Enfin le cinéma!

Today is the official opening of the exhibition 'Enfin le cinéma! Arts, images et spectacles en France (1833-1907)' at musée d’Orsay in Paris. From the museum site: "At the dawn of the twentieth century, cinema is as much, if not more, a way of appropriating the world, bodies, and representations, as a machine or a medium. A new eminently social and popular outlook, it is the product of an urban culture fascinated by the movement of beings and things and eager to make 'modernity' a spectacle." Ivo Blom is one of the advisors of the exhibition and he wrote an article for the exhibition catalog about one of the paintings, Les dernières cartouches (the last bullets) painted by Alphonse de Neuville in 1873. This painting about a heroic fight during the Franco-Prussian War of 1870-1871, became very popular and inspired early films, a play, and several postcards.


French postcard by Suzaine-Pierson, éditeurs, Sedan, no. 9. Caption: Bazeilles. La Dernière Cartouche (The Last bullet). The room where the last phase of the heroic fight took place, 1 September 1870.


French postcard by Imp. Pierron. Les dernières cartouches (Alphonse de Neuville, 1873).


French postcard by Ed. d'Art E. Isabel, Sedan. Early 20th century postcard. Reproduction of Les dernières cartouches (Alphonse de Neuville, 1873). Caption: Defense of the Maison Bourgerie by Commander Lambert. After the painting by A. de Neuville.


French postcard, no. 534. Caption: 'Les Dernières Cartouches', play in [5 acts and] 10 tableaux by Jules Mary and Emile Rochard. Théâtre de l'Ambigu, Paris. 6th tableau. At Bazeilles in 1870. The exit of commander Lambert. "Honour to the Conquered." On the back, the sender has written "Vieux souvenirs", so sender and the addressee may have fought in the same war. Sent in 1907. Jules Mary published in 1902 a novel entitled 'Les dernières cartouches', which Rochard [and Mary] adapted for the stage. Its first presentation was on 8 February 1903 at the Ambigu theater in Paris.


French postcard. Les dernières cartouches. Stage play by Jules Mary et Emile Rochard, based on the famous homonymous painting (1873) by Alphonse de Neuville, on an episode at Bazeilles during the Franco-Prussian War of 1870-1871. It was first performed on 14 January 1903 at the Paris Théâtre de l'Ambigu. Caption: 6th Tableau. At Bazeilles in 1870: The exit of Commander Lambert. Honor to the conquered.


French postcard. Les dernières cartouches. Stage play by Jules Mary et Emile Rochard, based on the famous homonymous painting (1873) by Alphonse de Neuville, on an episode at Bazeilles during the Franco-Prussian War of 1870-71. It was first performed on 14 January 1903 at the Paris Théâtre de l'Ambigu. Caption: 7th Tableau. Tante Marie-Jeanne - Would you like me to embrace you?


French postcard. Les dernières cartouches. Stage play by Jules Mary et Emile Rochard, based on the famous homonymous painting (1873) by Alphonse de Neuville, on an episode at Bazeilles during the Franco-Prussian War of 1870-1871. It was first performed on 14 January 1903 at the Paris Théâtre de l'Ambigu. Caption: 8th Tableau. The House of Remembrance - ... And now, let's talk.


French postcard by Nos publicités, reprint. Ed. F. Nugeron, no. J 18. Caption: Les dernières cartouches. Papier à cigarettes. The historical event of Les dernières cartouches, the site at Bazeilles, and Neuville's painting, all became so popular that all kinds of publicity reused it, here for cigarette paper.


French postcard by Ed. E. Génin, Sedan. Photo: Rossillon, Balan-Sedan. Caption: Bazeilles - La Maison des Dernières Cartouches. On the back, an ink stamp by La Maison des Dernières Cartouches, aka La Maison de la dernière cartouche.

Until the French ran out of bullets

It is at this former inn in Bazeilles, France, at the postcard above, that on 1 September 1870, during the Battle of Sedan, French marines resisted Bavarian troops who besieged them until the French ran out of bullets. Only 15 of the 50 French survived and surrendered. The next day the French Emperor Napoleon III capitulated at Sedan.

The building soon became a site of memory after the Franco-Prussian War of 1870-1871, and its fame increased after the success of Alphonse de Neuville's 1873 painting Les dernières cartouches.

In 1899 the house was bought by the journal Le Gaulois and reopened, but it was only in 1950 that it became an official museum. In 2005 the building got a full restoration.

In 1960 De Neuville's painting was bought at an auction and ever since hangs in the museum in Bazeilles. After a restoration in 2005 by the Musée d'Orsay (where it was also exposed at an exhibition in the same year), it returned to the museum in Bazeilles.

And now the painting is to be seen again at musée d’Orsay in Paris as part of the exhibition 'Enfin le cinéma! Arts, images et spectacles en France (1833-1907)'.


French postcard by Papier Guilleminot, series 768. This postcard was sent by mail in January-March 1907. Caption: Scene I. Children re-enacting the scene from the famous painting 'Les Dernières Cartouches' (1873) by Alphonse de Neuville.


French postcard by Papier Guilleminot, series 768. This postcard was sent by mail in January-March 1907. Caption: Scene II. Children re-enacting the scene from the famous painting 'Les Dernières Cartouches' (1873) by Alphonse de Neuville.


French postcard by Papier Guilleminot, series 768. This postcard was sent by mail in January-March 1907. Caption: Scene III. Children re-enacting the scene from the famous painting 'Les Dernières Cartouches' (1873) by Alphonse de Neuville.

French postcard by Papier Guilleminot, series 768. This postcard was sent by mail in January-March 1907. Caption: Scene IV. Children re-enacting the scene from the famous painting 'Les Dernières Cartouches' (1873) by Alphonse de Neuville.


French postcard by Papier Guilleminot, series 768. Caption: Scene V. Children re-enacting the scene from the famous painting 'Les Dernières Cartouches' (1873) by Alphonse de Neuville.


Les dernières cartouches (1897), Pathé version. Source: Films by the year (YouTube).


Bombardement d'une Maison/Les Dernières Cartouches/The last cartridges (1899), George Meliès version. Source: Piso (YouTube).

Source: French Wikipedia.