Winter Lecture by Andrew Blackdog

_{Book by Friday 18th November!}

On Wednesday 16th November we're delighted to be welcoming Andrew Blackdog.

A little after eight o’clock on the evening of Sunday 18th June 1815, Napoleon stalked off the field of Waterloo, surrounded by a retreating square of the 1st Grenadiers à Pied. At this juncture, most histories of 1815 conclude; but the next fifty fraught days, including his second abdication and surrender to the Royal Navy are as fascinating as the better-known “Hundred Days” that preceded them.

As his enemies closed in on Paris, Napoleon decided to sail for the United States. Two of France’s most powerful frigates lay at his disposal off Rochefort. With him travelled a fascinating entourage, some devotedly loyal and others outrageously self-serving, together with their wives and children. Fanny de Bertrand, half French half Anglo-Irish, played a major role in shaping Napoleon’s thoughts. Albine de Montholon-Sémonville, wife of one of his ADCs, was to become his last mistress and mother of his last child.
Caught between encircling Royalist forces and HMS Bellerophon blockading the Basque Roads, Napoleon eventually decided to “seek asylum” on her. He spent 24 days aboard her, most of them at anchor in Torbay and Plymouth, where he was finally informed of the British Government’s decision to exile him on St. Helena for life; a fate of such dubious legality that, nine months later, the British Parliament passed two Acts legitimising what Lord Liverpool and the Cabinet had done.
 
The lecture will start at 18:30 prompt, so we recommend you arrive in good time to get a drink from the bar to take to your seat in the Island Room. If you are booked for supper, it will be served in the River Room after the lecture, please sit where you wish.  Supper service will be served buffet style.

_{Book your seat and your supper!}

Members should book for supper no later than Friday 11th November, along with any dietary requirements. Supper this week will be Fish Curry and Rice for £15:00. If you would like to attend the lecture without the supper, please also reserve your seat so that we can monitor numbers.

_{Book seats and suppers here}