A Waterloo dinner

(Reposted with slight alterations from my personal blog.)


I've been saying for years, ever since I turned into a Napoleonic Wars military history geek and developed a historical crush on the Duke of Wellington, that I wanted to start hosting an annual Waterloo dinner on or around the battle's June 18 anniversary.

This year I put my money and my kitchen where my mouth was.  Now, I suppose you could do a Waterloo dinner with authentic 1815 foods, and I'd love to attempt such a meal someday...but I went with a Wellington as the main course and a Napoleon (aka a mille-feuille) for dessert, because, really, why wouldn't I?  As a wholly American, wholly non-aristocratic person hosting a Waterloo party, I've got to have my tongue somewhere in my cheek during this process.

Rather than a traditional beef Wellington, I made Alton Brown's Pork Wellington, which is the most delicious thing I've ever cooked myself. And if the Wellington was the best thing I've ever cooked, the Napoleon was the best dessert I've ever bought.  It came from Le Fournil, which is up there on my Seattle recommendations list with Tilth and Serious Pie.

I didn't get any pictures of the Wellington, but here's the Napoleon, accompanied by my desk toy/writing mascot Duke of Wellington:

The chocolate curls on the side got a little messed up in transit from the bakery, but I think you can still tell that's an awesome cake. And those glasses held a lovely, smoky-tasting tawny port.

I plan to continue this dinner in future years.  We were even riffing on the idea of a Waterloo seder, complete with questions like, "Why is this night different from any other night? On all other nights we eat our meat plain or lightly sauced. On this night why do we wrap it in puff pastry?"  Halfway through we'd send someone to the door to look for Blucher and the Prussian army, and Mr. Fraser thinks we should close with a particularly solemn rendition of this song.

Ads of yesteryear

As part of my research on the Hundred Days and Waterloo for my next Carina book, An Infamous Marriage, I've been poring over March and April 1815 editions of the Times of London to find out how the news of Napoleon's escape from Elba and resumption of the French throne spread through England--i.e., what would my hero and heroine know, and when would they know it?

Having access to the Times archive dating all the way back to 1788 is one of the nicer perks of my day job. I'm a grant analyst at the University of Washington, and my staff ID and login give me full access to the university's library resources. I love to just walk the upper floors of the Suzzallo-Allen Library, drinking in the old book smell. If anyone ever made that a perfume, I'd wear it.

But since the Times archives are online, I can view them from home, with my manuscript open in another window. So convenient...if I didn't keep getting distracted by everything else in the paper. The papers of 200 years ago look nothing like the ones we read now (or were reading until we started getting all our news from the internet instead!). There are no big headlines screaming out Bonaparte's deeds, and the front page is occupied by something our papers bury deep within: classified ads. (Whether or not that's the period-appropriate British term, I don't know, but that's exactly what they look like.)

I never thought I'd spend hours of fascination reading classified ads, but when they're almost 200 years old, they're a window into a bygone world. Here are a few that particularly caught my eye:

INSANITY -- WANTS a SITUATION, a middle-aged Woman, who has for many years been accustomed to attend the most respectable persons labouring under a state of MENTAL DERANGEMENT, and can have the most satisfactory recommendation. Address, post paid, to Mr Grinly, apothecary, 42 Marsham-street, Westminster.

WANTS a SITUATION, with a single gentleman (if with a foreigner, no objection), a Man who perfectly understands the capacity of travelling as VALET, &c, having had long practice in various parts of the Continent, France, &c; can speak French, English, &c; and prefers travelling on the French territories if convenient. Reference for character can be strongly obtained from an established family he is about to leave, which he has served for several years. Address, post paid, to Z.A.D., 20 Old Cavendish-street, Cavendish-square. No office letter can be admitted.

WANT of EDUCATION in Adults or young Persons SPEEDILY REMOVED; Greek, Latin, English, &c. are taught upon an easy method known to the ancients. Ista facile discuntur si habeas qui docere fideliter possit. Address by letter only, post paid, A.X. Eaton, stationer, 31, Strand.

N.B. Due to my own WANT of EDUCATION, I'm not sure I transcribed the Latin in the ad above precisely. The PDF scans are a little blurry in spots, which in English I can fill in from context clues. In Latin, NSM.

IF the PERSON who LEFT his FAMILY on Wednesday, the 7th instant, in the forenoon, will forward his BOOKS and PAPERS, together with such explanations as the nature of the unpleasant business may require, to the Jerusalem Tavern, St John's-square, Clerkenwell, properly packed up and secured, it will have a very material tendency to remove the present very great difficulty under which the different parties labour. J.D., of Berners-street, pledges his honour that if, in addition to the foregoing, the above person will appoint a time and place for an interview with J.D. only, nothing unpleasant shall result therefrom.



DOG LOST - TWO GUINEAS REWARD. LOST, about three weeks since, a POODLE; his hind quarters are sheared, both ears, and the top of his back, and the end of his tail, are of a dark brown; answers to the name of Hussar; had on when lost a collar, bearing the name of his master, --Rue St Dominque, Paris. Any person who will give such information as shall lead to recovery, shall receive a reward, at 5 Arlington-street, Piccadilly.

I swear any one of those could be the springboard of a plot. If I ever run short of ideas, I know where to go.

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Susanna Fraser writes Regency romance with a focus on the Napoleonic Wars. The Sergeant's Lady and A Marriage of Inconvenience are available now from Carina Press.

Where were you?

There are a handful of events that for good or ill (more often for ill, unfortunately) are unforgettable. I’ll never forget where I was when I heard about the Challenger disaster--I was in 9th grade, and they announced it over the intercom during 4th period Alabama History.

I found out about the 9/11 attacks when I was awakened by a phone call from my parents, who were supposed to be flying into Seattle for a visit later that day. Mom said, “All flights have been canceled.” Assuming she meant all flights out of Birmingham, I asked if there’d been some kind of storm or problem at the airport. She told me there had been a terrorist attack and to turn on the TV.

And most recently, last spring I was waiting for dinner at Red Robin with my husband and daughter. Mr. Fraser and I were checking Twitter on our phones, as internet addicts are wont to do, when tweets started to buzz with the news that President Obama was about to “address the nation.”

It sounded ominous, so we speculated about possible war with Iran or North Korea. I also worried that it might be something like a hideous cancer diagnosis for either the President or the First Lady, and that he might be stepping down and handing the reins to Vice-President Biden because of it--ever since I lost both my parents to lung cancer, my mind goes to the C-word in a hurry.

Instead, of course, the big news was the death of Osama bin Laden. We’d figured it out from Twitter before one of the TV feeds in the restaurant switched from sports to the news--which was neither captioned nor audible in the noisy restaurant, so Mr. Fraser and I leaned over the booths to tell our fellow diners what was happening as soon as we heard their baffled concern. Eventually, the headline at the bottom of the screen said something like, “Bin Laden death confirmed,” and the line cooks, most of whom would’ve been in junior high on 9/11, started cheering and stomping their feet.

We were home by the time the president actually spoke, so Mr. Fraser and I stood together our den--somehow it seemed too solemn a moment for lounging on the couch--and listened.



In the time period I write about, there was plenty of momentous news, though of course it rippled through the world much more slowly. I imagine if I’d been born in 1771 instead of 1971, I’d remember where I was when I heard about the French Revolution and Trafalgar and Waterloo, to name a few. So, when I recently read a collection of first-hand accounts of Waterloo in The Hundred Days (compiled and edited by Antony Brett-James), I was intrigued to find a chapter about how the news reached France and Britain. I was then flabbergasted by the following account by Mrs. Boehm, the woman hosting the ball the Prince Regent was at when Wellington’s messenger arrived:

That dreadful night! Mr. Boehm had spared no cost to render it the most brilliant party of the season; but all to no purpose. Never did a party, promising so much, terminate so disastrously! All our trouble, anxiety, and expense were utterly thrown away in consequence of--what shall I say? Well, I must say it--the unseasonable declaration of the Waterloo victory! Of course, one was very glad to think one had beaten those horrid French, and all that sort of thing; but still, I always shall think it would have been far better if Henry Percy had waited quietly till the morning, instead of bursting in upon us, as he did, in such indecent haste; and even if he had told the Prince alone, it would have been better; for I have no doubt his Royal Highness would have shown consideration enough for my feelings not to have published the news till the next morning.

...After dinner was over, and the ladies had gone upstairs, and the gentlemen had joined them, the ball guests began to arrive. They came with unusual punctuality, out of deference to the Regent’s presence. After a proper interval, I walked up to the Prince, and asked if it was his Royal Highness’s pleasure that the ball should open. The first quadrille was in the act of forming, and the Prince was walking up to the dais on which his seat was placed, when I saw everyone without the slightest sense of decorum rushing to the windows, which had been left wide open because of the excessive sultriness of the weather. The music ceased and the dance was stopped; for we heard nothing but the vociferous shouts of an enormous mob, who had just entered the square, and were running by the side of a post-chaise and four, out of whose windows were hanging three nasty French eagles. In a second the door of the carriage was flung open, and, without waiting for the steps to be let down, out sprang Henry Percy--such a dusty figure!--with a flag in each hand, pushing aside everyone who happened to be in his way, darting up stairs, into the ball-room, stepping hastily up to the Regent, dropping on one knee, laying the flags at his feet, and pronouncing the words “Victory, Sir! Victory!”

The Prince Regent, greatly overcome, went into an adjoining room to read the despatches; after a while he returned, said a few sad words to us, sent for his carriage, and left the house. The royal brothers soon followed suit; and in less than twenty minutes there was not a soul left in the ballroom but poor dear Mr. Boehm and myself.

Such a scene of excitement, anxiety, and confusion never was witnessed before or since, I do believe! Even the band had gone, not only without uttering a word of apology, but even without taking a mouthful to eat. The splendid supper which had been provided for our guests stood in the dining-room untouched. Ladies of the highest rank, who had not ordered their carriages till four o’clock a.m., rushed away, like maniacs, in their muslins and satin shoes, across the Square; some accompanied by gentlemen, others without escort of any kind; all impatient to learn the fate of those dear to them; many jumping into the first stray hackney-coaches they fell in with, and hurrying on to the Foreign Office or Horse Guards, eager to get a sight of the List of Killed and Wounded.

I first read that account nearly a month ago, and it still boggles my mind every time I re-read it. I can understand that it would suck to put down the kind of money it would take to throw a ball for the highest of London’s elite and have it all go to waste. But to still resent it, years later (her account is from 1831), when it was abundantly clear just how important Waterloo was? And the way she seems to focus on breaches of propriety above all else--Henry Percy was dusty, and he shoved people out of the way in his haste to reach the Prince Regent. One might almost think he was bearing critical news for his country’s acting head of state or something! Not to mention those ladies running out in their muslin gowns and slippers, with or without escort, all because they had brothers or sons or sweethearts with the army and wanted to know if they were still alive. How shocking! And lest you think her reaction is somehow typical of her time, the behavior of her guests belies it. Also, all the other accounts sound remarkably like what happens now in those moments we all remember--normal social barriers breaking down, everyone turning out into the streets to talk it over, etc.

(The painting illustrating this post is David Wilkie’s Chelsea Pensioners Reading the Waterloo Dispatch, which the Duke of Wellington commissioned at a cost of 1200 guineas. I think it’s a more typical reaction than Mrs. Boehm’s, don’t you?)
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Susanna Fraser writes Regency romance with a focus on the Napoleonic Wars. The Sergeant's Lady and A Marriage of Inconvenience are available now from Carina Press.

My next Carina release

I'm happy to announce I've made my third sale to Carina. Title and release date remain TBD, but the latter will most likely be sometime in Fall 2012. I wish I wasn't dealing with a gap of a year plus between releases, but I've been rehabbing a pinched nerve that slowed my writing to a crawl for the first half of this year. Fortunately, it's finally starting to mend, and I'm learning to work around it, too. I take lots of stretch breaks, and I've experimented with voice recognition software (Dragon Dictate for the Mac), though it can drive me crazy. Once I said "raised his eyebrows" and Dragon typed "racist eyebrows," for example, and apparently the way I pronounce "Jane" sounds like "chain" to the Dragon at least half the time.

But I'd rather talk about my book than my neck, so...it's a historical romance with a (fictional) British general for a hero. The hero and heroine, Jack and Elizabeth, marry in 1804 to fulfill a deathbed promise and are soon separated by the demands of his military career. By the time they're reunited in early 1815, they've accumulated a long list of grievances against each other and wish they'd never married. Just as they're beginning to make their own peace, Jack is called back to war when Napoleon returns to power--only this time Elizabeth has no intention of remaining quietly behind in England.



In other words, I'm writing a Waterloo story. I think every Regency writer, at least those of us with even the tiniest degree of interest in the military side of the era, has one in her, and this is mine. Or possibly just my first.

Here's a brief excerpt for an early teaser--though keep in mind that the manuscript hasn't been edited yet, so this scene may or may not appear in the book itself. It's from the 1804 section of the story, where Jack is trying to explain his upcoming hasty marriage of convenience to his mother, who has early-onset senile dementia:

Jack paused in the doorway of his mother’s sitting room. It was a small chamber, warm and comfortably furnished but painfully neat. Years ago, her private rooms had been marked by the mild chaos of a busy woman, with baskets of mending, account-books and half-finished letters scattered here and there.

Mama sat at the window, paging through a book of engravings in the weak light of a gray morning. Before her mind had begun to go, she had been a creature of energy and alertness. If she sat during the day, she’d had a quill or needle in her hand. The only books she’d read were gothic novels—she’d claimed their horrors and thrills calmed the mind by contrast—and she had reserved them for the evening hours after her day’s work as mistress of Westerby Grange was done.

Seeing her so frail and faded broke Jack’s heart. How could Providence have been so cruel as to break such a fine mind, so vivid a soul? It would almost have been better if she had died, though Jack immediately sent up a guilty prayer assuring God he hadn’t meant it.

“Good morning, Mama,” he said gently.

She turned her head and peered at him out of gray eyes that had once been sharp and twinkling but had now grown soft, almost empty. She frowned. “Ned?”

“It’s Jack. Your younger son.” Her only child now—his older brother Ned had been killed in a riding accident shortly after Jack had gone into the army as an ensign of sixteen.

“Jack,” she said carefully. “You’ve grown so. I—I don’t remember.”

“It’s all right, Mama.” He sat in the chair opposite hers. “Do you remember Giles Hamilton?”

“Of course I do,” she snapped with a hint of her old spirit. “But you don’t. He died before you were born.”

Jack blinked in confusion of his own until he remembered that Giles had been named for his grandfather. “Never mind. I came to tell you I’m going to be married.”

“Married! You’re only a boy.”

What year was it in his mother’s mind? “I’m six-and-twenty, Mama. Full old enough to wed.”

She stared out the window. “Jack was such a sweet boy. Not so clever as Ned, and never could keep still, but he always had a smile on his face when he was a baby. Just like his father.”

Jack rubbed his eyes. He couldn’t conjure up a smile now. “The woman I’m marrying is named Elizabeth. Elizabeth Hamilton.”

“Giles had no daughter.”

“Not his daughter. His grandson’s widow. She will be here in a few days’ time, and she will look after you every day while I am in India.”

“India!”

“Yes, Mama. I must go, for my regiment is there.”

“Your regiment…”

“I’m in the army. A major now. You were so pleased when I got my first commission and came to show you my uniform.”

She shook her head. “Dick Armstrong’s doing. Didn’t raise sons to be food for powder, but your uncle was always filling your head with his tales of glory. What glory? Dick never won any...he helped lose the colonies.”

Jack bit his lip and looked away. Here was truth—Mama was past lying now—but she had made a convincing show of admiration ten years ago when he had appeared before her as a freshly-made ensign glorying in the splendor of a new red coat. “I love you, Mama,” he said at last. There seemed nothing else left to say.