David d’Angers
The rather clunky tomb of David d’Angers belies his talent and the other fluid sculptures he created. Born Pierre-Jean David, he changed his name to d’Angers after his birthplace Angers, 190 miles southwest of Paris. D’Angers father was a sculptor, but after volunteering for the army as a musketeer, he returned to Angers and found his customers gone. Nevertheless, David d’Angers was determined to succeed as a sculptor and, after a few years of struggle, won a prize at the Ecole des Beaux-Arts and a subsequent annuity from the city of Angers. He spent another 5 years in Rome continuing his training and hence to London, before returning to Paris where he quickly found himself in high demand. His medallions were a particular favorite among his patrons, and over his long career he produced over 500 of them D’Angers most seen public work is no doubt the pediment at the Pantheon In Pere-Lachaise he fashioned sculptures for 8 tombs including Honore de Balzac, homeopathic physician Samuel Hahnemann and his most effervescent creation, the monument to General Gobert. which is just a few steps from his own tomb. Commenting on d’Angers’ sculpture Reviving Greece, which is at the National Historical Museum of Athens, Victor Hugo said, It is difficult to see anything more beautiful in the world
June 18, 1761-December 7, 1820 Division 39
48° 51’32.62″ N 2° 23’47.68″ E
Denis Deeres was born in Chateauvillain, southeast of Paris. He joined the navy when he was 18 and by age 21 had been promoted to enseigne de vaisseau. During the French Revolution he was arrested for being a member of nobility but later inched his way back through the ranks. In 1795 he was put in command of the gunship Formidable and in 1798 Napoleon put him in command of a frigate squadron during Napoleon’s expedition to Egypt. Deeres’ ship that he commanded was the Guillaume Tell, and it was 1 of only 2 ships to escape from the British in the disastrous defeat of the French in the Battle of the Nile. Deeres sailed to Malta but was captured by the British, and the 2-year-old Guillaume Tell was appropriated by the British and spent the next 40 years under the British flag. Denis Deeres continued to serve in various capacities in the French Navy and was eventually promoted to vice-admiral in 1804 and duke in 1813. Deeres was said to be possessed of less than admiral character: he surrounded himself with borderline incompetents to make himself look better and didn’t treat his household servants particularly well. And one of them, a valet name Tasca, reportedly robbed and killed Deeres and then set a house on fire to cover up the crime. His tomb, though, is of very admirable character. It was sculpted by Louis-Parfait Merlieux (1796-1855) and sports relief panels of notable events in Deeres’ life plus the sword of honor that was presented to him by Napoleon on March 2, 1801.
Thus, the economic relevance of the colony was enormous. Hialeah Map Consequently, after losing the Seven Years’ War, the French government ceded the whole of Canada to the British to secure possession of Saint-Domingue in 1763. In 1789, some 2.5 million acres of land were cultivated on about 7,800 plantations. The plantation economy was the most effective but also a cruel preindustrial system of production, an intense single-crop agriculture relying on the exploitation of slave labor. Saint-Domingue is a very illuminating example of the plantation system, as nowhere else did it generate such vast economic growth and have such grave consequences for the composition of the society. By 1790, between 500,000 and 700,000 slaves were living in Saint-Domingue, more than in the whole of the United States at that time. Slaves constituted about 20 percent of the U.S. population, but 90 percent of Saint-Domingue’s. The small layer of about 60,000 free people again stratified. The bottom half was made up of the so-called affranchis, mulattos and freed slaves. The upper half was formed by the petits blancs (small whites) and the richest and most powerful grands blancs (big whites). Three-quarters of the whites and two-thirds of the black slaves had not been born in Saint-Domingue. This indicates the extent to which the growing economy affected the fabric of this society.
