Slavery is a crime against humanity. So decreed France in 2001, making it the first country to do so. What may seem to be a solely symbolic decree, akin to declaring the Jurassic era over, is actually a way of condemning the country’s own history with respect to slavery, something not every country is willing to do.

The law was adopted by Parliament on May 10, which was then decreed the National Day of Commemoration with respect to slavery. In particular, it recognizes France’s involvement in slavery and the slave trade for over 350 years until the definitive abolition of slavery in France and its colonies on law April 27, 1848. The abolition law, passed under the period known as the Second Republic, resulted in the liberation of 250,000 people from slavery.

Slavery had been outlawed in continental France since 1315, but with conquest of the Americas and European incursions into black Africa, France by the early 16th century become a full partner in the triangular slave trade between Africa, Europe and the Americas. Estimates vary as to the total number of Africans uprooted and enslaved in the Americas with European involvement (primarily Portugal, Spain, England, Holland, France) from the 15th to the 19th centuries, with 12-15 million Africans being the figure used along the Route. (Black slavery to countries north of the Sahara was long present, if on a much smaller scale, before Europeans arrived.)

While men, women and children were not brought as slaves to the transcontinental ports of Nantes and Bordeaux, certain French shipping companies actively participated in their transport and profited from slavery in the colonies.

Origins of the Abolition of Slavery Route

In the wake of the national decree declaring slavery and the slave trade crimes against humanity, a number of sites in eastern France and in Switzerland joined together in a thematic constellation under the heading the Abolition of Slavery Route.

Launched in 2004 with support from the UN and UNESCO, the Abolition of Slavery Route appears as a haphazard route on the map. Unlike other historic routes in France (e.g. wine, pastel, castle, abbey, Impressionists or Napoleon routes), there is no true unity of place to these sites , though historically the anti-slavery movement in France did develop in its eastern provinces and their connection with Switzerland.

Burgundy – Franche-Comté

Rare is the traveler who will actually follow the route from start to finish. This article concerns three sites on that route in Burgundy – Franche-Comté, a composite administrative region, comprised of evocative Burgundy on for its west portion and little-known Franche-Comté for its east portion. While the thirsty traveler will know of Burgundy first through wine, hungry traveler might initially encounter Franche-Comté through comté, which is among the most familiar raw-milk (cow) hard-pressed cheeses in France, and through poulet de Bresse, which is among the country’s top-quality chickens.

Each of the three major sites in Burgundy – Franche-Comté honor abolition presents a different facet of efforts between 1789 and 1848 to abolish slavery .

The House of Negritude and Human Rights

While the year 1848 marks France’s complete refusal of slavery in its territories, it was in the 1780s that significant anti-slavery movements began making their voices heard in France, as well as in Great Britain and the United States. On March 19, 1789, four months before the storming of the Bastille, citizens in the village of Champagney (Haute-Saône) drew up a charter of grievances (photo above) in which they wrote to King Louis XVI, “The inhabitants and community of Champagney cannot think of the ills being suffered by Negroes in the colonies, (…) without feeling a stabbing pain in their hearts.”

That expression of solidarity earns Champagney its place on the Abolition of Slavery Route. Here, in what is now a small town with a population of 3600, the House of Negritude and Human Rights (La Maison de la Negritude et des Droits de l’Homme) presents a reproduction of a slave ship and numerous African and Haitian objects that illustrate negritude (or the values of black civilizations around the world).

Château de Joux, the fortress prison of Toussaint Louverture

During the French Revolution, in 1792, the National Assembly granted full rights of citizenship to people of color. As early as 1794, the young republic appeared to be on its way to definitively abolishing slavery in its colonies when it promulgated a law to that effect. (It was at around this period that the term “crime against humanity” was first used.) However, that early French version of our Emancipation Proclamation wasn’t fully applied in all of France’s overseas territories in the ensuing years, and Napoleon Bonaparte, in his pre-Emperor role of First Consul, turned the country’s back on that decree. In 1802 he reinstate the legality of black slavery and the slave trade in colonies where former slaves weren’t yet all free.

Shortly thereafter, Toussaint Louverture (~1743-1803), an Afro-Caribbean who had become governor of the island of Santo Domingo (present day Haiti) and leader of the rebellion against French rule at the time Bonaparte’s decree, was jailed and brought to the continent to be imprisoned in the Chateau de Joux. Louverture was born into slavery, was a freed and become a slave-owner himself in his 30s before climbing the military and political ladder through alliances with various sides over through the 1790s. The fortress at La Cluse et Mijoux (Doubs), which served as a state prison from 1690 to 1815, stands on the summit of a 3300-foot rocky outcrop guarding the entry to the water gap that is a natural passageway into Switzerland.

Louverture died a few months after his incarceration here. In 1804, within a year of his death, Haiti became a sovereign country, though bloodshed on the island would continue. His cell, situated on the ground floor of the fortress dungeon, can be visited (see photo at top of article).

The Anne-Marie Javouhey House

The same revolutionary body that would free slaves was also wary of the desire of the Catholic Church to reassert its dominance in the lives of the citizens of France. Born in Chamblanc in 1779, Anne-Marie Javouhey therefore grew into the faith of her ancestors in relative secrecy during her teenage years before taking her vows. Religious, as well as racial, reasons had often been given for allowing slavery from Africa. For Sister Javouhey and others, however, religion was instead a reason to oppose slavery, and former slaves should be converted to Christianity.

In 1805 she founded a religious congregation that would eventually take on the name Saint Joseph de Cluny, with a particular interest in education. The order, which still exists, became the first order of female missionaries. Beginning in 1817 and periodically for the next 25 years, Javouhey personally led a group of sisters on missions around the world, where they bore witness to the black slave trade. “Negroes are not deaf to the voice of morality nor to that of civilization,” she wrote to the governor of Guyana; “children of God, they are men just like us.” In 1835 Javouhey and her group obtained the right to oversee the education and conversion of 500 slaves. The first emancipations came in 1838 when she obtained the freedom of 149 who had been shipped to Mana, Guyana. Others would follow.

In addition to the family home of Anne-Marie Javouhey and a museum space located in the school that currently bears her name, the Abolition of Slavery Route sites in Chamblanc (Côte d’Or) include a remembrance forest, made up of 150 trees each named after one of the first freed African slaves.

Further information

The route continues in northeastern France and into Switzerland. For further information in French about the Abolitions of Slavery Route see its official website. The official tourism website of the Burgundy-Franche-Comté region can be found here in English. 

Lodging 

Near La Cluse et Mijoux (Château de Joux): The town of Pontarlier,  several miles to one side of the fortress, has the 3-star Hotel Saint-Pierre and the B&B La Maison d’A Côté. Several miles to the other side and a half-mile from the Swiss border, Le Tillau is a chalet-like 11-room hotel and restaurant in the Jura Mountains.

Champagney: By Napoleon’s time already Champagney was known for its coal mines rather than for its point of view on slavery. The mid-19th-century manor of the director of coal mines in the area (which closed in 1958) is now the B&B Château de la Houillère. Just outside of Champagney, in the village of Ronchamp, the B&B La Maison du Parc also occupies a charming 19th-century mansion.

The post The Abolition of Slavery Route in Burgundy – Franche-Comté appeared first on France Revisited - Life in Paris, Travel in France.

I’ve selected 30—saints, queens, and musicians, assassinations, treaties and war, slavery, gastronomy and science—that give insights into various aspects of French history, culture and politics. These people and events aren’t all known to the general public in France, far from it, and many will seem obscure to the average visitors. Yet each in his/her/its own way has contributed to the culture and conversation that one encounters in France today.

Along with a brief description of their place in history you’ll discover here ways in which you can come into contact with that history as you travel in France. Also keep an eye and an ear out for other related sights, exhibitions, books, articles, documentaries and concerts in the coming year.

418

Saint Germain becomes bishop of Auxerre
There are a number of Saint Germains yet the most famous of these is Saint Germain of Auxerre, who played an important role in the helping the Church of Rome gain primacy in Gaul. In 418 Germain becomes bishop of Auxerre, in what is now Burgundy. He is said to have seen and encouraged in young Genevieve, who would become the patron saint of Paris, the spark of a life devoted to God. In Paris, the church Saint Germain l’Auxerrois, across the street from the Louvre and thus the church of kings, is dedicated to this Germain whereas Saint Germain des Prés is named for another Germain, bishop of Paris. Auxerre’s own cathedral is dedicated to Saint Stephen.

Théodoric I becomes king the Wisigoths
Théodoric I becomes king the Wisigoths during the succession of invasions and battles that take place in former Roman Gaul during the fall of the Western Roman Empire. He dies in battle against Attila in 451, a battle which nevertheless represents the failure of Attila’s invasion into Gaul. The aforementioned Genevieve is given some of the credit for Attila’s defeat for promoting the notion that God will lend a strong hand to protect the Christian people of Paris from the pagan invaders.

918

Death of Guillaume (William) the Pious, Duke of Aquitaine
It’s hard to find a place for this commemoration in your itinerary other than to note: 1, that Guillaume (about 875-918) founded in 909 the Benedictine Abbey of Cluny in Burgundy whose clout and offspring once radiated throughout Christian Europe and 2, that the oversized region of New Aquitaine partially sits within Guillaume’s vast dominion which also reached down to Toulouse across Auvergne and to Lyon and Burgundy.

1118

Death of Bertrade de Montfort, a Countess-cum-Queen
As any screenwriter knows, all you need to create an intriguing mini-series is a history book and the daily paper. There’s far too much scheming, scandal and feudal power play involved in the life of Berthade (born about 1170) to tell a neat little story about this intriguing beauty. In (very) short, Foulques IV, count of Anjou, repudiated his second wife to marry Bertrade, after which Philippe I, king of France, locked away his first wife so that he could marry Bertrade away from Foulques. The Church (think of them as Congressional leaders) then got involved in accepting, rejecting, excommunicating and finally readmitting the couple. But to think of Bertrande as chattel in this story is to misread medieval intrigue, for she had a son with Foulques and another with Philippe and wished them to become, respectively, count of Anjou and king of France, even though Philippe’s son with his first wife was the legitimate heir. She failed in her efforts and eventually withdrew to a convent.

1218

Founding of Les Sables d’Olonne
Now a seaside and sailing town in Vendée, midway between well-heeled La Baule and the portside charms of La Rochelle, Les Sables d’Olonne is the starting and finishing point of the round-the-world solo yachting race Vendée Globe, which is held every four years, next in 2020.

Death of Simon de Montfort, anti-Cathar crusader, Count of Toulouse

Deep into the era of the Crusades, the papal pleasure of seeing the Catholic kings and knights of Europe kill infidels rather than each other was rivaled only by the kingly and knightly pleasure of earning a righteous living through conquest.

When conquest in the Holy Land was elusive, one could always find a heretic to throw into a well or burn at the stake. But local butchery had its limits, so in 1209 Pope Innocent III set in motion the Albigensian or Cathar Crusade to eradicate the Christian-related movement of Catharism that challenged the authoritarian Church. Catharism had grown significantly in southwestern France, particularly in Languedoc, a territory with Carcassonne more or less at its center. Simon de Montfort (born about 1170 of the same Montfort family of the above-mentioned Bertrander) was one of the spearheads of the genocide of the appointed heretics. “Kill them all; God will know his own,” is what the papal legate reportedly said early in the crusade. Perhaps he didn’t really say it, but the instructions and benefits are inevitably clear enough in such matters. Simon’s consecration as a leader of this genocide would come when the pope awarded him the title of Count of Toulouse in 1215. He died in 1218 when crushed by a rock while laying siege to Toulouse, which had revolted against him. Castle ruins perched in the French Pyrenees, where Cathare’s sought refuge, are among the extraordinary sights to be discovered in Cathar Country of southwest France.

1418

Charles the-eventual-VII flees while Bernard VII d’Armagnac gets killed

Every time I read about the conflict between the Burgundians and the Armagnacs during the Hundred Years War between the French and the English it feels like the first time because I can never remember who supports whom in this story in which everyone is more or less related. But I’ve figured this much out: the Armagnacs supported the Orleans clan and the rule of the French king over France, while the wealth of Burgundians depended on trade with the English unless the French king wanted to share some of his tax income. So the Armagnacs and the Burgundians were rivals.

All hell breaks loose when the Duke of Burgundy has the Duke of Orleans (the king’s brother) assassinated in Paris in 1407. Nearly 30 years of civil war ensue while the larger war is also going on. 1418 is a particularly a low period for the French. On May 29, the Burgundians take control of Paris and imprison Bernard VII, leader of the Armagnacs and his cohorts in the city, while Charles, heir to the throne, flees Paris to safety in Bourges, an event that will lead him to be called “the little king of Bourges.” Two weeks later, in the name of fair trade with the English and certainly much else, Parisians break into the prison and massacre Bernard et al. Before long it’s the English that control Paris. In 1435 the French king lay siege to Paris to dislodge the English (mission accomplished a year later), while in the northern town of Arras the Burgundians and the Armagnacs sign a treaty ending the civil war. The Hundreds Year War then slowly winds down as the French reclaim land from the English, ending in 1453.

1468

The Treaty of Péronne
Not that the above ends the Burgundian affection for the English. After all, since Burgundy’s territory at the time reached into Flanders, England was a natural trading partner. With the long period of war generally over, the French king, Louis XI, reaches out to the duke of Burgundy, Charles the Bold, and goes to visit him in Péronne, 85 miles north of Paris. Tensions run high during negotiations until finally the duke and the king agree that they can be friends as long as Louis recognizes that Charles is a pretty powerful guy who can do whatever he wants. Instead of making you wait another nine years to commemorate the (sort of) end of this complex tale, here it is: In 1477 Charles, trying to maintain a connection between Burgundy and his possessions to the north, is killed in battle. Louis XI can then swallow Burgundy and some of its possessions in northern France.

1618

Birth of Count Roger de Bussy-Rabutin
Born in 1618, Bussy-Rabutin might have been known for his military career were it not for his insolence, his wit and his literary talents, which alternately got him exiled to his lands in Burgundy, elected to the French Academy, locked up in the Bastille, exiled again to Burgundy and eventually pardoned by the king. A colorful character, he epitomizes the literary, satirical and libertine culture of the Court of France in the 17th century. He is best known for writing “The Amorous History of the Gauls” (1666), which, to quote the subtitle of its 1727 edition in English, “[Contains] the Intrigues and Gallantries of the Court of France, During the Reign of Louis XIV.” The king was not amused—well, a little. Bussy-Rabutin is also remembered for his maxims on love, such as “Life’s greatest tormentor is the excess of jealousy”; “Love comes from blindness and friendship from knowledge”; “One is never content when in love, but he who doesn’t love is even less happy,” and “Absence is to love what wind is to fire; it extinguishes the small and inflames the great.” He died in 1693. For the traveler, he can be best remembered for the castle of his exile in Burgundy, Château de Bussy-Rabutin, open to the public.

Birth of chef François Pierre de La Varenne, author of “The French Cook”
An aristocrat in France of the second half of the 16th century could certainly eat well, what with all the great food products available from around the kingdom, vegetable plants that had been brought from the New World, and recipes circulating in the form of printed books. One could even dine with a certain refinery, thanks to the increasing use of a long fork with which to poke a nibble off one’s plate and lift it over one’s pristine neck ruff. But it was the 17th century that gave wings to French gastronomy and the etiquette to go with it. Chef to the Marquis d’Uxelles, La Varenne (1618-1678) is credited with codifying rules of French cuisine in his 1651 book “The French Cook.” Its full, original title can be seen on the cover. The book can be read on Gallica, site of the French National Library.

1668

Creation of L’Avare (The Miser) by Molière (1622-1673)
The comedy, a standard in the French repertory, was first performed at the Palais Royal Theater in 1668.

First publication of the Fables of Jean de La Fontaine
Where there is Molière, La Fontaine (1621-1695) is surely nearby since the two were contemporaries and major figures of 17th-century French letters. Their remains were even eventually brought side by side at Père Lachaise Cemetery in Paris. La Fontaine is best known for his fables, some of which can be read here. A museum dedicated to La Fontaine occupies the house in Château-Thierry where he was born.

Birth of composer Jean Gilles
Traveling Baroque music lovers might keep an ear out for Gilles’ Requiem since the French composer was born 350 years ago this year in Tarascon, between Avignon and Arles. Completed toward the end of his life, the Requiem was played at his own funeral in 1705 and at many others to follow, including those of Rameau in 1764 and Louis XV in 1774. Gilles’ Requiem and Mozart’s Requiem are on the program for a concert at the Royal Chapel of Versailles on June 26, 2018. Ticket information here.

Birth of composer François Couperin
Born into a musical family in Paris, Couperin’s compositions for the harpsicord will also get a hearing in various settings this year. He died in 1733.

1718

Founding of New Orleans
This year New Orleans celebrates the tercentennial of its founding as a French colony. It was named in honor of the Philippe, Duke of Orleans, who was at the time regent during the youth of King Louis XV, his first cousin once removed. The French town of Orleans, on the northernmost bend of the Loire River, is also celebrating the anniversary. The two cities recently signed a sister city pact. For more details see this article.

1768

The Genoese Republic cedes Corsica to France
Just in time for Napoleon Bonaparte to be born there as a Frenchman. The French nevertheless had to conquer the island. But some Corsicans are still fighting for independence.

Death of Marie Leszczynska, Louis XV’s queen
Marie Leszczynka, Louis XV’s Polish queen, was a trooper. They married when she was 22, he was 15. A true love, it appeared at first, at least a hot-blooded affair, and they made a fertile pair—she gave birth to 10 children in 10 years, including one set of twins. He then set her aside and she graciously and dutifully stayed there as he pursued his life as a lustful king. She died in 1668 at the age of 42, the last queen of France to die as queen (neither deposed, beheaded or widowed). Her memory is often overshadowed by talk of the Louis XV’s mistresses, from the four Mailly-Nesle sisters to the impressive Madame de Pompadour to the eventually beheaded Madame du Barry.

Birth of Charlotte Corday who assassinated Marat

Born in Normandy, Charlotte Corday died on guillotine in 1793 four days after assassinating, in his bathtub, Jean-Paul Marat, a major figure of the French Revolution. Read this article on France Revisited about Corday and the assassination.

1818

Birth of composer Charles Gounod
First performed (in Paris) in 1859, Gounod’s Faust nears the top of the hit parade of famous French operas. (Bizet’s Carmen naturally tops the list.) An aria or two of Gounod’ Romeo and Juliet may also ring a few bells. On June 14, 2018 the Théâtre des Champs-Elysées in Paris will host a concert version of Faust.

France and other European nations abolish the slave trade
Louis X had abolished slavery in France way back in 1315, as did many rulers in Europe. But with expansion in the New World, France and its European rivals pursued the development of their colonies with the help of the slave trade, which took the form of a navigational triangle that took Black Africans to the Americas and returned to home ports with raw materials from across the ocean. In 1818 France, under Louis XVIII, abolishes the slave trade, as did Britain, Spain, Portugal and The Netherlands at about the same time, altogether a part of the reordering of Europe following the Napoleonic Wars. It then took another 30 years for slavery itself to be abolished in French colonies.

Creation of the savings bank, Caisse d’Epargne, in France
The creation of a new type of in banking in France which allows those of any means, sex or age to place money in a bank for savings and interest.

Henri IV back in the saddle on the Pont Neuf
None of the royal statues that one sees in Paris is the original on their given site since they were all destroyed during the Revolution. (A Louis XIV from City Hall survived that is the Carnavalet Museum in the Marais). Copies began to be placed on pedestals with the return of the Bourbons with Louis XVIII after the fall of Napoleon. The most notable and majestic of these is the equestrian statue of Henri IV placed on the bridge Pont Neuf in 1818. Pieces of the original, particularly the hand of power, are also in the Carnavalet Museum.

1868

Death of Léon Foucault of pendulum fame
Like Eiffel’s tower, Foucault’s pendulum is a deceptively simple answer to a complex question. The former answers the question of how to build something 1000 feet high; the latter gives visual evidence of Earth’s rotation. In 1851 Foucault (born in Paris in 1819) set up a public scientific demonstration of his pendulum beneath the dome of the Pantheon in Paris. In 1995 a pendulum was given permanent place of honor there. A pendulum also swings at the national Museum of Technology (Musée des Arts et Métiers). Foucault also helped define to great precision the speed of light, providing a figure that is just 0.006% from the most precise number known today. See the pendulum at the Pantheon in this France Revisited video.

Birth of Gaston Laroux, creator of the Phantom
Author of The Phantom of the Opera (1910 for the book) and other fantastic tales and detective stories. He died in 1927.

Birth of Edmond Rostand, playwright of Cyrano
Born in Marseille, his play Cyrano de Bergerac has been a crowd-pleaser ever since it was first performed in 1897. He is also the author of L’Aiglon, a play about Napoleon’s son, first performed in 1900 with Sarah Bernhardt in the role of the young man. Rostand died in 1918 in Paris.

1918

Battles and Armistice ending the First World War

Millions more die in during the final year of fighting of the First World War before the armistice of Nov. 11, whose centennial will be commemorated this year. While Americans entered the war on the side of the Allies in 1917, their engagement on the front takes place in 1918, so several American war centennial commemorations will be held in France this year. You don’t need a commemoration, however, to visit the American WWI sights and cemeteries France such as the Escadrille Lafayette Memorial, those near Chateau-Thierry and those in the Meuse.

The “Spanish” flu
The flu pandemic known as the Spanish flu spans the globe, killing tens of millions in 1918 and 1919.

Other obituaries of 1918:
Composer Claude Debussy, poet Guillaume Apollinaire, playwright Edmond Rostand and aviator Roland Garros who was shot down during war and for whom the French Open tennis tournament is named.

1968

May 68
Analyzing the effect of May 68 and positioning oneself with respect to that era will be one of the top intellectual exercises and parlor games of France of the coming months. The labor, social and student movements of the spring of 1968 that are known as May 68 brought together the anger, the frustration, the calls for change and action, and the expression of anti-establishment and anti-authoritarian ideals of a multi-faceted group of students, laborers, leftists, anarchists, and others demanding greater freedoms, rights, power and justice. The Vietnam War was going on, “race riots” had become frequent in the United States, the Cold War thrived, the sexual revolution was underway, youth power had taken to the airwaves ad to the streets, Charles de Gaulle was president of France. There were massive strikes, barricades, joyful and intense disorder, slogans and demands everywhere, occupied buildings (most notably the Sorbonne and the Odeon Theater in Paris), a political crisis. An essential reference point in French history of the second half of the 20th century.

René Cassin receives the Nobel Peace Prize
Cassin (1887-1976) once said “The more I feel French, the more I feel human.” It was for feeling human that he received the Nobel Prize, or more specifically for his work in defining, defending and promoting human rights. He was one of the authors of the Universal Declaration of Human Right, developed by the United Nations by a commission presided by Eleanor Roosevelt and adopted in Paris in 1948. He served as the first president of the European Court of Human Rights. He is entombed in the Pantheon.

The full list from the High Committee for National Commemorations can be found here.  The Center for Historical Monuments publishes a book each year about the selected anniversaries.

© 2018, Gary Lee Kraut

The post Understanding France: National Commemorations of 2018 appeared first on France Revisited - Life in Paris, Travel in France.

On 13 July 1793, the eve of the fourth anniversary of the sacking of the Bastille, 24-year-old noblewoman, Charlotte Corday, knocked on Jean-Paul Marat’s door for the third and final time. She’d already been turned away twice that day by Marat’s companion, Simone. But this time Charlotte arrived bearing a letter, penned in her own hand. The letter stated that she had come to name names; that she was prepared to betray to Marat the 18 Girondin “enemies of the Revolution” that he sought.

Simone took the letter and shut the door with a slam, leaving Charlotte alone on the drab landing outside Marat’s Left Bank home, located just around the corner from his press.

It was Charlotte’s last chance to retreat, but she did not. She’d written her farewell letters. She’d paid off her debts. She’d endured the long coach journey to Paris from Normandy.

Charlotte had looked for Marat at the Palais Royal, considered the birthplace of the French Revolution as people could talk freely there, without fear of censorship. The home of the king’s cousin, Louis-Philippe Joseph II, duc d’Orleans, it was therefore royal property and the king’s police were forbidden to enter. Presses were even set up there to print broadsheets and journals espousing enlightenment values. And folks gathered night and day to share revolutionary ideas, out loud! Louis-Philippe Joseph, encouraging it all to happen, changed his name to Philippe Egalité.

She’d pursued Marat at the National Convention as well, only to learn that he would not likely ever be found there again. He was ill, perhaps dying of an incurable skin disease contracted while hiding from enemies in the Paris sewers. His only solace was soaking in a bath of medicinal herbs. When the pain was very great, he remained in his bath all day.

She’d come this far. Now a mere threshold stood in the way of her greater goal. She stood her ground and waited.

The letter did trick. Marat granted Mademoiselle Corday entry into a small, square room with a brick-tiled floor. A map of France hung upon worn wallpaper. There, she found Marat languishing in a tub the shape of a sabot, an old wooden shoe. A board lying across it served as a writing table. To keep warm, Marat sat upon a linen sheet, the dry ends covering his bare shoulders. A second sheet, draped across the tub and writing table, offered him a bit of privacy from his visitors.

Marat was strange and unpleasant, thin and feverish. His head was wrapped in a filthy, vinegar-soaked handkerchief. Open lesions on his skin reeked of decaying, rotten flesh.

Marat motioned for Charlotte to take the chair placed by his bath. She sat as requested, turning toward the open window, searching the still, hot summer air for what little breeze might chance to come her way. Her eyes began to tear, struggling against the stench of death and medicine. And in the gloom of evening’s waning light, Marat wrote down, one by one, his head bent over his writing table, the names of each of Charlotte’s beloved Girondin friends, then holed up in Caen.

Once finished, he raised his head. His blood-shot eyes met hers for the first time, and he proclaimed, hate dripping from his lips, “We’ll soon have them all guillotined in Paris!”

At that moment Charlotte remembered why she had come. She pulled a kitchen knife from the folds of her dress and stabbed Marat right through the heart. One blow was all it took. She felt the knife penetrate flesh, bone, muscle. Marat died almost instantly.

But it was not Charlotte who was martyred that day. On the contrary, it was Marat’s body that received a hero’s funeral. In one of the greatest propaganda events ever to take place in the history of the Reign of Terror, Marat was placed in a proper coffin, paraded through the streets of Paris to the sound of weeping citizens, and buried at the Pantheon. He might have died quietly in his bath. Instead, all he stood for – all that Charlotte loathed – was championed before thousands by the radical Jacobins.

In contrast, Charlotte was captured, tried, convicted and imprisoned at the Conciergerie, the antechamber to the guillotine. She lost not only her cause but also her head four days later, 17 July 1793, four years and four days after the symbolic debut of the peaceful Revolution she was attempting to save. Her remains were tossed, without ceremony, among those of the other victims of the Reign of Terror into an open, pestilent, public grave.

Targeting a dying man rather than the more powerful, and more ruthless, among the Revolutionary leadership, did Charlotte truly believe, as her farewell letter to the French people maintains, that “with my single act of violence I will bring peace to my Nation”?

Charlotte’s act of murder, rather than stopping the violence as she hoped, only unleashed more. A long shadow of doubt was cast over the remaining Girondin delegates to the National Convention. Already in trouble for standing against the execution of King Louis XVI, they were now believed by Maximilien Robespierre, deputy of the Committee for Public Safety, and the radical Jacobins to have been in cahoots with young Corday, even though she insisted that they were not. Indeed, their presumed collaboration was never proven. However, all 21 Girondin delegates were put to death, just as Marat had wanted, on 29 October 1793.

Marie Antoinette, Queen of France, would beat the 21 Girondins to the guillotine by a mere two weeks. Cousin Philippe Egalité, would follow them in November.

But as extremists and ideologues throughout history have learned, karma has a way of catching up with you. It took two years and 20,000 lives, but the French eventually realized, like Charlotte, that the promise of Liberty, Equality and Fraternity that the Revolution once represented had long since been lost. The most radical revolutionaries began to turn on each other. They, too, would meet their end at the guillotine, in a ritualized procession they would come to share with Corday.

On the afternoon of her beheading, Charlotte was taken to the Salle de la Toilette of the Conciergerie. Her thick, chestnut curls were cut off above her neck at the express wish of Sanson, the Revolution’s executioner. The only thing capable of slowing the guillotine blade was human hair, which could only result in excruciating pain for the condemned. Though a professional killer, Sanson was humane. Charlotte’s hair was gathered up and placed in a basket for safekeeping: the wife of the Concierge made an extra living creating wigs from the hair of the guillotine’s victims.

Charlotte’s hands were then tied behind her back, and she was escorted to the Carré des douze (Square of the twelve), a small, triangular courtyard behind the iron gate in the cours des femmes (the women’s courtyard) of the Conciergerie Prison. The condemned were held there on the day of their execution, twelve at a time. That’s how many fit in a tumbrel. The tumbrel made the round trip, from prison to guillotine, as many as three times a day.When the empty tumbrel arrived at the Conciergerie, a large bell was sounded from a pull chain in the main courtyard of the Palais de Justice, the Cour du Mai. Charlotte was then taken into the May Courtyard were a group of black-toothed women revolutionaries, les tricoteuses (knitter-women), thus called because they knitted clothes and bandages for the Revolutionary troops, heckled her mercilessly. Believed to be in the pay of the public prosecutor, Antoine-Quentin Fouquier-Tinville, they incited the crowd to humiliate all prisoners of the Revolution as they made their final voyage to the guillotine.

Charlotte was then loaded with the others like cattle into the open wooden tumbrel and taken to the Place de la Revolution to face her beheading. She was the only one among the twelve to wear a red chemise (dress), the sign of her crime of murder.

Witnesses say it poured with rain throughout Charlotte’s long journey to the Place de la Revolution. However, the weather would not scatter the crowd. No one wanted to miss the beheading of the murderer of Jean-Paul Marat. To do so might send a signal that you supported her actions.

The streets were so clogged with onlookers that it took two hours for the tumbrel carrying Charlotte Corday to reach its bloodstained destination. En route down the Rue Saint Honoré to the guillotine, people hurled insults, even stones, at the prisoners, further humiliating them in their final hours of life. Charlotte remained standing, calm and poised, throughout the ordeal.

From a window overlooking the procession, Robespierre, Camille Desmoulins and George Danton, all friends of Marat, watched her pass. That this would one day be their own fate was the furthest thing from their minds.

When the tumbrel finally reached the foot of the guillotine, the rain stopped. A purple sunset flooded the sky. Some among the twelve screamed and begged for mercy. Others struggled hopelessly to be free. Still others followed along, head cast downward, resigned. Only Charlotte mounted the scaffold steps without hesitation or assistance that day. She gave herself willingly to Sanson’s blade.

© Sarah Towle

Sarah Towle is Founder and Creative Director of Time Traveler Tours, mobile iTineraries that reveal history through the stories of characters who helped shape their time, enhanced with dash of interactive games. Charlotte Corday is the subject of the first of these new App tours, Beware Madame la Guillotine, A Revolutionary Tour of Paris, with which teens (12+) and adults can follow in the footsteps of this compelling historical figure for a “Revolutionary” and entertaining visit of Paris’ well-known and lesser-known sights. “Beware Madame la Guillotine” was chosen as a finalist for the World Youth and Student Travel Conference 2012 App Yap Contest.

France Revisited’s Revolutionary Charlotte Corday Contest
The first three people to answer the following two questions correctly will win a free download of Sarah Towle’s app tour “Beware Madame la Guillotine, A Revolutionary Tour of Paris” ($7.99 value).

Question 1: How many condemned typically fit in a tumbrel?

Question 2: Marat, Robespierre, Danton and other major figures of the French Revolution frequented Le Procope, now Paris’s oldest café still in existence. The desks of which two philosophers of the Enlightenment are found at Le Procope?

The contest has ended with three winners: Vince, Catt and Lesley.
The answers:
Twelve condemned could be carted to the guillotine in a tumbrel.
The desks of Voltaire and Rousseau are found at Le Procope.

Several people knew that Voltaire’s desk is found at Le Procope but couldn’t find the second. Here’s a photo of that second one, which belonged to Jean-Jacques Rousseau.

Thanks to all those who submitted answers.

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This year’s crop of celebrations goes from the 1800th anniversary of the edict granting Roman citizenships to all the inhabitants of the Roman Empire (including Gaul) to the 50th anniversary of the referendum for the election of the French president through universal suffrage, by way of the 600th anniversary of the birth of Joan of Arc and the 250th anniversary of the opening in Lyon of the world’s first veterinary school, along with more than 60 other notable anniversaries.

Notable? Certainly not to top-10 minded travelers and even to most French.

Nevertheless, taken together these historical markers give fascinating insights into the memory of France and, at least in an academic sense, to its national identity. Well-educated French love to hear and read about their history. Historians are literary stars here; academiciens, as members of the prestigious Académie Française are called, pen 500-page tomes that get read at the beach; museums jump at the chance to dust off art and craftwork and documents in their tremendous reserves to celebrate an anniversary.

So even without going into details about this year’s commemorations, it’s worth considering what the very serious “Mission for National Commemorations” deems memorable. And since such recognition typically leads to funding from local, regional and national government toward the mounting of cultural events and exhibits, you may well encounter exhibitions or concerts or special events honoring these centennials and semicentennials as you travel and read about France this year.

Here are some of the events that have been selected for national commemoration in 2012.

Year: Event

212: Edict granting Roman citizenships to all the inhabitants of the Roman Empire, including Gaul.

512: Death at age 89 of Saint Geneviève, for Catholics the patron saint of Paris. Her sarcophagus (emptied of her remains during the French Revolution) is found in a chapel at Saint-Etienne-du-Mont Church in Paris, behind the Pantheon.

1412: Birth of Joan of Arc / Jeanne d’Arc in Domrémy, a village on the eastern edge of the kingdom. She was burned at the stake in Rouen (Normandy) in 1431.

1512: Beginning of the creation of the celebrated Issenheim altarpiece, painted by Matthais Grünewald. The altarpiece is the main draw to Colmar’s Unterlinden Museum. The commemoration of this anniversary is less revealing of national character (Grünewald was, after all, German) than the polemic surrounding its restoration and plans to move it to a new extension of the museum in 2013.

1612: Birth of architect Louis Le Vau, one of the prime forces of French classicism, the architectural style of Louis XIV. Among his works: the Hotel Lambert (mansion on Ile Saint Louis in Paris), the chateau Vaux-le-Vicomte, a portion of Versailles, and the building that is now the French Institute. He died in 1670.

1612: Inauguration of the Place des Vosges (originally called the Place Royale) in Paris. It was inaugurated by a parade celebrating the engagement of Louis XIII and Anne, Infanta of Spain. Construction of the square was launched by Louis XIII’s father Henri IV.

1662: Death of Blaise Pascal, philosopher and mathematician, born in 1623.

1712: Marshall Villars led French forces to victory against the Dutch at the Battle of Denain during the exhausting European coalition war—this one pitting France and Spain against Austria, England and Holland—known as the War of Spanish Succession, a war that help bring about an inglorious end to the reign of Louis XIV.

1712: Birth in Geneva of Jean-Jacques Rousseau, philosopher and writer, author of Emile, The Social Contract, Discourse on the Sciences and Arts, and Confessions. The Rhone-Alpes region (Lyon, Annecy, Chambery) is celebrating the 300th anniversary of the birth of this giant of the Enlightenment (died in 1778) and the 250th anniversary of the publication of Emile and of The Social Contract with various exhibitions and events.

1762: Opening in Lyon of the world’s first veterinary school.

1812: Birth of the artist Theodore Rousseau, cofounder of the Barbizon School that preceded the Impressionist period. He died in 1867.

1862: Publication of Victor Hugo’s Les Misérables.

1862: Birth of the composer Claude Debussy (died 1918) and of the playwright Georges Feydeau (died 1927).

1862: Measurement (slightly modified since) of the speed of light by Léon Foucault (1819-1868), who is also famous for his pendulum providing visual evidence of the earth’s rotation, a version of which can still be seen at the Pantheon in Paris.

1862: Creation of the National Museum of Antiquities in the Chateau of Saint-Germain-en-Laye, a former royal residence just west of Paris.

1912: Birth of Abbé Pierre (né Henri Grouès), a Catholic priest, founder of Emmaus, an association promoting solidarity with and assistance for the poor. He died in 2007. The Emmaus International Movement now consists of 317 working in 36 countries, including 185 in France, 15 in the United Kingdom, and two in the United States.

1912: Birth of the novelist Pierre Boulle (died 1994). Though his name is largely unknown, movie adaptations of two of novels were major hits: The Bridge Over the River Kwai and The Planet of the Apes.

1912: Treaty of Fez makes Morocco a French protectorate. The treaty was eliminated in 1956 when France recognized the independence of Morocco.

1912: Birth of the actor and director Jean Vilar, creator of the Avignon Theater Festival (1947). He died in 1971.

1912: Birth of the photographer Robert Doisneau, whose 1959 picture of a beach scene at Les Sables d’Olonne graces the cover of this year’s directory of national commemorations (shown above). He died in 1994.

1962: Release of Francois Truffaut’s film Jules et Jim starring Henri Serre, Oscar Werner and Jeanne Moureau.

1962: End of the War in Algeria and recognition of Algerian independence.

1962: Referendum on the election of the President of the Republic by universal suffrage, meaning direct election by the people, as opposed to the system then in force of having the president elected by an electoral college comprised of about 80,000 elected officials. The referendum was passed with oui votes from 61% of voters.

A full list in French of National Commemorations for 2012 in France can be found here.

(c) 2012, Gary Lee Kraut

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Napoleon, as Bonaparte then as emperor, marked an era and much that came after. He also marked many towns, giving them letters of nobility—towns that now perpetuate his memory with more or less success.

The desire to promote the Napoleonic history of such places has given rise to the European Federation of Napoleonic Cities (Fédération Européenne des Cités Napoléoniennes), created by (Prince) Charles Napoléon, the oldest surviving male heir of Napoleon’s youngest brother Jerome.

The federation brings together European towns and cities whose history has been marked by Napoleon’s influence and that are willing to develop activities along three main lines: promoting exchanges on Napoleonic history by setting up meetings, seminars and publications in association with universities; supporting and promoting actions to preserve and restore Napoleonic heritage (objects, works of art, furniture, monuments, sites, etc.); developing and conducting activities that present that heritage in a positive light (exhibitions, arts events, discovery tours, especially in tourist and academic exchanges).

The desire to promote these activities with a recognizable logo has led to the creation of the trademark “Ville Impériale,” Imperial City. Associated French towns and cities whose heritage relates to the Empire, as the period of Napoleon’s reign is known, can identify themselves as such to the general public and to tourists with the new trademark and logo.

Leading the way in this effort is the town of Rueil-Malmaison, a western suburb of Paris, whose history is indelibly marked by the presence of the Chateau de Malmaison, once home to Napoleon and Josephine, his first wife.

Patrick Ollier, mayor of Rueil-Malmaison, Frédéric Lefebvre, French tourism minister, Charles Napoléon, and the mayors of Compiègne, Fontainebleau and Saint-Cloud came together in Rueil on October 21, 2011, to unveil “Ville Impériale” trademark and logo.

Josephine purchased Malmaison in 1799. Renovated between 1800 and 1802, the chateau frequently housed the couple through Napoleon’s reign as First Consul. In 1804 he declared himself Emperor Napoleon I and often required a larger setting to receive his imperial court; nevertheless he and Josephine continued to return to Malmaison until their divorce in 1809. Josephine then lived there until her death in 1814. The chateau today very much reflects the decorative spirit of the Consulate and of the Empire.

The towns and chateaux of Compiègne, Fontainebleau and Saint-Cloud, all within easy reach of Paris, also played important roles during the Empire.

Those behind the “Ville Impériale” trademark are now looking to rally other towns and cities to the cause of putting forward their Napoleonic past with the associated trademark and logo.

The logo promises to bring together history, culture and tourism and will perhaps give rise to a global approach to Napoleon. It’s a label that might well serve as a model for other heritage initiatives.

The Imperial Guard was present at Rueil-Malmaison for the unveiling of the new logo on Oct. 21, 2011, complete with music and canon fire.

Original text in French  by Georges Levet, Secretary of the French Association of Heritage Journalists, Association des journalistes du patrimoine.
Loosely adapted into English for France Revisited by Gary Lee Kraut.

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A letter protesting the construction of the Eiffel Tower was published in Paris on February 14, 1887, less than three weeks after Gustave Eiffel broke ground on the tower that would far overtake the Washington Monument as the world’s tallest manmade structure.

The letter was signed by dozens of “personalities from the world of arts and letters,” and though many of the signatories were little known or merely fashionable artists of the day, the letter did carry the weight of such respected voices as Charles Gounod (composer of Faust), Charles Garnier (architect of the Paris Opera), and the writers Guy de Maupassant and Alexandre Dumas fils.

The artists, declaring themselves “passionate about the beauty hitherto intact of Paris,” denounced the planned 300-meter/1000-foot tower as “useless and monstrous,” “a horrendous column of bolted sheet iron.” They claimed that it would “profane” and “dishonor” Paris to have the city government associate itself with “the mercantile imaginings of a constructor of machines.”

“Not even commercial America would want it,” they said.

And they were right.

Eiffel’s project was monstrous. The tower would dominate the low, dense skyline of the City of Light, and do so for no other reason than to demonstrate to what heights it was possible with iron and to attract visitors to the World’s Fair of 1889.

They were right that the tower would eclipse Paris’s glorious monuments of decades and centuries past and that the “beauty hitherto intact of Paris” would be changed in ways hitherto unimaginable. They were right that the tower’s stature would command attention to the point of becoming the very symbol of Paris. And how could Paris be Paris if symbolized by a useless pile of iron? Didn’t beauty and history demand that the French capital be represented by religious monuments such as Notre-Dame or Sacré Coeur (then under construction on Montmartre), or by monuments honoring national glory through war, such as the Arc de Triomphe or the Invalides, or at the very least by the Louvre, a monument to both majesty and art?

They were right that commercial America wouldn’t even have wanted something as frivolous and meaningless as a 1000-foot tower in 1887. At the time, Las Vegas had barely heard of the Can-Can! It would be another 110 years before it got an Eiffel Tower.

They were right about Eiffel’s tower being profane.

But they were on the wrong side of history—and progress. And Gustave Eiffel stood clearly on the other side.

Gustave Eiffel

By the time he embarked on the tower, Gustave Eiffel (1832-1923) was already a successful engineer at the head of an engineering firm of international renown. Bridges and viaducts were his company’s specialty, built in response to enormous growth of railway networks, yet it also designed the metal framework for a variety of structures. In Paris, Eiffel’s company designed the framework for the church of Notre-Dame-des-Champs (6th arr.), the synagogue on rue des Tournelles (3rd arr.), and the Bon Marché department store (7th arr.). The company carried out major projects throughout France as well as in Spain, Portugal, Romania, Egypt, Hungary and Latin America. Eiffel’s company also designed the metallic structure that supports the Statue of Liberty.

In 1884 Gustave Eiffel patented plans for a 300-meter/1000-foot tower standing on four pillars 125 meters/410 feet apart, doing so in the names of his collaborators Emile Nourguier and Maurice Koechlin and himself. There was no actual project to build the tower when Nourguier and Koechlin (long-forgotten names) drew up the original plans, though the possibility of such a colossal structure did grasp the imagination. And Eiffel was well aware that the government intended to approve plans for Paris to host a World’s Fair (Exposition universelle) in 1889.

In addition to his engineering skills and the reputation of his company, Eiffel was a wise businessman who knew how to play politics, deal with financial institutions, communicate with the press, take risks, and get things done. He knew how to convince the organizers of the Fair that his tower was just the thing that was needed to draw attention to the event and demonstrate the industrial potential of the host nation.

In 1886, the organizers launched a competition for plans to built a 300-meter tower, mostly of iron, with a square base 125 meters wide. It was obviously rigged to allow Eiffel to build his tower.

The Eiffel Tower, as it was soon called, was completed on time and within budget in 2 years, 2 months, 5 days. Though practical solutions needed to be found along the way, particularly in preparing the foundations on the pillars on the sandy Seine side of the structure, Eiffel wasn’t a man to embark on a project he wasn’t sure would succeed. In response to complaints from distant neighbors, his company assumed all risks of the tower falling during construction.

Great Heights

In 1884, the Washington Monument had topped out at 600 feet and become the world’s highest manmade structure. Five years later, the Eiffel Tower, reaching 1023, took over as number one. It wasn’t height alone that set the two apart, but, just as importantly, weight. The Washington Monument made for a fine monument of masonry, but weighing in at 90,000 tons, it was a construction of the past. The future was in metal and alloys. The iron of the Eiffel Tower weighed in at a mere 7,300 tons, so light for its size that if placed in a box large enough to enclose the tower it would float at sea (hard to imagine but give it a bit of thought anyway). It remained the highest manmade structure from 1889 until 1930, when the Chrysler Building in New York briefly took over the mantle at 1046 feet.

The organizers of the World’s Fair of 1889 had requested that the tower be built only with French materials, but when it came to creating the elevators no French company was experienced enough to take the risk of an elevator that would cover the variably inclined middle portion. Therefore the American elevator company Otis was invited to construct the hydraulic elevators running from the base to the second level.

Also, the original plans called for no decorative elements, but in the end a decorative trim was added in the form of small arches beneath the first level, and just above the arches were placed the names of 72 French scientists famous for their role in scientific advancements from 1789 to 1889.

Even without decoration, Eiffel had argued in his response to the protest letter in February 1887, “the Tower will have her own beauty.” “Her curves…will give a great impression of strength and beauty.” (A tower is a feminine noun in French; the Eiffel Tower is therefore also known as la Dame de Fer, the Iron Lady.) “Furthermore,” he wrote, “the colossal has an attraction, its own charm, to which ordinary theories of art are hardly applicable.”

The skyscraper was born.

© Gary Lee Kraut

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The Declaration, which is fully spelled out in the Concorde station, sets forth fundamental rights in France (and beyond). Now a part of the Preamble of the French Constitution, the Declaration was adopted on Aug. 26, 1789 by the National Constituent Assembly and ratified under duress by King Louis XVI on October 5, 1789, spelling the beginning of the end of the feudal system and the Ancien Régime.

Translation: No one may be questioned about his opinions, even religious, provided that their manifestation does not trouble the public order established by the law… and provided that he does not hold them while smoking in the metro.

– Image and text: GLK

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