NAPOLEON An Intimate Portrait

Born in 1769, by the age of 26 Napoléon Bonaparte had become a triumphant general whose lightening-quick campaigns transformed both warfare and the political face of Europe. At 35, Napoléon crowned himself Emperor of France and set about ruling 70 million souls. Within seventeen years, he was dead. Having fought an alliance of European powers almost continuously for 20 years, the cost in lives and disrupted commerce became too much. Napoléon Bonaparte has remained an object of intense fascination since his rise to power. He is among the most researched and written about subjects in world history. December 2, 2004, marked the 200th anniversary of Napoléon and Joséphine's coronation as Emperor and Empress, and has sparked a new century's interest in this fascinating period and its central figure.

Coming to the Museum of Florida History, February 6 through April 30, NAPOLÉON An Intimate Portrait will offer visitors an opportunity to see beyond the legend of Napoléon Bonaparte to gain an understanding of this complex figure as a man who is one of history's pivotal figures. Created from the extraordinary collection of 1st Empire authority and author Pierre-Jean Chalençon, the exhibit features over 250 objects including framed paintings, prints and documents, furniture from the Imperial palaces, rare and personal belongings of Napoleon I, and some of the most famous depictions of him by the greatest artists of the time.

On exhibit for the first time in North America, Chalençon's collection premiered in September 2005 in Washington, D.C. at the National Geographic Museum at Explorers Hall. The exhibition and tour is a project of the Miami-based Russell Etling Company in collaboration with its team of experts in museum exhibition development including Falconer Exhibits of Connecticut.

Tallahassee's French connection dates back to the territorial era of the 1830s, when French citizens immigrated to an area north of downtown that is still known as Frenchtown.

Napoléon's nephew, Charles Louis Napoléon Achille Murat, was born on January 21, 1801, in Paris and lived in Tallahassee during territorial and early statehood days. His father, Joachim Murat, was Napoléon's Marshal and Grand Admiral, and his mother, Caroline, was Napoléon's sister. In 1808 when Joachim and Caroline Murat were appointed King and Queen of Naples, Achille Murat became Prince of Naples. After Napoléon was exiled for a second time, Achille Murat went to Austria and eventually crossed the Atlantic Ocean to the United States in 1823 settling in St. Augustine, Florida.

Later, Murat bought Lipona Plantation 15 miles east of Tallahassee. In 1826, Murat met and married Catherine Willis Gray, the great-grandniece of George Washington. The couple moved to New Orleans for several years, where Murat worked as a lawyer, and in 1831, traveled to Europe in hopes of restoring the Bonaparte Family to power in France. In 1834 they returned to the Tallahassee area. After her husband's death in 1847, Napoléon III provided Catherine Murat with a cash sum of $40,000 and an annual stipend until her death in 1867. She purchased Bellevue, a Tallahassee house built in the 1840s. Now located at the Tallahassee Museum of History and Natural Science, Bellevue has been restored and is open to the public.

Both Catherine and Achille Murat are buried in Tallahassee at the St. Johns Episcopal Church cemetery at Call Street and Martin Luther King, Jr. Boulevard. Their obelisks still stand, with the Murat coat of arms marking their graves. Also in Tallahassee is the prestigious Florida State University Institute on Napoléon and the French Revolution, established in the early 1960s.

Organizations throughout Tallahassee are working together to create a citywide atmosphere of "all things French." Events and programs in conjunction with NAPOLÉON An Intimate Portrait are scheduled from February through the end of April, 2006.

• Museum of Florida History events include Children's Day on January 28, a Curator's presentation, and donor reception. The opening event has been designated an official event of FSU's Seven Days of Opening Nights. Other programs include a presentation by Dr. Donald Horward, founder and former chair of The Institute on Napoléon and the French Revolution at Florida State University, a reading at the Knott House Museum of love letters from Napoléon to Josephine, films, special tours of related sites, and other events.
• The Mary Brogan Museum of Art and Science will open Women of the Napoleonic Era in February 2006, and is planning additional programs.
• The Tallahassee Museum of History and Natural Science will host the Saturday Matinee of the Arts, the Napoléon and His Contemporaries exhibit, tours of Bellevue and living history demonstrations, a celebration of George Washington's birthday, programs about the Achille Murat family, and a Tea and Fashion Show at Bellevue.
• The LeMoyne Art Foundation will host a student exhibit, The Adventures of Jacques LeMoyne: Exploring Uncharted Territories in 16th Century Florida.
• Goodwood Museum & Gardens will display period pieces and French themed items including small painted images of 18th century French court women and letters written by Marie Antoinette.
• The Tallahassee Film Society has planned a series of Napoleon and the Napoleonic era-related films.