COVER N. 289 - FRANCE

Postmark: La Route Napoléon  38 Grenoble - Premier Jour 13.07.2023

Posted on the 13th July; Received on the 26h July 2023

_________________________________________________________________________________

Following his abdication as emperor and the ascension of Louis XVIII to the throne of France, in 1814 Napoleon Bonaparte was sent to exile to the island of Elba, located midway between continental Italy and Corsica.

His itch for power never subsided though and 9 months and 21 days past the date of his arrival, on the 29th February 1815, the former Emperor, who once had most of Europe in his hands either personally or by proxy, escaped his exile and started an avant la lettre “Long March” which would take him through the Alps, so as to avoiding royalist areas,  from his place of disembarkment  at Golfe-Juan, in the Côte d’Azur,  to Grenoble, where troops, commanded by General Ney, sent to detain and fight him, promptly joined his ranks instead.

He would continue to  Paris, where he would arrive on the 20th march, thereafter launching the campaign that would end with his defeat in the fields of Waterloo, in Belgium, about 100 days later, a prologue to his final exile in Saint Helena, in the middle of the Atlantic, which is almost the same as saying, in the middle of nowhere, so remote was (and still is) its location.

Nowadays, Route Nationale 85 follows much of the same path that Napoleon took between Golfe-Juan and Grenoble; Being officially designated as Route Napoleon, it crosses 4 French depoartments: Alpes-Maritimes, Alpes-de-Haute-Provence, Hautes-Alpes and Isère.

Highlighting the historic,  cultural, touristic and environmental importance of this particular  itinerary, la Poste issued on 17JUN2023 the amazing souvenir sheet containing three 1,16 Eurostamps that Eric so kindly used on his FDC.

Further to the  map of the road, punctuated with line drawings of several points of interest along the way, the three beautiful stamps showcase the geography and  fauna and flora  of the three departments crossed by the RN85.

So voluminous is the wealth of information contained in this souvenir sheet that I would recommend checking the release notes on La Poste site.

This nowithstanding I can briefly describe the contents of the three stamps:

The first one – according to the direction of the route Napoleon took, i.e, South to North, bottom to top, dedicated to the Cote d’Azur region, is illustrated with drawings of a pointu, a typical boat in use in the region; the Egyptian Vulture (Neophron percnopterus) the most endangered species of vulture in the world and the black olives of the region, protected by a denomination of origin;

The second stamp, dedicated the region of Haute-Provence, showcases the cliffs of Sisteron, that most famous of all Provence plants – the fragrant lavender – and one of my preferred birds, the European bee-eater (Merops apiaster);

The third stamp, dedicated to the Alps,  features the Ecrins Massive, home to the  Alpine Ibex (Capra ibex) and the great yellow gentian (Gentiana lutea), all integrated as line drawings.

The pictorial First day cancellation features an image of the RN85 with the legend La Route Napoléon and the identification of the date and place of obliteration, in this case, Grenoble.