#1796-1797

[artschoolglasses]

1790s British Court Dress, illustrations published in the Gallery of Fashion, vol III, April 1 1796 - March 1 1797

From the Met Museum

[digitalfashionmuseum]

Bust, 1796-1797, French.

By Joseph Chinard

Portraying a woman with curled hair.

Musée des Beaux Arts de Lyon.

[nordleuchten]

24 Days of La Fayette: December 12th - André Toussaint Delarûe

And we continue our inquiry with one of La Fayette’s French aide-de-camps. He was born in 1768 in France and served La Fayette during his time as commander of the National Guard. Let me tell you, La Fayette knew only praise for Delarûe service. He wrote Alexander Hamilton on December 8, 1797:

His brother [in-law] delarûe, my aide de camp in the national guards one of the cleverest & best young men I ever knew, has married beaumarchais’s daughter—both he & his brother in law are to divide between themselves the payement of the Sums which in the united States are düe to the young lady’s father.

“To Alexander Hamilton from Marquis de Lafayette, 8 December 1797,” Founders Online, National Archives, [Original source: The Papers of Alexander Hamilton, vol. 21, April 1797 – July 1798, ed. Harold C. Syrett. New York: Columbia University Press, 1974, pp. 325–326.] (10/03/2022)

This letter will not only serve us a character assessment but also as the starting point to take a deep dive in some international affairs. Delarûe was the brother of Julie Delarûe. Julie had married Mathieu Dumas. Dumas was a French officer who had fought in the American War of Independence and who had helped organize the National Guard. He was a noted defender of La Fayette’s against allegation of royalist tendencies. Dumas fled France to Hamburg, Lehmkuhlen and Tremsbüttel, among others and even pretended for a time to be a Danish citizen by the name of Elias Funck. After his return to France, he re-entered the army and rose through the ranks.

Delarûe himself married Eugénie Beaumarchaise on July 11, 1796. Eugénie was the only child of Pierre-Augustin Caron de Beaumarchais and his third wife Marie-Thérèse de Willer-Mawlaz. He also had a son, Augustine, by his second wife Geneviève-Madeleine Lévêque (née Wattebled.) But Augustine died young in 1772. Therefore, Eugénie became his sole heiress and after her marriage to André-Toussaint Delarûe, he came Beaumarchais heir and executer.

Now, Beaumarchais was many, many things during his lifetime but he is perhaps best remembered for his works as a librettist, playwriter, author and dramatist. He was also an early supporter of the American Revolution and organized secret French schemes up to a year prior to France’s formal entry in the War. Beaumarchais invested his own money into these schemes and later demanded a compensation from the American government. After his death in 1799, the struggle was continued by his son-in-law Delarûe and Delarûe’s brother-in-law Dumas.

La Fayette was quite invested in Delarûe’s claims and wrote several letters on his behalf. He wrote Thomas Jefferson on November 11, 1800:

As I’ll Have By this Opportunity the pleasure to Write to You, I shall Now only Mention the Affair of M. de BeauMarchais Which You Better know than I do—His Claims Have Been InHerited By a former Aid de Camp of Mine Who Married Beau-Marchais’s daughter and Whose Sister is a Wife to General Dumas the Chief of the Staff in the Middle Army—My Attachement to My two Companions Makes it a duty for me to Give them the Recommendation Which they Have Requested (…) You Have known Mathieu Dumas in the beggining of the french Revolution, and it is probable You Have Seen Delarue, as an Aid de Camp, at My House.

“To Thomas Jefferson from Lafayette, [11 November 1800],” Founders Online, National Archives, [Original source: The Papers of Thomas Jefferson, vol. 32, 1 June 1800 – 16 February 1801, ed. Barbara B. Oberg. Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2005, p. 252.] (10/03/2022)

André-Toussaint Delarûe died in 1863.

As a little fun fact on the side, it appears as if Dumas had a nickname for Delarûe. In a letter to Alexander Hamilton from December 8, 1797, Dumas called his brother-in-law “Edouard”. Now, either Dumas just forgot the name of his brother-in-law (what I have difficulty to believe) or that was perhaps some sort of nickname.

[internationalplayboysdotcom]

excited would be an understatement

[armatofu]

[weirdlookindog]

Francisco de Goya (1746 - 1828) - A caza de dientes (Out hunting for teeth), 1796-1797

Plate 12 from 'Los Caprichos'

[ltwilliammowett]

Memorial Brooch to Rear Admiral McKerlie, Died 12th Septr 1848. Aged 74 years, 1848

Rear Admiral John McKerlie (1774-1848) entered the Royal Navy as a volunteer in April 1794 having been at sea in the Atlantic and Baltic merchant service from a young age. Rated Able Seaman, he was sent from the receiving ship Royal William to join the elite frigate force based at Falmouth that cruised the Channel countering the activities of French commerce raiders. McKerlie was assigned to the frigate Arethusa (38) commanded by one of the most successful frigate captains of the day, Captain Sir Edward Pellew. 

In early 1795 McKerlie followed Pellew into the 44-gun heavy frigate Indefatigable with the rate of Quarter-Gunner. Owing to a sound Scottish education and his knowledge of the sea McKerlie was soon acting as Indefatigable’s schoolmaster instructing the other eighteen ‘young gentleman’ of the gunroom in the specifics of their profession, having himself been appointed a midshipman.  Throughout 1795 and 1796 he participated in the capture of the numerous French prizes which brought further fame and glory to Sir Edward Pellew. It was however early the next year that Indefatigable fought what is generally regarded as one of the boldest frigate actions of the French Revolutionary War.

On the dark and stormy night of 13 January 1797 the French 74 Droits de l’Homme was sighted off the Brittany coast. Pellew, recognizing that he was heavily outclassed, saw that the waves prevented his opponent from opening the lower gun ports and that the severe weather had caused the loss of the enemy’s topmasts. Seizing the initiative, Indefatigable closed followed by the frigate Amazon and raked the French ship of the line at every opportunity. The enemy replied with 4,000 canon balls over the next few hours until finally driven in to Audierne Bay irreparably damaged by British gunfire and the unabated gale. The sight of distant breakers however threatened the destruction of all three ships. Indefatigable, though with masts damaged and with four feet of water in her hold, alone just had time to alter course and escape.

For Pellew the action was a triumph, Lord Spencer at the Admiralty acknowledging that for two frigates to destroy a ship of the line was ‘an exploit which has not I believe ever before graced our naval Annals’. For McKerlie the action was a trauma, costing him his right arm and a severe wound to the thigh. McKerlie's sacrifice was deeply felt Sir Edward Pellew whom he followed to his subsequent command, the mutinous ship of the line Impetueux. While serving aboard the Impetueux, McKerlie participated in numerous boat actions during the Quiberon expedition in 1800, and was present during the planning of a proposed attack on Belleisle. Marshall’s Royal Naval Biography relates how McKerlie ‘…not having heard how he was to be employed, went up to Sir Edward, interrupted him in a conversation with Major-General Maitland, and asking what part he was to act in the event of a debarkation taking place? The answer was “McKerlie you have lost one hand already, and if you loose the other you will not have anything to wipe your backside with; you will remain on board with the first lieutenant and fight the ship as she is to engage an 8-gun battery.”’

The loss of an arm did little to impede McKerlie’s career. He was regarded as a talented surveyor and draftsman, working at onetime with the celebrated civil engineer Thomas Telford. He was also considered a first class shot. He received his lieutenant’s commission in 1804 and served in H.M.S. Spartiate at the Battle of Trafalgar on 21 October 1805. He was present in the capture of Flushing and the Walcheren expedition, and commanded a squadron of ships stationed off Heligoland; oversaw the defence and retreat from Cuxhaven; and was responsible for destroying enemy shipping on the Braak. 

Unable to get a command after 1813, McKerlie returned to his native Galloway where he married, Harriet, daughter of James Stewart of Cairnsmuir, had one daughter, Lillias (1821-1915), to either or both of whom the present brooch no doubt belonged. In a post service career McKerlie served as a local magistrate and operated commercial vessels from the port of Garlieston. After almost twenty years ashore, he made an unlikely returned to the Royal Navy as captain of the experimental frigate Vernon between 1834 and 1837. He was awarded a Pension for Wounds on 8 May 1816.

Despite the ever growing kudos that was accorded to Trafalgar veterans in the early  Victorian age, it is perhaps with greater pride that Admiral McKerlie recalled his service under Pellew (or Lord Exmouth, as he became); and in 1847 was one of only eight surviving veterans who had lived long enough to apply for the Naval General Service Medal with a clasp for the Droits de L’Homme engagement.  The following year, in 1848, he died at Corvisel House, Newton Stewart, at the age of seventy-three.

[oncanvas]

Gallery of Fashion, vol. III: April 1, 1796 - March 1, 1797, Nicolaus Heideloff, 1794-1802

Hand-colored etching and engraving 13.38 x 10.44 in. (34 x 26.5 cm) The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York City, NY, USA

[whencyclopedia]

XYZ Affair

The XYZ Affair was a diplomatic incident that occurred in 1797-98, involving diplomats from the United States and Revolutionary France. Amidst rising tensions between the two nations, President John Adams sent envoys to Paris to negotiate a treaty, only to find that the French would not open negotiations unless the US paid a bribe. This helped to incite the Quasi-War.

The affair came at a time when the concurrent French Revolution (1789-1799) was already creating divisions within American politics. The nationalist Federalist Party – of which President Adams was a member – was horrified by the violence of the French Revolution and wanted to move the United States away from France's sphere of influence. To do this, they sought to foster closer political and economic ties with Great Britain, which they viewed as the natural ally of the US. This caused outrage amongst the rival political faction, the Democratic-Republican Party (Jeffersonian Democrats), who believed that closer ties with Britain would only undermine republicanism in the United States. At the same time, the French Republic viewed the budding relationship between the US and Britain as an act of aggression and authorized attacks on American merchant vessels in late 1796.

In 1797, President Adams sought to resolve the issue diplomatically and sent three envoys to France. These envoys had expected to be received by the French foreign minister, Charles Maurice de Talleyrand-Périgord; instead, they were met by three French intermediaries (referred to in coded dispatches as agents 'X', 'Y', and 'Z') who insisted that the United States pay a large bribe in order to meet with Talleyrand and begin negotiations. When this became public knowledge in the US, it inflamed public opinion against the French, leading to increased support for Adams and the anti-French Federalists. Rising Franco-American tensions led to a brief, undeclared naval conflict called the Quasi-War (1798-1800), as well as the passage of the controversial Alien and Sedition Acts (1798).

Background

In 1778, the Kingdom of France signed a Treaty of Alliance with the fledgling United States. The American Revolutionary War had been ongoing for three years, and the Americans had time and again proven their resilience and determination in battle against the British; however, it was clear to all that the American rebellion would falter if they did not receive support from a European power. France was happy to oblige, seeing that a victory in America would humiliate and weaken its rival, Great Britain. France provided the Americans with arms, ammunition, uniforms, troops, and ships, and it turned the war into a global conflict by threatening the valuable British colonies in India and the West Indies, forcing Britain to spread its military resources thin. French soldiers and ships proved vital to the decisive American victory at the Siege of Yorktown, the engagement that solidified American independence. Certainly, the French contributed greatly to the ultimate American victory and succeeded in striking a blow to British prestige in the process.

But such a war came with a monstrous cost, and France soon found itself drowning in debt. Attempts to tackle the problem failed, and France's economic misfortunes blossomed into a revolution. News of the Storming of the Bastille in July 1789 was sweet to American ears, as was the proclamation of the First French Republic three years later. Americans were jubilant that their French brothers-in-arms were following their lead and casting off the shackles of monarchism, with Thomas Jefferson and his supporters even welcoming the new French Republic as "our younger sister" (Wood, 182). But then came the violence: the September Massacres, the trial and execution of Louis XVI, and the start of the Reign of Terror made the streets of Paris slick with blood and plunged the young French Republic deeper into chaos. Under the new Jacobin regime, hundreds of thousands of French citizen-soldiers swept into Europe, vowing to deliver liberty and equality at the point of a bayonet. The French Revolutionary Wars were soon underway as the great powers of Europe – Austria, Prussia, Spain, Portugal, and Great Britain among them – took up arms against the French.

Even now, the French Revolution had support in the United States, with men like Jefferson believing that a little violence was the price to pay for liberty. They believed that the 1778 Treaty of Alliance was still in effect and urged the Washington Administration to offer support to their sister republic. However, President George Washington was reluctant to offer any such support. He knew that doing so would risk antagonizing Great Britain, with whom relations were already low, at a time when the United States was completely unprepared for war. Instead, Washington issued a Proclamation of Neutrality on 22 April 1793, in which he promised to keep the United States out of the French Revolutionary Wars. The following year, his administration negotiated a deal with Britain – the controversial Jay Treaty, ratified by Congress in 1795, created stronger economic and political ties between Britain and the United States. While this achieved the goal of the Washington Administration and the Federalist Party of avoiding another war with England, it outraged the Jeffersonian faction of Americans (Democratic-Republicans), who still wanted to support France and feared that the treaty placed the US too closely within Britain's sphere of influence.

Jay Treaty

John Jay (Public Domain)

The French Republic itself was also incensed by the Jay Treaty, which it interpreted as a British-American alliance. The French felt especially double-crossed because they believed the 1778 Treaty of Alliance was still in effect and had been expecting American support. They retaliated in 1796 when French privateers began attacking American shipping in the British West Indies. Within the next year, nearly 300 American merchant ships were captured, their crews often subjected to maltreatment; in one instance, the French tortured the American captain of the Cincinnatus with thumb screws to get him to confess that he was carrying British goods. Amidst these rising tensions, Washington, who was preparing to leave office, recalled James Monroe as ambassador to France, feeling that Monroe was too pro-French. In his place, Washington sent Charles Cotesworth Pinckney, a hardline Federalist from South Carolina; but when Pinckney arrived in Paris, the French refused to even receive him. This was how matters stood when John Adams was inaugurated as the second US president on 4 March 1797 – a discontented pro-French faction on American soil, and an aggressive French Republic looking to assert its will.

Continue reading...

[artschoolglasses]

Gallery of Fashion, vol. III: April 1 1796 - March 1 1797

From the Met Museum

[digitalfashionmuseum]

Beige Silk Dress, 1796-1799, French.

Met Museum.

[uwmspeccoll]

Shakespeare Weekend

The Pictorial Edition of the Works of Shakspere edited and published by Charles Knight (1797-1873) out of London in 1839 was originally issued in fifty-six monthly parts before being bound in an eight-volume set. Like earlier Shakespeare editors, Knight felt all previous editions of Shakespeare collections had been compiled by men who “had corrupted his text, and had never rightly appreciated his consummate art.” As an experienced publisher of encyclopedias and miscellanies, he set out to “humbly” correct their errors with an ambitiously illustrated collection.  

The wood engravings place Shakespeare’s characters and events within a historical context opposed to a theatrical one and are elucidated in subsidiary segments interspersed throughout the plays’ acts. Volume One of Knight’s collection includes Two Gentlemen of Verona, Love’s Labour’s Lost, The Merry Wives of Windsor, The Comedy of Errors, Taming of the Shrew, and A Midsummer Night’s Dream. Most illustrations within the collection are unsigned, but British wood engravers John Jackson (1801-1848) and William Harvey (1796-1866) along with British painter G.F. Sargent are featured prominently among the titlepage and larger illustrations.   

View more Shakespeare Weekend posts. 

-Jenna, Special Collections Graduate Intern 

[grace-williams-xo]

ALRIGHT. I had time to kill waiting for an appointment so I have dug through countless pages on the Julia Quinn wiki, the Bridgerton wiki and used a ss from Julia’s fb to compile the most comprehensive list of as many characters as possibles birthdays and middle names. No point in keeping it to myself let’s go.

Canon (probably) Bridgerton biographical info:

Middle names

This is the birth name of everyone I could find a middle name for. Scratching at the walls for Julia Quinn to tell us the children’s middle names (though I have headcanons)

Violet Elizabeth Ledger

Simon Arthur Henry Fitzranulph Basset

Katharine Grace Sheffield (Kathani Sharma’s middle name isn’t confirmed anywhere)

Sophia Maria Beckett

Penelope Anne Featherington

Michael Stuart Stirling

Lucy Margaret Catherine Abernathy

Gareth William St. Clair

Birthdates

This is very messy because some idk, some vary between show and book and some are inconsistent everywhere (Colin I’m looking at you)

This is the fb post in question. (Julia Quinn how dare you tell us you have all their birthday’s written down and not tell us 😭)

Edmund: 1764–1803 (was 38 at death, meaning his birthday was later in the year than May ish when he died) [EDIT: his tombstone in the show says he died in May]

Violet: 11th April 1766 (Aries)

Anthony: 17th September, 1784

Benedict: July/August, 1786

Colin: 2nd March, 1791 (books) 1792 or 1793 or 1794 (tv) [okay, so, both wiki sites say show Colin’s born 1792 or 1793 and it has broken my brain because he is canonically one year older than Daphne and in a copy of the pilot script I found online Daphne is listed as 18 (which fits with her debut) and him 19 but for him to be 19 in the social season he would’ve had to have just turned 19 (bc start of March birthday) and that would make him also born in 1994 but it is clearly not possible for Violet to birth two children in six months furthermore in s2 Benedict outright says that Colin is 21 which would have made him 20 in s1 and thus born 1792; so Colin was born in 1793 or 1792 or maybe even 1794 or inside a fucking void idk anymore but show Colin’s birthday probably isn’t March]

Daphne: August/September, 1792 (books) 1794 or 1795 (tv) [I think 1794 because she is listed as being 18 in a copy of the pilot script I found online, and she is debuting, so she would’ve been 18 turning 19 born in 1794]

Eloise: April (before 22nd) 1796

Francesca: April (before 22nd) 1797

Gregory: January/February (I think February), 1801

Hyacinth: May/June, 1803 [EDIT: Edmund’s tombstone in the show says he died in May, making Hyacinth’s birthday likely in June imo but I actually have no basis for that guess other than vibes]

Kate: 1793 (books) 1788 (tv)

Sophie: 1794

Penelope: 8th April 1796 (Aries)

Simon: 1784

Phillip: 1794

John: 1792

Michael: 1791

Lucy: 1807

Gareth: March 1797

If you made it this far, good job! If you have any info to add, please do so in the replies/reblogs.

[anghraine]

Hi! I was wondering, sorry for the dumb question, but are Mr Bingley and Mr Darcy hairstyles accurate for the time in the 2005's adaptation of P&P? I always associated 18th century (even the late part) with log hair for men or just wigs, so I'm curious. I associate them more with the 19th century, but I'm sure I'm completely wrong.

Hello! It's not dumb at all, and I only delayed answering because I was busy, but I'm taking a brief break. Disclaimer, though, that I'm not a historian and especially not a fashion historian.

The 2005 adaptation is not aiming for accurate representation of a particular year, but seems to be inspired by the fashions of the late 1790s, perhaps as late as 1800 or so for very fashionable characters. One of the aesthetic concepts behind the costuming IIRC was that it would reflect the era of P&P's original composition by Austen (1796-1797), but also reflect the attitudes of the characters to both fashion and life generally. Older characters wear the styles of their youths (whatever those may be), while even younger ones vary among themselves.

The idea, again going by memory, was that Jane's costumes would be more up-to-date than Elizabeth's and lean towards more early Regency-like hairstyles and delicate pastels, where Elizabeth often wears earth tones and is slower to adopt modern styles (I do not personally see Elizabeth this way, but it's the concept behind her costuming). Darcy starts out as nicely-dressed, but extremely buttoned up (literally), but wears his coat open and in a fashionable vibrant blue when he comes back to Hertfordshire, his hair in more disarray etc.

With regard to hair specifically, the question of accuracy wrt length/powder depends on the character. The hair powder tax that contributed to the change in men's fashion was passed in May of 1795, if I'm remembering correctly. I think the abandonment of hair powder was initially fairly politicized as a form of opposition to Pitt's government, but IMO the Darcys and Fitzwilliams are pretty strongly coded as people who would be in opposition to Pitt, so it's entirely possible that Darcy would have abandoned hair powder and cut his hair off well before the story begins. I have a post about this in relation to book Darcy here, actually.

Would the shorter hair have looked like Matthew Macfadyen's in P&P? Probably not exactly, but it's not so different from hairstyles that can be seen in paintings at the turn of the (19th) century, and Bingley's odd hairstyle also seems to deliberately refer to the oddities of this transitional era of fashion. Bingley could have still been wearing powdered, longer hair at the time, but I can easily envision him imitating Darcy even if he doesn't care about the politics of it. So late 1790s versus early 1790s does make a difference!

The novel, incidentally, does reference Mr Bennet still using a powdering gown, as I mention in the linked post. This doesn't have to mean he's still powdering his hair, and I think he would be exempt from the tax anyway if he still wished to, but it's entirely possible for P&P to take place at a time where some men would powder their hair and others wouldn't.

[houghtonlib]

Ascetical treatises : manuscript, 2108 [1796 or 1797] Date from colophon, which gives the copyist's name as Denḥa the Mountaineer, a priest and monk, and the place of writing the monastery of Zaʻfaran.

MS Syriac 48

Houghton Library, Harvard University

[weirdlookindog]

Francisco de Goya (1746-1828) - Se repulen (They spruce themselves up), 1796-1797

Plate 51 from 'Los Caprichos'