Paris Monuments - Napoleon's Tomb

It’s funny how quickly we take things for granted. Last night I bundled up a blanket, a bottle of red, and a batch of home-made gazpacho and I headed over to the Esplanade des Invalides for a dinner picnic with friends. I was on my second glass of chilled rosé – my first of the summer – before I took notice of the great gold dome that towered over us: the dome over the tomb of Napoleon Bonaparte, the first Emperor of France.

Bonaparte’s was a star that rose fast and fell far. He created important institutions that still survive today, but he also contributed to the violence and upheaval of a century marked by revolution, famine, and war.

His story begins in 1799, ten years after the start of the French Revolution. A corrupt government, called the Directory, then governed a France wracked by poverty and destruction. For seven years, the country had been at war with Austria and Prussia, faring badly against the better organized armies of Europe’s two greatest powers. But a young Corsican officer named Napoleon Bonparte distinguished himself by his keen sense of military strategy. He quickly advanced to general.

General Bonaparte returned from Egypt in 1799 to find that he and two other men had been chosen to head France’s new tripartite consulate. It took him mere months to throw off the others and name himself First Consul for Life. As the century turned from 1799 to 1800, Napoleon Bonaparte proclaimed himself the sole ruler of 27 million French people. In 1804, he would crown himself Emperor.

The years of 1800-1805 saw Bonaparte working feverishly to rebuild his country. He centralized the French government, creating the Departments we know today with local administrations reporting directly to him. He established the basis of French civil law in the Napoleonic Code. He brought back taxation, structuring it so that everyone paid a fair share and levying heavy fines for lateness or default. For the first time in decades the government had money. So the Emperor founded the Bank of France. When business began picking up, he needed a Stock Exchange. So, he created La Bourse, the market.

While he was busy cleaning up the government and economy, Napoleon was also making plans to expand France’s territorial borders. He sought lands to the east, west, and north. He even had designs to invade England. Russia, Austria, Prussia, Sweden, and Italy formed an alliance with Britain to stop Napoleon if he should attack.

And he did. Starting in October 1805, Bonaparte marched his Grande Armée all across Europe, overtaking armies at Austerlitz and Iena and Friedland, and setting up puppet regimes in Berlin, Vienna, Warsaw, and Naples. By 1807, Napoleon was the “Master of All Europe”.

But the war was costing France too much in both man-power and material. The economy, only recently revived, collapsed. New businesses stopped functioning. The Stock Exchange crashed. Those who had money withdrew it from the Bank and fled. To add to the already dire situation, England imposed an economic blockade on France, making it impossible for food and other goods to reach the people.

Then came the famine. Severe thunderstorms ruined France’s 1811 crop. By the beginning of 1812, grain reserves were spent. The price of bread shot beyond what many could afford. As before the revolution, French people began to starve.

The Grande Armée was hard hit as food no longer reached the front. Morale was low; desertion became rampant. And Napoleon began to lose. He was pushed back in Spain; he was laid low in Leipzig; and outside of Moscow, the Grande Armée was forced to retreat.

Still, Napoleon would not give up, in love with battle, in love with La Gloire (glory). In 1814, he raised an army again. And in the Battle of the Nations, fought at Leipzig, Germany, Napoleon was stopped for good…or so it was thought. It took the combined powers of all of Europe to do it, but he was packed him off to prison on Elba Island.

Within a year, however, he had escaped. He went directly to battle once more, facing his final defeat in 1815 in the famous battle of Waterloo. This time, his captors sent him to an island so remote that escape would mean certain death.

Napoleon Bonaparte died on St. Helena in 1821 at the age of 52.

With Napoleon banished, the brother of beheaded King Louis XVI moved in to restore the French Monarchy. Louis XVIII was succeeded by Charles I. But their “Restoration” government did not last long. It was overthrown in 1830 by the July Monarchy, led by cousin Louis-Philippe, who, in turn, was overthrown in 1848 by the nephew of...guess who? That’s right, Napoleon Bonaparte.

In 1852, just as his uncle had done almost 50 years before, Louis-Napoleon Bonaparte declared himself Emperor of France. As Napoleon III, he undertook to renovate Louis XIV’s personal chapel at Les Invalides to create a tomb for Napoleon Bonaparte and the Generals who served under him.

In 1861, France's first Emperor was installed in a sarcophagus of porphyry under the same dome that shadowed our springtime picnic. The pink rays of the setting sun glinted off the gold that is the centerpiece of the Esplanade and can be seen for miles around, reminding me that I had failed to notice it for a good 45 minutes. It's funny how quickly we take things for granted.

Images:
Photo of Les Invalides from the Esplanade by Eric Gaba (Wikimedia Commons user: Sting), courtesy of Wikimedia Commons.

Portrait of General Napoleon Bonaparte by Jacques-Louis David, 1797, courtesy of Wikimedia Commons.

First Consul Bonaparte, by Antoine-Jean Gros, c. 1802, courtesy of Wikimedia Commons.

Portrait of Emperor Napoleon Bonaparte by Jacques-Louis David, 1805, courtesy of Wikimedia Commons.

Napoleon's retreat from Moscow, by Adolf Northern (1828-1876), courtesy of Wikimedia Commons.

Photo of Les Invalides Chapel, taken by Daniel Levine on 15 July 2003 and released to public domain. Courtesy of Wikimedia Commons.

Napoleon at Saint Helena, by Francois-Joseph Sandmann, courtesy of Wikimedia Commons.

Photograph of Napoleon's porphyry tomb, taken by Willtron, courtesy of Wikimedia Commons.

Napoleon Bonaparte's Civic Legacy

Today, I'd like to share a recent Q&A I had with a FrancoFiles Fan and her Studious Son who is writing an extended essay on the larger-than-life character of Emperor Napoleon Bonaparte. The two were interested in Napoleon's civic achievements, not just his battles, both successful and disastrous, about which much has been written.

Hi Sarah,

I found your blog on Google. I have a "stumper" for you, which I cannot find the answer online. Anywhere! Here goes: Under the dome, at Les Invalides, Napoleon's coffin is surrounded by bas relief sculptures that represent his most significant civic achievements. What are those achievements?

Surrounding Napoleon's porphyry sarcophagus under the dome of the Chapel at Les Invalides are first a ring of 12 statues of angels, called the "Winged Victories". They symbolize Emperor Napoleon's victorious military campaigns - of which there were 40 or so battles. Inscribed in the mosaic floor at the Victories' feet are the names of his eight greatest victories: Austerlitz, Marenco, Pyramides, Iena, Friedland, Wagram, Moscova, and Rivoli. The Winged Victories stand guard over Napoleon's remains with laurel wreaths in hand, a symbol of victory dating back to Roman times.

On the circular wall just behind the Victories can be found 10 bas relief sculptural panels that commemorate and honor Napoleon's administrative and political achievements as well as his public works. The most significant of these achievements is the Napoleonic Code, which represented the final and perhaps most lasting break from France's former rule by Absolute Monarchy. It placed all French people, no matter their family background, rank, or ties with the church or nobility, under the same system of justice and law. After the Declaration of the Rights of Man and the Citizen, promulgated during the Revolution, the Napoleonic Code is perhaps one of the most important political documents in the history of democracy. Even today it remains the basis of law in some 80 countries.

The various public works celebrated in the bas relief panels include canals that brought potable drinking water to Paris; bridges; grand streets and boulevards such as the rue de Rivoli; building projects such as the Louvre extension; and monuments like the Carousel du Louvre, all spear-headed by Napoleon. He is remembered for institutionalizing the stock exchange in Paris and building La Bourse, which continues to house the exchange today. He is credited for the idea of centralized government, having carved France up into a series of departments and created localized governments that answered to him. Napoleon is also to be thanked for modernizing the postal system by numbering houses consecutively along odd and even sides of streets to ease delivery of letters and packages.

Any study of Napoleon Bonaparte should consider his great achievements in addition to his elusive military campaign for "La Gloire" that led, finally, to his being sent into exile half way around the world. For even the Emperor is remembered for having said: ...more important than the winning of 40 battles is the civil code, which will live forever.

***

If you have a question about French history and culture, please don't hesitate to ask!

Images:
by the author

August in Paris: Parc de St. Cloud

Our final August in Paris, 2009, adventure took us to the 460-hectare (1136.68 acre) park of St. Cloud [san cloo], situated 10 kms (6 miles) southwest of Paris. The park, once punctuated by a glorious royal château, is perched atop a steep escarpment overlooking the River Seine. It offers magnificent views of the French capitol - a fitting location, indeed, for a place that loomed large over the political landscape of France for centuries.

The Château de Saint-Cloud dates back to 1572. Until the 18^th century, it was largely the country palace of the cadet branch of the royal family (i.e. the descendents of the younger brothers to the king). Louis XIV’s younger brother, Philippe duc d’Orléans, made perhaps the biggest mark on the estate when he acquired it 1658: He hired the same landscape-designer to renovate the gardens – André Le Notre – who would undertake his brother’s Versailles masterpiece just three years later.

In 1785, four years before the outbreak of the French Revolution, the property became royal once again when King Louis XVI bought it from his cousin Louis-Philippe, duc d'Orléans. It was an extravagant expenditure at a time when French peasants were starving and the royal coffers were running dry. But the future King of France, young Louis-Joseph-Xavier-François, had been a sickly child and Queen Marie Antoinette was convinced that the air in St. Cloud would be healthier for him than that of Versailles. She, too, set about to upgrade the grounds, renovating the chateau and gardens with the help of Richard Mique who was just then adding the finishing touches to her Hameau (hamlet) at Versailles.

Alas, she and the children would never spend much time in St. Cloud. The future monarch died on 4 June 1789 and the Revolution broke out only weeks later. By October, the royal family was living under house arrest at the Tuileries Palace in Paris.

Following the Revolution, French governance fell for a short time to a corrupt arm called The Directory. In 1799, a coup d’état, aided by General Napoleon Bonaparte, overthrew the Directory. Guess where? That’s right, at the Château de St. Cloud!

Napoleon I climbed quickly from member of the tripartite Consul to Consul for Life to Emperor of France. The Château de St. Cloud became a favored home. Just as it would be preferred by Napoleon III, France’s second Emperor and Napoleon Bonaparte’s nephew.

Napoleon III declared war on Prussia from the Château de St. Cloud on 28 July 1870. Ironically, it was the same spot from which the Prussians laid siege to Paris in the torturous months that followed.

As Parisians struggled to stay alive - feasting off cats and dogs and zoo animals once the meat of sheep, pigs, and cows ran out - the Prussians shelled them relentlessly from the elevated St. Cloud park grounds. On 13 October counter-fire from within the city hit the chateau. It caught fire and burned to the ground.

Today, the domaine de St. Cloud is owned and maintained by the French state. Among the daily joggers, dog-walkers, sunbathers, and picknickers, one can still detect many remnants of its illustrious past. That is, if you know what to look for:

• Outbuildings and a small museum near the chateau ruins provide clues to the estate’s 16^th century beginnings;
• Le Nôtre’s high-baroque cascade is one of ten fountains dating to his 17^th century renovations;
• Marie Antoinette's 18^th century flower garden today cultivates roses for exclusive use by the state;
• La Lanterne, so named because a lantern was lit there whenever Napoléon I was in residence, remains a favorite viewpoint of Paris among visitors;
• An English garden, the Jardin de Trocadero, has been blooming at St. Cloud since its planting in the 1820s, during France’s short-lived attempt to restore the Bourbon Monarchy.

*****

And now the lazy days of August are over. The sand of Paris Plage has been swept away and the Seine expressway hums with vehicles carrying passengers back to work. The leaves are turning brown and beginning to blanket the Allée of the Ile des Cygnes. Yesterday, sun-kissed vacationers faced hours of stressful traffic delays along the nation's auto-routes as they fought their way home for La Rentrée (The Return). Time to join the queues to buy books and pens and paper again. Starting today for the next 11 months we'll have to share Paris, and all her sleepy corners, once again!

Images:

Chateau and fountain at St. Cloud, around 1845. Engraving by Chamouin after a daguerrotype, courtesy of Wikimedia Commons.

Napoleon Bonaparte in the coup d'état of 18 Brumaire in Saint-Cloud, by François Bouchot (1800-1842), courtesy of Wikimedia Commons.

Adolphe Braun (1811-1877), "Ruines du chateau de St. Cloud", Paris, 1871, courtesy of Wikimedia Commons.

Saint-Cloud Chateau c1845.jpg

Blue Note Jazz Fest at the Theatre du Chatelet

The 2009 Blue Note Jazz Festival opened in Paris this week with Jazz giant, Ron Carter, joining his Quartet and the Blue Note All-Stars at the lovely Théâtre du Chatelet.

The Uber-Mensch and I were there for the opening Gala Soirée. We came for a taste of hometown New York as well as to celebrate our shared birthday. Yet another birthday celebrated in Paris this past week!

I had never been to the Théâtre du Chatelet before, but I’d always admired it. Hard not to. It’s located right in the center of Right Bank Paris, just across the Seine from the Ile de la Cité at the meeting of the 1st and 4th arrondissments. Architecturally, it’s a grand Palladian structure, mirrored just opposite an open public square, called the Place du Chatelet, by its twin, the Théâtre de la Ville.

The area now occupied by the place and two theatres was once the site of a 12th century medieval fortress-turned- prison. The Chatelet prison witnessed some of the most heinous acts of torture ever committed in human history. Horrors such as these were likely invented at the Chatelet:

The Boot: a wooden instrument used to squeeze the foot beyond repair
The Wheel: where a prisoner was stretched and tied and whipped mercilessly
Water Torture: engorging the stomach to bursting by force-feeding water
Drawing and Quartering: pulling a body apart by four horses
Branding

Burning at the Stake

No wonder the French people hated the fortress and wanted it torn down. Emperor Napoleon Bonaparte ordered the horror chamber destroyed in 1808, ostensibly to clear crime from the area. He intended to construct a pair of theatres in its place. But like many of the building projects dreamed up by Napoleon, this one was not realized before his exile first to Elba (1814) and then to St. Helena (1815). He did manage, however, to clear space for a public square in which he erected a monument, the Palmier Fountain, to lionize his tragic Egyptian campaign.

Fifty-two years later (1860-62), the second French Emperor, Napoleon III, made good on the plans of his infamous uncle. Following designs by French architect, Jean-Antoine-Gabriel Davioud, he saw to it his civic engineer, Baron Haussmann, build the two theatres on either side of the square, the Place du Chatelet.

The Théâtre du Chatelet showcases music and dance while its twin spotlights dramatic performances. Both theatres attract artists ranging in style from classical to cutting-edge. On March 30, 2009, the Ron Carter Quartet stepped onto the Chatelet stage to assuage yesteryear’s tortured souls in a tribute to Miles Davis.

With Stephen Scott on piano, Payton Crossley on drums, and Rolando Morales-Matos on percussions, Mr. Carter honored his mentor, who died in 1991, with a new interpretation of many formerly trumpet-led ballads that are now part of the “classic” Jazz repertoire. A 30-minute closing rendition of "My Funny Valentine" brought Carter’s bass front and center, while Morales-Matos’ often humorous percussion added a fantastic new texture to the traditional trio arrangement.

Carter played with Miles from 1963-68, an experience he likened to “going into a laboratory like chemists” to mix with a variety of musical ingredients. Many of the group’s formulations from that period have since become standards for future generations. Carter stood out as a new-style bassist even then, going beyond the traditional role of rhythm-keeper. By changing beats, creating harmonies and embellishing his accompaniment with melodic lines, he prodded soloists to new heights. Since leaving Davis, Carter’s mission has been to take the double-bass out of the rhythm section and prove that it can stand on its own as a lead instrument. With more than 2000 recordings to his name, it would appear that Carter, a National Endowment for the Arts Jazz Master, has proven his point.

Also on stage last Monday night was the latest line-up of Blue Note All-Stars: Joe Lovano and Stefano DiBattisto on saxophone, Flavio Boltro on trumpet, Jacky Terrasson on piano, Carter, and Crossley. They treated us to raucous evening of swinging Jazz standards that had me bouncing in my front-row, Mezzanine seat. All in all, it was a spectacular evening.

From a "Dear Miles" concert in Tel Aviv, May 2008, here’s a taste of what we heard:

My recently discovered high school friend, Nashville-Guy-'n-Edinburgh, is a true jazz aficionado. He writes, “When you look at the span, product, and quality of music across Ron Carter's career...well, impressive isn't praise enough. I was thinking about him the other day. Astonishing. To have seen his 4tet and the Blue Note All-Stars both -- in Paris, no less! -- that's good living. Drink it in.”

We did, man. We did!

Sources:
http://www.aviewoncities.com/paris/placeduchatelet.htm
http://www.roncarter.net/
http://speakeasy.jazzcorner.com/speakeasy/showthread.php?p=807001

Images:

Photo of Ron Carter, courtesy of Mind meal and Wikimedia Commons. Theatre du Chatelet, Chatelet Fortress, and Napoleon Bonaparte all courtesy of Wikimedia Commons. Photo of Ron Carter, courtesy of Kku and Wikimedia Commons.

Paris Catacombs Closed Indefinitely!

I know! I know! The most basic blogging tenet is to post regularly and often. And here I am, not even blogging for a year, and I’ve already blown it! But with good reason, readers, with good reason...

For The Time Traveler Tours are, indeed, going live! And I’ve spent the last month up to my eyeballs in administrative preparations such as: designing a logo; building a website; filing for incorporation and trademark rights; laying out the first prototype chapter for use by a group of 13-year-olds set to pilot the tour later this month; etc. It’s all very exciting!

But there’s a rub: One of my three start-up chapters may be stillborn thanks to the work of vandals...

Yesterday was All Saints’ Day in France, a culture whose many holidays and celebrations do not include Halloween. So I agreed to take the Lucky-one-and-only (Loo) and a few of her North American compatriots - all pining for the ghoulish festivities back “home” - to the Paris Catacombs for a romp among the once living. Arriving at the entrance at 1, Place Denfert-Rochereau, 14eme, however, we found the doors locked tight. A notice explained that the ossuary had been found vandalized on 20 Sept 2009; bones had been broken and strewn about every 20 meters along the 300-meter length of the tomb.

This is truly an immoral act. The Paris Catacombs are simultaneously a sacred memorial, a historical monument, and a work of public art. Their creation took place over the course of 80 years, beginning in Paris’ pre-revolutionary days (1780s) and continuing throughout the reigns of both Emperor Napoleon Bonaparte and his nephew, Napoleon III, during the 1860 rebuilding of Paris.

Going back to 1780: Crowded churchyard cemeteries throughout Paris had become so overflowing with dead that killer diseases caused by insects and animals feeding off the rotting human flesh only produced more dead. It was a vicious cycle if there ever was one!

And then there was the stench! The smells emanating from these pestilent graveyards were said to have caused milk to curdle and wine to turn to vinegar. Not good for the dairy farmers and wine makers who came to Paris to sell their wares at the nearby Forum Les Halles, Paris’ main marketplace located right around the corner from the most crowded and offensive graveyard of all: Le Cimetière des Innocents.

Even the dead of Les Innocents seemed to protest. In 1780 they turned over in their graves, breaking through an underground wall and spilling their creepy contents into the basements of neighboring houses. This unleashed a stench so toxic it suffocated the innocent occupants right in their own homes!

It was then that King Louis XVI issued a royal proclamation calling a halt to any further burials within the Paris city limits. But what to do with all those bones and rotting cadavers?

The answer was to remove them - not just from Les Innocents, but from all of Paris' 23 churchyard graves - and to transfer them to the vast network of underground Roman-era rock quarries that lay to the south of the city.

The work went on in for eight decades. Gravediggers dug by day and moved the bones by night, in black-veiled, priest-led processions. The Church declared the former quarry a scared place and gave it an official name: Les Catacombs (the Catacombs), a Roman word meaning ‘underground cemetery’.

At first the bones were just tossed in, helter-skelter in piles of femers, tibias, and craniums. It was Napoleon’s idea to tidy the place up and make it presentable for family members wishing to pay homage to their ancestors. Under his orders, the bones would be stacked and organized in designs to rival their Roman counterparts.

The Paris Catacombs first opened as a public memorial in 1810. Visitors were escorted by torchlight through the narrow tunnels beneath the streets and buildings of Paris so they wouldn’t get lost in the 290km network of underground byways.

Many of the Revolution’s vicitims also found their way to the catacombs, as did the remains of older, forgotten cemeteries dug up during the Haussmannian-building boom of the 1860s.

In all, 6 million former Parisians have been laid to rest within the Catacombs. And for 200 years visitors have marveled at the ossuary sculptures created by Napoleon’s underground workers.

But now, because of the disrespectful and reprehensible actions of idiotic crazies, the sacred historic memorial, no less important to Paris’ past than the cathedral of Notre Dame, the Louvre Museum, or the Eiffel Tower, is off limits to the public... indefinitely.

And, sadly, the Time Traveler Paris Tours itinerary to the Napoleonic Era, featuring the Catacombs and the Montparnasse Cemetery, may be buried before it has had a chance to take its first breath.

***

Time Traveler Tours projected launch date: March 2010.

Images:

Time Traveler Tours logo, copyright 2009, Time Traveler Tours, LLC.

Photo of Catacombs ossuary, http://www.flickr.com/photos/albany_tim/2629170281/sizes/0/.

Engraving, artist unknown, of Le Cimetière des Innocents, courtesy of Wikimedia Commons.

Photograph of a Catacombs worker by photographer Félix Nadar, 1870s.

Painting of the Catacombs by Viktor Alexandrovish Hartmann (1834-1873), courtesy of Wikimedia Commons.

Paris Monuments - The Conciergerie

Spring has sprung in Paris, and so has tourist season. Trees are blooming, lines are growing, and the sound of French is muted among myriad other languages. Today, as I walked across the Pont au Change in the direction of Ile de la Cité, my ears pricked up at the words of a US mid-western male just behind me.

“I wonder where the Chatelet is. And what it is,” he said.

I couldn’t help myself. I turned around and told him - and his wife and two young sons, aged approximately 8 and 10 – that the Chatelet no longer existed. It had been a medieval fortress that became an evil, hated prison, and Napoleon Bonaparte had it destroyed in 1808. I pointed out where it once stood, at the site of Bonaparte’s Palmier Fountain and the twin Palladian-style theatres, the Théâtre de la Ville and Théâtre du Chatelet.

We continued on, all five of us, in the direction we’d been going, toward the imposing four-towered medieval structure that stretches along the Seine on the Ile de la Cité. One of Paris’ few surviving medieval buildings, the Conciergerie makes an arresting impression.

“That was also a prison.” I said. “It’s called the Conciergerie. During the French Revolution prisoners at the Conciergerie only came out to get their heads chopped off at the guillotine,” I drew my hand across my throat. “And they had to pay for their stay there!”

The boys both stared up at me, rapt. They appeared to want more. So I told them that the Conciergerie was once part of the royal palace of the earliest Kings of France, the Palais de la Cité. (This was before King Charles V moved the royal residence to the Louvre in 1364, turning the Palais de la Cité into the Palais de Justice, which it remains today.) I pointed to the round towers of the Conciergerie and explained that in the days of kings each one had a different purpose. The Tour d’Argent, center-right, was where the kings kept their guarded royal treasure. At the far-right, the Tour Bonbec, was where they tortured their prisoners. Tour means ‘tower’; Bonbec means ‘good beak’. When the torturer applied his instruments, the victim’s beak, or mouth, gave up the “good” things the torturer wanted to hear.

“And that tower,” I said, indicating the left-most tower, “That’s the Tour Horloge, the clock tower. Follow me.” And the whole family, mom, dad, and both little boys skittered right along beside me. We crossed the street and looked up at the colorful clock decorated with images symbolizing law and justice high up on the turreted, corner structure. The clock there now dates to 1585, though its predecessor was installed around 1350. In medieval times, it was the only clock in Paris. It told time for the entire city back when Paris comprised only the islands, the Latin Quarter, and a bit of the Right Bank. The bells of the Tour Horloge tolled every hour to mark the passing of the day.

“You can visit the Conciergerie,” I said to the boys. “Before it was a prison, it was a hang-out for knights and royal policeman. You can even see a slab of the table where they ate.”

As the boys clung to mid-western-Dad’s arm, begging to go to the Conciergerie, mid-western-Mom sidled up to me. “Thank you,” she said. “They haven’t been this engaged since we arrived.”

History. It’s all in the context.

Sources:
Horne, Alistair, Seven Ages of Paris. London: Pan Books, 2002.
The Conciergerie, Palais de la Cité. Monum, Editions du Patrimoine, 2003.

Images:

Photo of tourist boat on the river Seine alongside the Conciergerie, courtesy of Milvus and Wikimedia Commons.
Engraving of the Chatelet Fortress, by Dupré, courtesy of Wikimedia Commons.
Photograph of the Conciergerie, courtesy of Beckstet and Wikimedia Commons.

Painting of the Palais de Justice by Adrien Dauzats, 1858, courtesy of Wikimedia Commons.

Photograph of the Tour Horloge, courtesy of CaptainHaddock and Wikimedia Commons.

France's Ski Holiday

Every February, Europeans ski. French schools even give kids a “ski holiday" and everyone heads for the Alps. We're here too - me, my husband the Uber-Mensch, our Lucky-one-and-only and her best friend - at France’s highest ski station, Val Thorens (2,300 m/7,475 ft), in France’s tallest region, the Haute Savoie.

The Haute Savoie (Upper Savoy) wasn’t always part of France. It only became so with the Treaty of Turin, on 24 March 1860. France, Italy, and the Austrian Empire had been fighting over the region for centuries. Finally, in 1858, Emperor Napoleon III (Napoleon Bonaparte’s nephew) promised to aid Italy in its war against Austria if then-Italian King, Vittorio-Emmanuele II, would relinquish his claim to Savoy. The King agreed, but only if the inhabitants of the region approved. The Savoyards, who were French speaking and had always found it difficult to accept Italian rule, voted overwhelmingly in favor of annexation by popular referendum.

The Haute Savoie is bordered by Italy to the south-east and Switzerland to the north and east. Geneva is the closest city to serve skiers coming to the Haute Savoie by air. It is home to 110 ski stations. Val Thorens, built in 1972, is one of eight ski stations in the Trois Vallées (Three Valleys). With 600 km (410 miles) of skiable terrain, the Trois Vallées is the largest continuous ski domain in the world.

Yesterday, we climbed to 3,000 meters (9,750 ft). From that vantage point, our gaze skimmed easily over the few ranges separating us from Mont Blanc, or Monte Bianco, Western Europe’s highest peak at 4,810 m (15,781 ft) on the French-Italian border. Clouds hung, grey and full, down in the valleys below us, like a wild foamy sea. We were on top of the world!

That is, until the white-out blew in…

Source: http://www.tourism.savoiehautesavoie.com/

Images:
View of Val Thorens, courtesy of Wikimedia Commons.
Map of Haute Savoie, courtesy of Wikimedia Commons.

Right-Side vs. Left-Side Driving

This week, Samoa switched from right-side to left-side driving. Critiques say it will result in chaos. Advocates say it will make cars more affordable and accessible to more people as they can now be imported directly from neighboring left-equipped New Zealand rather than from Japan or the United States. That got me thinking. Why do some countries, like England, adhere to driving on the left side of the street, while in other places, like France, we drive on the right?

Left-side driving appears to date to the Middle Ages. People then traveled on the left side of the road for several reasons: Most folks, like now, were right-handed. They found it easier to wield a weapon against an enemy or welcome a friend with the right hand, which they preferred to keep on the passing side of the road. It was also safer to dismount a horse to the left while wearing a left-slung sword. And it was more advisable to dismount and mount, which can only be done from the left by right-handed people, on the outside, therefore left side of the road, rather than on the inside, right side, in the midst of oncoming traffic!

This left-side driving habit was transported from feudal England to the European continent and, later, to the far reaches of the British Empire. But at the time of both the French and American revolutions, folks felt it best to eschew everything from their monarchical pasts. In France, aristocrats and noblemen of the ancien régime had traveled the road on the left, forcing the peasantry to the right. From the outset of the Revolution, these former gentry found they could blend more easily with the general population by joining the right-moving crowd.

Simultaneously, in both France and the US in the late 1700s, teamsters began hauling farm products long distances in big wagons pulled by several pairs of horses. The wagons were not equipped with seats. So drivers sat on the left rear horse, using their right arm to lash the four-legged members of the team. In contrast to their feudal forebears, the teamsters preferred to pass on the right so they could better see and stay clear of the wheels of oncoming vehicles.

Emperor Napoleon Bonaparte spread rightism throughout conquered Europe during his early 19^th century campaigns. This left England, the Austro-Hungarian Empire, and Portugal – the countries that resisted or were left untouched by Napoleon – to continue the old habit of left-side driving. This right-side/left-side division remained in Europe for more than 100 years, until after the First World War. At that point, the rest of continental Europe shifted to the right. Only Britain and the countries of the former British Empire kept to the left. But even Canada eventually switched in order to make border crossing with the US less complicated.

Now, in an odd and unprecedented move, Samoa is going from right back to left. Bon courage, les Samoans!

Images:

View of Upolu, Independent Samoa, by Kronocide, courtesy of Wikimedia Commons.

This print, entitled "The knight of the woeful countenance going to extirpate the National Assembly," shows Edmund Burke as Don Quixote, wearing armor, carrying lance and shield labeled "Shield of Aristocracy and Despotism," riding a donkey, emerging from the doorway to the "Dodsley Bookseller" the publisher of Burke's "Reflections on the French Revolution" which hangs from the horn of the saddle. The head of the donkey has a human face and wears the triple-tiered crown of the pope; depicted on the shield are scenes of torture and death, and a view of the Bastille. Found on Wikimedia Commons.

Driving on the left side in Australia, taken on 11.03.2006 on the Great Ocean Road (near Lorne) in Victoria (Australia), courtesy of Free Software Foundation, and found on Wikimedia Commons.

Arago Medalions

François Arago was a French mathematician, physicist, astronomer, and ardent republican who grew up during the French Revolution. In 1806, at the age of 20, he set out to measure the arc of the Earth’s meridian, or north-south axis, through France. Another goal of his expedition was to determine, by natural law, the exact length of a meter.

Arago succeeded in these as well as a lifetime of scientific endeavors, after an eventful return to Paris: While measuring the meridian on the Spanish border, he was suspected of spying for Emperor Napoleon Bonaparte. He managed a heroic escape in a Catalan fishing boat that took him to Algiers in Northern Africa. There, he was captured by Corsairs and held for three months. Upon gaining his freedom, he set sail for Marseilles, but a tempestuous northerly wind blew him back to Africa. He finally made it to Marseilles on 21 June 1809, but was forced to endure a lengthy quarantine before embarking for Paris.

Arago’s adventure and achievements are remembered in a 1994 public art installation by Dutch artist, Jan Dibbets. With Hommage à Arago, Dibbets set 135 bronze medallions bearing Arago’s name along the Paris meridian for a distance of 9.2 kms (5.7 miles).

You can still find many of them in Paris today.

Make a day (or a few) hunting for Arago Medallions. Just follow the North-South meridian in the 1st, 2nd, 6th, 9th, 14th and 18th arrondisements.

From Time Traveler Paris Tours: Beware Madame La Guillotine! Coming Soon!

Images:
Portrait of Francois Arago, engraving by Alexandre Vincent Sixdenier (1795-1846) from a painting by Henry Scheffer (1798-1862), c. 1846. Source: The Warner Library (1917) and the Edgar Fahs Smith collection, courtesy of Wikimedia Commons.

Arago Medallion located near the Louvre pyramid, 2005, by Poulpy, courtesy of Wikimedia Commons.