the former slaves who’d served their cause.

While many of these Black Loyalists ended up as colonists in Sierra Leone, I chose to make Elijah Cameron, the hero of A Dream Defiant, the son of two escaped slaves from Virginia who end up as clerk and cook to an officer of the 43rd Regiment of Foot. Elijah grows up in the regiment, serving first as a drummer boy and then as a soldier. He used to being conspicuous wherever he goes–and to proving he’s just as brave, clever, and capable as any other man in his regiment.

It’s history like this that makes me disinclined to idealize either America or Britain as they were 200 years ago. America gave you more freedom in the sense that the social hierarchies weren’t as rigid and you were more likely to have the right to vote–if you were lucky enough to be born a white man. Britain was farther along the path to abolition, but still had slaves in its colonies and wasn’t exactly a beacon of justice for the people of Ireland, India, or anywhere else under its sway. And if you were a woman, your lack of rights was about the same in either place.

Still, I write about the past rather than the present because I’m fascinated by the paths history took to bring us to the world we have today–and by the lives of men and women who found ways, whether great or small, to make their world a more free and just place.

Posted in Research, Risky Regencies | Tagged A Dream Defiant, Susanna Fraser | 11 Replies

Betsy Bonaparte: truth, fiction and strangeness

Updated on June 13, 2013 by Janet Mullany

Following Diane’s report on Threads of Feeling earlier this week I’m recycling a blog post from a couple years ago to share news of an exhibit on Betsy Bonaparte at the Maryland Historical Society in Baltimore, MD: Woman of Two Worlds: Elizabeth Patterson Bonaparte and her Quest for an Imperial Legacy.

I began with a shout out to blogger Madeleine Conway at That Reading/Writing Thing who had some very nice things to say about my Regency chicklit A Most Lamentable Comedy, including this statement:

… her cast of secondary characters, however improbable, also have that unmistakeable air of coming from some research that amply demonstrates that old cliché about truth, fiction and strangeness.

Quite often here at the Riskies I like to explore the oddities of history that I’ve discovered and I was inspired to dig into the scattered and messy files of my memory to write about Betsy Bonaparte (1785-1879), Baltimore girl who made good–for a time. She was a rich merchant’s daughter who married Bonaparte’s younger brother Jerome Bonaparte in 1803. (Applause and cries of “Didn’t she do well!”)

Big brother, who had his eyes on further conquest of Europe through his siblings’ significant marriages, was not amused and ordered Jerome back to France–without his blushing bride. Poor Betsy, pregnant and alone, took refuge in London where she gave birth to their son Jerome Napoleon Bonaparte aka Bo. Big cheese Napoleon, not particularly bothered by such trifling matters as bigamy, married his troublesome younger brother off to a German princess, Catherina of Wurtemburg.

Betsy and baby Bo returned to Baltimore where she was notorious for her European connections and her fashion, which was a bit much by federal American standards. Rosalie Calvert, mistress of Riversdale House, Maryland, met Betsy Bonaparte in 1804 at a party hosted by Robert Smith, Jefferson’s secretary of the navy, and commented that she

…was wearing a dress so transparent that you could see the color and shape of her thighs and more! Several ladies made a point of leaving the room and one informed the belle that if she did not change her manner of dressing, she would never be asked anywhere again.

Another guest gave a similar account:

She [Madame Bonaparte] has made a great noise here, and mobs of boys have crowded round her splendid equipage to see what I hope will not often be seen in this country, an almost naked woman. An elegant and select party was given to her by Mrs. Robt. Smith; her appearance was such that it threw all the company into confusion and no one dared to look at her but by stealth.

Betsy was finally granted a pension by Napoleon, but never the title she wanted so much, and in 1815 a divorce by the state of Maryland. She set her hopes on Bo making a grand European marriage. Bo was not interested, becoming a lawyer and marrying a local heiress. Mama was not pleased.

It was impossible to bend my talents and my ambition to the obscure destiny of a Baltimore housekeeper, and it was absurd to attempt it after I had married the brother of an emperor. . . . When I first heard that my son could condescend to marry anyone in Baltimore, I nearly went mad. . . . I repeat, that I would have starved, died, rather than have married in Baltimore. . . .

In 1855, when the Bonapartes were again in power in France, Bo was offered the title of Duke of Sartene. He turned it down. Ironically, her widowed sister in law Marianne Patterson married Richard Wellesley, the older brother of the Duke of Wellington. Poor Betsy, surrounded by family members either turning down or effortlessly achieving the greatness she craved!

Betsy, uncharmed by Charm City, disillusioned and alone (she never remarried), spent the rest of her life amassing money and at the time of her death, having outlived Bo by nine years, had an estate worth $1, 500,000. She’s buried in Greenmount Cemetery, Baltimore. Her life inspired a play, Glorious Betsy, by Rida Johnson Young, which was made into a movie in 1928 and again as Hearts Divided (1936).