Hey, Neighbors!
I have a very important request. Can anyone please help me out with finding reliable sources on the Peninsular War? Especially on the entire Dos de Mayo stuff that happened in Madrid.
I really need this information for a story set in Madrid during that period and I want to be as close to the truth as humanly possible.
Thanks in advance!
P. S. I am searching for resources in my university library already. For reference, I’m in Valencia.
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Napoleon worries (a little)
After having learned of the uprising in Madrid on “Dos de Mayo” 1808, Napoleon writes to Murat, who of course is in Madrid) among many orders on how to suppress the riots also the following line:
Je vous recommande de bien vous garder, et je vous défends expressément d’aller dans les rues.
I urge you to be on your guard, and I expressly forbid you to go into the streets.
Don’t go out, it’s dangerous out there! Awww.
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Wendelien van Oldenborgh. tono lengua boca, Edited by Anna Manubens, Texts by Sung Hwan Kim, Anna Manubens, Manuel Segade, Wendelien van Oldenborgh, Leire Vergara, Music by Winston Belliot (2Dope), Dean Burke (Owlz), Gio Doemoeng (Zillion), Romeo K. Gambier (Mixmaster Fader), Mehrak Golestan (Reveal), Milford Kendall (Scep), Deize Tigrona, CA2M Centro de Arte Dos de Mayo, Madrid, 2019 [Exhibition: Curated by Anna Manubens, CA2M Móstoles, Madrid, October 3, 2019 – January 5, 2020] [Museum für Gestaltung Zürich]. Design by Julia Born
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Napoleon’s fake letter to Murat
The first edition of Napoleon’s correspondence, published during the Second Empire, lists in Volume XVI on page 450 as No. 13696 a letter that Napoleon allegedly had written to Murat on 29 March 1808, while Murat was staying in Madrid, prior to the “dos de Mayo” uprising and the double abdication of Carlos and Ferdinand at Bayonne. The letter neither fits the content of Napoleon’s other verifiable letters that he did write to Murat, nor Napoleon’s usual writing style.
The historians and editors responsible for publishing the correspondence were probably quite aware that they were dealing with an apokryphe letter, judging from the long footnote they added to it:
This letter, of which no minute, original or authentic copy has ever been found, was first published in the Mémorial de Sainte-Hélène (t. IV, p. 246 et seq., ed. 1823). It has since been given again by M. de Montholon in his Récits de la Captivité, etc. (t. II, p. 451 et seq., ed. 1847). Like M. de Las Cases, M. de Montholon claims to have been told about it by the Emperor Napoleon himself. The authenticity of this document was accepted by M. de Bausset (Mémoires sur l'intérieur du Palais, etc., t. I, p. 151 et seq., ed. 1827); by M. le Duc de Rovigo (Memoires, etc., t. III, p. 258 et seq., ed. 1828); by M. Thibaudeau [...]
And if so many bonapartists with an interest to falsify history in order to make Napoleon look better than he was on this occasion, all agree that this letter is authentic, it must be true. Right?
The letter in question is several pages long, contains endless musings about the situation in Spain and, most importantly, lays the responsibility for the uprising that is about to happen squarely ate Murat’s feet, as Murat he had acted on his own accord instead of on Napoleon’s orders:
I do not approve of the decision taken by Your Imperial Highness to seize Madrid so hastily. The army should have been kept ten leagues from the capital. [...] Your entry into Madrid, by worrying the Spaniards, has served Ferdinand immensely.
This assumption is directly opposed to several - authentic - letters in which Napoleon, of course, sends Murat to the Spanish capital, orders him to get a hold on anything and anybody of importance and to, of course, use violence in case the population revolts.
So, to sum up, apparently Napoleon did take the pain to dictate a fake letter to Las Cases and/or Montholon on Saint Helena, in order to exculpiate himself and pretend that the whole quagmire in Spain had, at least to a large degree, been caused by Murat. Considering that, at the time, Murat was long dead, this is a truly perfidious act from Napoleon, destroying the reputation of a dead former friend.
Or so I thought. And because I thought that, I would like to publicly apologize now. Because I’m convinced, whoever invented this letter, it was not Napoleon: This fake letter is not in the original manuscript of Las Cases. It only shows up in the edition of 1823. So either Las Cases invented it out og his own volition. Or somebody gave him the idea. In any case, before publishing the first volumes of his grand oeuvre, Las Cases had plenty of time to meet with all kind of people who may have uttered wishes or suggestions.
I could come up with at least one name of a former monarch in Spain who was known to not be a friend of Murat’s, whose scruples in telling lies seem to have been underdeveloped and who in certain aspects may have held pretty similar views as those expressed in the fake letter... But that is utter speculation on my part.
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Mermay days 1-3 (self portrait, upside down, twisted) and 5. (Cinco de mayo)
Mermaid lore: Out there, there is a mermaid wizard enchanting some mermaid paints to work under water. Mermaids are amphibious, so a mermaid painter could opt to live on the surface and spend less on paints. However, self-portrait mermaid does not want to do this because he got a really bad sunburn on the surface once and decided he hated it.
In many species of fish, the males are more colorful, so it would make more sense for male mermaids to be colorful and femme presenting, but any mermaid can be colorful and femme presenting b/c I say so.
In Cinco De Mayo, the mermaid is stabbing Napoleon III.
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En honor a todos nosotros, trabajadores
El Día 1 de Mayo nos dejan reinvidicar nuestros derechos en todo el mundo. Y al día siguiente... al día siguiente volvemos a trabajo: Cuando empezamos La Rebelión?
Foto tomada en
Parque de Las Vistillas de Madrid, 1 de Mayo de 2023
El permiso para nuestra manifestación terminó a las 7pm en punto, como nuestras jornadas laborales... qué ironia
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