By treating(handling) ruins in the art, and particularly in the paint(painting), Mr Makarius offers us a retrospective passionnnante of the art history western for the XVth century. The paperback includes only illustrations in black and white: but a search(research) on Internet allows to find easily the color. Glance on time(weather) forts of this try(essay).

• If in 1337 Pétrarque was interested in the Roman ruins, the long absence of the Church left for Avignon left these ruins remote from glances of the painters and from poets during decades. The Renaissance arises in a time(weather) when the western paint(painting) is of use first and foremost to the Christian subjects. When by 1475 Botticelli paints the Worship of the witches, he places his characters under a ruined shelter which hints at the next ruin of the paganism. At the same time Mantegna places Holy Sébastien in martyr attached to Roman ruins. This employment(use) of ruins meets as well at the Italian's as the Flemish. In the next century, the Mannerists have a particular report(relationship) in ruins: « For the Way, the ruin is not any more a detail which comes to characterize locally a singular element, a day-nursery(crib) or a marble column, as in Quattrocento. It becomes on the contrary the symptom of a general state of déréliction or the pretext in an ambiguous, at once strange and familiar image. This ambiguity reaches(affects) its combre at the top place of the mannerist virtuosity, the Room of the Giants … »

Giulio Romano, the Room of the Giants, Palazzo Te, Mantoue (by 1535).

At the same time, in 1536, emperor Charles the Fifth makes its entrance(entry) to Rome. Known for his(her,its) Landscape with antique ruins (link) « Posthumus had then participated in the decorations(sets) of the procession which we had planned to make get through the ruins of her(it) Via Swore and of the Forum. » It is one of the first ones to come from the Northern Europe (he(it) was Frisian) towards this Italy rich in ruins: the first half of the XVIIth century sees a large number of Dutch and French artists coming to be inspired by Roman ruins.

Cornelis van Poelenburgh, Campo Vaccino, Louvre, on 1620.

[ In back cover, the work is attributed(awarded) by mistake to Herman Posthumus.]

The concern(marigold) of these painters for the antique architecture gives an ideal, recomposed landscape, it is the capriccio which is very common to the XVIIth and XVIIIth centuries. Certain artists, following said Pieter van Laer he(it) Bambocchio, the marionette, represents scenes(stages) of everyday life, with characters of the common people, in a landscape of ruins: they are "bambochades". Another current being more interested in monuments, gives an art " ruiniste " where we find all the outfit of the elements of architecture which will be raised(found) by Piranèse whose collection "antiquité romaines" is published in 1756. At once(at the same time) subject and decoration(set), ruins express the magnificence the eternal City of which gives now the measure. These ruins are an allegory of the History(Story).

• The XVIIIth century also imagines that gardens would be more moving if we decorated them with ruins, creating « the mystery of a neglected place »; they are "factories" with « turrets, temples, columns, obelisks, Egyptian graves and pyramids … » The archaeological discoveries are another source of inspiration for the artists since the painters going(surrendering) to Pompéï, to Paestum or to Taormine (Piranèse, Hubert Robert, Michallon, Thomas Cole) up to the photographers going(surrendering) in East to inventory time(weather) of Karnak or Baalbek (Hildebrand and Louis de Clerq in the middle of XIXth s)

The pre-romantic years are marked by the invention of the Gothic ruin (Turner, Friedrich) who « sends back(dismisses) the individual to his small size and to his finitude. » At the same time as we create a certain image of the Middle Ages and at the same time as Viollet-le-Duc allows to add an arrow and gargoyles to Notre-Dame de Paris, the ruin entered the heritage(holdings) as the ancient memorial. His(her,its) future provokes debates with extreme positions: in that of Viollet-le-Duc ready to reconstruct for nine, opposes partisan John Ruskin to let the ruin live his life. In France, the question of the ruin was marked by the vandalism of the Revolution of 1789 which aroused, by repercussion a will to keep(preserve): in 1796, Lenoir opens in Paris the museum of the French Monuments. The photography of ruins, which is also a means to keep(preserve) them, takes its development in the century of the industrialization, of which at the end of the XXth century it will make preservative(conservative) of its sometimes grand ruins. The industrial archaeology covers so today as well Europe where the United States and use obviously the photography a lot. It is also necessary to mention the development of postcards with the active brothers Alinari from 1852. { Alinari}

Bernd and Hilla Becher, Photos of blast furnaces, years 1970-90.

At the same time as the photography made put off the paint(painting) of ruins, the bend of the Great War — less marked in this try(essay) than that of the 1945 — gave birth to the dadaisme and to the surrealism which(who) have still known how to use ruins as motive.

Carel Willink, the last visitors of Pompéi, on 1931,

Rotterdam, Boijman van Beuningen museum.

The title is eloquent, as if the artists did not want to move any more on the motive — while the tourists frequent these same ruins more than ever, including on the scene of ruins recent as Ground Zero... Makarius asked the question: « how immortalize the memory(souvenir) of the disaster? » Resuming(taking back) Auguste Perret's question in front of the ruins of the cathedral of Reims. For recent period, the author shows that the pictorial réprésentation of ruins is not only competed, we have just said it, by the photography, but many by the fashion of the installations, and a trend(tendency) to the disappearance of the work: of the representation of the ruin, we are crossed(spent) in the ruin of the representation.

• This try(essay) of a very big intelligence is completed by a really useful bibliography and an index.

Michel MAKARIUS- Ruins. Representations in the art of the Renaissance in our days.Flammarion, 2004 and Fields, 2011, 311 pages.

Marine, young translator trained(formed) in Switzerland(Swiss), returns to the country: in Quebec. Orphan and of very independent spirit — « I want to be the faithful partner of nobody »—, she is the girl of an Irish immigrant and interpret its first name as an evolution of "Maureen".

In some pages she(it) interferes in the life of Waterman: this novelist in the name of Feather — and likely alter ego of Jacques Poulin — does not obviously write in the computer and he(it) appears as the slowest writer of the world. « In peak condition, it was capable of writing a good half-page in a day … » The novelist who is widely the age old to be the father of Marine installs(settles) him(it) in his chalet of the island of Orléans, at the edge of a pond « full of trouts and ouaouarons » in a bucolic landscape relatively close to the city center where lives(lies) the writer in his high tower. With the discovery of a small black cat with a message in the necklace, the mystery settles down in the narrative to the first person and disrupts(perturbs) a little the spirit of the narrator: « I became a little zouave » she says, having acquainted with this message of cry for help. For the writer and his translator, there is obligation(bond) to proceed by themselves to a rescue operation. « I who had always been one nomad, me who made(did) all which crossed(spent) me by the head, which had already taken the first plane for wherever, which attached me in Nothing or to anybody, and I made an enormous concern(marigold) for people and animals living with me. »

Their affair(business) will set a little of time(weather) and the beautiful season will pass there. But before arrives " the Indian summer ", Marine will have investigated the neighborhood of the chalet, conversed with the old racehorses, spied on the racoons and the big blue heron, admired the hind in the approach(initiative) of "top model" in fashion shows. Marine will also have investigated the library(bookcase) of the writer and spread(displayed) her literary tastes. She likes Isabelle Eberhardt's narratives. He loves Modiano. They consult dictionaries. « We do not live under the same roof, but one » Waterman is often together said. « We did not really decide to live like that, but it is what what suits us at the moment » she adds.

Deceived by the title! It is the feeling which can be born at the reader's at the end of around thirty pages. He(it) does not prevent, it is a delicate novel, very pleasant to read and carefully written. The translation is not a love story but sometimes she indicates the road. Roman to move closer to another work of the Quebec author: " English is not a magic language(tongue) " appeared at the same publisher(editor) in 2009.

Jacques POULIN - The translation is a love story. Leméac-Actes Sud, 2006, 132 pages.

Ruins are ambivalent. The ruin it is the victim of destructive time(weather). The ruin it is also the resistance in time(weather). Ruins are mediating between perception(collection) of time(weather) and perception(collection) of the space.

I. Ruins in the space of the picture(board)

A) Ruins, in the foreground as in the background, in the horizon, in a valley, on a rock, allow to emphasize the subject: the ruin joins in the depth of the graphic work.

Pierre-Etna (sic) Michallon, son(sons,thread) of artist and pupil of Valenciennes, painted in 1820-21 the ruins of the big theater of Taormine, with Etna far off (There are several versions there).

Some years later, Thomas Cole resumed(took back) the subject, in the raising sunlight. Emigrated in the United States, Cole meant painting in Italy in the 1840s at the end of its life. Since the invention of the prospect(perspective) in Quattrocento up to the landscape painters of the XIXth century, the ruin allows to suggest distant spatial or temporal. Let us place now the ruin far off:

Turner Draw here the ruins of the abbey of Malmesbury in the background of modest one firm ( 1794 ).

Always the abbey of Malmesbury, painted here in 1826 by Turner, far off in background of the couple of farmers and their livestock.

B) The ruins which appear in a picture(board) mark the composition with it.

The ruin is placed to the left in this composition of Patel (Louvre, 1646-47) …

…Or placed to the right by same Patel, by 1650 (Collection BNP Paribas). Nothing prevents from placing the ruin, in the middle of the painted work, what gives him(her) a rougher strength in the case of this creation of Monsu Desiderio ( c.1640 ) which plays with the shade(shadow) and the light:

According to Georg Simmel there is a dialectic of ruins: the man sets up the building vertically while the destructive nature affects him(it), flattens him(it), annihilates him(it). Thanks to a violent contrast, these two axes appear sharply in the foreground of the picture(board) above.

C) The ruin is also represented as central and\or unique(only) subject, without considerable foreground. A very real ruin: in a way a documentary image.

Achille-Etna Michallon strictly centred here the Coliseum in his painting(cloth) of 1810, while taking(bringing) out him(it) of the Roman landscape, without insisting on the characters almost masked by the shade(shadow) in the foreground.

By working on the ruins of Karnak in 1852, Hildebrand resumes(takes back) well both axes: verticality of the obelisk and the columns, the horizontality of blocks being lying to the first one or in the background (watercolor and gouache, the Hermitage Museum, Saint-Petersburg).

II. The ruin as the aesthetic object

The ruin represented for itself is glorified by its representation. She indicates a strong presence of the antique time(weather) and not the present time.

A) Of the ruin Of workshop(studio) In the painted ruin On the spot : In the classic art, and composite, produced without going on the spot or from elements always the same, training(forming) a directory. With the Renaissance the Greco-Latin classicism is the model. Columns, capitals(big tops), obelisks, pyramids, arcs any assemblé in "artistic" chaos. The Italians are not the last ones to be inspired by ruins.

Hieronymus Cock engraves(burns) here there 1552 Maarten van Heemskerck's paint(painting). Collection of the University of Liège. The statue of the Tiber (to the right) had been dug up in 1512. All this "archaeological" material(equipment) is amply used by the artists of the XVIIIth century.

Here, Magnasco represents the Triumph of Venus ( 1725 ) in a complex decoration(set) of antique ruins (Getty museum, Los Angeles).

Charles-Louis Clérisseau is the author of architectural whims (on 1765, Soane's collection, London) whose other versions we find in Saint-Petersburg (on 1765, Hermitage):

The success of the reproductions of the engravings of G.B. Piranèse (Venice 1720-Rome 1778) has to be underlined. Piranesi crossed(went through) Rome in all directions and his(her) engravings also testify of Paestum. We could multiply the examples. Here, "Campo Vaccino" as we said about the imperial forum:

The scholars raise(find) the registrations(inscriptions). Such a épigraphiste, Giuseppe Pannini by 1730 copies the dedication to the triumphal arch of Titus which he(it) represents (" Senatus populusque romanus ").

The painters of the North come down(fall) at around midday, towards the antique, Roman model, and Greek in Big Greece - thus Sicily - later in Greece itself, freed(released) from the Turkish yoke. It is the painted ruin " on the motive ":

In 1553 Maarten van Heemskerck represented himself, doubtless the first one, drawing in front of the ruins of the Coliseum, next to his(her) self-portrait. The stay in Rome is one of average main things(head teachers) of the encounter with ruins for these artists. Nicolas Poussin, François Nomé and Didier Barra, Pierre Patel came down(fell) in Italy. And of course The inhabitant of Lorraine.

B) The magnificence of the Big Century finds its echo in the size(greatness) of the Roman ruin. It is the size(greatness) of the human creations and the Classical antiquity. It is a report esthétisant to glorify the antique civilization, and reach(affect) the sublime of the ideal landscape.

Claude Gelée's architectural constructions ( The inhabitant of Lorraine ) are not damaged; they establish(constitute) more imaginary urban and harbour views(sights) than ruins. He(it) does not prevent, the inhabitant of Lorraine also paints the seaside with Apollon and Sibylle de Cumes, in 1646-47 (Hermitage, Saint-Petersburg).

The paint(painting) so approaches the landscape dreamed about Arcadie where the shepherds keep(guard) their herds in the middle of a bucolic landscape.

In this Italian landscape, Pierre Patel so places some cows in the foreground in front of his ruins, in 1656 ( private Collection).

C) The ruin of whim, composite, especially after 1700.

It is the capriccio. The fashion of the " architectural whim " of the " imaginary landscape ", the "factory", is illustrated by numerous artists after 1700: Albotto, Bellotto (the nephew of Canaletto), Leonardo Coccorante, Viviano Codazzi, Locatelli, Marco Ricci, Magnasco, Pannini, Servandoni, Clemente Spera, Giuseppe Zais … We cannot quote them all.

A work of Venetian Francesco Albotto. " In(has) ruined the Renaissance Gateway with has Statue of has Horse and has Sarcophagus one pedestals by has to rivet " according to the gallery Andrew Blackman.

Leonardo Coccorante: Capriccio of classic ruins on the Mediterranean Coast ( 1720 ).

The Bonnat museum of Bayonne keeps(preserves) this work of J.J. Servandoni (on 1750 env.): one of the multiple representations of pyramids in this time(period).

This other work of Servandoni (Calvet museum of Avignon) dates 1770 or approximately. Even if the capriccio is a whim established(constituted) by crunched(outlined) elements — or not on the spot.

D) The happiness is in ruins!

The XVIIIth: big Century of the Ruin. — drawings and gouaches of Servandoni (above) aim at a theatrical effect. Canaletto, Pannini, Marco Ricci, Locatelli, a hour. Robert, Lallemand, Francesco Guardi multiply the productions in connection with the development of the tourism in Venice as in Rome: " vedute " where the presence of ruins is a key(touch) of classic art.

Of return of Italy where he(it) painted one very large number of ruins, Hubert Robert imagines this vision of the big gallery of the Louvre in ruins ( 1796 ) — doubtless under the influence of the revolutionary disturbances. But most of its ruins are little disturbing. It is as a matter of fact as Distort Ruin of the landscape garden. On the other hand the ruin adds of the social realism to the paint(painting) of the poor farmers, or the bamboccianti (urban poor men in the middle of ruins - in Italy after the Caravaggio):

Jan Both, on 1637. Roman ruins and card players.

III. The metaphysics of ruins

Their symbolic meaning depends on the conception that every time(period) is made of space-time.

A) Ruins testify of the vanity of any company, even of oeuvres of art. Nothing escapes the impermanence. They translate a new course of history, a process which is not any more the immovable time(weather) of the Middle Ages. They mean a state of déréliction: brambles or diverse vegetables push(grow) to it: it is the decline expensive to the mannerists as to the painters of the XVIIIth century: Marco Ricci, Magnasco or Canaletto.

Marco Ricci ( 1725 )

In this landscape of Canaletto " Ruins, Porta Portello in Padua " (on 1750, Venice, Accademia) plants attacked(affected) right ruins and also those of left, more taken away. The first big landscape of ruins, reaching the fantasy, had been due in 1536 to the lock of hair Herman Posthumus who assembles elements seen on the spot. The registration(inscription) on the sarcophagus evokes the destructive time(weather) of any things: TEMPVS EDAX RE-/RVM TVQVE INVI-/DIOSA VETVSTAS / OIA DESTRVITIS. ( Princely Collection of Lichtenstein, Vaduz).

Two centuries later Diderot repeats him(it): the ruin allows to meditate on the course(price) of the world and the human condition. The ruin is no more picturesque but a support of thought. « The meditation of Diderot wants here more forward-looking than retrospective. The ruin less makes dream on what was that on what will be (…) The musing on ruins was a memory, here she/it is become an anticipation. » (Roland Mortier, The poetics of ruins in France, on 1974).

B) The ruin in the Christian picture(board). From the beginning of the Renaissance, martyrs' scenes(stages), worships of the witches or the shepherds, are convenient to representations of antique ruins.

On the ruins of the old world is going to be built the Christian civilization: saint Sébastien of Mantegna (on 1480 Louvre) is tortured on the ruins of a Roman building. The feet of the martyr are placed next to the foot of a broken statue, an emperor maybe.

Albrecht Dürer realizing in 1504 this Worship of the Witches shows buildings in ruins which contrast with the promise of a new era announced by Jesus. The " worships of the shepherds " and the other " worships of the witches " resume(take back) this use of ruins near the day-nursery(crib) (cf. Botticelli).

In the Nicolas Poussin's ideal landscape showing saint Jean to Patmos, also represent the ruins of the antique world on which builds itself the New Testament. (1640, Art Institute, Chicago).

With the ruin of abbeysDid we want to represent the riomphe of the Protestantism? — François Nomé and Didier Barra left France for Rome by 1600 then Naples. They painted together and became known under the name of Monsu Desiderio. " The Explosion in a church " is called by Fitzwilliam Museum " King Asa of Judah destroying the idols ", ( c.1630 ); this work is attributed(awarded) to François Didier de Nomé ( 1593-1634 ):

Otherwise, we can interpret him(it) according to the theme of the divine punishment. The ruin of the religious building allows to send moral warnings.

C) The romantic ruin. If the landscape is a projection of the soul for the romantic, then the ruin is moving, it prefigures the death, underlines the small size of the men(people), the finitude of the man. The representations of ruins of abbayessont multiplées in the years 1790-1830. We know especially ruins drawn and painted by Caspar David Friedrich ( 1774-1840 ); but other romantic artists produced it. Studied according to nature, the ruin Of an abbey Serves then a vision printed by mysticism at the same time as it suggests the return of the religious feeling.

Ruins of a convent, by C.D. Friedrich, on 1823. The snow and the tree trunks against the light stress the macabre image already proposed by the crosses of graves.

Klosterruine, 1823, C.D. Friedrich.

C.D. Friedrich: ruins of Eldena, near Greifswald (Alte Nationalgalerie, Berlin, on 1825).

Tintern Abbey, on 1820, by J.M. William Turner.

Melrose Abbey's ruins, on 1822, by Turner.

Ruins of Oybin, on 1823, by Karl Blechen.

The ruin goes as far as giving the impression(printing) of destruction in this Karl Blechen's interpretation(performance) (Ruin of a Gothic church, on 1826).

With the rediscovery of the Middle Ages which is made in the romantic time(period), it is not surprising that the medieval monument is represented in ruins, such the Rhenish burg. Here Victor Hugo's work.

D) The end of civilizations. The prefiguration of the end of the world or the world. The ruin illustrates the triumph of Time(Weather). XVIIIth finishing — Although we attribute(award) him(her) the invention of the happiness and the progress — also convey the theme of the end: that of the antique civilizations, bound(connected) to the archaeological discoveries which take place in this time(period). Archaeological excavations bustle in Italy after 1770. Piranèse draws the temples of Paestum, Michallon paints ruins of Pompéi in 1810, Turner paints the Temple of Juno to Agrigente, By 1830... In a famous composition of 1836, Thomas Cole Also treated(handled) the theme of the fall of Rome (The Course of Worsens: destruction. New York Historical Society).

The ruin it is the degradation of the things that produce the men(people) and she has to give the feeling of the time(weather) which passes. In the limit the ruin is only an inferior assembly of stones and pebbles with this denim Guillaumin, above (Ruins in the fog to Crozant, Bridgeman, on 1894). As a matter of fact a prefiguration of the unprecedented ruins which the Great War is about to engender. The disappearance so much man as oeuvres of art which he(it) creates to challenge the time(weather).

Conclusion - Of the ruin in the recycling (XX - XXI °)

We assist the decline of the painted crossed(spent) ruin the Belle Epoque. With the world war ruins do not interest more than minor painters. We shall take the example of Joseph Bouchor which painted in 1917 the ruins of the cathedral of Reims. (Museum of Blérancourt).

Henceforth it is the photography which takes care of the representation of the ruin, particularly in magazines as The Illustration, then with postcards from the twenties. Soon the cinema exposes(explains) the ruin, the cataclysm, the end of the world, while waiting for the videos of September 11th, 2001 and the Hollywood movies of end of the world. From his part, by his(her,its) paintings(boards), his(her,its) sculptures and his(her,its) installations, Anselm Kiefer multiplies war signs, more than ruins. For Monumenta on 2007, he(it) presented " the collapsed tower ":

The current events of the ruin it is also the recycling. Arman knows how to destroy(annul) to create. We assist finally a return in ruins "made" from deconstructed or got back objects ( contemporary installations). The time(weather) did not set any more on objects: they invade the space.

• The paints(paintings) of ruins thus make paradoxically rare in the XXth century:

Here is a work of the American John Armstrong, Phoenix, (Leeds Museums, on 1938). Naturally the phoenix is reborn of its ashes...

To consult:

- Luigi Ficacci: Piranesi. The complete etchings. Taschen, 2000, 798 pages.

- Michel Makarius: ruins. Representations in the art of the Renaissance in our days. Fields, on 2011 (Flammarion, on 2004).

The novel of the Catalan Emili Rosales " The invisible City " already presents an interest of the only fact Of the structure of the narrative: two crossed narratives which take place at once(at the same time) today and under the reign of Charles III in the XVIIIth century.

• The present history(story) has for narrator a gallery owner of Barcelona, Emili Rossell. He(it) kept(guarded) roots in fishermen's village close to the delta of Ebre, Sant Carles de la Ràpita, where he(it) finds former(ancient) friends, Jonas and her sister Ariadna. Kids, they were used to seeing in the territory of the current village a kind of invisible city between the sea and the mountain of Montxia. During evening given by Maria, one the other gallery owner who married Jonas, Emili learns that this couple is worried by a work of Tiepolo the track of which we lost. Mysteriously, Rossell receives in the mail the text of a " Memorial of the invisible City " drafted by Andrea Roselli. Who was able well to pick up(to dislodge) the same text and to send to him(her) and in which purposes?

• Lors that he(it) left the court(yard) of the Bourbons of Naples for those of Madrid king Charles III did not come only. To assure(insure) the construction of his(its) new royal palace, he made, from Italy, the architect Sabatini come with his pupil Andrea Roselli, then to decorate him(it) " the immense artist " whom was Giambattista Tiepolo. Soon Sabatini made his(her) neapolitan fiancée come, Cecilia Vanvitelli — of whom father Luigi is known to have built the palace Royal of Caserte. Heavens: when Andrea Roselli and future Mrs Sabatini fell in love one of the other one, the young architect was asked by king to go in Russia to investigate into the construction of Saint-Petersburg. King had in mind a project which Andrea Roselli would be in charge of later: a new town at the edge of the Mediterranean Sea. Later, effectively, Andrea Roselli became master(teacher) of work of Sant Carles de la Ràpita's construction site, a port(bearing) and a new town in the delta of Ebre. A ship canal had to make a rival seaport of Barcelona and Valencia. In fact the new town stayed in the state of project even before dies Charles III in 1788! Sabatini discovered Cecilia's idyll with Roselli then learnt that she had secretly posed stripped(revealed) for Tiepolo with the aim of offering a portrait of her to her ex-lover. Outraged(Exaggerated) and fort of its governmental relations, Sabatini took revenge by breaking the career(quarry) of Roselli and so the new town remained a project; the building(ship) of the customs in which lived Roselli and diverse unfinished constructions are nevertheless going to affect the XXth century.

• The intrigue is fascinating and enigmatic enough so that the author receives our eulogies from it. He(it) also shows us Rossell a little lost between three women: Maria, Ariadna, and Chloe his(her) photographer. He(it) pulls another Giambattista Tiepolo at first received in the court(yard) then little by little put aside by the presence of a new clan which set up itself as arbitrator(referee) of the taste: air pictorial lightnesses(thoughtlessness) of acceptable Tiepolo there has little for the ceilings of the Palais Royal were not it any more for the decoration of churches.

• The curious reader can find on this site, besides a detailed summary of the novel, at once(at the same time) reproductions of the paintings(boards) of Tiepolo mentioned in the novel — except of course Cecilia's portrait! — and photos of Sant Carles de la Ràpita taken at the beginning of the XXth century.

Emili ROSALES. The invisible City. Translated by the Catalan by Edmond Raillard, Acts the South, Babel, 2008, 308 pages.

Here is the surprising and fascinating book which joins the crossroads of numerous subjects: Soldiers of the First Empire, The Restoration, the first presidents of the United States, the diplomatic relations between France and the United States, agrarian colonization, "Deep South" and Indians, transatlantic navigation, etc.... The author, the French historian specialist of the slave draft(milking), makes a crowd of characters, civilians and servicemen, French live again or not, taken by the mirage Of a new life in America, in particular in Alabama. The book, outstandingly published(edited), rich in cards(maps), in bibliography and in index, is also a beautiful object to be offered! Here is some Modest note of reading in the course of the text.

Jacques Lajonie Lapeyre, ex-officer of dragons and landowner in the vineyard of Bordeaux, is the central face(figure) of " Reborn in America. " Thanks to a correspondence of more than hundred of letters, the Bonapartist officer takes issue in this subtitled history(story) " French exile and Refugees in the United States and the Vine and Olive Adventure " the leading role to personalities extremely famous as marshal Grouchy or ex-king Joseph Bonaparte. This rich correspondence allows the historian Éric Saugera to throw all the light on the installation of several French people hundreds in America after 1815. Very fast most of the officers lost interest in this colony(summer camp) Agricultural, but a man as Lajonie hung on(collided) to it because he saw the possibility there of redoing his life in America.

In the collapse of the napoleonic empire many were made weather vanes to reunite king returned in the vans of the enemy, but the new diet(regime) made decisions not going to the sense(direction) of the national reconciliation. The excitement grows and generals as Vandamme, Lallemand or Lefebvre-Desnoëttes, were conspiring before even the return of Napoleon of Elba. After Waterloo 18 in June 1815-and the second abdication of the Emperor, Louis XVIII pushed by the count of Artois and Ultras chooses the strong method: he(it) signed on July 24th a first prescription of banning concerning officers who had betrayed him(it). Many officers gained(won) the borders whereas Ney was executed on December 6th, 1815. From May 11th, 1816, the council of war judged Grouchy, Lefebvre-Desnoëttes, Rigau, Drouët d' Erlon, the brothers Lallemand, Clauzel and seven other generals.

France and Europe being thus widely closed to them, to emigrate into America " earth(ground) of freedom " became a necessity for of Numerous Bonapartists as far as the Terror Blanche raged in the South including inhabitant of Bordeaux. Among them: Jacques Lajonie. Born to Gensac on July 24th, 1787, after studies At the High school of Bordeaux, he(it) integrated(joined) the Military academy of Fontainebleau and served in the army of Italy but during the battle of Wagram he(it) was hurt in the left hand. A bit further he(it) received the cross Of the Legion of Honour. His(her,its) convalescence was not satisfactory: he had to leave the army in 1812 to lead the life of luxury to Soulat to Marie-Nauzille her elder sister and her husband Jean-Pierre Taupier-Letage which(who) had no child. The young person Dorothée soon gave him(her) a girl — Marie-Elbine — and a son — Pierre Léopanno — see to where nests the legend Imperial! An inequitable political quarrel with the sub-prefect of Libourne forced him(it) to avoid(flee) Soulat In August, 1816 in spite of a petition in its favour of hundred twenty notables: we accused it of the murder of a gendarme during a night control which had badly turned(shot). The prefect of Bordeaux made print andSpread(Broadcast) his(her,its) description. He(it) avoided the arrest by avoiding(by running away,by fleeing): « Chased night and day from refuge to refuge, I noFollow have, even in the midst of remoted woods and wilderness, has where place(square) I can rest for and hour, the pressing year, without running the greatest risk of was discovered. » — " The wilderness "? He did not still know that what he was going to discover in America would look like it a lot... November 4th, 1816, him(it) Embarked near Bordeaux on the American brig(brick) " James-Murdock " due to leave for Philadelphia which he(it) reached(affected) on January 6th, 1817. Hundred two letters which reached until Us, dated from January, 1817 till March, 1829, allow to see, how this man who had left the Grande Armée before its defeats was going to become an American farmer, The farmer idealized by Saint John's letters of Crèvecœur.

These exiles who embark on the ports(bearings) of the Atlantic Ocean and the Mediterranean Sea for five or six weeks of Crossed see in the United States a second luck(chance). Maybe Napoleon him(her,it) would also be kind enough but it is Joseph Bonaparte who gives the example by off-loading incognito in New York 29 August, 1815. Will follow Louis-Marie Dirat the former(ancient) sub-prefect crossed(spent) in the opposition to Bourbons with the satiric newspaper " The Pope Joan ", the regicides as Pénières and Lakanal, the officers banned as Clauzel, Grouchy with his sons(threads), the brothers Lallemand, Lefebvre-Desnoëttes... All the recent emigrants were not Bonapartist: Colonists of Santo Domingo, royalist as Limoëlan implied(involved) in the attack(attempt) of the street Saint-Nicaise or named Hyde de Neuville ambassador of France also came 1816. The women hesitate to make this journey which the sea makes uncertain: Julie Clary the wife of Joseph Bonaparte gave up it whereas Dorothée Lajonie waited some years. How many French people did they then cross the Atlantic Ocean by renewing the example of the marquess of Lafayette? It seems that The United States saw arriving between 2 and 3 000 in 1815-1818, the only port(bearing) of Nantes sending it 64 boats: 400 persons in everything. America did not know nor a police control Of Ancien Régime nor a fashionable police of Fouché, no control in the landing, no passport to go from a State to the other one.

How the French people were welcomed ? The paper since Baltimore in March, 1817 Lajonie before leaving to the South: « The Americans surround with made an attempt. Purpose doh they Us only honor have unfortunate proscribed men, now because we are the French who ounce Helped them? I doh not know yew I should wholly like the Americans, have I doh not know either whether they truly like customs(US), their interests now their coming business before everything. » Also, the relations between the governments do not escape the mutual suspicions. For Hyde de Neuville who meets the 1st In July, 1816 Secretary of State James Monroe, then the President Madison, the good welcome made by the Americans for the exiles is a problem because it is tried to consider all these Bonapartists As second-class subjects. " You will avoid meeting the refugees " advises(recommends) to his(her) subordinates. Revealing indications of these faintnesses(malaises): consul William Lee had to leave his post of Bordeaux suspected of credit note Favored the emigration of doubtful persons and President Monroe had to repeat to the French diplomats that in America the press is free and that the freedom of meeting exists.

Lajonie is a member of exiles who meet difficulties to obtain supports and settle down, Contrary to privileged persons such Grouchy or Joseph Bonaparte. This last one bought a farm on Delaware: it misses that nothing, friends, money(silver) there, and a young mistress(teacher) who gave him(her) two Children. Others were helped by Stephen Girard, master mariner native of Bordeaux, installed(settled) in America in 1774 and become a banker, or helped by the masonic solidarity. ForMany French expatriates, the language(tongue) raised problem: to remedy it Lajonie took courses(prices) and he will advise(recommend) to those of his family who would come to join him(it) to know English and Spanish. Lakanal, which had created a kind of firm model in Dordogne under the Republic, visited on July 4th, 1816 a wine exploitation(operation) held by the Swiss in the valley of Ohio: the village was called Vevey. The appeal(recourse) to the earth(ground) was going to transform the life of our emigrants and particularly Lajonie.

One of them written to Lakanal: « I want to get out of The mirror of wide cities where nothing are fashionable purpose prejudice and pride, and where liberty and civic equality would soon die yew republican colonies(summer camps) were not founded in the of country to interior... » Now, an article of the American Bee, Philadelphia, proposed in summer, 1816 a project of a new Solitary retreat based on the vine growing. This newspaper became the stand of the emigrants. So was created October 22nd, 1816 in Philadelphia the colonial Company(Society) which was going to base(establish) its hopes on the vineyard(vine) and the olive tree. The center of the colony(summer camp) would be Demopolis, rather than Proscripolis! A group asked to determine the place of the colony(summer camp) left New Orleans in December, 1816 and went(surrendered) on the banks of Tombigbee, a navigable river, to the North of Motive(Mobile), in territories which the Indian Creeks and Choctaws had just given up. The Congress of the United States was requested to grant(tune) lands to the French colonists in a particular context: the embassy of France let know to the American government that he(it) formed at these emigrant an intrigue to go to free(deliver) Napoleon of His(Her,Its) Atlantic rock. Parmentier, secretary of the colonial company(society), and William Lee the former(ancient) consul of Bordeaux, made all the lobbying which they were able to: on March 3rd, 1817 Madison, in the last day of its money order(mandate), approved the law voted by the Congress. The gift(donation) consisted of four towsnhips 92 160 acres, in the county of Black flecked cloth.

No beneficiary had to receive more than 640 acres and the resale was blocked(surrounded) as long as lands would not be paidTo the government. The Bonapartists were thus going to participate in the populating white with Alabama: of 6 420 in 1810 in 190 000 in 1830. It was also a question (before 1819) of defending(forbidding) thisSpace against the Spanish greeds. But who says defense says servicemen: now the veterans of the troops of Napoleon were never than the fifth of the members. The word of mouth And the press made the success of the operation which banked on 400 members; a first list was published in 1818 in Washington. Compte-tenu of the changes intervened until 1829 (year of Departure of Lajonie) Eric Saugera established(constituted) a list of 460 holders. The appendix of pages 381 - 425 looks until nineteen bibliographic information onto each of them! Ur 444 members whose place of birth is known, 322 come from metropolitan France, 38 of the other countries of Europe (of Italy mainly), 56 of the French ex-colonies(ex-summer camps) (Santo Domingo Mainly). The exiles come from the South of France take him(it) slightly on those of the North of the country, the natives of Gironde arriving in head. Among these young men(people), of numerous links of Relationship meet what contributes to weld the members of the colony(summer camp), come from the various sectors of French society. The professional classification (on 343 members) surprises : The servicemen are minority! One on five approximately. And the stemming men(people) jobs(businesses) by the agriculture(farming) are rare, 5 %. More represented are thus the men(people) of liberal professions, of Business and the small business sector(crafts). But many members, without being peasant, were interested in the agriculture(farming) just like Lakanal.

The members went(surrendered) in Alabama according to three roads (card(map) n°4, page 212): by the valleys of Ohio and the Mississippi,On the ground by borrowing(taking) plains east of Appalachians, by sea finally by landing either in Motive(Mobile) or in New Orleans — Where the Mississippi had broken its dikes (already!) and where he(it)Needed to escape the yellow fever... If finding from the summer, 1817 there, the colonists hurried to find a site for Demopolis at the edge of the cliffs of White Bluff — missing person without leaving Of tracks — then Aigleville ( Eagleville) slightly set back from Tombigbee, once settled(adjusted) the heavy errors of measurement: « There cannot exists in any part of the world has to nicer, Pleasant more site and has to richer soil... » These arables which extended over the left bank of Black Warrior (alias Tuscaloosa) upstream to Aigleville are provided in sections of one Square mile (640 acres) attributed(awarded) by drawing lots to a single colonist or divided into smaller parts (cards(maps) with the names of the members pages 248-251). Once realized the distribution(casting) of Lands it seemed that the generals and the colonels were better provided than the others. Lajonie had obtained 480 acres. And as the others he had to plant vineyards(vines) and olive trees there. And pay his(her,its) lands: the whole colony(summer camp) represented 184 000 $ (92 000 acres in 2 $ the acre) owed to the Treasury at the latest on January 8th, 1833, constraints of stakes in culture of vineyard(vine) and olive tree occurring(speaking) to the term of the first seven years, and the activity(occupation) of every prize(lot) that must be made before 1822.

Besides the tropical and wet climate, the shock for the French people came from Americans. Lajonie notes an economic shock and Cultural: « Come discontented Frenchmen, come and learn to doh without supervaguenesses things, colonial goods, come and learn to encourage the arts, doh come, and you will see that The American, who is dominated by patriotism, finds good only what his compatriots harvest now manufacture. [] He can doh without your wine; he drinks water and sometimes whiskey, the spiritous Liquor of the country. He can bring down your manufacture by high duty putting one to your products and by paying his laborers well; no national product country golden taxes entry duty, and the government Does more: it country to encourages the export of salt meat and refined sugar from the country. With such principles, has nation is great and importing and its citizens admired by their are Neighbors. » Lajonie hates the venal(mercantile) spirit of the Americans: « I warn you that the Americans ' favourite sentence is make money. » Or still: « You know that I detestAmerican morality; they have no honor; they are all merchants. » In brief we could make a witness(baton) of this antiAmericanism which studied Philippe Roger! Lajonie aims particularly Lawyers(Avocados): indeed lands attributed(awarded) to the French colonists were sometimes occupied by American colonists and was needed expensive trial to make them leave.

Some of these colonists acquired slaves; if Lajonie preferred to pay farm labourers come from Gironde, him(it) Intended to buy a dozen slaves, but the prices(prizes) exceeded his(her,its) possibilities and he(it) did not make the traffic. He bought his first slave only in 1822: an eighteen-year-old young man Was then self-important to help him(it). Lajonie was so a real American farmer: we notice it in what he writes in his, in Soulat. He(it) evokes his(its) first house, to Nauzelbine, twenty feet long, near Tuscaloosa, type(chap) even of her(it) "log cabin": a wooden hut — the houses of brick appeared only in 1832, after the return of Lajonie in France. His(her,its) correspondence also allows to evoke the work of fields, the problems of health, the solitude until his wife Dorothée, twenty five years, lands in New Orleans on July 30th, 1819. She(it) contracted the yellow fever which almost nobody knew how to cure, but on one year later was born a girl, Ninon. Few exiles had the same luck(chance) to see coming his wife and the women being too rare in the colony(summer camp), some had relations with Blacks and Indians.

Lajonie did not intend to content with being a wine grower: he intended to redo his life in America and he imagined to trade by reselling products imported by France: wines and brandies sent by Bordeaux. But when the wine arrived in state it was not advisable to the local tastes. He also thought of textiles(textile industries), weapons, unsuccessfully. He(it) purchased a ground to fit out a warehouse at the edge of the river. He(it) succeeds relatively better in the breeding: in 1826, he(it) considèrait that the herds brought back(reported) more that the lands where we cultivated corns, rices, sweet potatoes, cotton, without counting orchards producing peaches(fishing) and figs. He(it) possessed three plots of land: Nauzelbine ( easily flooded 18 acres) and Wine Spring (480 acres) on whom he(it) decided to rent(praise) and everything in the North of the colony(summer camp), Saint-Helena (120 acres) where he(it) settles down in family, in spring, 1821. He(it) had made young wines of Gironde come. His(Her,Its) first grape harvests, in August, 1820 were source(spring) of pride: but about weeks later John Quessart asked him(her) rightly: « I ask you again, did you made wine now did you merely eat grapes? » The author ends that these wine efforts were of use to Lajonie only to make legally an owner of his(her) earth(ground). Without speaking about olive trees unsuitable for the climate and that few colonists had planted.

• On 460 members, approximately 150 had moved up to the banks of Tombigbee (in March, 1818), the majority preferring to stay in the east of the Union or to become established somewhere else. The number of the French colonists began to fall from 1822 and the county of Black flecked cloth became Americanized little by little. A report(relationship) of December, 1827 showed that 40 % of prizes(lots) had remained unexploited by their dealers. A single colonist, Roudet, had made a success in the vine growing by turning away of French vines for the benefit of Madeira: in 1825 he(it) made it drink to president Adam. But this success did not give birth to a real vine growing in Alabama. The servicemen, the generals in head, had gradually returned to France having obtained the forgiveness of king, from 1818 in the case of Grouchy. As for Clauzel he continued his military career(quarry) with the conquest of Algeria and became a marshal of France in 1831.

Lands were resold, Jacques Lajonie landed with woman and child in Bordeaux in May, 1829. He(it) obtained to be reinstated(re-entered) in the order of the Legion of Honour and he became again a notable in his canton. He(it) found a seat(siege) to the City Council of Gensac and greeted in 1848 the succession(advent) of the Republic.

Eric SAUGERA. Reborn in America. French exile and Refugees in the United States and the Vine and Olive Adventure ( 1815-1865 ).Translated (outstandingly) by French by Madeleine Velguth. The University of Alabama Press, Tuscaloosa. 2011, 572 pages.