Hans - Karl WeiĂ (sorry for butchering your name! đ) had asked for my thoughts on the video talk by Beatrice de Graaf hosted on Youtube.
As it got rather long, and as Hortense is an interesting character in her own right, I guess it's only fair to give her her own thread. So here is what I have in ways of questions, doubts and corrections:
6:44 ff - »Itâs fascinating that so little has been written about her.«
This can only mean that, as usual, German sources seem to have been completely ignored, which is indeed somewhat astonishing considering that THE Hortense museum, publisher of several books about Hortense, Arenenberg, is in Switzerland, and that the speaker allegedly studied German (?). But I also miss Hortenseâs other writings, in that list, the Cochelet memoirs etc., the letters to EugĂšne published by Jean Hanoteau, and as to secondary sources and earlier biographies, the French Wikipedia page alone lists several of them, while still missing for example that by Françoise de Bernardy. As already mentioned, for the period this video seems to mostly focus on, the time in exile, I can greatly recommend »Die Königin Hortense und ihre Söhne« by Joachim KĂŒhn. So, no, Iâm sorry, I canât agree on that one. Also, this would have been an error easy to avoid, given that all you had to do was look at the reference list of Hortenseâs Wikipedia articles.
9:30 ff - »Alexandre [âŠ] demanded a divorce.«
9:55 ff - »Hortense spent her pre-school years from 5 years until 10 years old [...]«
10:28 ff: »After the outbreak of a slave revolt in 1793 [...]«
10:46 ff: »Hortense and her little brother Eugene were in Paris alone [...]«
10:59 ff: [Rose barely avoids execution] »In the meantime Hortense received a very good education [...]«
11:18 ff: [At school] »and she excelled at everything [...]«
12:36 ff: »Napoleonâs star rose rapidly [...]«
13:31 ff: »[âŠ] gloomy Louis who bored everyone with his hypochondriac [I did not understand the following words, thanks in advance to anyone who can clear it up for me]
13:48 ff: »Neither was Louis very attracted to Hortense [...]«
13:57 ff: »and nine months later [...]«
14:15 ff: »She held her son [âŠ] heir to the emperorâs throne [âŠ]«
14:27 ff: »and almost all his brothers receive crowns«
14:30 ff: [Louis becomes king of Holland, then Hortense gives birth to a second son in 1803]
15:30 ff: [Hortense being beloved in Holland]
16:43 ff: »Hortense [âŠ] was taken in shock to her mother in France[...]«
17:56: »Josephine«
19:30 ff: »the five-year-old was only two weeks on the throne of London«?
19:35 ff: »the whole Bonapartist family had to flee the Netherlands [...]«
23:05 ff: »Hortense and her brother supported the emperor with all their might [...]«
23:15 ff: »[Napoleon] was captured by the English [...]«
23:31 ff: »Louise Cochelet [âŠ] who also wrote beautiful memoirs [...]«
24:28 ff: »a traitor but also a danger«
26:01 ff: »Hortense did not want to go to the Netherlands«
26:20 ff: [Hortense being spied upon etc.]
26:30 ff: »she finally arrived in [âŠ] Baden«
31:55 ff: »passports [âŠ] also a new allied invention«
34:25 ff: »very much an idea of Metternich [âŠ]
37:15 ff: »Joseph and Murat would eventually be granted asylum in Austria«
39:26 ff: »there and then in the mountains of Switzerland [...]«
41:01 ff: »raised her sons to be staunch Bonapartists«
41:06 ff: »Philippe Le Bas«
41:45 ff: »the Austrian and Papal governments launched an offensive [against the Carbonari]«
42:15 ff: »travelled incognito to Paris«
42:45 ff: »Ever since the fall of Napoleon [âŠ] a Bonapartist movement had existed [âŠ]«
44:15 ff: »In 1837 Hortense fell ill while Louis Napoleon was travelling the world [âŠ]«
44:38 ff: »Dutch newspapers only devoted three lines [to Hortenseâs death]«
We could discuss my personal opinion â as opposed to that of Beatrice de Graaf - of Hortense further, of course, for what it is worth. But this first post is solely about my points of criticism regarding the mere factual correctness of the presentation as such. I guess my main question is: As the speaker in the introduction already had made clear that she considered the book by Thera Coppens rather disappointing, why did she still base her presentation on it?
you find me a bit confused, as are those points you are listing mistakes, correction of mistakes? As to Beatrice de Graafs expertise in German, it looks great to me regarding her other participations in different podcasts, and she pronounces the names quite well, usually an indication of good knowledge. Usually Dutch people are quite good in English and German as well, true linguists compared to other nations. Compare with the introducer Tom Fournier - how he pronounces Beatrice or in another podcast Kutusov, always as Kutzov.