Items of Napoleonic interest crop up in the most unusual of places. I was reading a copy of the New Scientist the other day, and noticed a short piece about fossils and the French army. In 1776 a large fossil skull (later identified as that of a mosasaur, a giant marine lizard of the Cretaceous period) was discovered in a chalk pit at Maastricht. The fossil was kept in that town until 1795, when French revolutionary troops were poised to take the place. The anatomist Baron Cuvier persuaded the French to capture the skull, and twelve grenadiers were detached for the purpose. They successfully carried out their task, and were rewarded with 600 bottles of wine! The skull is now in a museum in Paris. It is thought that with so much wine, those grenadiers were out of their skulls as well!

STUDY GROUPS

Two such groups are now in existence within the Napoleonic Association; one for the Austrian Military and another for the German States of the Napoleonic era. Dave Hollins is the focus for the former, while John Henderson deals with the latter. If you are interested in exchanging information on these subjects as part of an informal group, then contact myself and I will pass on details.

More Dusty Archive

Introduction and Study Groups
Museums: Review of 23rd Foot Regt Museum
Monuments and Holidays
Books
Napoleon's Body Odor
1992 Meetings