The Napoleon Bonaparte Podcast #002 - Early life and military career
Napoleon #002 (mp3 - 16Mb - 46mins)
In Episode #2 of Napoleon 101, we start the story of Napoleon’s life with his birth in the town of Ajaccio on the island of Corsica in the Mediterranean. We then cover:
- The political environment of Corsica
- His father Carlo’s relationship with the Corsican revolutionary Paoli
- Napoleon’s life at military boarding school from age 9
- The French Revolution occurs in 1789 and Napoleon’s reaction to it
- In 1791 he returns to Corsica to play a role in its revolution
- In 1793 he splits with Paoli and has to escape Corsica with his entire family
- He then experiences more civil war at the battle of Avignon
- Writes the short story Le Souper de Beaucaire
- Finally, at age 24, he is the architect of the victory at Toulon!
- For his part he is promoted to Brigadier General
In the next episode, we will start with the events of Thermidor and the infamous “whiff of grapeshot”!
If you are enjoying the series but want to learn more about Napoleon, don’t forget to check out David’s many books, including “Napoleon For Dummies”, which you can find here.
February 27th, 2006 at 2:13 am
Really enjoyed this episode. And the flow between both of you works well. Sound quality could be a little better, but overall - just great!
February 27th, 2006 at 3:21 am
Thanks Bill! Yeah the sound quality wasn’t 100% in this episode. We had some echo on the skype line. David and I will work on improving that before the next show.
March 9th, 2006 at 1:32 am
Bill,
Thanks for the kind comments. I, too, am more than pleased with the way Cameron and I are getting on with this show; its great fun and, I hope, useful to those who listen in to hear our latest tidbits of wisdom.
As to the sound quality, I think that is a problem with Skype that we may or may not be able to resolve. I’ll leave that to Cameron: if he can’t fix it, it cannot be fixed! But I am pleased with the content, and really enjoy working with Cameron.
March 10th, 2006 at 3:11 am
Hi;
I really enjoy this podcast. I like the fact that you don’t believe in comparing Napoeon to Hitler, this is something that I complain about in the history classes that I take.
I was just stopping buy to offer my words of encouragement and gratitude for creating an interesting history based podcast!
March 15th, 2006 at 12:03 am
Dear David and Cameron,
I thank you both for the 2 wonderful episode’s. They were great and it was a real pleasure for me listening them…I am already looking forward to the 3th one. I hope that a lot of people will enjoy them too and will see that the Emperor was a great man, the greatest of them all. He (the Emperor) would be/is proud of you two…
It is a great contribution to memory of the Emperor Napoleon.
Thanks,
Tim
March 15th, 2006 at 8:39 am
Dear Tim and Stanislaw,
Thanks for your very kind comments. Cameron and I are really enjoying this podcast and I am very much looking forward to the next edition. It is a real opportunity to take Napoleonic history to a wide audience, and I thank Cameron for making it all possible.
I hope you will keep tuning in to hear what else we have to say. And (surprise!) I hope you will consider reading one of my books for more on the subject.
My very best to one and all,
J. David Markham
March 20th, 2006 at 10:59 am
Bravo David and Cameron.
This really is a fantastic Idea, and the two Episodes so far have proven to be well balanced and informative, a good basic introduction to Napoleon. I’ve been inspired to dust off my old copy of the late David Chandler’s Campaigns of Napoleon just to get my Nappy fix between podcasts. Bravo again.
September 15th, 2006 at 9:17 am
Again, another wonderful show. Informative and entertaining. Early Napoleon in a nutshell. You guys work well together. Kudos.