There is definitely an increased interest in the Napoleonic period, and items of interest crop up in the daily newspapers all the time. From one daily tabloid I learnt that derelict land at the former Gray's Shipyard, Hartlepool, Cleveland, has been transformed into an 18th century seaport. This £ 17m scheme is part of Teeside Development Corporation's Hartlepool marina project.

A few years ago the early nineteenth century frigate Foudroyant was moved from Portsmouth Harbour to Hartlepool for restoration. It had been in Portsmouth for many years as a Sea Cadet training vessel and as a venue for folk concerts and the like. The vessel was launched in India in October 1817 as HMS Trincomalee, taking her name from a port in Ceylon. Her construction was based upon a French prize of the 1790s, the Hebe. When she arrived in Portsmouth in 1819 there was no longer any need for a large Royal Navy, so she was laid up until 1845, when it was decided to recommision her. She served in the West Indies, the Pacific and the Crimean station, and in 1860 was designated as a training ship for the newly formed Royal Naval Reserve.

In 1897 a rather more famous ship than HMS Trincomalee was driven ashore and wrecked by a gale at Blackpool. This was HMS Foudroyant, a vessel that was Nelson's flagship for a few months from June 1799 to January 1800. When this ship ended its service in the Royal Navy in 1891 ( as a tender to a gunnery ship) she was purchased by a Mr G.W.Cobb of Caldicott Castle near Chepstow, and used as a training ship for Cadets and as a mobile tourist attraction around the coast of Britain, which is how she came to be destroyed at Blackpool. All that remains is her figurehead of the god Mars (Foudroyant is French for 'Thunderer') which adorns Caldicott Castle.

Mr Cobb was determined to carry on his work of making Englishmen treasure their naval heritage, and so he purchased the Trincomalee, and renamed her Foudroyant. She eventually ended her days in Portsmouth harbour, only to be transferred north some years ago, with the intention of being refitted as a tourist attraction. Perhaps she will become part of the marina project described at the start of this section. If any reader can supply more information about this interesting project, would they contact this magazine so that details can be published.

APSLEY HOUSE

The Guardian published an article in July headed 'Wellington triumph in homely Waterloo', about the restoration work that is being performed on Apsley House. The building has suffered much from damp, dry rot, asbestos-clad plumbing and an urgent need for electrical rewiring. It has been restored as it was in the great Duke's heyday by the Victoria and Albert Museum, and should reopen to the public for the 180th anniversary of the Battle of Waterloo next year. Unfortunately, the cost of these repairs and refurbishments has risen from £ 2.7 million to nearly £ 6 million, and the V&A has still to decide how much to charge when this impressive museum finally reopens.

AUCTIONS

In June the auction house of Christie's had a French Week, in which many items of art from English country houses were put up for auction. Many of these items came to this country from France during the Revolution, when one James Christie received a boost to his infant auction house. Many of the works in the recent sale went back across the Channel.

One example of the items on sale was a pair of Chinese porcelain ewers, which went for £ 1,046,500. These had once belonged to Marie-Antoinette and were commissioned for her rooms at Versailles. When the Revolution occurred in 1789, the French Queen consigned the ewers and her most precious works of art for safe keeping to a firm of Paris merchants. After the king and queen were guillotined in 1793 the revolutionaries auctioned most of the royal collections, many items from which found their way to England.

Selling for £ 62,000 was Napoleon's dental set, supposedly acquired by a British soldier from the French baggage train after Waterloo. The gilt and white metal inlaid box bore his arms, and was thought to have been owned by the Emperor or his dentist for sole use on the great man's teeth.

FRENCH COMMANDERS STUDY GROUP

The lives of the many principal figures in the Emperor's military hierarchy have already been chronicled in detail, and full- length biographies in the English language on Davout, Bernadotte, Berthier, Massena, Murat etc. already exist, quite apart from the various multi-biographied volumes on the Marshalate. But what of other senior French officers?

According to George Six' famed 'Dictionnaire Biographique des Generaux et Amiraux Francais de la Revolution et de I'Empire' there were over 2,000 such officers. Who were these men, and what kind of people were they? What were their backgrounds? Were they good commanders? Were they loyal Bonapartists, Republicans or Bourbons? What were their weaknesses and failings? How did they die? How are they remembered today?

The answers to these and many more questions are the aim of the French Commanders Study Group within the Napoleonic Association. This is an enormous field with massive source potential. If you would like to participate, and receive the Group's newsletter, write with an sae to:

Terry Senior, 4 Parc-An-Pons, Green Lane Marazion, Cornwall TR 17 OHQ

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