Nagot, Abbé François-Charles

1734-1816. Superior of the Saint-Sulpice Seminary in Paris, he was sent to America to found a new seminary at Baltimore and create a new Catholic diocese.

BkV:Chap15:Sec4 BkVI:Chap3:Sec1 BkXIV:Chap5:Sec1 Chateaubriand sailed with his party to America in April 1791.

 

Nain Jaune

The Yellow (or Green) Dwarf was a satirical journal written by members of Queen Hortense’s salon (Etienne, Jouy etc) which contained epigrams on Louis XVIII.

BkXXII:Chap 26:Sec1 The pun on duck feathers, plumes de cane, was a reference to Cannes, and the Golfe de Juan where Napoleon would land.

 

Namur

The town in southern Belgium, strategically positioned at the confluence of the Rivers Sambre and Meuse. It was besieged and captured many times.

BkX:Chap2:Sec1 BkXXIX:Chap2:Sec3 Chateaubriand passed through in 1792.

 

Nangis, Guillaume de

Mid 13th Century-1300. He was a monk of Saint-Denis, archivist from 1285, who produced a chronicle of his times (c1292).

BkIX:Chap7:Sec2 Mentioned.

 

Nantes

The major port in western France, it is the capital of the Loire-Atlantique Département on the Loire estuary.

BkI:Chap1:Sec6 A seat of the royal court of Brittany.

BkV:Chap2:Sec1 Mentioned.

BkV:Chap2:Sec 2 BkXIX:Chap10:Sec1 At the height of the Terror in 1793 two thousand captives at Nantes were towed out in barges into the Loire and drowned, some stripped naked and bound in couples. These were the republican marriages Chateaubriand mentions.

BkV:Chap7:Sec1 Its young men summoned to agitate at the Brittany States in Rennes in 1789.

BkII:Chap7:Sec5 The Edict of Nantes in 1598 guaranteed French Protestants, the Huguenots, religious liberty. Proclaimed by Henri IV, it established religious tolerance, freedom of worship and limited civil equality. Henri hoped to prevent further wars of religion in France. it was revoked in 1685 by Louis XIV prompting a Huguenot diaspora and draining France of talent and skill.

BkIX:Chap3:Sec2 Fouché named as head of the college there in 1789.

BkXIV:Chap2:Sec5 Chateaubriand there in 1802.

BkXVIII:Chap5:Sec2 Chateaubriand’s cousin Moreau retired there in 1808, and died there in 1812.

BkXXXV:Chap3:Sec1 BkXXXV:Chap6:Sec1 Berryer there in June 1832. He was tried for his involvement with the Duchesse de Berry’s plot.

 

Napflion, Greece

On the eastern coast of the Peloponnese, south of Argos, the city served as the Greek seat of government from 1829 to 1834. It was probably the naval station for Argos in Mycenaean times and according to legend, was founded by Nafplios, son of Poseidon, and his son Palamedes, who is said to have invented dice, chess, and other board games to amuse his fellow Greeks during the Trojan War. In 1388, Nafplion was taken by the Venetians, who called it Napoli de Romanie and fortified it so securely that it resisted repeated Turkish attacks until finally handed over to the Sultan in a peace treaty in 1540. Except for a brief period of recovery by the Venetians (1688-1715) Nafplion remained under Turkish domination until won by Greece during the War of Independence.

BkXXVIII:Chap9:Sec1 Canaris’ letter dated from there.

 

Naples, Italy

The city in southern Italy, the capital of Campania, situated on volcanic slopes overlooking the Bay of Naples. Founded by Greek colonists about 600BC, it fell under Roman rule in 326BC. In 1139 it became part of the Norman Kingdom of Sicily. After the Revolt of the Sicilian Vespers in 1282, it became the independent Kingdom of Naples, until it fell to Garibaldi in 1860, and was united with the rest of Italy.

BkIII:Chap8:Sec1 Mentioned as an exotic place.

BkXV:Chap7:Sec3 Chateaubriand arrived there 2nd January 1804. The Elysian Fields are the Campi Flegrei, the Fields of Fire, to the west of Naples.

BkXX:Chap1:Sec1 On 23 January 1799 the French-supported Parthenopaean Republic was proclaimed: the name Parthenope refers to an ancient Greek colony on the site of the future city of Naples. It lasted until June 1799 when the French withdrew.

BkXXIII:Chap11:Sec2 BkXXIII:Chap11:Sec3 The Kingdom of Naples was a bargaining chip at the Congress of Vienna.

BkXXVI:Chap7:Sec1 There had been a Carbonari insurrection there in July 1820. There was a Congress at Laybach to resolve the crisis which Chateaubriand asked in vain to attend. It was left to Austria (directed by Metternich) to occupy Naples, King Ferdinand I (1759-1825) of the Two Sicilies, who had fled, returning in May 1821.

BkXXIX:Chap1:Sec3 Madame Récamier there in 1814. Naples was called Parthenope from the Siren who threw herself into the sea out of love for Ulysses and was cast up in the bay of Naples.

BkXXIX:Chap13:Sec3 Mentioned as a major Italian port.

BkXXXIX:Chap10:Sec1 Its lazzaroni, the homeless idlers who lived by chance work or begging – so called from the Hospital of St. Lazarus, which served as their refuge.

 

Naples, King of, see Joachim Murat

 

Napoléon, Saint

d. c300. Neopolus of Alexandria, martyred during the reign of Diocletian.

BkXIX:Chap3:Sec1 Mentioned.

BkXXIV:Chap9:Sec1 His feast is celebrated on the 15th of August.

 

Napoleon I, Emperor of France

1769-1821. First Consul of France 1799-1804. Emperor of the French 1804-1815. Born Napoleon Bonaparte in Corsica, he became an artillery officer and rose to prominence in 1795 while defending the Convention in Paris. After campaigning in Italy (1796-97) and Egypt (1798-99) he became First Consul in the coup d’état of 18th Brumaire (9-10th November 1799). After his brilliant European campaigns which greatly expanded the French Empire, and his ultimately disastrous Russian Campaign of 1812, Europe rose up against him and he was defeated at Leipzig and exiled to Elba. In 1815 he escaped and after the Hundred Days was defeated decisively at Waterloo, spending the remainder of his life confined to the island of St Helena.

Preface:Sect1 Chateaubriand mentions meeting him.

BkI:Chap1:Sec2 Chateaubriand’s ambivalence towards Napoleon. He calls him Bonaparte rather than Napoleon.

BkII:Chap8:Sec1 Napoleon’s armies.

BkII:Chap9:Sec1 BkIV:Chap1:Sec2 Napoleon had been exiled to St Helena in 1815.

BkIV:Chap2:Sec2 BkXXXVII:Chap14:Sec1 His fame.

BkIV:Chap12:Sec3 Viewed by Chateaubriand as an oppressor of freedoms.

BkV:Chap12:Sec3 The representative of despotism.

BkV:Chap15:Sec3 His rise from obscurity paralleled Chateaubriand’s.

BkVI:Chap8:Sec1 Chateaubriand compares Bonaparte and Washington. Napoleon had died at St Helena on the 5th May 1821, Washington in 1799.

BkIX:Chap16:Sec1 His farewell to his troops.

BkXI:Chap3:Sec2 See Mémorial de Sainte-Hélène XI, 8th November 1816.

BkXI:Chap3:Sec3 The master of Europe.

BkXI:Chap5:Sec1 Anticipation of his crowning.

BkXII:Chap5:Sec1 His absurd court action against Peltier.

BkXII:Chap6:Sec1 BkXIV:Chap4:Sec1 BkXV:Chap7:Sec1 He officially became First Consul in February 1800 after the popular vote ratified the new Constitution.

BkXIII:Chap4:Sec1 Popular songs about him in May 1800.

BkXIII:Chap5:Sec1 The transformation from Republic to Empire.

BkXIII:Chap6:Sec1 The police activity under Napoleon.

BkXIII:Chap7:Sec1 Chateaubriand introduced to his sister Élisa and brother Lucien. Napoleon was officially First Consul from February 1800.

BkXIII:Chap10:Sec1 His re-institution of religion,

BkXIII:Chap11:Sec1 His control and censorship of the arts.

BkXIII:Chap11:Sec2 His patronage of scientists.

BkXIV:Chap3:Sec1 Alluded too as the representative of the Revolution.

BkXVI:Chap1:Sec1 Chateaubriand went to see him on the 18th or 19th March 1804, on the eve of leaving for Valais.

BkXVI:Chap1:Sec1 The impact on his career of the execution of the Duc d’Enghien.

BkXVI:Chap5:Sec1 His involvement in the execution of the Duc d’Enghien.

BkXVI:Chap9:Sec1 Moral errors the cause of his downfall. The reference to the Corsican monster is to the island where Bonaparte was born, not far from Sicily where the monster Polyphemus devoured Odysseus’ men in Homer’s Odyssey.

BkXVIII:Chap5:Sec1 After Friedland and the Treaty of Tilsit, by August 1807 Napoleon was at the height of his powers.

BkXVIII:Chap5:Sec2 His comment on Chateaubriand’s portrait.

BkXVIII:Chap7:Sec2 The episode of the Florentine lion refers to the one which escaped from the Grand Duke of Tuscany’s menagerie, which desisted from tearing apart a child on seeing its mother’s tears. Nicolas Monsiau (1754-1837) entered a painting depicting the scene in the Salon of 1801.

BkXVIII:Chap8:Sec2 He inaugurated the Decennial Prize in 1804 to mark the coup of the 18th Brumaire (9th November 1799), every ten years. Chateaubriand (Le Génie) was recommended for it in 1810 (the year fixed for the first award), but the work was rejected as inadequately structured though showing good style, interesting detail and beauties of the first order.

BkXIX:Chap1:Sec1 His various titles and domains, and his bargaining for the hand of Marie-Louise of Austria.

BkXIX:Chap1:Sec1 An allusion to Alexander and Caesar as peers.

BkXIX:Chap4:Sec1 Birth and childhood.

BkXIX:Chap5:Sec1 A reference to Las Cases’ Mémorial. Napoleon’s early love affair. His poor spelling.

BkXIX:Chap5:Sec2 Saint Florent harbour at the foot of Cap Corse, Corsica, is where the Genoese built a citadel in 1440. The defensive tower at Martella, Corsica, became the prototype for the hundred or so circular Martello towers built by the British, between 1805 and1812, for coastal defence of the southern English shoreline.

BkXIX:Chap6:Sec1 Napoleon witnessed the march to the Tuileries of 20th June 1792.

BkXIX:Chap8:Sec1 The siege of Toulon and Napoleon’s swift rise to the rank of brigadier-general.

BkXIX:Chap9:Sec3 The physical change in his appearance over time.

BkXIX:Chap9:Sec1 BkXIX:Chap11:Sec1 Bonaparte defended the Convention, that is the Revolution, on the 13th Vendémiaire Year IV (5th October 1795), using cannon brought by Murat, from Sablons, 200 or so being killed on each side, particularly around the Saint-Roch church, on Rue Neuve Saint-Roch.

BkXX:Chap2:Sec2 The plot to kill Napoleon of 10th October 1800 was discovered. On 19 Nivôse (January 9) the four conspirateurs des poignards – the Jacobins Ceracchi (the sculptor), Aréna (a Corsican), Topino-Lebrun (the painter) and Demerville (Barère’s former secretary) – were found guilty of plotting to murder the First Consul and condemned to death. The plot of the Rue Saint-Nicaise, also known as the Machine infernale, was an assassination attempt on the life of Napoleon, in Paris on 24 December 1800. The machine infernale attempt on Napoleon’s life was planned by seven royalist Breton Chouans: Pierre Robinault de Saint-Régeant (1768-1801) a supporter of Louis XVIII, Saint-Régeant had tried to stir a revolt in western France the previous year, and had publicly torn up Napoleon’s offer of amnesty to the vendéens; Pierre Picot de Limoëlan (1768-1826) was the gentleman son of a guillotined royalist nobleman; Georges Cadoudal (1771-1804) was the great chouannerie leader; Jean-Baptiste Coster (1771-1804): one of Cadoudal’s ablest lieutenants, was known as Saint-Victor. The other three plotters were the noblemen Joyaux d’Assas, Jérôme Pétion de Villeneuve, and La Haye-Saint-Hilaire.

BkXX:Chap12:Sec1 His decree reorganising the Comédie-Francaise was signed on the 15th of October 1812 not long after the fire which ravaged the city. The parallel with Nero ‘fiddling while Rome burned’ is suggested.

BkXXI:Chap8:Sec1 He had berated the Directors in 1799 regarding their betrayal of the 1797 Constitution (18th Fructidor).

BkXXII:Chap6:Sec1 The four regiments of Napoleon’s Gardes d’honneur, were raised in 1813 during the frantic rebuilding of the French cavalry after the huge losses in Russia. Recruited from the leading social classes, uniformed and equipped at their own expense, and accompanied by servants to take care of such unpleasant chores as stable duty, these men were promised commissions as officers after a year’s service in the ranks. Though spectacularly unready for combat upon their arrival with the army, the Guards of Honour served alongside the élite cavalry of the Imperial Guard in the campaigns of Saxony and France, 1813-14, and distinguished themselves in battle at Hanau and Rheims.

BkXXII:Chap16:Sec1 The order of the day mentioned (5th April 1814) was published by Baron Fain (Manuscrit de 1814).

BkXXII:Chap 26:Sec1 BkXXIII:Chap20:Sec3 Napoleon created the Legion of Honour in 1802, the medal being given for outstanding service to France regardless of the nationality or status of the recipient. A school for the daughters of members of the Legion of Honour was founded at the Abbey buildings of Saint-Denis in 1809.

BkXXVI:Chap6:Sec1 BkXXXV:Chap12:Sec1 The news of Napoleon’s death on the 5th of May 1821 at St Helena was not widely known in Europe until the beginning of July.

BkXXVI:Chap9:Sec1 Chateaubriand compares him to the Exterminating Angel who executes vengeance in the name of the Deity.

BkXXVIII:Chap17:Sec1 His early patronage of Chateaubriand.

BkXXVIII:Chap18:Sec1 His irritation at Madame Récamier’s successful salon.

BkXXVIII:Chap20:Sec1 Madame de Staël writes to him in 1810.

BkXXIX:Chap12:Sec1 His death marking the end of an era.

BkXXX:Chap6:Sec2 His inability to re-invigorate Italy.

BkXXX:Chap8:Sec1 The banishment of the Imperial family.

BkXXXI:Chap8:Sec1 His military successes in Europe.

BkXXXIII:Chap7:Sec1 Chateaubriand’s respect for his greatness.

BkXXXIII:Chap9:Sec1 His effect on the revolutionary trend.

BkXXXV:Chap19:Sec1 His nephew Napoleon III.

BkXXXIX:Chap5:Sec1 Napoleon convened a representative assembly of eleven delegates of the Jewish communities in Paris in August 1806. The Grand Sanhedrin proper occurred February-April 1897. The Venetian delegates were Foa Ventura, Jacob Cracovia and the banker Aaron Latis.

BkXLII:Chap10:Sec1 His remains returned to France in 1840, were placed in St Jerome’s chapel in the Invalides, and in 1861 re-sited beneath the dome.

BkXLII:Chap11:Sec1 Chateaubriand here adopts a date for Napoleon’s birth of 15th August 1768, compared with the official date of 15th August 1769 and the alternative date of the 5th February 1768 which he suggests in Book XIX.

 

Napoleon II, Emperor of the French, King of Rome, Prince of Parma, Duke of Reichstadt

1811-1832. The son of Napoleon I and Marie Louise, he was known as the King of Rome (1811–14), as the prince of Parma (1814–18), and after that as the Duke of Reichstadt. Napoleon’s abdication in 1815 was in favour of his son, so that he was known to the Bonapartists as Napoleon II, although he never ruled. After 1815 he was a virtual prisoner in Austria, where he died of tuberculosis. In 1940 his remains were transferred from Vienna to the dome of the Invalides in Paris, where he now rests beside his father. The pitiful life of the ‘Eaglet’ is the subject of Edmond Rostand’s drama L’Aiglon.

BkXVI:Chap2:Sec3 BkXX:Chap10:Sec1 His birth celebrated. He was born on March 20th 1811.

BkXXI:Chap2:Sec1 His portrait sent to Napoleon in Russia in 1812.

BkXXII:Chap11:Sec1 Left Paris with his mother in 1814.

BkXXII:Chap14:Sec1 Passed through Blois on his way to Vienna in 1814.

BkXXII:Chap15:Sec1 Talleyrand favoured his succession in 1814.

BkXXII:Chap 26:Sec1 He and his mother were expected to visit Napoleon, on Elba but he was taken with her to Vienna.

BkXXIII:Chap11:Sec1 Discussions regarding him at the Congress of Vienna.

BkXXIII:Chap13:Sec1 He remained with his mother in Vienna despite Napoleon’s return from Elba.

BkXXIII:Chap18:Sec1 BkXXIII:Chap18:Sec2 Napoleon wished to abdicate in his favour and declare him Emperor after Waterloo.

BkXXIV:Chap11:Sec2 Napoleon ordered on his death-bed that he should sent his post-mortem report.

BkXXVI:Chap10:Sec1 The King of Rome’s cradle was created by Pierre-Paul Prudhon (1758-1813) the painter, Henri-Victor Roguier (1758-after 1830), Jean-Baptiste-Claude Odiot (1763-1850) and Pierre-Philippe Thomire (1751-1843) in Paris in 1811. The golden cradle was a gift from the city of Paris to the Empress. The decorative motifs glorify Napoleon. More than 280 kilograms of precious materials were used in the design. The piece is now in the Kunsthistorisches Museum, Vienna.

BkXXX:Chap8:Sec1 Chateaubriand suggested he should be made Captain of the King’s Guards.

BkXXXV:Chap12:Sec1 He had died in Vienna on the 22nd of July 1832. The news had reached Paris on the 25th just before Chateaubriand’s departure for Switzerland. 

BkXXXVII:Chap6:Sec1 BkXL:Chap7:Sec1 Mentioned.

 

Napoleon III, Charles-Louis-Napoléon Bonaparte

1808-1873. Known as Louis-Napoléon, he was President of France from 1849 to 1852, and then Emperor of the French under the name Napoléon III from 1852 to 1870. A nephew of Napoleon I, he led the Bonapartist opposition to Louis Philippe and became president of the Second Republic (1848). After proclaiming himself emperor (1852), he instituted reforms and rebuilt Paris. His successful imperialist ventures were overshadowed by a failed campaign in Mexico (1861–1867) and the Franco-Prussian War (1870–1871), which resulted in his deposition.

BkXXXV:Chap19:Sec1 BkXXXV:Chap20:Sec1 In Constance with his mother in September 1832.

BkXXXV:Chap23:Sec1 Chateaubriand writes to him in October 1832.

 

Narbonne, France

A market town in the Aude in south-east France, it was an important Roman settlement. Its port silted up in the 14th century.

BkXIV:Chap2:Sec4 Visited by Chateaubriand in 1802. The Canal des Deux Mers is the combination of the Canal du Midi and the Canal Latéral à la Garonne. Begun in 1666 it was created by Pierre-Paul Riquet, the Languedoc salt-tax farmer, to connect the Mediterranean to the Atlantic.

 

Narbonne-Lara, Louis-Marie-Jacques Amalric, Comte  de

1755-1813. A French soldier and diplomat, he was the son of one of the ladies-in-waiting to Elizabeth, duchess of Parma, and his father was either a Spanish nobleman or as has been alleged Louis XV himself. He was brought up at Versailles with the Princesses of France, and was made a colonel at the age of twenty-five. He became maréchal de camp in 1791, and, through the influence of Madame de Staël, was appointed minister of war. But he showed incapacity in this post, gave in his resignation, and joined the Army of the North, Incurring suspicion as a Feuillant and also by his policy at the war office, he emigrated after the 10th of August 1792, visited England, Switzerland and Germany, and returned to France in 1801. In 1809 he re-entered the army as general of division, and was subsequently minister plenipotentiary at Munich and aide de camp to Napoleon. In 1813 he was appointed French ambassador at Vienna, where he was engaged in an unequal diplomatic duel with Metternich during the fateful months that witnessed the defection of Austria from the cause of Napoleon to that of the Allies. He died at Torgau, in Saxony.

BkV:Chap14:Sec1 An associate of Lauzun.

BkXX:Chap13:Sec1 Sent to Alexander’s headquarters in 1811.

 

Narbonne-Pelet, Raymond-Jacques-Marie, Duc de

1771-1855. A Peer, and Ambassador to Naples 1816-1821.

BkXLI:Chap6:Sec1 At Bustehrad, Prague, 27th of September 1833.

 

Narbonne-Pelet, Anne-Angélique-Marie-Émilie de Sérent, Duchesse de

1770-1856. She married Raymond in 1788.

BkXLI:Chap6:Sec1 At Bustehrad, Prague, 27th of September 1833.

 

Narischkin, Madame

She was a Russian society lady, known to Alexander I.

BkXXIX:Chap5:Sec1 Mentioned.

 

Nariskin, Count

A young Russian officer.

BkXXI:Chap5:Sec1 Brought before Napoleon at Borowsk.

 

Narni, Italy

An ancient hilltown and comune of Umbria in central Italy, at altitude 787 ft it overhangs a narrow gorge of the Nera River in the province of Terni.

BkXXIX:Chap2:Sec3 Chateaubriand there in 1828.

 

Natchez, Les

Work by Chateaubriand. An American novel which started life entitled René et Céluta, and was offered to a Paris publisher in 1798. It was revised with Fontanes help.  The Natchez Indians were among the last native-American groups to inhabit the area now known as south-western Mississippi.  Their culture began around A.D. 700 and lasted until the 1730s when the tribe was dispersed in a war with the French. Their language, related to the Muskogean language family, indicates that the Natchez Indians probably developed from earlier cultures in the Lower Mississippi River Valley.

BkVI:Chap1:Sec2 BkXI:Chap2:Sec1 BkXI:Chap3:Sec1 BkXI:Chap5:Sec1 Written in London.

BkVI:Chap4:Sec1 An incident from it set on Corvo. (Les Natchez, Book VII)

BkVIII:Chap5:Sec2 BkXXXIX:Chap16:Sec1 The Natchez Indians.

BkXI:Chap3:Sec3 Fontanes approved of the work.

BkXII:Chap6:Sec1 Atala and René separated out of the manuscript in 1800.

BkXIX:Chap5:Sec2 Mentioned as an early work. Its four thousand pages fastened together with string.

 

National, Le

A French opposition newspaper issued from 3rd January 1830.

BkXXXI:Chap5:Sec1 BkXXXI:Chap7:Sec1 Mentioned.

BkXXXII:Chap1:Sec1 The editors of the Press met at its offices on the 26th of July 1830.

BkXXXII:Chap2:Sec1 Its type-presses were under threat on the 27th of July 1830.

BkXXXII:Chap16:Sec1 A meeting at its offices on the 31st of July 1830.

BkXXXIV:Chap9:Sec1 Produced by Carrel, Thiers and Mignet.

BkXXXVII:Chap12:Sec1 Available in Prague in May 1833.

BkXLII:Chap4:Sec1 An article in the National on 4th May 1834 giving sections of the Memoirs entitled the Future of the World, reproduced in the Revue des Deux-Mondes on 15th April.

 

Navarino

The naval Battle of Navarino was fought on 20 October 1827, during the Greek War of Independence (1821–29) in Navarino Bay, western Greece. A combined Ottoman and Egyptian armada was destroyed by a combined British, French and Russian naval force, at the port of Navarino. It is notable for being the final large-scale fleet action in history between sailing ships.

BkXXVIII:Chap16:Sec1 BkXXIX:Chap12:Sec1 BkXXXI:Chap6:Sec1

BkXXXVII:Chap14:Sec1 BkXLII:Chap9:Sec1 Mentioned.

 

Navarre, Marie-Louise-Charlotte Poullot, Madame de

She was Mother Superior of the Augustines de la Congrégation Notre-Dame in 1808.

BkXVII:Chap6:Sec1 Chateaubriand confuses Lucile’s residences at the end of her life, in his text. The translation corrects the errors. Madame de Navarre was an instructress at the convent in 1804.

 

Nay

He was secretary and later son-in-law to Gisquet, the Prefect of Police.

BkXXXV:Chap5:Sec1 He visits Chateaubriand in his cell in June 1832.

 

Nazareth, Israel

Nazareth is a Lower Galilee city and a centre of Christian pilgrimage. A row of churches has been erected over the Grotto of the Annunciation since the 4th century AD. The latest basilica incorporates remains of a church built by Crusaders.

BkXIX:Chap16:Sec2 Junot took Nazareth on the 8th April 1799.

BkXXX:Chap2:Sec1 Jesus worked as a carpenter in Nazareth according to Matthew XIII:55.

 

Neale, Mary

A young Irish beauty, in London, in 1798.

BkXI:Chap2:Sec1 Mentioned.

 

Nebuchadnezzar II

630?-562. The King of Babylonia (605–562) who captured (597) and destroyed (586) Jerusalem and carried the Israelites into captivity in Babylonia.

BkXIX:Chap16:Sec2 He supposedly died of madness due to a gnat entering his brain via the nostril. The same death is attributed to Nimrod and Titus.

 

Necker, Jacques

1732-1804. A banker, he was Finance Minister under Louis XVI. Father of Madame de Staël. He advocated the formation of the States-General to effect financial reform. His brief dismissal by Louis XVI (1789) precipitated the storming of the Bastille.

BkIV:Chap12:Sec2 Ginguené was appointed to a minor position in his office.

BkV:Chap1:Sec2 Mentioned.

BkV:Chap8:Sec1 His dismissal 11th July 1789.

BkV:Chap8:Sec2 Popular support for him in the streets of Paris in July 1789.

BkV:Chap9:Sec1 Returned to Paris in July 1789 after the fall of the Bastille.

BkV:Chap10:Sec1 Re-appointed, as Comptroller General, 25th July 1789.

BkV:Chap14:Sec1 His house a fashionable meeting place. Involved in saving the life of Besenval.

BkV:Chap15:Sec1 Resigned and left Paris in September 1790.

BkXV:Chap6:Sec1 His letter regarding Madame de Beaumont’s death.

BkXIX:Chap5:Sec2 The young Napoleon wrote to him.

BkXXXV:Chap21:Sec1 His and his wife’s crypt at Coppet.

BkXLII:Chap10:Sec1 Mentioned.

 

Necker, Suzanne Curchod, Madame

1739-1794. The wife of Jacques Necker (1764). A French writer, mother of Mme de Staël, her salon was frequented by celebrated Frenchmen and foreign visitors. A hospital that she founded c.1776 is still in existence. Her writings on literary and moral subjects include Des inhumations précipitées (1790), Réflexions sur le divorce (1794), and miscellaneous collections published as Mélanges in 1798 and 1801.

 

Necker de Saussure, Albertine-Adrienne

1766-1841. Daughter of a naturalist, her husband was a cousin of Madame de Staël. He was a botanist and the nephew and namesake of Jacques Necker. A Swiss woman of letters, she wrote an influential work on the Education of Women (1828).

BkXXXIV:Chap6:Sec1 The dinner mentioned was on the 6th of June 1831, and included Bonstetten and Sismondi.

 

Neipperg, Adam Adalbert Adrian, Count von

1775-1829. He married Marie-Louise of Austria in 1821.

BkXXIX:Chap2:Sec1 BkXXXVI:Chap2:Sec1 Mentioned.

BkXXXIX:Chap3:Sec1 He died in 1829.

 

Nelson, Horatio, Viscount

1758-1805. The British Admiral, who in 1798 destroyed French naval power in the Mediterranean at the Battle of the Nile. After Copenhagen in 1801 he was created a Viscount. He was mortally wounded at Trafalgar in 1805, when most of the French fleet was destroyed or captured.

Preface:Sect1 Chateaubriand mentions meeting him.

BkXII:Chap5:Sec1 Nelson defeated the French at the Battle of the Nile in Aboukir Bay on the 1st of August 1798. In June 1799 a counterrevolution re-established Bourbon rule in Naples, and in his capacity of commander in chief of the Neapolitan navy, Nelson was responsible for the execution of several Neapolitan officers for serving the French.

 

Nemeade

A courtesan. Possibly she may be identified with Nemea (Goddess of Nemea) whom Aristophon painted holding Alcibiades in her arms.

BkXLII:Chap7:Sec1 Mentioned.

 

Neptune

Roman god of the sea, he was the brother of Pluto and Jupiter. The trident was his emblem.

BkVI:Chap2:Sec1 BkVI:Chap4:Sec1 BkXXIV:Chap9:Sec1

BkXXXIX:Chap20:Sec1 Synonymous with the sea.

BkIX:Chap9:Sec1 The Greek equivalent Poseidon was also god of horses.

BkXIX:Chap1:Sec1 Prayers to the god.

BkXXXI:Chap1:Sec2 The Pillars of Hercules mark the junction of two seas, the Atlantic and the Mediterranean.

BkXXXIX:Chap18:Sec1 Aphrodite-Cybele born from the sea.

BkXL:Chap1:Sec1 His trident.

 

Nereus, Nereids

A sea-god in Greek Mythology, he was the husband of Doris, and, by her, the father of the fifty Nereids, the mermaids attendant on Thetis.

BkI:Chap6:Sec2 The Nereids as nymphs of the sea.

BkXXXIX:Chap10:Sec1 The gondoliers as sons of Nereus.

 

Nero, Claudius Caesar Augustus Germanicus, born Lucius Domitius Ahenobarbus, Roman Emperor

37-68AD. Emperor 54-68. Noted for his cruel conduct, he murdered his mother Agrippina the Younger, and his wife Octavia. In 68 the mutiny of his palace guard and revolts in Gaul, Spain and Africa forced him to flee Rome and led to his suicide.

BkXVI:Chap2:Sec1 He sent a letter to the Senate, following his murder of his mother Agrippina, the drift of which was that Agerinus, one of Agrippina’s confidential freedmen, had been detected with an assassin’s dagger, and that in the consciousness of having planned the crime she had paid its penalty. Tacitus claims the letter was drafted by Seneca, see Tacitus Annales XIV.11.3

BkXVI:Chap10:Sec1 An example of abuse of power.

BkXIX:Chap9:Sec3 Napoleon compared to him.

BkXXI:Chap8:Sec1 On the night of July 18, AD64 the Great Fire of Rome erupted. The fire started in densely populated areas and burned for a week. It was said that Nero viewed the fire from the tower of Maecenas, and exulting, as Nero said, ‘at the beauty of the flames,’ he sang the whole time the ‘Sack of Ilium’ in his regular stage costume. Rumours circulated that Nero had played his lyre and sang, on top of Quirinal Hill, while the city burned. (Tacitus, Ann. xv; Suetonius, Nero xxxvii; Dio Cassius, R.H. lxii.)

BkXXII:Chap16:Sec1 Declared a public enemy (persona non grata) by the Senate in June 68. He then committed suicide, Galba having been recognised as Emperor and welcomed to the city.

BkXXIX:Chap2:Sec3 BkXXIX:Chap16:Sec1 The tomb of Publius Viribus Marianus mistakenly called Nero’s Tomb is on the right bank of the Tiber, not far from the Via Flaminia, about seven kilometres north of the Piazza del Popolo.

BkXXXIV:Chap4:Sec1 Mentioned.

BkXXXIV:Chap12:Sec1 Poppaea was his mistress and second wife.

 

Nesle, Drogon de

c1030-1096. A French crusader who died in Palestine during the First Crusade.

BkXVII:Chap2:Sec1 Mentioned.

 

Nesle, Jean II de, Comte de Soissons