Sèvres Porcelain and the Articulation of Imperial Identity in Napoleonic France

Original article can be found at: http://jdh.oxfordjournals.org/archive/ "Copyright 2007 The Author(s). This is an Open Access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution Non-Commercial License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/ by-nc/2.0/uk/) which permits unrestricted non-commercial use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited."From its inception in 1756, the Sèvres porcelain manufactory made elaborate, highly decorated dinner services for the exclusive use of the royal court. The objects used by the king were seen as extensions of his body and the act of decorating them became a means of royal veneration. While the French Revolution saw the decline of the manufacture, Napoléon recognized the enormous political value of Sèvres porcelain. Imperial power, however, was predicated not on the divinity of the Emperor, but on the clear demonstration of the material and cultural benefits brought about by his administration. This shift in the nature of executive power prompted a change in the design and decoration of Sèvres porcelain. Rococo decoration found in ancien régime porcelain was abandoned in favour of a highly didactic imagery that charted the triumphs and benefits of Napoleon's regime. This article sets out to examine this new repertoire of subjects and forms with specific reference to the Service de l'Empereur. Commissioned to be used at the wedding of Napoléon and his second wife Marie-Louise of Austria (daughter of the recently defeated Emperor of Austria), the service charts some of the events connected with French Imperial expansion, not least of which was the marriage itself.Peer reviewe

France and the American Civil War, A Diplomatic History

Stéve Sainlaude, associate professor of history at the University of Paris IV Sorbonne, provides an in depth look at the American Civil War from the French perspective. He challenges many older interpretations by American historians concerning France\u27s motives during the conflict. He focusses on how Napoleon III, his diplomats, people and press viewed the possibility of French intervention. A key factor in the study concerns France\u27s occupation of Mexico as part of the emperor\u27s Grand Design to win national glory, regain international influence, protect monarchical and imperial regimes, and save the Catholic Latin Race from worldwide Anglo-Saxon domination. The author maintains that Napoleon III\u27s occupation of Mexico would have been impossible without the South\u27s secession and that initially the emperor believed an independent Confederacy would be the last barrier that could block Yankee domination of Latin America

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Article 1 of the Constitution of Japan stipulates a symbolic emperor system based on popular sovereignty, stating that “The Emperor shall be the symbol of the State and of the unity of the People, deriving his position from the will of the people with whom resides sovereign power.” In the post-war period, the symbolic emperor system of the Constitution of Japan developed in its own way through shrewd adaptation and harmonization with popular sovereignty, within the context of Japan’s particular political climate. Nineteenth-century European monarchies comprised several types of constitutional monarchy, such as the German-style “constitutional monarchy,” the British-style “parliamentary monarchy,” and the French-style “moderative power monarchy”. Comparable to these, the symbolic emperor system formed under the Constitution of Japan in the latter half of the 20th century can be said to present a new genre of modern monarchy that we may refer to as a “symbolic monarchy.” Based on this viewpoint, this article examines the structural shift to the symbolic emperor system of the Constitution of Japan from the Meiji Emperor system based on divine decree sovereignty, and the meaning and function of the “symbol” in the Constitution of Japan. Moreover, I will consider the origins of the symbolic emperor system and its traditional Japanese characteristics by examining the origin, acceptance, and international spread of the “symbol” provision in Article 1 of the Constitution of Japan

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The problem of the Spanish Succession kept the European diplomatic system in suspense from 1659 until 1713. Statesmen and diplomats tackled the question. Their practical vision of the law is a necessary complement to legal doctrine. Louis XIV and Emperor Leopold I used incompatible and absolute claims, which started in private law and Spanish succession law. At the Peace of Utrecht, these arguments completely dissolved. The War of The Spanish Succession thus not only redesigned the political map of Europe. It altered the norm hierarchy in public law, strengthening international law as the framework of the “Société des Princes”

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The following study consists of an attempt to show that Robert Browning has drawn a reliable portrait of Louis Napoleon, the last Emperor of the French, in the poem Prince Hohenstiel-Schwangau, Saviour of Society. The study is divided into four parts. Chapter I is concerned with the questions of whether Browning has allowed his artistic ability to prevent him from presenting the true portrait of Louis Napoleon and whether Prince Hohenstiel-Schwangau deserves to be called a poem. Chapter II traces the development of Browning\u27s interest in Louis Napoleon and states why the poet wrote the self-apology of the Emperor\u27s life. Chapter III is devoted to the poet\u27s technique in the composition of the poem and in drawing the portrait of the Emperor. Chapter IV is an analysis of Louis Napoleon\u27s policy as it is presented in Prince Hohenstiel-Schwangau

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The examination of Pufendorf's Monzambano shows that he was strongly interested in the question of sovereignty, and that the complex reality of the Holy Roman Empire demanded a completely new approach to the question of where sovereignty within the Empire lay. Pufendorf developed his account of the Empire as an irregular political system by using essential aspects of Hobbes's theory and thus departed from all previous writers on the forma imperii. But Pufendorf's writing on the Empire has not only to be linked with political and philosophical discussion about sovereignty within the Empire but also with his own main writings where he developed a more detailed theory regarding the issue of sovereignty in general. The peace of Westphalia was not only an international settlement but it also shaped the constitution of the Empire to a considerable degree, and this is of crucial significance for the history of political thought during the seventeenth century

5. Europe Surrenders to Nationalism, 1848-1871

As we have already seen, the year 1848 saw the European continent distracted by insurrectionary outbreaks that touched every one of the major powers. Liberalism and democracy contributed greatly to the undercurrents of discontent under the apparent calm of the previous decade, but it was nationalist aspirations that furnished most of the fuel for the revolutionary fires of that fateful year. In England and France, where the struggle for unification had long before been won, nationalism played no part. It was in Germany, Italy, and the Austrian Empire that nationalist agitators filled the larger roles in the several revolutions of 1848. [excerpt

Frederick’s “Greatness”

This essay attempts to identify the various qualities that made Frederick II of Prussia’s just appellation ‘the Great’. Frederick employed a completely new type of rule, which was not only unique in the eighteenth century but also prefigured modern governance in many respects. Frederick personified the "raison d’etat" and came to exemplify the rational use of state power for the creation of a completely new standard of judicious kingship. As a visionary ruler of his day, Frederick foreshadowed modern principles of the state. To highlight Frederick’s innovations, the essay not only shows Frederick’s brilliant leadership in the scene of eighteenth-century Europe, but it also refers to rarely quoted contemporary sources; by doing so, the essay contrasts the prodigious divide between the crumbling culture of the "Ancien régime" and that of Frederick’s Prussia—the former still feudal and the latter possessing a vision that rulers are the ‘first servants of the state’

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During a dramatic meeting near Debra Libanos in early 1524, emperor Lebna Dengel and D. Rodrigo de Lima, the first Portuguese ambassador in Ethiopia, discussed the contents of a world map that had been offered by the Portuguese king, D. Manuel I. Looking at the map, the Ethiopian emperor pointed out that Portugal was a very small country, and he advised the ambassador that if the Portuguese sovereign really wanted, as he said, to secure the Red Sea Route from the Turks and to take Mecca and Jerusalem with the help of the Ethiopian Christians, he should ally with the Spanish and the French kings to achieve the necessary military power