Why don’t the French celebrate Lafayette?
newyorker.com
newyorker.com
1- https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0ofCqCc3S1s
OTOH, they do celebrate Lafayette in Vendée where Lafayette is considered a regional hero. The famous theme park Puy du Fou has one of its attractions dedicated to Lafayette.
As a side note, I must say the park is a genuine wonder in itself, and I highly recommend it to anyone if you can go there.
https://fr.wikipedia.org/wiki/Puy_du_Fou#Une_vision_orient%C...
And a wrong take that try to push a political agenda.
It's a fun park but don't take history lesson history here are more that political oriented legends.
They are like history channel ...
Even right wing historians find the orientation of the puy du fou wrong.
Ainsi, comme le soulignent Jean-Clément Martin, historien spécialiste de la Révolution française, de la Contre-révolution et de la guerre de Vendée, et Valérie Sottocasa, maître de conférences en histoire moderne à l'université Toulouse-Jean-Jaurès, le spectacle, « d'emblée militant et symbolique »12 exalte « le mythe d'un âge d'or durant lequel nobles et gens du peuple étaient soudés par un même idéal communautaire »11 mais « qui a servi jusqu'à nos jours à consolider une culture politique dont témoignent les commémorations du Puy du Fou, sans doute les plus spectaculaires du genre11 ». La mobilisation des populations locales dans le cadre d'« une association défendant les valeurs de la famille et de la tradition » s'inscrit dans ce cadre : il s'agit de « populariser une idée de l'histoire de France teintée de Contre-Révolution »13, comme le montrent en outre dans les années 1980 et 1990 les thématiques des colloques qui s'y déroulent ou l'utilisation de la venue d'Alexandre Soljenitsyne. Jean-Clément Martin et Charles Suaud font remarquer en outre que le spectacle de la Cinéscénie dépeint une société paysanne vendéenne faussement uniforme « privée de ses contradictions internes, soumise aux aléas des saisons et des traumatismes extérieurs », occultant à la fois les affrontements ayant eu lieu en Vendée entre catholiques et protestants pendant les guerres de religion et les rapports de domination économique et sociale13.
No wonder Jean-Clément Martin*s* of the world are angry.
It may be conductive to have some legends even if that stuff doesn't fly with your history teacher.
That they take a slightly different view at historical events is ever more outrageous, but it only shows how one-sided and politicized history education is in France.
FYI, I am an outsider not really interested in French politics, just happened to leave in a nearby country.
The value of Puy du Fou is in the teaching of pluralism while being hightly entertaing in the process.
There are science and facts. You can't teach false facts to people.
Note that I never said that Puy do Fou presents the true facts. But the attacks of French historians on Puy du Fou I saw so far are not based on facts at all.
Then why are history books filled with false facts? And that's in the case the government didn't decided to suppress history classes altogether, as it might make people think (I'm referencing the deletion of history classes in scientific high shool section). Paille et poutre...
The French Revolution is always told from the point of view of losers. Most of its most prominent actors ended losing at some point and the whole thing ends with an epuration followed by a military coup.
The myth surrounding the Revolution has little to do with who won or lost. Like most of what the French view as their history, it is a construction dating from the rise of nationalism at the end of the 19th century.
It’s mainly the history from a « républicain » point of view. Also served with a blatant pro European federalism take.
Nothing wrong per se, but we should have a critical view on what we were fed with.
One thing I noted though is that one has to know French history and French culture to fully appreciate. The scene about the travel of Laperouse is told by the captain of the 2nd ship. Figures around the pond speak in the voice of Depardieu. The whole Lafayette story is a major blow to the official teaching of the French Revolution, you have to know the extent at which the same teaching of history is imposed on everyone to fully appreciate the courage of the park administration.
> famous theme park Puy du Fou
For people unfamiliar with this: Puy du Fou was created by a nationalistic politician born in the region. This politician, Philippe de Villiers, is getting closer and closer to the french far right, he's anti islam, anti europe, anti migrants, and go as far as to say that the French government is on its way to give away part of its territory for it to be ruled under sharia.
I have no experience with the park but from the articles I found I wouldn't be surprised if every "historical" events presented there are heavily interpreted/romanticised
Another famous recent event is that they bought one of Joan of Arc ring, but it was mainly a nationalist move more than something important to preserve (Joan of Arc is from the east / north part of France) (for more infos: https://fr.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anneaux_de_Jeanne_d%27Arc).
Overall, the parc is an entertainment place as much as a political tool, but not a lot of people are aware of it, and most of them are eating their propagande like the true story of France (due to lack of education on history mainly).
This a political or controversial view? News to me.
A not bad alternative view on the subject.
The Darkening Age: The Christian Destruction of the Classical World
Catherine Nixey
Nationalism is in some cases legal, but it’s not respectable and we need not dignify it as such.
All sources are biased but some are more biased than others. Nationalists are the last people I'd trust to give an accurate depiction of their country's history.
Just like medias owned by far right or far left entities will put a far right or far left spin on everything they treat.
I never said it was a crime, I'm just saying that the park creations shouldn't be interpreted as factual nor accurate depiction of historical events.
It's like arguing that Jesus did XYZ because that's what you saw in the movie "the passion of the chirst". As I said in another comment, as long as you don't pretend you're providing historical facts it's all good, but it's not the case here.
Or this year's interpretation of Cyrano de Bergerac [2]?
I do not get where this complaint about "historical facts" comes from.
The story about Vendée and Lafayette is not even in this year's programme [3] and I truly believe that French should be ashamed for shaving it off.
They've impoverished themselves and now they have one less thing to whine about.
[1] https://www.puydufou.com/france/en/les-chevaliers-de-la-tabl...
Historians don't care.
Governments and politicians do.
If you're interested in a podcast about the French revolution (and other revolutions), Mike Duncan's "Revolutions" podcast is absolutely fantastic: https://thehistoryofrome.typepad.com/revolutions_podcast/
Not crazy long, gives you a clear explanation about why it happened, and a solid feeling about what life was like back then. Highly, highly recommend.
His previous podcast, The History of Rome, is also great.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vR80t5Jg6Ec&list=PLn2IQnuuK7...
It's kinda cliché, IMHO. France (and many European nations) has been build around the belief that centralized power help to ensure political stability. As soon they are no more/less centralized power, every region starts to organize itself and territorial conflicts of interest emerges.
It's not about the power to be visible, more than being effective.
But more seriously: if high federalisation means more mechanisms actually end up working fine without top-down directives, isn't that a good thing...? Without going all Bakunin, surely requiring fewer "chiefs" to achieve the same levels of prosperity can be considered a step forward for society.
Then go to tiny village Chavaniac where you'll visit the castle he lived in for a while, that carries his name.
I guess the reason being WW1 + WW2 are being considered as absolutely horrifying wars, and Napoleon's invasions are seen as ruthless acts that created the imbalanced situation that led to two world wars.
"Napoleon's invasions […] created the imbalanced situation that led to two world wars." what? That's quite a stretch you're proposing here.
Oddly, Americans got offended over idea of Napolean not being hero or worth praise. On HN there was even pearl clutching about "judging past by current standards", but he was disliked significantly more at his time (of course, for us it is past irrelevant history for them it was death of close ones, property destruction and hunger).
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jdM3ID4m38U
> relevant part starts at about 16 minutes, all lindy really does is point out how absolutely horrible Napoleon actually was.
I don't think he's a good example for attitudes of _French_ people towards their own history, which us what this thread is about.
He put a end to the Revolution's chaos, defeated European attempts to invade France and destroy the Revolution, rewrote French law from scratch, and reorganised the country.
There is a tendency for self-flagellation these days but it is right for him to be celebrated in France.
Ignoring this recent self-flagellation trend, I think the main division in France is political. Napoleon is of course The Empire, authoritarianism and militarism and he is often not liked especially on the left. The main conflict here is for the Republic to celebrate someone who ended the republican system, but IMHO it is perfectly possible to celebrate someone as a country for their achievements and overall impact even if they did not subscribe to the current political system, not least when they were instrumental in creating the modern country, as mentioned.
Perhaps what as also changed is that patriotism is being seen more and more suspiciously.
That he certainly did not.
The uniformisation of French laws had been started two centuries before the Revolution but the French kings didn't have the power to modify civil laws. As soon as the revolutionaries took it, Cambacérès started petitioning for the promulgation of an unique code based on a merger of the Coutume de Paris and the written laws of the South. It took close to a decade to finalize the text and reach somewhat of a consensus but by the time Napoleon took power the whole thing was done. Apart from promulgating the code, he had very little to do with it.
He also didn't stop attempt to destroy the revolution. He did that by himself. Did you miss the part where he had himself crown emperor and how it's defeat was followed by the restauration.
I don't understand why some people keep crediting Bonaparte with what is mostly work done by the first constitutional assembly.
Napoleon deserves celebrating, at least in France.
a) his discontempt for Germany (which he successfully embarked on, considering him dissolving the German Empire)
b) his utilization of enlightenment policies to subdue countries, creating a narrative in which Napleonese France IS the enlightenemnt (which is of course BS)
In the case of Germany, apart from forcibly recruting citizens into his army where they mainly served as cannon fodder, apart from the pillaging of french troops, apart from massive increases in taxations for the poor that were already hit due to unemployment caused by his continental system, apart from churches being repurposed as horsestalls as a form of practical joke, the worst thing he did, was that he utilized things like the code-civil and other enlightenment reforms to turn a new tiny middle-class into loyalists, stirring up division Germany still hasn't really freed itself from.
His policy was the equivalent of when today's West is forcibly bringing "democracy" to Iraq/Afghanistan/..., instead of letting it arise organically, which in turn taints the whole franchise, the whole idea, as un-Arabic, un-Muslim etc.
Reforming the law to enable anyone to work in any job would have happened likely anyways, but Napoleon propagandizing it into his idea, into a french idea, he effectivly laid the groundwork for the discontempt in Germany for enlightenment ideas till this day. And yes, this includes post-napoleonese German anti-semitism.
Germany didn't even exist during the Napoleonic campaigns so I doubt he had much contempt for it. The Napoleonic wars are actually a catalyst in the formation of modern Germany as a political entity by definitely ending the Holy Roman Empire and cementing Prussia as a major power in the region.
> His policy was the equivalent of when today's West is forcibly bringing "democracy" to Iraq/Afghanistan/..., instead of letting it arise organically
But this is it arising organically. For all intent and purpose France and Germany share globally the same political area. They are direct neighbor and their histories constantly intermingle. The French Revolution is not an exogenous event catapulted on Europe from outside. It is a product of the time and is directly linked to France position in what was already a very connected Europe.
They are just part of a background the layman doesn't cares about.
So titles like "Why don't the French celebrate Lafayette?" tell more about the author/editor of the article than about its subject.
Huh, I must have visited a different country then. It seems there isn't a single Bridge, Column or otherwise important building in Paris that hasn't a pompous "N" mounted onto it.
I mean you have to willfully interprete the word "celebrating" as people dancing in the streets out of joy to read the parent's parent comment that way.
In other words: "It's in the background" rather means it's the foundation upon which (as other comments have pointed out) the French Revolution's winning side's narrative rests.
Those monuments are not celebrations of Napoleon..
are hardly comparable to thousands of streets named after him, thousands of bridges wearing his enblem, and statues still standing.
Again "celebrating Napoleon" as in "in the background" as in "a foundation of the winning side's narrative"
Edit: If interested in the subject, there's a thesis (in French) by Émile Kern, “Représentations et images contrastées de Napoléon dans les commémorations : de 1869 à 2009”, Université de Montpellier 3, 2011; http://www.theses.fr/2011MON30093
I just lament that sad state of public education in America generally, and more pertinently how people just think Lafayette was the guy from Hamilton (in some bastardized form, I presume.)
I never saw the musical, nor will I, but the man who is almost single-handedly responsible for getting the French to save our asses deserves a bit more renown in my opinion.
[0] not saying it was hostile, just challenging something you deep down knew but didn't want to admit
I bet most Americans who have heard of him assume his first name is "Marquis."
Which the French pronounce, zheel BEAR (with the usual guttural R at the end). (Source: lived in France as a kid, had a family friend by that name; cf. Stephen Colbert.)
The big store "Galeries Lafayette" is also named after the street in which the first store was opened.
1. A tale of two cities: Dickens.
2. Gods are thirsty: Anatole France.
3. Talleyrand: Duff Cooper.
4. Memories from beyond the Grave: Chateaubriand
5. History of French Revolution: Carlyle.
Another great one is "The Old Regime and the Revolution" by Alexis de Tocqueville. It is about how France worked before the revolution and it explains a lot in a lot of ways.
That's a lot of historical figures over centuries of existence. At some point, you can't celebrate them all.
In that context, we should probably also thanks Hitler for the Autobahn.
No, that's absolutely not the way we think about the liberation of Europe by the American army.
The French were instrumental in the American Revolution, but memories are short-lived.
Has the author ever visited Normandy?
Far less cringe worthy than many student fraternities and I wouldn't say they hide themselves too much, this is mostly based on rumors.
Secret societies like the Illuminati are mostly less successful than people believe. I mean everyone knows them by now...