A Bastille Day quiz

1. Who said, “Revolutions have terrible arms and righteous fists; they choose their targets well and rarely miss”?
a. Maximilien Robespierre
b. Georges Jacques Danton
c. Olympe de Gouges
d. Victor Hugo

2. Which deputy at the Convention government spoke out against the vague definition of plotter (conspirateur) in the midst of the Terror, and pleaded for measures that would protect the innocent?
a. Robespierre
b. Bishop Talleyrand
c. Marat
d. Danton

3. What author was guillotined in November 1793 on the grounds that her writings aimed to re-establish a counter-revolutionary regime?
a. Charlotte Corday, assassin of Jean-Paul Marat
b. Stéphanie Félicité Ducrest de St-Aubin, Countess de Genlis
c. La Princesse de Lamballe, former intimate of Marie-Antoinette
d. Olympe de Gouges, author of La Déclaration des droits de la femme

4. The official celebration of July 14 as the French national holiday dates from what era?
a. 1789
b. 1880
c. 1804
d. 1946

5. What author penned a 1791 document that explained the reasoning behind the actions of King Louis XVI on those days when military intervention could have reversed the course of events (such as July 14, 1789 or October 5-6, 1789), and stressed the king’s sacrifices towards the misguided people (la multitude égarée)?
a. Monsieur, Count de Provence (brother of King Louis XVI)
b. General Lafayette, leader of the National Guard
c. Jean Sylvain Bailly, mayor of Paris
d. King Louis XVI

6. Which public figure described himself as a martyr to the French people?
a. Robespierre
b. Marat
c. King Louis XVI
d. All of the above

7. Which revolutionary event is today considered the turning-point in the fate of the French monarchy?
a. July 14, 1789: the taking of the Bastille
b. October 5-6, 1789: the Women’s March on Versailles
c. January 21, 1793: the execution of Louis XVI
d. October 17, 1793: the execution of Marie-Antoinette

8. Which author penned these prescient words about the Revolution’s legacy: “Thus the truth of history, on this point as among others, will probably not lie in what happened, but only in what continues to be told”?
a. Robespierre
b. Hugo
c. Napoléon
d. Chateaubriand

9. What pop idol is currently the star of a music video that relays the history of the French revolution on YouTube ?
a. Lady Gaga
b. Madonna
c. Beyoncé
d. Taylor Swift

10. What is the most important legacy for France of the Revolution today?
a. The system of representative government
b. The commitment to universal rights
c. Free public education
d. All of the above

Answers
1. d. Victor Hugo, “Les révolutions ont le bras terrible et la main heureuse; elles frappent ferme et choisissent bien,” Les Misérables, ed. Rosa, 2 :1125.
2. a. “Il est important de bien définir ce que vous entendez par conspirateurs; autrement les meilleurs citoyens risqueroient d’être victimes d’un tribunal institué pour les protéger contre les entreprises des contre-révolutionnaires,” Maximilien Robespierre, speech at the Convention on March 11, 1793.
3. d. Olympe de Gouges, condemned and executed for being: “Femme de lettres, âgée de 38 ans, native de Montauban, convaincue d’être l’auteur d’écrits tendans à l’établissement d’un pouvoir attentatoire à la souveraineté du people” (Journal de Paris National, 3 novembre 1793).
4. b. 1880.
5. d. King Louis XVI, in Déclaration du Roi adressée à tous les Français à sa sortie de Paris, a 16-page manuscript left behind in the Tuileries castle on June 20, 1791, when the royal family tried to flee from France.
6. d. All of the above
7. b. The Women’s March (or October Days) is today considered the most important event for symbolic, material, and political reasons, as it revealed the people’s power over the monarch and re-placed the royal family in the capital city. Louis XVI and Marie-Antoinette never saw Versailles again.
8. c. Napoléon Bonaparte
9. a. Lady Gaga (aka “The History Teachers”)
10. d. Vive la démocratie!

Forgetting Varennes

Today we commemorate the 220th anniversary of the one-week anniversary of Louis XVI’s ignoble return to Paris following his escape attempt on June 20-21, 1791. “Why on earth does this matter?” you may wonder. I chose this date, rather than June 20, when the royal family departed from the Tuileries, or June 21, when they were caught and brought back from Varennes, to underline the arbitrary nature of historical memory. The reputation of Louis XVI in our day is necessarily associated with Varennes. His ignominious return to Paris from Varennes on June 21 under armed guard is tied to the descent from favor that led to the fall of the monarchy, to the rise of the republic, and more or less directly to his execution just 19 months later, which ushered in the Terror and all the atrocities that we know.

But things did not have to be that way.

Varennes could have faded from memory long ago. After all, it is a rather insignificant little town and the arrest was a fluke. If Louis had been dressed in regal attire, or had exerted a bit more pressure on the guards, or incited his men to use armed force, or simply demanded more insistently that his family be escorted to their destination, they might have found their way safely to Montmédy. It is not very far, only 50 km (about 58 miles).

Moreover, by September 1791 His Majesty made it official that the matter was not worth remembering. He demanded that the city of Paris forget the events of June 1791, and that the National Assembly annul all legal procedures relative to his flight.* If this command had been executed, no one would remember Varennes. Perhaps France would still be a monarchy.

This commemoration of a failed command is not as trivial as it may appear. Our entire concept of historical causality, of why the Revolution took the course it did, hinges on such seemingly insignificant events. As Tolstoy reminds us, “Our false conception that an event is caused by a command which precedes it is due to the fact that when the event has taken place, and out of thousands of others those few commands which were consistent with that event have been executed, we forget about the others that were not executed.”**

This glaring, obvious and yet often forgotten truism about historical memory is important to keep in mind. Not only as we attempt to understand the past, but also, as we try to make sense of our own history-in-the-making.

Happy June 29th. Vive Varennes.

* Archives de la Préfecture de Police (Paris).
** Leo Tolstoy, War and Peace, trans. Maude & Maude(Oxford World Classics, 2010), 1288.

Update on “Pity and its adversaries”

The research originally mentioned in our posting of June 1, 2009 is now available in print: “Le roi pitoyable et ses adversaires: La politique de l’émotion selon J.J. Regnault-Warin, H.-M. Williams, et les libellistes de Varennes,” La Revue d’histoire littéraire de la France 4 (2010): 917-34.

On Adieux and the ancien régime in France today

On this night, the 218th anniversary of Louis XVI’s Adieux, it is appropriate to remember the once and only Pitiful King.
Knowing of the masses that are still held to commemorate Louis XVI’s execution each year, on January 21, 2003, I went to the designated church in my then-hometown of Angers for the king’s annual memorial. I had hoped to espy some vestiges of monarchical politics, but instead of a glittering aristocracy of loyalists spouting fiery rhetoric against the Republic, I found only a sad little bunch of devotees (what my friends call intégristes) in a humdrum Sunday ritual. The nondescript congregation was no different from any other cold and shabby provincial gathering of tired-looking parents, where large families in hand-me-downs went through the motions of Catholic worship in subdued voices and damp spirits.

On the other hand, I also witnessed an event in Paris in 2009 that revealed how the ancien régime lives on for the chosen few. After battling our way through unexpectedly heavy traffic and a chaotic sense of an emergency-in-the making one night, a friend and I found ourselves in the midst of a dazzlingly group of 1,000 or so people, all decked out in impeccable white clothing (complete to the shoes, scarves, and hats) as they enjoyed milling around candle-lit dinner tables in the midst of the Place de la Concorde. “What is it?” I asked, thinking that it must be a state function for a visiting dignitary. Un dîner blanc, my friend—a lifetime Parisian—sighed in awe. He explained that he had never seen one of these legendary gatherings before, but that rumor had it that they take place each year à l’improviste after a secret message is sent around to the elect telling them where and when to show up for the lavishly catered dinner. Although they tie up traffic for hours and cause countless headaches for the Paris municipal government, the police, and the unsuspecting motorists who are forced to drive around them, the dîners blancs are apparently not only tolerated, they are revered. If you’re lucky, you might even get to take their picture. Noblesse oblige…

How to translate a poissarde?

The poissarde or fish seller has a long and interesting history. The market women of Paris had a special relation to the king since the Middle Ages when Saint Louis granted destitute women the exclusive privilege to sell retail goods and especially fish at designated sites in city markets. Biblical teachings led the French to consider fish a particularly pure species and so, thanks to the 138 fast days dictated by Catholic dogma, fish sellers were a crucial supplier of ritualized sanctity: being a harangère was a lucrative job. Since the reign of Louis XV, market women travelled twice a year to meet with the king at Versailles and they also appeared on special occasions such as royal marriages or births. But the nature of their politics—or even the existence of a dominant political consciousness among these people—remains unclear. As Pierre Ronzeaud has noted, the figure of the foul-mouthed harangère or herring-monger was already a well-known topos in the Mazarinades of the 1650s; in these texts the women’s socio-economic realities were buried under a cartoonish vulgarity that proved remarkably impervious to change. A similar ventriloquism runs through revolutionary-age pamphletry. True, the market women’s absence from festivities on the eve of the Assumption in 1787, when they had been expected to present flowers and compliments to Queen Marie-Antoinette, provoked anxiety at court. A police injunction two days later forced them to comply. It is also true, as Carla Hesse reminds us, that a number of market women expressed their displeasure with King Louis XVI in early 1789 by participating in a performance of the Souper de Henri IV at a Parisian theater and drinking a toast to Henri IV. While such incidents suggest that the women’s traditional bond to the crown was under pressure, economic considerations, as well as the poissard literary tradition, point to a more complex situation.
This complexity comes to the fore when a poissard text is translated into English. What modern-day English dialect or idiom can render the occasionally vulgar rough-and-tumble words of Parisian fish sellers of the past? In Summer 2009, I hired Sonja Stojanovic to translate Le Falot du peuple (The People’s Lantern, ca. 1792-93)*. Her solution to the problem of dialect was to render the market women’s speech in a Cajun-inflected English, with the help of Robert Hendrickson’s Whistlin’ Dixie: A Dictionary of Southern Expressions (1993). I think that the results are great! Here is an excerpt to whet your appetite for Chapter One, “From Fish Seller to Suffragette” of my book-in-progress, A Revolution in Fiction…
The People’s Lantern, or dialogues of Miz Salmon, Fishwife, on the trial of Louis XVI, trans. Sonja Stojanovic
Miz Salmon: Hey, ol’ Ma, how you been? For eight days now, you’re in a sull and avoiding me; come on, let’s go grab a drink: for having not the same opinion, do we have to eat each other up?
Tender Ma: What do you want, Miz Salmon, you’re rich, you, you ain’t caring; ifn this sells or not, don’t matter to you. Anyways, regardin’ poor Louis XVI, I’m frettin’ & I don’t dare say nothin’ yet; but you, it is all from the contrary, it gives you such a tone in this market, you’ve become the loud and big one, & this on account of you screamin’ your lungs out against poor Louis XVI. But tell me, Miz Salmon, everwhat did he do to you to not abide him like that?
Miz Salmon: But my child, to me he ain’t done nothin’; but they lay it to him, the cause of this all, that he has made them prices raised, that he made bread ‘n fish go missin; in short, that the 10th of August he wanted to have us all killed, & that it is him who is stirrin’ up all the Prussians, & who has all our menses killed. You see I ain’t wrong when we have rage against him.
Tender Ma: Hey ol’ neighbor, you made my heart bloom in talking to me like that heart-to-heart but ifn you have a moment, I’ll soon, in reason, have brought you to your senses & you’ll see.
Primo uno & first off, my dear friend, he’s maybe the cause of the actual’s wrangle, & that’s without wantin’ it, & through a good motive …

* Le Falot du peuple, attributed to C. Bellanger, repr. in Dialogues révolutionnaires, ed. Malcolm Cook (Exeter: University of Exeter Press, 1994), 73-81.

Christmas gift for the revolutionary on your list

“Guillotine” is a card game set during the French Revolution. Slogan: “Le jeu de cartes révolutionnaire qui vous fera perdre la tête.” Your goal? Collect as many noble heads as possible to score enough to win. The game consists of three rounds, with each round consisting of twelve “hours” (collecting a head takes one hour). You will execute the noble first in line. But luckily, there are certain cards that allow you to change the line-up of the condemned, and so enable you to get a better head, or make your opponents get a worse one. Of course, there are certain heads that aren’t very good to “collect”. “Collecting” the martyr isn’t very smart, for example.

The game is rather quick, and very easy to learn. There are not many rules, and the few rules that exist are consistent and very basic.

Strength: Simple, quick, and fun.
Weakness: Can be hard to find a place to buy it. Card iconography bears little to no resemblance to historical figures, but rather a Disney-esque rendition wherein everyone is young and beautiful. Also deforms revolutionary history, of course, but that is a different matter.
My kids and I found it relatively amusing. And they do remember that 1793 is an important date…
Would probably be more fun in a classroom situation, as a reward to students after learning about the Revolution (and prompt them to point out its deformation of history).
Happy Holidays!

Au Père Tranquille and Louis XVI : trompe l’œil or coincidence ?

Have you ever noticed…
that the sign for Paris restaurant Au Père Tranquille bears a striking resemblance to the profile of Louis XVI? … except that Louis is rarely represented with a smile.
Is this a mere coincidence, or another case of the hidden profile trompe l’œil we have seen elsewhere?
Au Père Tranquille is a veritable institution in the neighborhood of Les Halles. The brasserie has occupied this spot (16 rue Pierre Lescot, 1er) since the end of the 19th century, when a strong conservative backlash brought Catholicism and tradition back into style. (Perhaps the smile is his revenge on those republicans who had suppressed the Catholic, royalist past for such a long time?) This restaurant has seen many changes nearby, from the old market Les Halles de Paris, and the present Forum des Halles and, it appears, the Nouveau Forum des Halles to be constructed next year, despite the citizens’ complaints and demonstrations (see our article of May 2010, “Can activism save the trees of Les Halles?”)
What other restaurants–in Paris or elsewhere in France–bear signs hearkening back to revolutionary history? Stand by for more postings to come…

Trompe l’œil imagery: Irma, ou les malheurs d’une jeune orpheline

Thanks to the astute detective work of participants in the October 2009 “Teachers as Scholars” seminar on the French Revolution, another tantalizing instance of trompe l’œil imagery has been unveiled. Look carefully at the folds of Irma’s dress, near her right leg, and you will see an angry head jutting forward toward the tomb.
Given that the story ends with a macabre account of Robespierre’s ghost haunting the catacombs in Paris and devouring the remains of his victims, perhaps this furious demonic-looking face is supposed to represent the infamous terrorist himself. It would make sense, as this image captures the final scene of the first edition of Irma, where Irma (anagram of Marie, sole survivor of the royal family) is reunited with her betrothed, the Duc d’Angoulême, and takes a vow to marry him over the tomb of Louis XVI.

This frontispiece is found in Elisabeth Guénard (Méré, madame Brossin de). Irma, ou les malheurs d’une jeune orpheline ; histoire indienne, avec des romances. Publié par la Ce. Gd. A Delhy et se trouve à Paris : Chez l’auteur, An VIII (1799-1800). University of Notre Dame: Rare Books Small PQ 1987.G45.I7.1799z. vol. 1.

Altered book: “Shards of History” by Catherine Davis

Before creating something new, it is often necessary to destroy something already existing. When an institution rooted in hundreds of years of tradition and convention is destroyed, what is left behind? Mere shards of the past? Damage? Ruins? Or does something of beauty emerge? Is it even appropriate or relevant to wonder?

 During my senior year of college, I was enrolled in “A Revolution in Fiction.” For my final creative project, I chose to make an altered book that addressed questions that had been running through my mind during the course of the semester. As a French and English major, I am most interested in poetry. I enjoy the manipulation of language, and how we can use it to discover what most troubles or fascinates us. Accordingly, I went to a used book store and bought a beautiful copy of Baudelaire’s Les Fleurs du Mal.

 I chose this book for two reasons. First, it was a book of Baudelaire’s poetry that I had already read and deeply enjoyed. Second, Les Fleurs du Mal is undoubtedly one of the most famous and well-loved works of French literature. And so, to take this book and alter it, perhaps even damage or ruin it, would be something shocking and provoking. I was aware that it could cause anger or disgust, but I hoped that I could turn it into a thing of beauty – a thing uniquely my own, but a thing that others could observe and think about. My main goal was to use this book to evoke emotions – whatever those emotions might be.

 My project’s title is Shards of History; its themes are chaos, change, and the consequences of change. I wanted to play with textures, colors, and shapes while combining images and elements of the French Revolution with the traditional poetry of Baudelaire. I cut, glued, tore, covered, added, and erased. I attempted to create at the same time that I was destroying. I used the poetry already in the book to accompany the images, by crossing out lines until each poem said what I wanted it to. Some of the materials that I used were colored tissue paper, embroidery thread, gold-colored foil, pieces of a shattered mirror, false flowers, dried flowers, and candle wax.

On the cover, I glued a small bunch of false flowers next to the title, and broken mirror bits to symbolize the destruction of tradition. Juxtaposed to that is an image of the executioner holding up the head of Louis XVI to the crowd to add a sense of shock and disgust.

 On the first pages, I glued black construction paper over both pages, but left five words uncovered – “c’est le cri de l’homme.” Those words seemed like the perfect opening for the project, and the appropriate phrase to summarize the French Revolution and its purpose as an outcry of an oppressed people as well as its resulting violence and bloodshed.

 I burned several pages to show the theme of destruction and ending. On some pages, I added images of the royal family, as well as materials that demonstrated their wealth and power. However, mixed in with those pages are others filled with violent images of the Revolution. One page has an image of Louis XVI cut up and pasted again all over it, to predict his fate at the guillotine. And throughout the pages, the words of Baudelaire accompany, and in some cases, provide a foil for, these provoking images.

 In the end, I grew very attached to my project. It became more than just a final project for a one-semester class. I had thought long and hard about my title, my themes, my procedures, and the questions that I wanted to invoke and process. It made the French Revolution come alive to me, and it gave me the opportunity to express what I learned through my own medium, so that it will continue to be important to me throughout my life. It remains a part of my learning experience and a part of myself, a work of creative art that won’t be forgotten with the many papers, exams, and homework assignments of college.

 By Catherine Davis, University of Notre Dame, B.A. 2009

Late-breaking news on Regnault-Warin’s controversy

Le Cimetière de la Madeleine has elicited an upsurge of interest recently.  An unbound copy of the 1800 edition sold on ebay for 200 euros yesterday!   Why this great interest now?  The reason lies, at least in part, in  the novel’s contested  legacy.    (There is also a sensational publishing history here; watch this blog for more on that story.)

Most critics believe Le Cimetière de la Madeleine to present an apology for royalist sentiment, written by a beleaguered champion for truth under a semi-totalitarian regime. The profile of an embattled author is enhanced by the “avertissement” to volume three where Regnault-Warin details the problems encountered with the police after publishing vols. 1 & 2.*   Close study of the author’s voluminous earlier writings, however, and analysis of the ambiguous way that the novel concludes its account of the Dauphin’s martyrdom, point to a more complicated interpretation. In a book-in-progress, we interpret Regnault-Warin’s novel as a transitional tale of Bourbon sacrifice and republican redemption.

*Now that we’ve had the opportunity to do more research at the wonderful Bibliothèque Historique de la Ville de Paris, it has come to our attention that the “avertissement” is only included in the Lepetit jeune edition of 1800-01, held in the Rare Books collection at the University of Notre Dame Hesburgh Library.  It does not appear in later editions of 1801 by Lepetit jeune or Les Marchands de Nouveautés.  What does that mean?  The mystery continues…