Realms of Memory, volume 3: The construction of the French past 0231109261, 9780231109260

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SYMBOLS

MEMORY REALMS OF THE CONSTRUCTION OF THE FRENCH PAST UNDER THE DIRECTION OF

PIERRE NORA English language edition edited by Lawrence D. Kritiman

•

Translated by Arthur

Goldhammer

— A

monumental

endeavor by some

collective

of France's most distinguished intellectuals,

Realms of Memory explores how and why certain

became

events, and figures

places,

between memory and

cate connections

Symbols^ the third and final volume,

work begun in

nation of the

and

Conflicts

of

a part

French collective m'emory, and reveals the

intri-

history.

the culmi-

is

and Divisions

Traditions.

Nora inaugurates

Pierre

this final

volume by

acknowledging that the whole project of Realms

of Memory

is

oriented around symbols, claiming

"only a symbolic history can restore to 'France' the unity and

dynamism not recognized by

either

the

man

He

goes on to distinguish between two very

ferent types of ed.

symbols

—

like the tricolor flag

may be monuments imbued

symbols

Marseillaise,

Tower

of

sense

a

state

official

La

or

like the Eiffel

with

dif-

imposed and construct-

Imposed symbols may be

emblems, or

academic historian."

in the street or the

history.

Constructed symbols are produced over the pas-

human

sage of time, by itself.

They

and by history

effort,

include figures such as Joan of Arc,

Descartes, and the Gallic cock. Part

Emblems,

I,

traces the

development of

four major national symbols from the time of the

Revolution: the tricolor

flag, the national

anthem

{La Marseillaise), the motto "Liberty, Equality, Fraternity,"

fixed

and

identities,

Bastille

these

Day. Far from having representations of the

French nation are shown to have undergone transformations.

As French

republics rose and regimes

—and —were

changed, the emblems of the French state the

meanings associated with them

also

altered.

Part

II,

Major

Sites,

focuses on those cities and

structures that act as beacons of "France" to both

Frenchman and

These essays range

foreigner.

from the prehistoric paintings

Lascaux

in

—

that

cave which, though not originally "French" in any sense, has

become

the very

symbol of France's

immemorial national memory site

of the terrible World

—

War

symbol of the nation's heaviest

to

I

Verdun, the

battle,

now

a

sacrifice for the

"salvation of the fatherland" and the most powerful

image of French national

unity.

(continued on back flap)

REALMS OF MEMORY

European Perspectives

REALMS

COLUMBIA UNIVERSITY PRESS

NEW YORK

The Construction

of the French Past

OF MEMORY VOLUME in: SYMBOLS

Under

the Direction of Pierre

ENGLISH-LANGUAGE EDITION EDITED BY LAWRENCE Translated by Arthur

Goldhammer

D.

KRITZMAN

Nora

To honor Clifford E. Rybolt, Jr. and Mary Grace Rickert Rybolt, friends of France,

Edwin

Rickert has

IV.

made a gift

Columbia University Press wishes

to the

Press toward the costs

of publishing

to express its appreciation for assistance

government of France through Le Ministere de

this book.

given by the

la Culture in the preparation

of

Columbia University Press Publishers Since 1893

New York

Chichester, West Sussex

Translation Copyright

© 1998

Columbia University Press

All rights reserved

Les Lieux de Memoire

© Editions Gallimard,

1992

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

Les Lieux de memoire. English

Realms of memory: the construction of the French past direction of Pierre Nora; English language edition edited translated

under the

by Arthur Goldhammer cm.

p.

/

by Lawrence D. Kritzman;

— (European

perspectives)

Revised and abridged translation of the original work

in

French.

Includes bibliographical references and index.

Contents:

ISBN I.

Symbols.

v. 3.

0-231-10926-1 (alk. paper)

France

—

Civilization

—

Philosophy.

4.

National characteristics, French.

I.

Nora, Pierre.

II.

5.

2.

Memory.

Nationalism

Kritzman, Lawrence D.

—

3.

Symbolism.

France.

III. Title.

IV. Series

DC33.L6513 1998 944

—dc2o

95-49349

0 Casebound

editions of

Columbia University Press books are printed on permanent and

durable acid-free paper. Printed in the United States of America c 10

987654321

the translation.

EUROPEAN PERSPECTIVES

A Series in Social Thought and Cultural Criticism Lawrence D. Kritzman, Editor

European Perspectives presents English translations of books by leading European thinkers. With both

classic

and outstanding contemporary works, the

series

aims to shape the major intellectual

controversies of our day and to facilitate the tasks of historical understanding.

Julia Kristeva, Strangers to Ourselves

Theodor W. Adorno, Notes

to Literature^ vols,

and

i

2

Richard Wolin, editor, The Heidegger Controversy

Antonio Gramsci, Prison Notebooks^

vols,

i

and

2

Jacques LeGoff, History and Memory Alain Finkielkraut, Remembering Julia Kristeva, Nations

in

Vain: The Klaus Barbie Trial and Crimes Against

Humanity

Without Nationalism

Pierre Bourdieu, The Field of Cultural Production Pierre Vidal-Naquet, Assassins of

Memory: Essays on

Hugo

Ball, Critique

Intelligentsia

Gilles

Deleuze and Felix Guattari, IVhat

of

the

German

Karl Heinz Bohrer, Suddenness:

On

the

Is

the

Denial of

the Holocaust

Philosophy?

Moment of Aesthetic Appearance

Mind New Maladies of the Soul Badinter, XY: On Masculine Identity

Alain Finkielkraut, The Defeat of the Julia Kristeva,

Elisabeth

Karl Lowith, Martin Heidegger and European Nihilism Gilles Deleuze, Negotiations, igyz-iggo

Pierre Vidal-Naquet, The Jews: History, Memory,

Norbert

Elias,

and the Present

The Germans

Louis Althusser, Writings on Psychoanalysis: Freud and Lacan Elisabeth Roudinesco,yaL^i^e.? Zacan.- His Life

and Work

Ross Guberman,yK/z'i2 Kristeva Interviews Kelly Oliver, The Portable Kristeva Pierra Nora, Realms of Memory: The Construction of the French Past^ vol. vol. 2: Traditions

i:

Conflicts

and Divisions,

'

Claudine Fabre-Vassas, The Singular Beast: Jews, Christians, and the Pig Paul Ricoeur, Critique and Conviction: Conversations with Francois A^ouvi and Marc de Launay

Dligitized by the in

Internet Archive

2014

https://archive.org/details/realmsofmemoryOOcolu

CONTENTS

Introduction

PART

Pierre

Nora

ix

EMBLEMS

I.

I

The Three

II

La

III

Liberty, Equality, Fraternity,

IV

Bastille

PART V

Colors: Neither White

War or

Marseillaise:

n.

Girardet

Peace, Michel Vovelle

Day: From Dies

MAJOR

Nor Red, Raoul

Mona Oiouf

77

Irae to Holiday, Christian

Amalvi

117

SITES

Lascaux, yean-Paw/ Demoule

16^

VI

Reims, City of Coronation, /ac^wej Ze Goj^f

VII

The Louvre: Royal Residence and Temple of

193

the Arts,

Jean-Pierre Babelon

The Image of

253 the Sovereign,

VIII

Versailles:

IX

The Pantheon: The Ecole Normale of

X

The

XI

Verdun, Antoine Prost

Eiffel

3

29

Edouard Pommier

the Dead,

Mona Oiouf

Tower, Henri Loyrette

293 325

349

377

PART ML IDENTIFICATIONS XII

The

XIII

Joan of Arc, Michel JVinock

433

XIV

Descartes, Franfois A^ouvi

483

XV

Paris:

XVI

The Genius of

XVII

The Era of Commemoration,

Gallic Cock, Michel Pastoureau

405

A Traversal from East to West, Maurice Agulhon the French Language,

Notes Index of

Pierre

Marc Fumaroli

Nora

523 555

609

6jc)

Names

Index of Subjects

jog yzg

INTRODUCTION

Introduction to

Volume Pierre

Realms of Memory,

III

Nora

we

After the descriptive sites of division and the constitutive sites of tradition^

now,

in this final

The order of

volume, to the symbolic the chapters in this

of

sites

turn

identity.

volume seems

as natural, given the topic head-

ings in the table of contents, as the chapters themselves appear inevitable. Indeed,

what better symbols

symbols of

to begin with than the four

state.''

France

is

a

coun-

try which, at a single stroke, with the definitive establishment of the Republic in

1880, gave itself a national

national motto,

choosing

all

among

emblem,

a national

anthem, a national holiday, and a

incorporating themes from the French Revolution. Moreover, in

the

most eloquent of French monuments, those most durably and

deeply embedded in the nation's history and generally presented as most significant,

one could hardly omit those lieux de memoire

which the heart of France beats

in

loudest. In order to avoid idiosyncratic arbitrariness,

I

relied

on three

criteria: the

evidence of important temporal stratifications, the homogeneity of the sources, and the concurrence of French

and/ or foreign opinion. With these

—

choice became easy: from Lascaux originally not "French" in

fiftieth

as

was made

clear

mind, the

by President Mitterrand's 1990

anniversary of the cave 's discovery

symbol of the nation's heaviest

sacrifice for the "salvation

most powerful image of French national prises

some of

better

symbol could there be than

the principal

criteria in

of France which, though

any sense, has become the very symbol of France's

immemorial national memory, speech marking the

that cave in the heart

ways

in

unity.

As

its

to

Verdun, the

for the final section,

which com-

which Frenchmen identify with France, what

that rustic

and quintessentially Gallic

cock, which, though foisted on France primarily

scored a strange triumph over

—

of the fatherland" and

more

by

bird, the

foreigners, has in recent years

politicized rivals, such as the fleur de lys, the

— X

INTRODUCTION Phrygian cap, the imperial bees, the francis^ue, or Prankish axe, of Petain, the GaulHst croix de Lorraine^ and even the bust of Marianne?

memory and

images of collective

And what more

identity could there be than the political

ism with which history has continually invested the French

from

by

east to west, together

that

same memory and

What

is

why

it

make

is

to devote

lieu de

memoire

an entire volume of

describe an element of identity as a lieu de memoire sion,

what constitutes the symbolic dimension of

merely rhetorical. relation

The

It

it

is

a

is

symbolic by definition,

this trilogy to

to

be the

to reveal

"symbols," and

first?

its

And

since to

symbolic dimen-

symbol? The question

not

is

has a bearing on the definition of a lieu de memoire and on the

between memory and

history,

hence on the essence of

this entire project.

apparently self-evident nature of this particular choice of topics in fact masks

the presence of symbols of state

shaped

"Emblems," "Major

the choice of topics:

when one might have expected

the last volume,

itself as

identity?

and "Identifications." Since every

Sites,"

capital, here traversed

with the "genius" of the French language

not so obvious, however,

what sense does

central

symbol-

two

different types

symbols are imposed symbols

memorial intention

is

imposed and constructed. Official

in their purest

inscribed in the object

itself,

form. Here, a symbolic and

and the historian's goal

is

to trace

the various forms and vicissitudes of that intention. State symbols are not the only

examples of imposed symbols, however. The Pantheon and conceived from the incarnation.

As

first

Eiffel

Tower were

simultaneously as symbols, memorials, and

is

to

monuments of

examples include Joan of Arc, Descartes,

for constructed symbols,

and the Gallic cock. Here, the goal

also

show how unforeseen mechanisms, combi-

human effort, and history itself ultishepherdess of Domremy, the fireside philosopher, and the

nations of circumstances, the passage of time,

mately transformed the

king of the barnyard into important and durable symbols of Frenchness.

This distinction between imposed and constructed symbols cial.

These two types of symbol cover the whole spectrum of

is

by no means

those that require the historian only to identify them to those that require a active effort of shaping and elaboration.

importance because

it

The

difference

is

artifi-

from

lieux de memoire.,

in fact

more

of fundamental

permits a transition from what would otherwise be a mere cat-

egory of objects to a category of intelligibility for contemporary history.

Of

course, both types of symbol involve deciphering, but the

method of

reveal-

ing the symbolic content differs, perhaps radically, in each case. For imposed symbols, that

method

is

usually just to recount their history. In fact, they are so closely

tied to the national identity, so familiar,

meaning that in classical,

and so inherently expressive of

traditional approaches to national identity

it

their

own

was never

felt

necessary to "objectify" them for the purpose of study. Because they were an integral part of the national

only the

official

memory, however, they remained

symbols, consider the tricolor

largely

unknown. To

flag. It is rather surprising to

take

discover

Introduction

no

that

historian ever thought of studying

it

until

now. There have been histories of

the red flag, the white flag, and the black flag, but virtually nothing has been written

about the flag that serves as an emblem of France and whose colors Frenchmen stare at

every day.

studies

The

Marseillaise} Until now, the only informed, yet

still

incomplete,

came from the musicology department of the Garde Republicaine. And what

about the republican motto, "Liberty, Equality, Fraternity".^ known.'^

any motto better

Is

Or triter, appearing as it does on the facade of every town hall in France, on

the back of every official medal, and at the head of every

Yet no one until

now

government document.'^

has provided a historical analysis of the conjunction of these

three words, which are

pronounced

as one.

The same

holiday, Bastille Day, the Fourteenth of July.

is

true of the French national

Only now, under

historical scrutiny

informed by the ethnographer's gaze, has anyone thought of describing the national holiday as a major event in a regular cycle of secular ritual and scholastic liturgy.

Moreover, what

is

bols: the denizens

By

true of these official

contrast, an entirely different

literatures

symbols

is

also true of other

method

is

applied to constructed symbols. Vast

have been devoted to their history, yet no one

dissecting the various layers of

and

streets

consideration of the ated

by various

tion

on

bearing the

way

spiritual

in

until

now

ever thought of

memory they contain. The bibliography concerning

Joan of Arc includes no fewer than eight thousand plays, films,

imposed sym-

of the Pantheon, for example, have yet to find their historian.

name of

the

titles,

to say nothing of countless

Maid of Orleans. But the very

first

which the personage of Joan was successively appropri-

and

political families

can be found here, along with a reflec-

the image of Joan as a figure of the French symbolic imagination. Versailles

has been studied a thousand times from the historical as well as the

point of

artistic

view, but never as the focal point of a representation which has exerted a magnetic force across the centuries and

the

which remains,

for foreigners as well as

Frenchmen,

symbol of power of the most spectacular grandeur. And while the story of

Verdun has often been recounted, nobody ever thought of asking when people began calling the road to the battlefield "the sacred way." It

would be

pointless to multiply examples further.

What,

in the end,

does the

notion of lieu de memoire contribute to the study of symbols.'' Succinctly put,

it

offers

a possibility of revelation.

It is

only natural that the weightiest of

to the

most

methods of

fertile

history.

all

our symbols should ultimately be subjected

a symbolic history which,

beyond any doubt, has proven

and promising approach to the current renewal of

Only a symbolic history can

recognized by either the

man

For historical analysis as object "France"

in the street or the

it

political

restore to "France" the unity

to

be the

and national

and dynamism not

academic historian.

has been practiced over the past several decades, the

no longer makes sense

as a persuasive unit

of study. Whether one

xi

XII

INTRODUCTION looks at economic factors, cultural practices, or mental evolutions, no unity ent; the existence

Only

in the eyes

of a France "une

memory do

of

retain their pertinence

Over

et indivisible"

has

is

appar-

become purely problematic.

the concepts of cohesiveness, unity, and continuity

and legitimacy.

the past ten or twenty years

been subjected to similar

tidal

many

countries have in one

way

waves of memory. Some have witnessed

a

or another

compulsive

return of a repressed past, while others have searched for "roots" or a "national heritage."

and a

There has been

revitalization

oner of

for

bedlam of commemorations,

of tradition in

memory,

its

a

as subject to

all its

its

forms.

a

mushrooming of museums,

No era has ever been as much a pris-

empire and

its

law.

What is unique about France stems both from the traditional French predilection memory and from the availability of a full range of instruments on which the

recent

vogue

for

commemoration could draw. France has

linked

its

rience to a development of the state, a territorial rootedness, a expression, and a form of historical self-consciousness that have

memory"

in the

same sense

in

stateless,

vived throughout history as a "people of memory." This national

of landscapes,

ments, and language which the historian can treat as so these symbols

we

truly discover "realms of

memory"

many

at their

cultural

made it a "nation of

which the Jews, long landless and

gealed in a historical tradition, a historiography,

historical expe-

mode of

have sur-

memory has con-

institutions,

monu-

lieux de memoire. In

most glorious.

REALMS OF MEMORY

PART

I

EMBLEMS

1.0 Portrayed as a young goddess of Liberty, France smashes the chains of slavery beneath the gaze of the Supreme Being: Declaration des droits de I'homme et du citoyen, painting on wood from the time of the Revolution.

FIGURE

CHAPTER

The Three

Colors: Neither

White Nor Red

Raoul Girardet

Let us begin by considering two images, which, though separated in time by a hun-

dred and thirty years, share the same popular style and didactic inspiration. Both are symmetrical, both employ parallel composition, and in both a symbolic France present; hence comparison

is

inevitable.

is

The first, which can be viewed at the Musee

Carnavalet, appears at the head of a calligraphic text of the Declaration of the Rights of Man, with which

it is

obviously contemporaneous.

the center of the image attest to the these symbols, a

winged

spirit

Enlightenment. To the right

trails

the

The eye and

France,

who

with her

The female

own hands

left

of

has broken the

representing France wears a royal

a long blue cloak decorated with golden fleurs de lys.

which envelop her legs down

triangle at

Supreme Being. To the

brandishes a torch, which stands for the Spirit of the is

chains of servitude and tyranny.

crown and

immanence of

to her feet, are also blue.

white trim. Given the date of the document in question,

But her bodice it is

Her is

skirts,

red with

difficult to believe that

the conjunction of these three colors could have been an accident. Their presence

here coincides with the proclamation of a a

new and unprecedented

new era.

alliance has just

In a break with the age-old order,

been sealed, an alliance that unites the

Nation, the Law, and the King. France' proceeds toward the future wrapped in the tricolore.

The broken

irons, the torch

these symbols appear are tiny that awaits

all

built in

new des-

it.

The second image appears on was

of Reason, and the sacred text above which

signs of the country's regeneration and of the

a

window of

the

Church of Saint-Nicolas, which

Triaucourt-en-Argonne in 191 9. Christ, the central figure, exhibits

Sacred Heart to two

women

standing on either side of him: one

other, France. Joan carries a white banner, but her

gown

is

red,

is

his

Joan of Arc, the

and a blue sash

coils

I

FIGURE glass

1.1

Still

window by

crowned,

still

tricolor,

France again becomes the eldest daughter of the Church: stained

Graff at the Church of Saint-Nicolas

in

Triaucourt-en-Argonne, 1912-1920.

The Three Colors

around her breastplate. The figure of France again wears a crown and a blue cloak lined with

ermine (but

time without the fleurs de

this

wrapped

is

in

In her right

lys).

hand, however, she holds a tricolor flag, whose staff rests on her shoulder. Across

her chest she also wears a tricolor sash, not unlike the sash municipal

officials at state occasions.

composition

itself

ever, France

is

commonly worn by

radiant tricolor France thus stands out in a

dominated by the colors blue, white, and

red. In this case,

how-

associated with an image of a female warrior in an old-fashioned, tra-

ditional context of popular piety. tical,

A

Outwardly, the allegorical figure

is

virtually iden-

The young goddess of a newly daughter of the Church. More than that,

but the mythical associations are different.

gained Liberty has reverted to the eldest

signs of renewal, regeneration, and the advent of a to signs of continuity,

permanence, and

New Kingdom

have given

way

historical roots.

When the Triancourt church was built in the immediate aftermath of World War I,

the Sacred Heart could claim no

monopoly on

the French national colors.

The

sons of the Rights of Man, the heirs of the Revolution's great hopes, had not

renounced

their claim. It

is

a remarkable fact that the tricolor could simultaneously

be incorporated into two very different value systems, two distinct ideological configurations.

The luminous presence of blue, white, and

church was by no means incompatible with militant ors

on

their banners.

question

I

window of

a rural

of the same col-

How did this enlargement of meaning come about.-^

That is the

propose to explore here. In examining a century of collective fervor and

contradictory passions,

I

shall therefore

and the conquering power of an image

From the Revolutionary Cockade

The

red in the

secularists' use

be looking

—

a

at the vicissitudes

symbol of identity and

to the Flag of

of a symbol

allegiance.

Jemmapes

history of any symbol must begin with an enigma: the mystery of

its

origins.'

most widely accepted version, the one sanctioned by

all

the text-

According

to the

books, the tricolor

upon arriving

emblem was born on

in Paris

on

a precise date, July 17, 1789: Louis

that date, three days after the fall of the Bastille,

received at the Hotel de Ville

by Mayor

Bailly's request, the king, as a gesture

to his hat, alongside the white

Bailly,

with Lafayette

of reconciliation,

is

to

some

At

supposed to have affixed

have been in use for several days prior to

Lafayette 's concern, as his troops with

was

in attendance.

cockade already present there, a red and blue ribbon,

red and blue being the colors of the city of Paris. In fact,

emblem seems

XVI,

commander of

sort of insignia

the

some

sort of tricolor

this occasion, a result

newly created National Guard,

of

to equip

by which they could recognize one another. He

chose a device combining the white uniform of the French Guard with the red and blue of the Parisian militia. In a painting by Charles Thevenin depicting the arrest

of Launay, the governor of the Bastille (painted shortly after the event and visible

5

6

RAOUL GIRARDET today

at the

attached to a

Musee Carnavalet), one of the insurgents brandishes staff, to

a

white flag

the end of which are affixed several tricolor ribbons; and sev-

of the man's confederates wear blue, white, and red cockades on their

eral

hats.

Whatever the truth of the matter may be, two things are certain, and of more than anecdotal interest. First,

summer of

In the

it

caused the king no great anguish to accede to the tricolor.

1789, the legend according to which the color white

symbolized the old monarchy did not yet

months

later.

exist;

The only recognized symbol of

it

did not

come

the Capetian

somehow

into being until

monarchy was

its

some

coat of

arms: three golden fleurs de lys on a field of azure. According to then-accepted historical traditions, the reigning

monarch's

earliest ancestors, the

Merovingian kings,

had fought under the protection of Saint Martin's "cape," which was blue

And

a banner blessed

in color.

by the pope and hoisted on the occasion of Charlemagne 's

Hugh Capet and

coronation was also blue.

his direct descendants

had for

their part

adopted the red banner of Saint Denis, the kingdom's acknowledged patron could be seen alongside standards bearing the fleurs de lys

and

in the early stages

saint. It

of Bouvines

at the Battle

of the Hundred Years' War.

As for the color white,

the fact that during the

Wars of Religion it had been briefly

some curious controversies

taken up by the Huguenot party led to

later (as well as to divergent interpretations

troops to follow his "white plume"). ^ In

three centuries

of Henri IV's famous exhortation to his fact,

forms, colors, and designs associated with the

amid the astonishing diversity of

flags, standards, ensigns,

guidons, and

pennants of the armies of Old France, the only significance of white from the end of the sixteenth century

on was apparently

to serve as a distinctive

mark of command.

who commanded armies in France 's behalf flew the "white pennant," which thus

All

became something like

a sign

of the delegation of royal authority whenever the king

was not personally present on cover

that,

the field of battle.

It is

surprising, moreover, to dis-

according to a tradition established by the Valois, the officers and domes-

who served the royal household wore a tricolor livery of blue, white, and red. The second certainty is this: given all this history, the new cockade was a legiti-

tics

mate symbol not of civil war but of restored unity,

Some

a

symbol of alliance and concord.

exegetes have even found grounds for believing

it

celebrated the reconcilia-

tion of the three orders, blue supposedly standing for the third estate, red for the nobility,

and white for the clergy.^ Bear

in

mind, moreover, that for more than a year

before the tricolor became, in Bailly's words, "the distinctive sign of the French,"

it

was primarily

the distinguishing insignia of an institution, the very institution that

had brought

into being,

now

in

it

command of

namely the National Guard.

a "civic

On July

30, 1789, Lafayette,

army" whose organization blanketed

the entire king-

dom, ordered his troops to adopt the uniform and insignia of the Paris

militia.

The

cockade that soldiers had worn on their hats naturally evolved into a banner that was carried at the head of each National

Guard

battalion.

And just as the Festival of the

The Three Colors

FIGURE

1.2

The three

Federation

—

colors,

symbol

of the

union of the three orders?

held in 1790 on the

Fourteenth of July

—

Champ-de-Mars

exalted the National

tricolor as the flag of France. Despite the

Guard

Wooden

sign from the revolutionary period.

in Paris

on

gray and rainy

a

as institution, so too did

it

low clouds, the Champ-de-Mars,

exalt the

as can

be

seen from contemporary engravings and paintings, was radiant with tricolors of

every description. blue, white,

and

The

red.

royal family watched the ceremonies

And

ers with tricolor flags as

In the

from

Lafayette stood on a knoll surrounded

he swore an oath on the

altar

its

political significance.

draped

The myth of

tricolor undeni-

the tricolor

is

in

many

respects inaccurate. Its first public celebration at the Festival of the Federation

by no means exempt from party

rivalry, factional conflict, or the clash

at

any

rate

was

of ambitions.'*

Yet the moral import and historical message of that occasion transcended

dane context. The new symbol also transcended (or

in

of the nation.

minds of contemporaries, the symbolic significance of the

ably outweighed

a dais

by standard-bear-

its

mun-

soon would tran-

man who probably originated and certainly prooutlived him and all the other revolutionaries who chose it as

scend) the person of Lafayette, the

moted

it;

ultimately,

a concrete

it

embodiment of

their

hopes and aspirations. The tricolor would also out-

live all the political institutions that those

summer of

men had sought to create and defend.

In the

1790, however, the future of the tricolor was by no means assured.

7

FIGURE

1.3

The preservation

of the tricolor:: Lafayette's oath at the Festival of the Federation,I, July 14, 1790.

The Three Colors

Despite a decree of the National Assembly on June i8 that the national cockade remain

cockades other than

"all

condemned under the terms of the king's proclamation"

May 28, many other emblems were still in competition in the nation's streets and among its troops. The very design of the tricolor itself was still uncertain: the bands of

of color could be arranged either horizontally or vertically; sometimes the red stripe

was placed adjacent to the

rather than the blue

affirmation

—and

staff. Still,

the important point was the

—

of the notion of a national

increasingly widespread diffusion

cockade, a national flag, and a national emblem. At this crucial

of the national idea,

it is

insigne of identity and recognition.

communal

cult, linked to

into being,

history

and

Whether consciously or unconsciously,

yet transcending the vagaries of the

like all cults

it

on

insisted

was no doubt because the

It

moment in the

as if the nation required a visual representation, a tangible

its

own

new

and images.

rituals

was recognized

tricolor

a

moment, had come

as a national

symbol and

because the term nation was already invested with a power to mobilize emotions that the blue, white, and red survived the collapse of the constitutional

which party

it

had been implicitly associated as well

whose

official

desires, hopes,

break with the

some deputies who first

Convention issued

it

as the political disaster that befell the

had originally embodied. The ultimate

felt that it

was imperative

to

mark

a definitive

phase of the Revolution. Inspired by a sketch of David's, the

a decree

on February

1794,

15,

mandating

that "the national flag

be composed of the three national colors arranged in three equal bands arrayed

shall

vertically in such a

way

and the red waving

vogue

same

that the blue

on the banner's

left,

the white in the middle,

fit

the aesthetic of the time,

which favored austerity and sim-

or bands that David envisioned in his sketch were of course greatly

in the final years

blue, white,

is

in the breeze."

This arrangement plicity: the stripes

ric,

interests

consecration of the tricolor came from the Montagnard Convention, despite

the doubts of

in

and

monarchy with

of Louis XVI's reign.

and red color scheme) was

common

and women's clothing. The design of the new

newly emerging nations would imitate

The same motif in wallpaper,

flag,

a century later,

(often with the

upholstery fab-

which many of the world's

was nevertheless

at

odds with

previous styles of banner design, which often drew on traditional heraldic symbolism.

Under the government of Thermidor and the Directory,

the

new flag was main-

tained without apparent second thoughts. Napoleon, who, as emperor, wished to set

himself apart as clearly as possible from sidered abandoning

it,

bizarre proposal for a

all

previous governments, reportedly con-

however.^ In any case he wanted to make changes: although a

new green

flag

with gold lettering was soon scrapped, regula-

tions pertaining to the design of the tricolor flag

meddling should be seen

Empire returned

as yet another sign

to a style of

pomp and

were issued repeatedly. Perhaps

of changes in

excess.

iron spearhead at the tip of the flagstaff became,

this

taste in fashion as the First

The bronze by imperial

eagle that replaced the

fiat,

a crucial

and endur-

9

lO

RAOUL GIRARDET ing part of the symbol; indeed the term "eagle" was often preferred to "standard" or "flag."

As is characteristic

any major or sudden changes

any

rate within

however, a sort of moral taboo inhibited

in these matters,

in the flag's design.

Within the Grande Armee, or

the three colors from the caprices of the imperial government.

A tacit boundary was A

thus established, and the government never mustered up the resolve to violate

permanence therefore stood

crucial element of political

and Waterloo was

identical to that

it.

in stark contrast to the proliferating

upheavals of the nineteenth century: apart from matters of

Austerlitz

at

French contingents, an instinctive loyalty seems to have protected

its

detail, the flag

of

of Fleurus and Jemmapes.

Indeed, within a relatively short period of time, roughly a quarter of a century, the tricolor seems to have amassed a remarkable

and allegiances. At

first

no more than

of July 1789, within a year

it

a

had come

to

occupy

protocol of the Festival of the Federation.

much

number of memories,

symbol of adherence

On

the tricolor itself as the profusion of tricolors

April 1792, the tricolor took on a

new

movement

a central place in the ceremonial

that occasion

on

the

vocation:

it

it

was perhaps not so

Champ-de-Mars

With

nified the will of the people to create a united nation. ties in

associations,

to the Paris

that sig-

the outbreak of hostili-

became

symbol

the central

of a breathtaking series of military escapades that would continue to haunt the

French imagination for many years to come. The and

in the stories

taverns.

flag figured in veterans'

memories

they endlessly repeated around rural fireplaces and in suburban

Throughout France there were hundreds of thousands of survivors of

battles fought

by

the forces of the Revolution and Empire, and the tricolor

the

became

an integral part of their legend, an object of fervent emotion and the stuff of

dreams

—

in short,

an inexhaustible source replenished generation after generation

by an endless outpouring of

pictures, stories, songs,

poems, and novels. From

Beranger to Hugo, from Stendhal to Barres, from Michelet Detaille, countless individuals forged the tales

to

Peguy, from Raffet to

and images that have kept the great

epic alive to the present day. Meanwhile, however, civil conflict in France

two other symbols which, though raised strengthened

its

produced

in opposition to the tricolor, ultimately

claim to legitimacy by expanding

its

content and meaning.

Neither White nor Red In a passage of her memoirs, the Comtesse de Boigne first

tells

the story of Napoleon's

abdication and the allied troops' entry into Paris.^ "As a Frenchwoman," she

writes, "I blush to tell

what happened next." As the

across the capital, they were greeted

first

Russian troops marched

on the Champs-Elysees by cheers from

a bois-

terous pack of well-born youths "waving handkerchiefs" and displaying white

cockades that they handed out to other onlookers. Later, Czar Alexander joined the king of Prussia for an evening

at the Paris

Opera, where the two monarchs received

The Three Colors

the ovation of the crowd. In the boxes, pretty

the

same white cockade

number of

it

wrote: "I

am

least in love

very sorry to say

renewed

their bodices as evidence of

Mme de Boigne observes that "the greater the we

were." Yet she

with the fatherland for

the parties the royalist party

all

own

its

me,

at

was." Looking back on that moment, she

it

but of

so,

wore

lilies"

was with an easy conscience. Something gnawed

could not say exactly what

I

"garlanded with

foreign officers, the greater the crush, the happier

adds: "I cannot say that

though

on

in their hair or

devotion to the cause of "legitimacy."

women

is

one

the

sake."

This account bears comparison with an episode reported by General Thiebault in his

memoirs, an episode that took place

Hamburg, then forces.^

"We had

except the lines

the

Bourbons

.

.

.

when on May 9,

around Hamburg suddenly sprouted white

he immediately ordered his

an hour."

Of

siege

artillery to fire

to Thiebault

at the

by

allied

break of day, the enemy

Davout 's reaction was swift:

flags."

on the unforeseen monarchist banners,

"were demolished by cannon

fire

within a quarter of

course, the garrison surrendered shortly thereafter, and

ders, including

restored

Davout but under

dared to foresee everything," Thiebault recounts, "everything

power of

which according

about the same time but outside

at

held by French troops under

still

Davout and Thiebault,

lost

Bourbon regime. Nevertheless,

much an

no time switching

to the besieged

comman-

its

their allegiance to the

French troops

at

Hamburg,

was

a political

their

arms and

endorse the legitimacy of a regime other than the government of France.

When the

the white flag

was

symbol. To them

at least as it

meant

that they

invitation to surrender as

were expected

to lay

it

down

white flag was raised in place of the tricolor, the soldiers inevitably saw

as a

it

sym-

bol of defeat, a mark of humiliation.

These two anecdotes are particularly

telling since neither writer

can be suspected

of harboring undue sympathy for either the Revolution or the Empire.

Boigne spent

a sad

and

at

times tragic youth

among

Mme

the emigre nobility.

de

And

although Thiebault loyally served the armies of the Republic, his family back-

ground, distaste for Jacobin dictatorship, and friends

in the military all militated

against any principled hostility toward the old dynasty. Indeed, the testimony of our

two authors is quite symptomatic of the monarchist banner's unfortunate fate:

in this

period the white flag and the tricolor symbolized two diametrically opposed value systems, two mutually incompatible conceptions of society.

As was mentioned

earlier, there

was no

traditional association of the Capetian

dynasty with the color white. ^ But ever since the night of October a

somewhat too tumultuous banquet,

had made

several of the king's

a point of trampling the tricolor

i,

1789,

bodyguards

cockade of Lafayette,

when,

at Versailles

Bailly,

Parisian insurgents, the nascent Counterrevolution had been looking for a set against the tricolor

his loyal subjects

after

and the

symbol

favored by the victors of July. Louis XVI's injunction to

to

"all

throughout the kingdom to make use of no cockade other than the

14

RAOUL GIRARDET national cockade"

was natural

was obviously

for the

command

united," proclaimed the Prince de Conde.

of

all

princes and

king's arrest

Vendee insurgents and the volunteers

adopt white, the erstwhile color of is

by the

nullified

all

gentlemen.

They

on August

in the "Princes'

"The cause

I

am

defending

beneath the banner that

their head." Yet if the white flag inspired admirable devotion in

ers

and witnessed any number of

symbol of

civil

war and foreign

sacrifices in

invasion.

Army"

to

French royal armies. "The nobility

in

will rally

lo, 1792. It

its

behalf,

is

the cause

I shall fly at

many of

its

follow-

simultaneously became a

it

stood for reverting to the Old Regime

It

and for military defeat, for renunciation of the principles of 1789 and for the destruction of "la

Grande Nation." And by ignoring

the fact that the vast majority of the

French approved of the Revolution's conquests,

it

offended France's fundamental

national pride. Merely by being raised against the tricolor, the white flag bolstered the

new symbol's

authority and prestige and thus helped to ensure

its

survival.

Mme de Boigne, who describes the young nobles who wore the white cockade and cheered the victorious foreign troops on their entry into Paris as an "anti-national faction," put

it

well: the

Bourbons, by accepting the white flag flown by the most intran-

sigent of their supporters as their official banner, "offended the country's honorable

sentiments and grievously

wounded

magnitude of the damage, which

by the Napoleonic legend. Yet flag

the army."

may be

To be

sure,

it is

difficult to assess the

exaggerated in works of fiction influenced

there can be

no doubt

that the

temporary triumph of a

once flown by Chouan rebels and refractory emigres noticeably strengthened hos-

tility

to the

regime of 181 5 and encouraged the

belief, first, that the restored

chy opposed the "conquests" of the Revolution (and the those conquests) and, second, that

When

dient to foreign powers.

an elderly Lafayette

who

it

was prepared

to

monar-

interests associated with

remain docilely abject and obe-

Louis-Philippe d 'Orleans accepted the tricolor from

stepped forth from his

the widely accepted notion that the

fall

own

of Charles

legend, he placed his stamp on

X amounted to a truly national re\-

olution. Lafayette, the Hotel de Ville, the victorious insurrection, indeed, the very

words the new king uttered the next day ("The nation Henceforth no cockade

shall

reclaiming

its

colors.

be worn other than the tricolor cockade")

—

these

things brought the past suddenly back to

life

exactly as

it

is

all

had been captured by the

magnifying lens of memory. The great hopes of 1789 were resurrected, and the specter of counterrevolution

seemed

to have

been exorcised once and for

all.

"We

have taken up arms," Le Globe would write, "against the odious principle of divine right, against the renunciation flag, the

symbol of the old

of the dogmas of 1789, and finally against the white

interests unjustly

imposed upon

society."

Eugene

Pottier,

the future author of L'Internationale, extolled the resurrection of the "flag of Liberty": Je vols deja le drapeau tricolore

De mon

pays embleme protecteur

The Three Colors

Sur nos remparts qu'avec gloire est

II

pour nous

[Already

I

le signal

decore

il

du bonheur.

see the tricolor flag,

My country's protective emblem, Flying in glory above our ramparts.

For us

it is

the symbol of happiness.]

Henceforth the white flag was doomed to become nothing more than a object of piety. This piety stubbornly persists even

with the Restoration and nourished on dreams of

now in

political

a

relic,

an

segment of society born

and religious romanticism,

hallowed images of martyred princes, sacred virtues of loyalty, honor, and chivalry,

remembrances of the Chouan insurrection, nostalgia end with

Providence that legitimacy,

for the

Ancien Regime of leg-

knights and damsels and chapels and peasant cottages, and faith in a

its

it is

in

its

own

miraculous

way

decides the destiny of nations and kings:

often repeated in these circles,

legitimist piety

became increasingly

divorced from the implacable

realities

is

a matter

a divine mystery.

As time went by, this

of private devotion, more and more

of an evolving history. In 1873,

when the Comte

de Chambord (the pretender to the French throne) declared that he would not permit the

monarchy

to

be restored unless France once again adopted the white

most zealous supporters, including the extreme the National Assembly, able.

the

The

right

wing of

the royalist majority in

shadow of

prince had been raised in the intransigent, ever-doleful

Revolution.

Chambord himself remembered having

principles or

my

his

deemed the condition to be politically and ideologically unten-

Duchesse d'Angouleme, who had been held prisoner

port of Cherbourg

even

flag,

when he

flag."

fled France. "I

in the

his aunt,

Temple during

the

seen the tricolor flying over the

cannot return," he declared, "without

"The honor guard

will leave

my

without him, then," replied

who though a convinced monarchist, had never fought under any flag other than the tricolor. And during the Franco-Prussian War many of the pious noblemen who had sat in the Assembly ardently awaiting the return of Henri V had done the same thing, serving in the ranks or in command of mobile battalions. Marshal Mac-Mahon,

As

the Third Republic

the birth

was

also

red flag of the

down

was being born,

marked by

Commune.^

a riot, the red flag

in

la

Chanvrerie, where

"adds an indescribably

in

its

death throes. But

by the

forces of order

when

putting

became, through a strange reversal, the signal for a second

when an

June 1832. In Les Miserables Victor

on Rue de

was

a sterner, bloodier victory over yet another symbol: the

Traditionally flown

revolution on the Paris barricades ital

the white flag

sinister

it is

insurrectionary tide washed over the cap-

Hugo

describes a red flag atop a barricade

illuminated by an

"enormous red lantern"

purple to the banner's scarlet."

that

From the very first day

of the rioting the government maintained that "insurrection has shown its true colors, the red flag raised in opposition to our glorious tricolor.

The

tricolor that

triumphed

15

.

i6

RAOUL GIRARDET

Oft ffsperC, Ciloyens, le drapfas Irii-olore lour in niondc svfr la Rcpubliqup el I Krapirc, aree nog

C©ns*r*9»8 qoi a

!f

roil

not SO very long ago in the Vendee over the flag of counterrevolution will triumph

even more easily over the flag of anarchy." The image of a "red Republic" proclaiming

itself

both the heir to the Jacobin past and the harbinger of a

new social order now

stood in opposition not only to the July Monarchy but also to the "tricolor Republic,"

whose image was one of moderation,

conciliation,

and peace. Paul Verlaine

wrote a rather beautiful poem about the revolutionary drive for absolute lis

voulaient

Le

soleil sans

le

La Republique,

Rouge

et

non

devoir

et le droit absolu,

couchant, I'ocean sans reflux ils la

voulaient terrible et belle,

tricolore

.

.

justice:

later

— The Three Colors

[They wanted duty and absolute

justice,

A sun that never set, an ocean that never ebbed. They wanted the RepubHc Red and not tricolor .

.

to

be awful and beautiful,

.]

In 1848 the tricolor Republic defeated the red Republic, but not easily, and the

On

outcome was by no means assured.

was

Paris, the red flag

in fact raised

An armed mob

nearby rooftops.

February

25, after a

day of disturbances

over the main entrance of the Hotel de Ville and

forced

way

its

into the hall

where the provisional

government was meeting, and one of the insurrectionaries spoke: "We refuse

us.

to

We must have proof that you are

allow the Revolution to be confiscated yet again.

with

in

And that proof must be in the form of a decree that the new flag shall be the Then

red flag, the symbol of our misery and of a definitive break with the past."

Lamartine spoke and,

if

we

are to believe his

own

account, saved the tricolor:

You can do violence to the Government, you can order it to change the nation's flag

and the name of France,

your error to impose

my hand will I

shall

never sign

spurn

this

even more than

I,

if

a partisan

you are

inspired and obstinate

ill

flag

with

my dying breath, and you should spurn it

because the red flag that you propose to give us has been

blood of the people

and

in '91

'93,

... If

you deprive me of the

glory,

tricolor,

must

sees the red flag,

raise before

Europe

will see

it

is

liberty.

you must know

that

you

are stripping

Europe recognizes only

the flag of the Republic and Empire, as the flag of it

was dragged through the

and of French

half of France 's external strength, for

When

it

whereas the tricolor is known the world over

symbol of France, of French

away

in

this decree.

bloody

nowhere but around the Champ-de-Mars, where

as a

enough

Republic and a banner of terror. ... As for me,

its

this flag,

defeats and our victories.

nothing but a party banner: the flag

we

the flag of France, the flag of our victorious

armies, the flag of our triumphs. France and the tricolor are but a single thought, sharing a single prestige and

if

need be inspiring a singular terror

in

our enemies.

Twenty-three years insurrectionaries

later,

however, np Lamartine arose to discourage triumphant

from raising the red

Duchene had called for nothing

We

want nothing more

to

less a

flag in front

few days

of the same Hotel de

do with the fraudulent

allegedly moderate and respectable

—

Ville.

Le Pere

earlier:

Republics.

flag of

your shameful

We want nothing more to do

with a flag under which Louis-Philippe's paunchy confederates gabbed and guzzled and under which December's soldiers feasted and massacred.

We want

nothing more to do with you, flag of Transnonain, flag of Mentana, flag of Sedan.

When

a nation's standard has

been dragged through such shameful

17

RAOUL GIRARDET

i8

quagmires, is

its

fabric has to

red only because

forces of reaction,

it is

be changed and so do

drenched

must replace the

in the

flag

its

colors.

The red flag, which

blood of the people spilled by the

on which Hoche 's blood has been cov-

ered up by the spattered brains of Le Creusot's miners and the

spittle

of

Failly,

Frossard, and Bazaine. FIGURE quite

1.7

Horizontal stripes or vertical ones? Blue, white, red or blue, red, white?

some time.

Here, flag bearer at a civic festival

in

1792.

The design

of the flag

was

uncertain for

The Three Colors

Meanwhile, shortly after the installation of the ers

Commune,

proclaimed that "the people's France was born on March

died in 1789, and the white flag along with tricolor flag along with it." In the end,

emerged

victorious:

FIGURE

when

1.8

The

it.

Felix Pyat i8.

The

among oth-

nobles' France

Bourgeois France died in 1871, and the

however,

it

was the France of

the tricolor that

Thiers's troops returned to their barracks at Versailles

first

republican costume, 1848.

19

20

RAOUL GIRARDET and Satory

week of bloodshed, they brought with them

after a

symbols seized from the ruins of the barricades.

scarlet

by enduring disdain

for the colors

which henceforth stood

for the Third Republic, secure at last

some years

the

of

of the

Communards'

under which the victorious govern-

ment troops had fought. For most Frenchmen, however, to the legend of the tricolor,

Among descendants

was long sustained by memories of

losers, loyalty to the red flag

suffering and

as trophies heaps

for

after

its

a

new ingredient was added

Order saved from

peril.

inception, the inherited

As tri-

color stood as a guarantee against reaction on the one hand and further revolution

on the

other. It stood for adherence to the "liberties" of 1789 in the face of last-ditch

efforts

by the proponents of divine

right to

undo

the Revolution, and at the

same

time for equilibrium and continuity in the face of ever-present subversive threats.

National Legitimacy and Republican Legitimacy

The

history of the tricolor

the subject that

is

complex, however, and there

we would do

well to bear in mind.

acceptance of the tricolor as a "national" symbol

more important

the ever

service ethos in his ries

place

it

—

am

I

is

another dimension of

speaking of the growing

an acceptance that derived from

occupied in military memorial ceremonies and the

on which they were based. Lamartine was not wasting his breath when,

Hotel de Ville speech, he invoked "France's external force" and the past glo-

of "our victorious armies" as his ultimate argument. Important, too, was the

myths

that in the

grew up around French military campaigns

that

Crimea, and the Franco-Prussian War, the flag

—whether

fact

in Algeria, the

planted in ground seized

from the enemy or defended against foreign onslaught or saved from capture or embraced by

a

French soldier or witness to a serviceman's supreme

an increasingly central presence."' In Prussian

War is

this respect the

exemplary. There was no more

sacrifice

—was

iconography of the Franco-

common

or poignant illustration of

the humiliation of defeat than the image of the tricolor being burned one October

night outside Metz.

And

appeals to what was

commonly called the

is

more than

a piece

of

stands for the nation. salute, for

The

France

is

in the

silk

The

would-be epic

literature

of war, there were frequent

"cult of the flag": "This

is

because the flag

blackened by powder and riddled with bullet holes:

nation lives in

its

symbol.

.

.

.

it

When the colors pass, let us

passing as well.""

flag, persisting

through a

series

of disparate regimes, thus became the focal

point of a single national religion, a symbol of unity and historical continuity tran-

scending the July Monarchy, the two Empires, and the three Republics. The tricolor

became

the

institutions

symbol of France,

la Patrie,

which subsisted even

came and went, provided only

were respected. The above and beyond

all

tricolor thus

became

that the flag

the

as

governments and

and the national religion

embodiment of ultimate

legitimacy,

other forms of political allegiance. But did the flag stand for

The Three Colors

FIGURE 1870

The

1.9

tricolor

became

the symbol of France as opposed to that of any one political party: Le Siege de Paris, Meissonier,

(detail).

national legitimacy or republican legitimacy? After 1875,

Republic appeared to be securely established,

by no means

One way Deroulede

clear,

to

in

however, that

it is

by which time the Third

question did not

this

poet, a

as a

is

through

Les Nouveaux Chants du soldat

young man, however, on

composer of hymns

Franco-Prussian War.

to the

The poem

fail to arise. It is

possible to give a clear and satisfactory answer.

approach the question

in

a

long

poem

published by Paul

1876. Deroulede was of course an

authentic republican, a follower and admirer of Gambetta.

renown

21

He

gained considerable

the strength of his reputation as a "national"

French soldier and bard of that tragic

in question, entitled

"Colloque,"

is

epic, the

set in

peace-

22

RAOUL GIRARDET time and deals with a young peasant recruit serving under the newly established

regime of universal conscription, and with the officer script's life

company.

When

command

in

of this con-

the peasant recruit complains of the harshness of military

and the difficulty of being away from home, the captain responds by drawing the

man's attention to the

flag:

Et ce vieux drapeau que tu vois, C'est la robe de ta payse.

[And Is

The army, Flag,"

this old flag that

you see

your countrywoman's gown.]

the captain points out,

whose purpose

is

is

none other than "the great school of the

"to train and to educate."

thus an instrument of social

It is

advancement and emancipation, a school offering education and

citizenship.

The

military

was thus harmonized with

eration and progress through education. Sais-tu ce

que

C'est le temps

The

in the

the republican ideal of lib-

words

captain's

ways of freedom

are

unambiguous:

tu regrettes.''

ou

tu n'etais rien,

Oia ni soldat, ni citoyen,

Au

festin n'ayant

que

les miettes,

Sans devoir, sans droit, sans soutien,

Le servage courbait vos

tetes.

[Do you know what you

miss.^

The days when you were nothing.

When, You

neither soldier nor citizen,

ate

only the crumbs of the feast

And when,

without duties,

rights, or support.

Serfdom bowed your head.] In a broader context, the worship of the

gave the

first

it

was the same syncretism, the same drive

army and republican

to

combine both

fervor in a single religion of the flag, that

national celebration of Bastille

Day on

July

14,

1880,

its full signifi-

—

The day could be seen as a reprise of the Festival of the Federation no doubt more spontaneous, unanimous, and authentically popular than cance.

nal

—

great

in

a reprise

the origi-

which military symbolism replaced the Altar of the Fatherland.'^ Indeed, the

moment came just before the interminable review at the Longchamp

racetrack,

when the army's reconstituted regiments were given their flags. "It is with these sentiments," President Grevy proclaimed, "that the Government of the Republic is about to bestow these flags on you. Accept them as a token of the government's pro-

found sympathy for the army. Accept them tion to duty,

as witnesses

of your bravery, your devo-

and your dedication to France, which, with these noble insignia, entrusts

The Three Colors

you with the defense of France 's miUtary rebirth the event: a painting

all its streets

were issued

may

territory,

its

and

its

laws." This consecration of

explain the public's apparently universal support for

by Claude Monet preserves the memory of

as perhaps never before

ing

honor,

its

and never again, submerged

and neighborhoods. Bear

to the troops

on

images of Marianne were on

this

in

in a sea

decked out

a Paris

of tricolors encompass-

mind, however, that the new flags that

occasion bore the seal of the French Republic; that

sale at

every street corner; and that immense canvas and

many squares alongside men of the victorious cause. The ambiguity of the tricolor was good fortune. It allowed the new institutions to become the moral and ideo-

cardboard effigies of the republican symbol were erected on portraits of the great also

its

logical beneficiaries of the resurgence of patriotism that followed France

the

war

against Prussia. Republican legitimacy increasingly

's

defeat in

subsumed the very idea

of national legitimacy.

One

of

many

signs of this lengthy process of amalgamation and synthesis

illustrated

album

for teenagers of a sort

tury: interestingly

common

enough, the particular album

at the

in

ally the third

and

final

an

question was entitled Les Trois

Couleurs and featured drawings by Job and text by Georges Montorgueil.

La

is

end of the nineteenth cen-

volume of a series that also included La France,

It

was

actu-

son histoire and

Vivandiere, a series intended to provide a mythological narrative of the history of

France from the beginning until France, a "pretty

little

Franco-Prussian War. The infant

just after the

Gallic lass,"

is

found by druids

As the centuries pass, the little lass grows up: she is a a "girl in white

communion

frivolous under Louis

in the foliage

of an oak

tree.

under Charlemagne,"

"little girl

dress under Saint Louis," and "powdered, exquisite, and

XV." Caught up

Revolution, she becomes a canteen

girl,

in the great military

and to the

bitter

adventure of the

end follows Bonaparte, who

"with his sword cuts her the handsomest laurel wreath ever to grace her brow."

Unchanged by the third

the revolutions of the nineteenth century, she appears at the end of

volume

in

mourning, "grave and sad

ories of the lost provinces.

The book's

serene, however: France surveys the

final

in adversity"

new army's regiments

dipping their flags to her on the parade ground

them, "these are your I

wove them

for

new

flags.

you from the

died for centuries. Hold them

They

tatters

fast,

and burdened by

image, spread across two pages,

at

is

memmore

passing in review and

Longchamp.

"Soldiers," she tells

are pieced together out of your former glory.

of banners under which you have fought and

hold them high, hold them straight. Soldiers,

how

beautiful are the colors!"

A

question remains, however:

gaze, breastplate, and

crown of

"grave, proud, and silent" France.''

Her resemblance

is

the majestic

laurels,

who

army marches to the

young women with the confident

stands

wrapped

past, really France.-^

image of the Republic

contemporary statues and iconography

is

in the tricolor as the

Or

rather,

as endlessly

is

she only

reproduced

in

too striking not to be deliberate.'^ At the

23

FIGURE

1.10

France

drawing based on an

(a

female personifying the Republic) watches the military parade

illustration

at

Longchamp:

by Job for Les Trois Couleurs by Georges Montorgueil, 1890.

26

RAOUL GIRARDET end of an adventxire that has lasted more than twenty centuries, the figure of France seems to have distinguished

The

lost it

her autonomy. Her face no longer bears the distinctive

traits that

from the faces of her masters, whether sovereigns or representatives.

allegorical figure

of France has become identical with that of the Republic;

henceforth the two are indistinguishable.

To

present the Republic as the ineluctable conclusion, the definitive, logical

culmination of the history of France, will seem banal to any historian of the national idea.

It

should nevertheless be borne

ship between France and the Republic that

color

would be inconceivable without

the national destiny.

The

in

fervor with which the

made

in the early

that the symbiotic relation-

was achieved

a certain unitary

in the

shadow of

the

tri-

and conciliatory concept of

new army

Job's album, with workers, nobles, and bourgeois

reminiscent of engravings

mind

is

depicted

marching shoulder

at the

end of

to shoulder,

is

days of the Revolution showing repre-

sentatives of the three orders at last fraternally united

under the sign of the

Republican mythology thus opted for consistency and continuity

at the

tricolor.

expense of

chronology: the events of 1792 were confounded with those of 1789, crucial dividing lines in the history of the Revolution were obscured, and the impression was thus created that the Republic struck

its

deepest roots in what was in fact a period of

constitutional monarchy.

Call

it

what you

presumptuous

will:

foundation myth or distortion of memory.

Is it

absurdly

to suggest that this telescoping of time actually reflects a tenacious

loyalty to the hopes and principles of the first revolutionary generation.''

Or

that

it

may also signify a desire to erase memories of certain painful rifts and a nostalgia for a certain short-lived

form of

of solidarity are embraced civil conflict

and

all

social

the

harmony, for

more

a

dream

in

which enduring values

fervently because they contradict a reality of

institutional upheaval.'* Indeed,

when

the French were asked in a

1983 poll which revolutionary leader they found "most sympathetic," Lafayette (43

percent positive, 6 negative) led tive, 21 it is

all

negative) and Robespierre

others, with

last (21

Napoleon second (39 percent

July 1790, and

who

who

linked

participated in

it

To be sure, man who first

percent negative, 8 positive).

not easy to interpret this retrospective plebiscite in favor of the

chose the tricolor in 1789,

posi-

to the first consecration of

its official

French unity

in

reinstatement as the flag of France in

July 1 830. In any event, the poll results clearly have their place, alongside the winged

who appears on the text of the Rights of Man and the allegorical France who appears in the stained glass window in Triancourt, in a history that is already nearly France

two centuries old and not over

yet.

Mam S£i:l;lois Thkatrks

IDES

cujyrKt: stu d/pkiuss

(

an

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101

par

a

(-mj

.

j/f

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C't^ fift*

Hf

-j

./«/

.

'/-ui

jJueLi hwu/icrti t/ ifctt eu-crfer Ce*C ivciut fuon o^t nuttier jiiix mttntj. Q^eycttM.

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FIGURE

2.0

The anthem

of the Marseillais, 1792.

a ({ tt

t/r

/firmer

J

— CHAPTER

La Marseillaise:

War

or

Peace

Michel Vovelle

The

destiny of

fairly routine

La

Marseillaise"

is

food for thought. While the song's origins are a

matter for historical inquiry,

it is

more interesting to ask how the Chant

de guerre pour I'armee du Rhin, written in Strasbourg in April 1792,

modern

How,

national anthem.

ciated with various

in other

words, did

this

became

the first

song, unlike the songs asso-

European monarchies in the Age of Absolutism, come

to express

the consciousness of a nation.'^

There are two

sides to

La Marseillaise: on

that extols not just liberty but the values of a is

a

war song

new

of an embattled nation. As such,

sive property of

French

citizens,

it is

a revolutionary tune

world, while on the other hand

it

nil.

it

patri-

might have remained the exclu-

not unlike England's

Commonwealth was

export market outside the

hand

sometimes deemed "sanguinary," the

that expresses, with a zeal

otic sentiments

the one

By

God Save

contrast.

the King,

whose

La Marseillaise was

recognized and even adopted by nineteenth-century liberal and national revolutionary movements around the world. Indeed, the French anthem

be one of the few songs that belong to

song

L'Internationale

—

all

mankind.

It

was

is

often considered to

a century before another

gained comparable renown.

There was nothing particularly remarkable about the composer of La Marseillaise: an officer of engineers, Joseph Rouget de Lisle was an amateur musician, and

La

Marseillaise

is

the only

work of

his to

prisingly simple: the French national quality, at least not

Marseillaise suffers

from Gossec

have survived. The song's words are sur-

anthem

is

not a

work of impressive

literary

according to academic canons. As a piece of music, moreover.

La

from more than one imperfection, which professional musicians

to Berlioz

have sought to correct.

2

— 3°

MICHEL VOVELLE a mistake, however, to go overboard with criticism. La Marseillaise is monument of naive art, and Rouget de Lisle was not an unconscious scribe whose pen was somehow guided by the genius of France. Rather than ponder deep mysteries, we need to search for historical explanations. We shall therefore begin at the beginning: why was La Marseillaise written in Strasbourg in 1792.'' Having done that, we shall go on to examine the astonishing destiny of a song whose remarkable It

would be

not a

history

is

not over yet.

The Anthem

les Marseillais and of the French Revolution

of

Nowadays, no one would pretend

that a masterpiece such as

explained entirely in terms of the circumstances in which sible to

originated.

It is

impos-

understand France 's national anthem, however, without knowing something

about the times in which

On

it

La Marseillaise can be

it

first

captured the popular imagination.

April 20, 1792, revolutionary France declared

and Hungary." Rouget de

On

the night of April 25 (the date

Lisle, captain

war on is

the

no longer

of engineers, wrote La Marseillaise

"King of Bohemia in doubt),

Joseph

in Strasbourg. In other

words, the song was written immediately after news of the declaration of war reached the garrison the

news of

Beyond

city.

Clearly, the

work was

the forthright response of a

patriot to

the hour.

these immediate circumstances, however, the whole situation of Stras-

bourg and France

at that

moment undoubtedly

from the declaration of war on April 20 1792,

proud

influenced the composer.

to the fall

The period

of the monarchy on August

10,

was one of the most eventful of the Revolution, mobilizing the energies not only

of revolutionaries but also of the nation. Rouget, insofar as he was

sounding board for the emotions not of

all

Frenchmen

—

for he

able, served as a

wrote

at a

time

when

demands for unlimited commitment were beginning to destroy an earlier consensus but of those

who had thrown

themselves wholeheartedly into the Revolution.

Other inspirational melodies and

two

years.

ira,

had emerged

in the Revolution's first

These were mainly adaptations of popular dance tunes

flexible lyrics

fa

refrains

had been added. This was the

case, for example,

to

which simple,

with the well-known

which, though already being sung before July 1790, really caught on in the

climate of militant celebration surrounding the Festival of the Federation on July 14

of that year.

A simple, direct cry of violence and hope,

accompaniment

fa

vanish and unanimity disappeared. Another dance tune. popularity

more

of August

10, 1792.

ticular

ira

proved to be the

to subsequent revolutionary journees, even after illusions

slowly. Eventually

it

became

moment. After the

fall

to

La Carmagnole, gained

the rallying song of the sansculottes

There were many versions of

bative, triumphant tone:

ideal

began

its lyrics,

each tailored to a par-

of the Tuileries, for example, the song took on a com-

"Madame Veto

avait

promis/De

faire

egorger tout Paris

La Marseillaise

[Madame Veto used

to

rhythms of

the simple

promise/She'd have every throat

Together,

in Paris sHt]."

and La Carmagnole expressed the sentiments of the rev-

(^a ira

olutionary people in arms, engaged in struggle on battlefields inside France as well

Some commentators

as outside.

La

rather condescendingly contrast

Marseillaise

with these partly improvised songs, which in their view were unsuitable as national

anthems and too closely associated with "the mob" to command respect. Such judgments need to be reconsidered

in the light

of the fact that ^a

ira

and La Carmagnole

not only played an important role in the Revolution of 1789 but surfaced again in the revolutions of 1830 and 1848 and It is true,

newfound

was

searching for songs of a

still

legitimacy. In the realm of music as in

all

the

revolutionary shock resulted in a changing of the guard: some musicians

and songwriters ers,

its

workers' movement.

later in the

nevertheless, that the Revolution

nobler genre to celebrate arts, the

still

including

fell silent,

new avenues of

other sought

some who were

at least partially self-taught,

expression, and

came

still

oth-

Rouget

to the fore.

de Lisle belonged to the third group. Musicians were slow to abandon the religious set pieces that

composed

a

Te

were traditionally played

Deum

at state occasions:

another prominent musician of the period, wrote a General Gouvion the needs of the

in 1792. If

moment

songs, the best choice

one had to

eveille-toi, a setting

occasion,

coming

as

it

and Catel,

at last

fix a date

De

when an

profundis in honor of official

emerged from the profusion of

music suited to topical popular

11, 1791, when Voltaire's ashes were which occasion Gossec composed his admirable

would probably be July

translated to the Pantheon, for

Peuple

Gossec, for example,

for the Festival of the Federation (July 14, 1790),

of some verses by the patriarch of Ferney himself. This

did in a period of crisis between the king's flight to Varennes

and the massacre on the Champ-de-Mars, provided an ideal showcase for a music "in

harmony with the circumstances" thanks to its lofty style and use of large choral

masses, features that would be characteristic of the golden age of revolutionary

music (1793— 1794). piece, the affair"

in

1

Marche

Earlier, in 1790,

lugubre,

Gossec had produced

composed

in

homage

but not played until Mirabeau's funeral.

79 foreshadowed future developments 1

in

a surprisingly innovative

"to citizens cut

The

down in

the

addition of the choral element

revolutionary composition.

La Marseillaise was neither a popular song nor a piece of official music. an anonymous reworking of a previously existing tune, nor was trained professional musician.

As

a blend

of different genres,

capable of expressing the needs of an age in search of a in search

of

Nancy

it

it

the

was

It

was not

work of

all

the

new music and of

a

a

more music

new composers.

La Marseillaise was written by was born on May

a

man in a unique situation. Joseph Rouget de Lisle

10, 1760, at Lons-le-Saulnier. In

stationed in Strasbourg. His parents father's people

had

1792 he was a captain of engineers

were minor notables of Franche-Comte. His

settled in the region relatively recently,

having been obliged.

31

32

MICHEL VOVELLE because of their Protestant

faith, to

move

repeatedly in the Poitou and Languedoc

By special dispensation Rouget had been allowed to add the noble appendage

regions.

de Lisle (or de L'Isle) to his name, a privilege that had allowed him,

upon completing

preparatory school, to attend the Ecole Militaire and later the engineering school

at

Mezieres, where Carnot and Prieur also trained. Between 1784 and 1789 he had served as an officer in garrisons from Mont-Dauphin to Fort de Joux. Garrison

was not very demanding, however, and the young officer had been talent as

an amateur poet and composer in

instinct

and without formal training.

when

the Revolution

an enlightened amateur, though, and

to Paris in part

by

curiosity to witness the

important events taking place there and in part by a desire to make a as a writer

the only

one of

produced ria

He

and composer. his

Cecile et

able to pursue his

Embrun and elsewhere, working purely by

He was

came he was drawn

life

name for himself

enjoyed a modest success: his Bayard dans Brescia was

"troubadour" operas to be staged, and together with Gretry he

Ermance, ou

les

deux

convents, a play about "hypocrisy

and hyste-

among nuns" which was performed in 1792. A patriot and enemy of prejudice, he wrote a Hymne a la liberte and was an enthusiastic participant in the Festival of

also

the Federation

on July

14, 1790.

When he rejoined his regiment in Strasbourg on April

i,

1791, he thus found a sit-

uation tailor-made for the composer, dilettante, and patriotic officer that he was.

Strasbourg was a musical Pleyel.

It

was

city,

one of whose orchestras was conducted by Ignace

also a sociable city,

whose decidedly

geoisie mingled with the troops of the garrison, eral nobility:

still

if

moderately patriotic bour-

dominated by officers of the

lib-

de Broglie, d'Aiguillon, and du Chatelet served alongside Caffarelli,

The man who brought everyone together was the mayor, wealthy industrialist and metal manufacturer who was also a man of the

Desaix, Kleber, and Malet. Dietrich, a

Enlightenment, an academician

minded

as well as patriotic.

who was

—

as

one

still

could be in 1791

For the time being he remained

a

—open-

popular mayor,

although he was not without enemies, and he kept an open table and a salon where

music mingled with patriotism.

The shock of war onance in

that led to the writing of

in Strasbourg, a frontier

Nancy

and,

later,

feelings early on.

It

town where

of the king's

was

a city

flight to

La

fresh

Marseillaise

had a particular

res-

memories of the events of 1790

Varennes had fostered strong patriotic

where emigres and "accomplices of Bouille"^ were

kept under surveillance, and where counterrevolutionaries organized "patriotic dinners" at which corrosively seditious songs were sung in French and German. Indeed, as Tiersot noted in 1915, counterrevolutionary tunes were so commonplace in

Strasbourg that there "was really a need for some good Frenchman to come and

men like Dietrich,

introduce a different note." But the patriotism of d'Aiguillon was decorous in tone, even

when

ous expression, as in the

Strasbourg on September

festival held in

it

de Broglie, and

found opportunities for ceremoni25, 1791, to cele-

La Marseillaise

Rouget de

brate the acceptance of the Constitution, an occasion for which

wrote the

of a

lyrics

Hymne

1792, moderate patriots such

a la liberie that Pleyel set to music. as these,

By

whether wealthy bourgeois or

Lisle

the spring of

liberal nobles,

no longer went unchallenged: the new Jacobins were already on the scene. "Nobody

knew where only half

who was and Laveaux, who

they came from, but surely from Germany," wrote Tiersot,

right.

Among

the

newcomers were Euloge Schneider

attacked Dietrich while Rouget de Lisle

waged

a running battle with

them

in the

local press.

La Marseillaise emerged from a consensus that was fragile to say the least. On the day in question, April 25, the strains of Ca ira and La Carmagnole could be heard as an official procession made its way through the city, but the mayor and his friends disapproved of these vulgar popular tunes. An address to the citizenry by a member of Strasbourg's Societe des Amis de la Constitution struck a nobler tone: "To arms, citizens! The banner of war is unfurled. We must fight, we must conquer or die. .

.

.

Let crowned despots tremble.

.

.

.

.

.

.

Hasten to victory.

.

.

.

March! Let us be free

to

our dying breath." Such were the words addressed to the battalions of "enfants de la Patrie" as

they marched through Strasbourg's

streets.

La Marseillaise were already on the lips of everyTo say this is in no way to diminish Rouget de years later, the moment was somewhat misleadingly

In other words, the themes of

one

in

Strasbourg on April

25, 1792.

Lisle 's accomplishment. Sixty

immortalized for posterity: for the Salon of 1849, the painter Pils depicted the scene in

Mayor Dietrich's salon when Rouget de Lisle supposedly first i^Xi^La Marseillaise.

Historical accuracy facts

were rather

was not one of the

painter's

different (although in the great

primary concerns, however. The

scheme of things

ters): at a

dinner at the mayor's house attended by the city's

garrison,

Rouget was asked

lowing evening,

in a state

enthusiastic night

to

compose

elite

it

scarcely mat-

and officers of the

a song appropriate to the

moment. The

fol-

of exaltation lubricated by champagne, the work of an

was sung not by

its

author but by Dietrich himself,

who

prided

himself on his voice: the career of Le Chant de guerre pour Varmee du Rhin, later to be

known as La Marseillaise, had begun. What Rouget composed was first and foremost

a

song of war,

in six verses

with

the following refrain:

Aux armes

citoyens!

Formez vos

bataillons!

Marchez, marchez,

Qu'un sang impur Abreuve nos

The song was aimed

at the foreign

sillons.

enemy

—

that

"horde of

slaves, traitors,

and

conspiratorial kings," those cohortes etrangeres and, to complete the rhyme: ^phalanges

33

34

MICHEL VOVELLE mercenaires.

And

it

was addressed

to the people in arms: soldiers, heroes,

by turns "proud" and "magnanimous," who were admonished

riors,

of the fatherland to defend their ^Zs-

flags

and war-

to rally to the

compagnes. Simply and forcefully.

et

La

Marseillaise established the cliches of la patrie en armes for a long time to come. Is

the song a bloody call to arms, as is

indeed spilled in

at the

this

it

has often been denounced for being?

Much blood

"impure" anthem, spattering the banners of the enemy while

same time flooding the furrows of those who

are defending their native soil.

nothing blind or hateful about

is

Yet there

is

this

carnage, which

directed only

against the guilty:

magnanimes,

Fran9ais, en guerriers

Portez ou retenez vos coups,

Epargnez ces

tristes

victimes

A regret s'armant centre nous For La Marseillaise was a revolutionary song even more than an outpouring of national consciousness. tors,

It

was aimed not

and the "accomplices of Bouille,"

ers' breasts."

What was

at stake

was

just at foreign

at "tigers

who

armies but

at

tyranny, trai-

mercilessly slash their moth-

clearly stated:

Grand Dieu! Par des mains enchainees

Nos

fronts sous le joug ploieraient.''

De vils despotes

deviendraient

Les maitres de nos

destinees.-^

[Great God! Will chained hands

slip

Yokes over our brows.-^ Will vile despots become

The masters of our The song ends, moreover, with an tifies

fate.'']

invocation of liberty, which warrants and jus-

the sacred love of a fatherland that

is

liberty's first refuge. It

was

this role

of a

hymn to liberty that fitted La Marseillaise to become in short order the anthem of the Republic as well as the national anthem of France.

The plices

song's words (despite the one

now

rather obscure allusion to the "accom-

of Bouille") are simple and general, and

and martial. This unusual confluence of alliance that existed in the spring

elite

its

rhythm

is

powerful, unaffected,

and popular fervor

of 1792 between the patriotic

reflects the

elites

tenuous

(bourgeois and

non-bourgeois) and the revolutionary mass movement. In these circumstances

Rouget de cultivated

Lisle enjoyed a paradoxical advantage over the professionals:

man who took pride

and not very

in his writing,

is

a

he was nevertheless partly self-taught

prolific as a writer, a stranger to the republic

why La Marseillaise

though

of

letters.

Perhaps that

is

today the national anthem of France rather than the Chant du

La Marseillaise

depart

by Mehul and Marie-Joseph Chenier.

disadvantages: Rouget

harmonized

first

revised

by

his

Of

course this advantage also had

knew nothing about harmony.

melody, and her work was

Berlioz. Nevertheless,

it

can

now be

was

It

who

Dietrich's wife

completed by Gossec and

later

two

stated with confidence that

puted issues of musicological scholarship have been settled once and for originality of La Marseillaise

its

and the authorship of Rouget de

Lisle.

dis-

all:

the

These issues are

not without importance, but they have been so widely and so thoroughly discussed that there ter half

versy,

point in rehashing old controversies.

is little

of the nineteenth century in a context of

and the

positivist historians

They

political

first

came up

in the lat-

and nationalist contro-

of the early twentieth century squandered vast

treasures of scholarship in resolving them. For present-day musicologists such as

The almost immediate

Frangois Robert, they are no longer in doubt.

success and

widespread popularity of the Chant de guerre pour I'armee du Rhin obscured the truth almost from the beginning: in

fact,

Gretry wrote his friend Rouget to ask him

who

had written the music, while the Chronique de Paris attributed the tune to a German composer, thus launching what would

German

scholars!

As we

shall see,

ously challenged during the Revolution. it is

easy to find the rather

become

later

a fierce controversy

—among

however, Rouget 's authorship was never

As

seri-

for the originality of the tune, although

common sequence of notes in

the first measure (G, C, D,

E) in any number of tunes ranging from popular songs to Mozart's 25th Piano

Concerto

in

C,

it

does not follow that Rouget was guilty of plagiarism: the overall

shape and rhythm of

La Marseillaise make

the various tunes that

Rouget

is

it

song unlike any other. Furthermore,

a

supposed to have plagiarized (an organ piece by

Grisons, an organist from Amiens, and a piece in the Rhineland)

composed by Forster and Reichardt

have been shown to be adaptations of Rouget 's tune.

In a different respect, however, Rouget did lose control of the song he wrote in

Strasbourg in April of 1792:

it

was taken up and sung everywhere

Marseillaise, the property of an entire nation.

We can

until

recount with a

it

became La

fair

degree of

accuracy the stages by which the Chant de guerre de I'armee du Rhin made across France in the weeks that followed, changing

its title

en route.

From

birthplace in Alsace, the music, with a dedication to Marshal Liickner,

and sent to Basel and

Selestat.

Then Dannbach,

Strasbourg on April 29. Paris learned of in

La

Trompette du pere Duchesne, and

Bastille.

when

But the capital did not really

the fe'de'res

from Marseilles

it

it

on July

to the

cers and

at

an

official

performance

at a

song

in

column

dance on the ruins of the

until the

end of the month,

arrived.

For the second incarnation of La Marseillaise, Strasbourg to Provence.

its initial

was copied

23 through Huningue's

was played

warm

way

the publisher of Strasbourg's news-

was sung

paper, printed a version, and the piece

its

we must

turn our attention from

A patriotic song that originated in a milieu of military offi-

moderate bourgeois patriots was

now

taken up in a very different context:

35

36

MICHEL VOVELLE of the highly poUticized revolutionary movement

that

battle against the

revolutionary facet of

The

La

route that

Counterrevolution

La Marseillaise was

How did

the song

who

northward to

a

number,

a

The

Was

it

is

not

nothing sur-

is

published in a "constitutional

travelers.^ In

any

case, thefederes

of

asked to join their comrades from Marseilles on their march

bivouac outside Paris to which they had been

Rouget de

king's opposition in late July, brought their

of France

to the south

cultural exchanges there

travel.'^

newspaper" or simply carried by commercial Montpellier,

monar-

the

crucial.

quickly accentuated as a result.

complex

entirely clear, but in a period of

prising about that.

the

from Alsace

Marseillaise took

south of France (from

— overthrow of —would soon become

home front

Marseilles to Montpellier), for which the

chy and the

in the

man named

Lisle

's

summoned over

the

song with them. One of

E.-F. Mireur, sang the tune in Marseilles at

welcoming

ceremonies for the Montpellier contingent. Ricard and Micoulin's Journal des departements meridionaux printed what had

come

to

be known as the Chant de guerre

aux armees des frontieres, and the federes from Marseilles each received

They sang it

before leaving for the capital.

martial image of the soldiers thus

made

soldiers

Paris that the song

from Marseilles sang

was most

at

every stop along their route, and the

be indelibly associated with the song they

described the scene:

"They

in the

often sing

fully identified

on July

their tune

and again on August 4 and

tal,

to

copy

popular.

was in

It

came

a

30, the

with those

who sang it. The

day they arrived

in the capi-

days that followed. The Chronique de Paris it

at the

Palais-Royal, and sometimes in the

intermission between two plays." Other newspapers corroborate these reports.

Above

all,

the

song that could now legitimately be

could be heard on August

10, 1792,

called the

hymne

during the attack on the Tuileries.

link

was thus forged between the future national anthem and the

chy,

which ushered

Rouget de the

in a

new phase of

Lisle 's creation

group responsible

for

its

had

des Marseillais

fall

A permanent

of the monar-

the Revolution.

now moved beyond

its

beyond

author's reach and

inception: de Broglie, d'Aiguillon,

and Dietrich were

among those who refused to recognize the "second revolution" of August 10, and in the weeks to come they and others like them either lost their lives or emigrated. Rouget de

Lisle himself refused to accept the latest turn of events despite the urg-

ings of Carnot and Prieur, fellow officers of engineers.

As

a result, he

was

relieved

of his duties and quit the army for a time, although he briefly returned to service later

hand

with the

Army of the North.

at the theater,

en-Laye

in 1793.

His

wrote a Hymne a

Rouget enjoyed Marseillaise,

and there life

we

After leaving the army, he went to Paris to try his

find

was never

la raison for

him

in

custody as a suspect

really in danger,

at

however, and while

which Mehul supplied the melody.

a certain protection as the author of the

whose destiny was now

its

own.

Saint-Germain-

work he

It

in prison

was

as

refused to

he

though call

La

La Marseillaise

Two

now

things

legitimized the song that the minister of

dubbed the hymne des Marseillais. Outside France 's borders

by

fire that

internally

To

it

made

the

it

that

is

soil,

known and most

probably best

wrote to Rouget, "your Marseillaise battles

of the

fall

underwent

28

a baptism

the Revolution.

La

Marseillaise stood for and

to elicit the enthusiastic support of the nation. It

anthem

war on September

anthem of the embattled but triumphant Republic, while

became the anthem of

France's soldiers at war on foreign

meant

it

is

frequently

commented

on.

As

G retry

music out of the mouth of a cannon." The

is

of 1792, which saved France from a

unfold to the accompaniment of

was

of the national

this aspect

La Marseillaise.

first

invasion, did indeed

was sung at Valmy along with ^a

It

and La Carmagnole, and on September 29, Servan, the minister of war, wrote that "the national anthem known as La Marseillaise is the Te Deum of

ira

Dumouriez

the Republic, the song worthiest of the ears of free France."

Assembly voted October

14,

to celebrate victories with

La Marseillaise was played

La Marseillaise

On

his

motion, the

Te Deum.

instead of

On

in Paris at a civic celebration at the Statue

Liberty honoring the French incursion into Savoy. In Savoy

of

Montesquiou's

itself,

troops received an enthusiastic reception from the people of the royaume des marmottes

(marmot kingdom), including

variations

on La Marseillaise

that included

such lines as "the Savoyards, a peaceful people," a musical translation of the policy of

"make war on

Such variations on the the Revolution

of

six verses

was beginning

to

that

was passed on

for the author of these lines:

was

name of Du

Bois,

Now, however,

became

elders are gone]," took and

as

[We

part of

names have been proposed

an abbe named Pessoneaux, a patriotic teacher

his students sing the

whose claim

case, the graft took,

upon

rare.

carriere/ Quand nos aines n'y seront plus

to posterity. Various

it

from Vienne who supposedly had

any

la

embark on our careers/ When our

La Marseillaise

the

La Marseillaise were

broaden, a seventh verse was added. This verse,

which begins "Nous entrerons dans will

official

the castles, leave the cottages in peace."

to the

perhaps because the young,

to replace their fathers in arms,

new

lines,

or a

honor Tiersot found more

Norman by

persuasive.^ In

who would one day be

called

had begun to play an increasingly important

role in civic celebrations.

The fortunes of La Marseillaise

in late 1792

matched those of the victorious army.

In October, Brunswick evacuated Verdun, and in

quered Belgium:

"On the morning of Jemmapes,"

took the place of brandy." Participating de

Lisle,

one of

whom died

honor.

La

Liege.

On December

of

Marseillaise

a "liberty tree" in

forces con-

in the battle

were two

relatives

of Rouget

a glorious death while the other acquitted himself with

was sung by troops on

2 the

November, French

Michelet wrote, "La Marseillaise

anthem was played

downtown

the road at a

from Mons

to Brussels

ceremony marking

and

the planting

Liege. Meanwhile, a group of artists and musicians

(including Lais from the Opera, Cheron, Renaud, and Gossec) was sent on a patri-

37

38

MICHEL VOVELLE Antwerp, and Ghent with "the

Otic mission to familiarize audiences in Brussels,

sacred song of liberty."

La Marseillaise accompanied the army on bad days as well as good. It was heard when French forces suffered reverses in the spring of 1793, at Neerwinden, for example, on March 18. And it could also be heard when things took a turn for the better that

autumn

at

Hondschoote, where Jourdan sang

and then again at Wattignies

in October. Indeed, to

it

to galvanize his troops,

enumerate the instances in which

French troops were reported to have sung La Marseillaise would be to of the victories

won by

the soldiers of Year

Wissemburg,

II:

Geisberg, and finally Fleurus. Contemporaries keenly

La Marseillaise and at

in

Spire,

Worms,

an intimate bond between

their victorious struggle, a feeling they expressed in redundant,

me

times naive terms: "Send

of La Marseillaise."

felt

reel off a list

And

a thousand

men," wrote one general, "or the score

another wrote: "I have

won

the battle.

La Marseillaise was

command at my side." Carnot took a broader view: "Za Marseillaise has given the

Fatherland a hundred thousand defenders." But such judgments were not exclusively French. Foreign observers

were

by

also struck

the anthem's power.

Among

from Mainz on July

25, 1793,

the various accounts of the French garrison's departure

guns sounded

as the

stands out

is

their salute over the strains

that of Goethe,

of La Marseillaise, the one that

who, ever since Valmy, had to be counted as one of the

foremost observers of the "gripping and awesome" spectacle of revolutionary

many other witnesses attest to the surprising favor that the new French anthem enjoyed among the general staffs of France's enemies, whether out

France

at

war. But

of curiosity or a

was even reported

taste for novelty. It

that

one enemy general gave

orders thatZcz Marseillaise should be played repeatedly as a way of needling the contingents of French emigres If

we wished

by mentioning

who

served under him.

to multiply examples,

we

could easily extend this survey to the sea

the partly true, partly mythical story of the heroic sacrifice of the

Vengeur du Peuple off the coast near Brest on take stock instead. Tiersot, life.

these stories

13 Prairial,

come from

who, writing as they did during World War

For Fiaux, for instance, La Marseillaise was a

ders," a national ceptively, art

Many of

anthem attuned

to the martial

I,

Year

II.

But

let

us pause to

scholars such as Fiaux and

sometimes painted larger than

hymn

to France

's

"natural bor-

temperament of the French. More per-

however, he also linked the importance of the national anthem to the

new

of war that French troops were improvising on the battlefront. La Marseillaise was

the battle ence.

It

hymn

of masses of troops whose enthusiasm made up for their inexperi-

also served to bind the

military units.

new

battalions of volunteers together with existing

Fiaux makes the point, even

cast all the provinces together in a single

For the purpose of exposition, scholars mentioned above called

I

if his style is

dated: "It \La Marseillaise^

mold."

have distinguished between what one of the

"La Marseillaise of the

frontiers" and

"La

La Marseillaise

Marseillaise of the crossroads."

To some extent this distinction is artificial. The story

of the Marseillais anthem's acceptance distinct

from the story of

Gretry, writing to Rouget de Lisle on 'Allons enfants de la Patrie

home,

in Paris as well as the provinces, is

are being

November sung

at

"Your

4, 1794:

Marseillais verses

every show and every street corner in

Everybody knows the tune because they hear good singers singing

Paris.

day."

'

at

acceptance by the army, however. Listen once more to

its

La Marseillaise was

every

it

thus an element of the "cultural revolution" that has been

described as a central feature of the revolutionary process. "La Marseillaise of the

Shorn of

crossroads".''

La

its

pejorative connotations, the expression

Marseillaise could be heard outdoors.

was sung

It

at

Statue of Liberty at the Tuileries, and (although there are those

not to

remember it)

was sung on January

it

not inaccurate:

is

in front

of the

who would

prefer

an early date

21, 1793, at the foot

of the scaffold where

XVI was beheaded, when the people celebrated with singing and dancing, just as they had celebrated the overthrow of the monarchy on August 10, 1792. The now Louis

popular Marseillaise set the tone for part of the Revolution's creative output.

The

musicologist Constant Pierre points out that two hundred of the three thousand

songs in his catalogue use the tune of La Marseillaise. As

added

at

many as twelve verses were

one point or another, but none remained for very long.

ever, the

Significantly,

how-

song was rarely parodied, even though the bacchic Marseillaise de

Counille was sung as early sion

was fixed

The

lapidary

in 1793

title

It is difficult

as

November

when Bignon and later Goujon published the words and music.

La Marseillaise took hold

at

about the same time.

for us to appreciate the importance of theaters in this history. In the

patriotic theaters of the time, the audience actively participated in the spectacle,

between plays there was often singing or some II,

La

Marseillaise

was often sung along with

Chant du depart between plays with Parfaite Egalite, tieres.

La Liberie des negres,

Such Parisian theaters

times not, depending on

series

and

of musical intermezzo. In Year

Veillons au salut de Vempire

and Le

La

such as Les Salpetriers republicains.

titles

Toulon soumis, and even Les Capucins auxfron-

and Theatre-

of La Marseillaise, sometimes spontaneous, some-

who was in charge.

Official action helped to

August 1793, for example, the Assembly issued

of free performances be staged

It is

sort

as Montansier, Feydeau, Paris-Moliere,

Italien often featured the singing

practice: in

encourage

this

a decree ordering that

in Parisian theaters.

hardly surprising, then, to learn that an entire show was built around

Marseillaise.

On

September

Citizen Gardel and music

de Vempire and

la

1792. An all but definitive seven- verse ver-

30, 1792, the

Opera put on

by Gossec. The score

La Marseillaise

as

actually

accompaniment

a

combined

Veillons

threaten to take this freedom away, however.

a warning: "Citizens, suspend

au salut

which opens

to an original play,

Rousseauist fashion with a scene of people celebrating their newly

The people 's enemies

La

musical with words by

won

in

freedom.

A soloist issues

your games!" To the accompaniment of

Veillons

au

39

40

MICHEL VOVELLE salut de Vempire, a

pantomime of warfare was then enacted around

Statue of Liberty, "the only deity that France reveres." Marseillaise

sung solo by

any

Lais. Or, at

rate, the first

The

the base of the

play ended with

La

four verses of the song were

sung, interrupted by the arrival on stage of children dressed in white tunics (prefig-

uring the "Couplet des Enfants" that would be added "S'ils

tombent nos jeunes heros/La

The action,

or

more

The

later).

children sang:

de nouveaux."

terre en produit

accurately, liturgy, then proceeded with an authentically reli-

gious sequence, in which a chorus of

sang "L'Amour sacre de

women

The

la patrie."

kneeling before the Statue of Liberty

silence that follows this worshipful act

broken, however, by sounds of war: drums, trumpets, and simulated cannon herald the arrival of a contingent of armed volunteers.

is

fire

At this point, culminating the

scene of collective enthusiasm, the audience chimes in with a repeat of the refrain,

bringing the Offrande a ture in the theater:

it

la Liberie to

was

an end.

The performance marked

a

new

psychodrama

a kind of staged festival, a collective

depar-

reliving

the entire history of the Revolution in a kind of Rousseauian ideal, a celebration in

which

all

Even is

boundaries between performers and spectators were abolished.

this

kind of celebration remained behind closed doors, however, so that

it

hardly surprising to discover that the true glorification of La Marseillaise occurred

elsewhere, in the context of the revolutionary festival historians of the national ever, that the tune of

played a key

a

La Marseillaise

may have had

mock mountain was

gave the signal,

drums and

In other words. lutionary)

at

this.

Except for Tiersot, the

The

Supreme Being on 20

Its

fire,

fact remains,

how-

Prairial,

Year IL More

reasons for not wanting to recall this occasion, for

The ceremony took

climax came when trumpeters stationed atop a col-

which point three thousand

salvos of cannon

itself.

erected on the Champ-de-Mars.

place around this central prop.

umn

of

little

together with words by Marie- Joseph Chenier

role in the Festival of the

than one historian

which

anthem have made

voices, backed

by two hundred

sang the chorus of the national anthem.

La Marseillaise was

finally established as the national (and revo-

anthem during the Jacobin or Montagnard period of the Revolution,

the time between the battle of Fleurus and the Festival of the

Frimaire, Year

II

(November

la Liberie [shall be]

sung

at all

This date, however,

became

is

On 4

hymne de

24, 1793), the Convention ordered that "the

republican spectacles, on decadis [the tenth day of the

ten-day revolutionary "week"], and whenever the people

Marseillaise

Supreme Being.

may

require

it."

not the one generally cited as the date on which

the official

anthem of the French Republic. Most

refer instead to another session of the Convention,

Thermidorian period (which

in

on 26 Messidor, Year

La

historians III, in

the

to historians in the early part of the twentieth century

no doubt seemed more respectable than the Jacobin period). This of course came after the

Treaty of Basel, but, more than

that,

it

also followed the

end of the

Revolution's violent phase, and the deputies of the Convention were once again able

.

La Marseillaise

to see the virtues

of a national anthem that had temporarily fallen into disgrace.

performance of the hymne des Marseillais before the Assembly

elicited

A

enthusiasm

which have been forgotten for some time now." Jean

for "these remarkable sounds,

Debry, a respected spokesman, captured the general feeling of the moment:

What that

it

I

want

for us to restore to the national spirit the

is

possessed in the halcyon days of the Revolution, the energy that, six

years ago today, on July

August

The

energy and warmth

10,

struck the

14,

first

blow against tyranny and

that,

on

heralded tyranny's downfall with the civic song we have just heard.

decree of 26 Messidor, Year

establishing

III,

La Marseillaise

as the national

anthem, had the effect of sealing the alliance between the patriotic and republican aspects of the national song. text

It

was during Thermidor and the Directory,

of counterrevolutionary reaction, that La Marseillaise

defense of the Revolution and adherence to

up

a different song,

I

lest

shall refrain I

would not be

by adopting

's

set to

of

adversaries took as a

the last time that opposing factions symbol-

different songs.

from offering aesthetic or moral judgments about these two works

betray a certain preference for one over the other. Nevertheless,

said that the lines written

and

values; the regime

con-

a sign

Le Reveil du peuple, which quickly gained acceptance

counter-Marseillaise. This ized their conflict

its

in a

became

first

by Souriguieres,

music by Gaveau are

a vaudevilliste at the

more than

little

a

maniacal

it

must be

Theatre Feydeau, call for

counter-

revolutionary vengeance: Hate-toi, peuple souverain,

De

rendre aux monstres du Tenare

Tous

ces buveurs de sang

humain

.

.

.

Oui nous jurons sur notre tombe Par notre pays malheureux

De De

ne

faire

qu'une hecatombe

ces canniables affreux

.

.

.

[Sovereign people, hasten

To

deliver

up

to the

monsters of Tainairon

All those quaffers of humart blood

Yes,

By our unfortunate Not

to rest until

Those This of Year

call to III,

.

.

we will swear on our graves. land.

we have made a

frightful cannibals

.

.

sacrificial offering

of

..]

massacre was indeed effective during the months of the White Terror

when

revolutionaries in places such as Lyons, Marseilles, Aix, and

Tarascon had their throats

slit

by royalists belonging to

the so-called

Compagnies de

41

42

MICHEL VOVELLE Jehu and du

Let us turn to a future monarchist of 1814, Charles Nodier,

Soleil.

young man offered

as a

this description

who

of the clash of rival songs that accompanied

the massacre of former "terrorists" in the south of France:

was

It

all

strangely like the executions carried out by cannibals, and, just as

with savages, the dreadful sacrifices were accompanied by the sound of music.

The

killers

sang Le Reveil du peuple

while the chorus of

Not sive

La Marseillaise

move by

doree led

a

Thermidorian regime anxious

—

provoked violent

mouth of each new

victim.

to avoid being

—

a defen-

overwhelmed by the

retaliation against the Jacobins

by the jeunesse

by Tallien and Rovere.

Open warfare between Le as

ever louder and more savage tones,

surprisingly under the circumstances, the decree of 26 Messidor

forces of reaction

cafes

in

died in the

and on the

streets but

Reveil du peuple and

above

all

La

Marseillaise raged not only in

in the theaters. Patriotic actors

and singers such

Talma, Lais, and Dugazon vied with royalists such as Mole, Lainez, and Gavaudan.

"commandos" came to blows with Jacobins and other patriots on the defenThe disturbances triggered by the decree affected the Convention itself when

Royalist sive.

the

Assembly Guard was attacked by

The

peuple.

royalist

decree be rescinded, Jean

Debry responded with

that our triumphant heroes are singing,"

tered

up the courage

the Ninth of letting."

gangs and ordered

pressure gave the Thermidorians pause:

to

when

to play

Le Reveil du

Lanjuinais asked that the

praise for "the truly national tune

and a few days

denounce Le Reveil du peuple,

a

later

Boissy d'Anglas mus-

song that not only celebrated

Thermidor but had served in Lyons and elsewhere as a signal

The Conventional

tried unsuccessfully to shut off debate

for "blood-

by prohibiting

singing in theaters. In the end, the riots in the theaters and street gatherings that often

ended

in attacks

on republican troops

Vendemiaire, Year

The

III,

by

led to a crisis that

was

finally resolved

on

13

the defeat of the Paris royalists.

repression of the royalists did not put an end to the troubles, however, and

the battle between Directory.

Le Reveil du peuple and La Marseillaise continued under

the

The decision to permit a resumption of singing in theaters only hardened

the opposition between patriotic theaters (such as Lais's Opera) and counterrevolu-

tionary ones (such as the Theatre Feydeau). In Nivose, Year IV, the Directory

sought to end the debate once and for

all

by issuing a

of four songs "cherished by

list

republicans" and declaring that only these could be sung.

were La

Marseillaise,

fa

ira,

Le Chant du

depart,

and

The four authorized songs

Veillons au salut de I'empire.

Indeed, the singing of at least one of the songs on the

list

was made compulsory,

while Le Reveil du peuple was banned. These regulations were not easy to enforce,

however. Barras describes in the order in Paris

—

his

his

memoirs how

name was Bonaparte

the general charged with enforcing

—made

nightly visits to theaters in

La Marseillaise

order to address the audience personally: "Citizens,

let's

sing

La

Marseillaise and

administer a lesson to the Chouans."

Although

battles over

La

Marseillaise continued for a time in Paris and the

by the end of the Directory Le Reveildu peuple was fading into

provinces,

In the meantime, republican festivals had spread

La Marseillaise.

It

was served up

a variety of guises along with patriotic rhetoric of every sort imaginable. ister

oblivion. in

The min-

of the interior, Frangois de Neufchatel, even proposed an adaptation of the

hymne

des Marseillais for the Festival of Agriculture: "Aux armes, laboureurs,

poussez vos aiguillons,/Marchez, marchez, qu'un boeuf docile ouvre un large

[To arms, farmers, goad your oxen on,/ And

may your

docile animals

sillon.

open up

a

broad furrow.]"

Although some people complained about such anthem,

it

that this

helped to make the song familiar to

One

all. It is

was the time when the French began

never forgotten

it

trivialization of the national

hardly an exaggeration to say

vanize the energies of the

was sung

Hoche

in

Marseillaise; they have

since.

reason that the song remained popular was that

ries. It

La

to learn

army and was

in the first Italian

still

it still

had the power

to gal-

associated with French military victo-

campaign, and

it

was played

at the funeral

who was

Vendemiaire, Year VI, and of General Joubert,

of

killed at the bat-

of Novi in Year VII. Ambassadors became accustomed to hearing the French

tle

anthem.

It

retained

its

power among Jacobins across Europe, from

the Batavian

Republic to Switzerland, where the Vaud rose against the domination of Bern in 1798 to the strains of In Florence,

La Marseillaise;

same thing happened again

the

Rome, and elsewhere in Italy, Italian Jacobins

later in

rallied to the

Genoa.

sound of the

French anthem. Yet

it

was

also to the strains of

Council of Five Hundred tried III,

even

as Bonaparte's

La

Marseillaise that the last holdouts of the

in vain to

regroup on the night of 18 Brumaire, Year

coup d'etat was sounding the death knell of the Republic.

Ebb and Flow: The Adventures

For nearly eighty years, the destiny of La Marseillaise advances and

retreats,

in

French history was one of

of long periods of silence punctuated by rebirths and revivals.

This regular alternation was only olutionary content or

Song

of a Revolutionary

fitting for a

power to mobilize

song that had

the masses: this

lost

nothing of

was both

its

misfortune. Misfortune in that the thoroughgoing identification of

with the central idea and

rev-

fortune and

La

its

Marseillaise

memory of the French Revolution led to its proscription by

authoritarian governments

July

its

wary of democracy:

Monarchy (whose grounds

for rejection

the Empire, the Restoration, the

were different from those of the

43

44

MICHEL VOVELLE Restoration), the Second Empire, and the so-called government of Moral Order. Yet

La

also fortune, because

Marseillaise survived

underground

in the

memory

of the

people, and gained from the experience.

That very enrichment of the content of La Marseillaise may have been responsible for certain ambiguities in

power

the song's it

in periods

of

its

to mobilize the people,

crisis

Hundred Days,

1833, during the international

more

and they were therefore tempted to revive

army

or distress: in 1814 after the imperial

tating defeats, during the

Franco-Prussian

Governments were well aware of

recurrent revivals.

War in

in the turbulent period

of the 1840s, and

crisis

do not tell the whole

ever a song of revolution, and

it

The

story.

its

devas-

between 1830 and

period leading up to the

in the

1870. But these manipulative uses of

successful than others,

suffered

La Marseillaise, some more than

old song was

could be heard each time a portion of the people

rose in rebellion: in 1830, in 1848, in 1870, and, last but not least, in 1871 under the

provisional government and the If the history

Commune.

of revolution inside France was sporadic. La Marseillaise remained

unremittingly popular outside France, where

it

served as a rallying point for various

emancipation movements. At some point in the 1840s, however, the international-

ism of the

liberal bourgeoisies in various countries

gave

way

to a rather

haughty

brand of nationalism, which sometimes took a dim view of cultural artifacts imported from abroad. Despite

this.

La

Marseillaise retained

its

subversive power

and remained a symbol of revolution throughout Europe and beyond. After Brumaire, Bonaparte sought to rid himself of the Revolution's troublesome

musical legacy. Although

march

Marengo,

to

it

La

Marseillaise

order under the Consulate and Empire

The songs now sung

overtones.

was played

at

Mont-Cenis and on the

disappeared from the record thereafter.

the Air des grenadiers francais,

room

left little

at official

were pale

quering army. In some respects

this

la

proved suitable

d'Austerliti

music with subversive

whose melodies never etched

The period

kind of military music: tunes such as the Marche de

Marengo and the Marche

restoration of

ceremonies, such as Vive I'Empereur and

substitutes

themselves into the national consciousness.

for

The

did,

however, produce a new

garde consulaire a la bataille de as

accompaniments for

a con-

new music did draw on certain aspects of the rev-

olutionary tunes, just as Napoleon's tactics benefitted from what the revolutionary

armies had learned in their campaigns. In the political realm, however, things were not so simple.

It

was through

to recycle a revolutionary

Armee du aventure these

.

song with

lyrics written

regime was able

by A. Boy, surgeon

in chief

of the

Rhin, in 1791 and set to a melody by Dalayrac ("Vous qui d'amoureuse .

same

ernment

a sort of subterfuge that the imperial

.")

under the

lines

hit

with

title

Veillons

La Marseillaise

au salut de I'empire. Gossec had already blended in his Offrande a la Liberie.

on the simple expedient of

"state" or "fatherland") to

The

imperial gov-

capitalizing the e in "empire" (signifying

make "Empire,"

thus appropriating the revolutionary

La Marseillaise

song for

its

own purposes. The ruse was effective, although it left the meaning of the

chorus rather ambiguous, not to say ludicrous: "Liberte, liberte que tout mortel rende hommage/Tyrans

homage

tremblez, vous allez expier vos forfaits [Let

to liberty /Tremble, tyrants, for

What

you

will

someday pay

for

all

te

mortals pay

your crimes]."

else could be done, though.^' Quite early on, the First Consul had in fact

commissioned

a Chant des combats

January 1800.

was

It

a

from Rouget de

Lisle,

who completed the song in likely to supplant La

mediocre tune, however, and not

Marseillaise.

By this

sition to the

Empire, a change of heart as significant for France as for Rouget as an

time, however, the

composer had more or

was convinced,

rightly or wrongly, that

a diplomatic career

He

his time in various staff assignments.

Carnot had

about his lack of recognition by the republic of

embark on

oppo-

under the Directory, including

individual. After taking part in military operations

Quiberon, the officer-composer had bided

less joined the

it

in for him,

letters. Later,

by having himself accredited

as a

and he was

bitter

he attempted to redundant repre-

sentative to the Batavian Republic.

He was a free man, however, on 6 Nivose, Year VIII (December 15, 1799), when he wrote to Bonaparte, whom he had met several times, a letter notable for republican frankness: "Are you happy, Consul.'*

its

lowed by

can't believe

I

date had not escaped Rouget 's notice. Rouget later voted no

make Napoleon consul more solemn than

for

before: "Bonaparte,

What have you done

Paris and his family

in

the referendum to

.

.

He

.

is

What have you done with The imperial government

lived in poverty, dividing his time

between

Franche-Comte, and he was followed by the police,

suspected him of contacts with republican conspirators such as General

Malet, to cal

home

on

fol-

at this early

you are destroying yourself, and what

with the Republic.''"

placed Rouget under surveillance.

who

This was

In 1804 he returned to the attack in terms even

life.

worse, you are destroying France along with you. Liberty.''

it."

new regime's shortcomings, which even

a critique of the

whom

of that of

he was vaguely related. Rouget 's fate under the Empire was typi-

many republicans; reduced to silence, they met in small groups where

they clung to their convictions in private.

La

Marseillaise also figured in a tragic episode of the imperial years during the

Battle of Berezina.

rallied,

Amid the chaos and slaughter, the emperor supposedly galvanized the first few lines of Rouget 's song. Some soldiers

by personally singing

his troops

but in the end the imperial

initiative

proved

futile.

Two

regiments (said to be

the Ninth and Tenth Chasseurs) responded with a desperate,

Malbrough

s 'en

va 't-en guerre, a tune by then

more than

mocking chorus of

a century old but revived

by

none other than Marie-Antoinette herself on the eve of the Revolution. The troops thus taught their

commander

a lesson in the limits of manipulation, but they paid a

high price for the privilege. Nevertheless, during the Hundred Days,

Bourbons

fled the capital

when

the

and the Eagle soared once more. La Marseillaise reemerged

45

46

MICHEL VOVELLE with

its

old revolutionary edge

in a gibe

by Rouget,

a

still

intact.

The confusion of

man not generally noted

the

for his sense of

moment

is

captured

humor. After return-

ing to Paris, he kept a close eye on events in the capital and reported to his friends back

home in the provinces: "Things are going badly. more

In a

.

.

.

They're singing Za MarseillaiseV

serious vein, Chateaubriand corroborated Rouget 's account in one of

"The people

his reports to the fleeing king:

are singing

Za Marseillaise, and the red The Revolution is

caps are back: they are putting them on busts of Napoleon.

coming back

to life."

This report

to the perceived connection it

was

.

.

.

not only to the fears of the royalists but also

attests

between La Marseillaise and the Revolution, with which

identified.

No

doubt that connection accounts for Napoleon's continued wariness of the

song, spontaneous singing of which greeted him during the Hundred Days.

day

Champ-de-Mai, he deleted the

after the

not prevent

it

from being sung

Young Alexandre Dumas

title

from the

song

official

list.

On the

That did

ensuing weeks of the Belgian campaign.

in the

reported hearing

it

sung by

soldiers. It

was mentioned

in

dispatches from the battlefield at Ligny, and at Waterloo the old guard formed up in a square to sing the old

anthem. In the

final stages

of the Napoleonic adventure,

when the revolutionary ideal rose once more from the ashes of the imperial illusion. La Marseillaise reemerged along with it. As Grouchy 's troops took up positions outside Paris after Waterloo, they sang La Marseillaise, just as Brune 's troops had done outside Toulon.

The to

Restoration not only prohibited the singing of

expunge

it

from the

La Marseillaise but even

historical record: in describing the battle

of Jemmapes, one

military history of the 1820s discreetly alluded to the singing of "the military

of the day." The tribulations of the emblematic hero, Rouget de

tried

anthem

Lisle, illustrate the

weight of prejudice that had accumulated against the tune he had written. In some quarters he

was

criticized for

monarchy might be

liberal, a

having briefly entertained the hope that the restored

hope shared by more than one opponent of the Empire.

He was soon disillusioned, however, and when he finally settled in Paris in losing what remained of his small inheritance, he refused any and

all

181 7 after

opportunities

in truth there

were few. He was banned from

the Bibliotheque Nationale and the theaters of Paris.

No one even dared help him in

for dishonorable

compromise, of which

his financial distress,

and Nodier, who, having been

friendly toward him, declined to

Empire,

felt

erosity;

even the

Due

d'Orleans

felt

make

a

his ally in opposition to the

compromising gesture of gen-

powerless to intervene. Hence, in 1826,

at the

age of sixty-six, Rouget found himself imprisoned for debt. His friends belatedly

came

to his rescue

stroke friends

him

and made

who

and secured

stuck by him:

lodging.

By

his release, but not until

desperate enough to attempt suicide.

Abbe

he had been diminished by a

He

survived thanks to a few

Gregoire, Laffitte, Beranger, and Blein,

then, however, the political winds

were

who gave

shifting. In the final years

La Marseillaise

of the Restoration, liberals were emboldened, and the improvement in Rouget's fortunes was matched

by an improvement

in the fortunes of

La

Marseillaise,

which

again appeared in public in an edition by subscription of the composer's Cinquante

Chants franfais. Partly as a philanthropic gesture and partly as a carefully calculated effort of pro-

paganda, the sculptor David d 'Angers executed a bust and a large medallion of the revolutionary musician, copies of which were sold by subscription beginning in June

of 1830. Rouget de Lisle once again became a public personage just as La Marseillaise

was once again catching on

as a patriotic

anthem, for

it

could be heard on the barri-

cades in July 1830 during the "Three Glorious Days" of insurrection that toppled

Charles Curee

X from power. The romantic poet Barbier, author of lambes, described inZa

how La Marseillaise resounded in the oppressive heat of that memorable July: [Quand] dans Paris

entier,

comme

la

mer qui monte,

Le peuple souleve grondait, Et qu'au lugubre accent des vieux canons de fonte,

La Marseillaise [(When),

repondait ...

like a rising tide,

All over Paris reared

And

people

up and roared,

the lugubrious sounds of the old

Cast-iron cannons were answered by

And

it

was not long before Delacroix offered

La Marseillaise

a graphical depiction

.

.

.]

of the scene in a

painting explicitly designated in the painter's catalogue as Liberty Singing La Marseillaise on the Barricades

and Leading

Clearly, the old revolutionary

the People in the Battle

of July.

anthem had not been forgotten. Thirty years

after

still knew the words and music. Of course the revival may have had something to do with this, but it seems clear that, for many people in France, the memory of La Marseillaise had never faded. The

Brumaire, the people of Paris

of the previous few years

same was true

in

Belgium, where

liberals in Brussels

gathered beneath the windows

of French exiles (regicides banished by the government of the Restoration) to sing the French national anthem. In the Brussels revolution, as great a role as Atlantic, in

La Muette

New York,

La Marseillaise played almost

de Portici, which inflamed the crowd.

the rapidly transniitted

Even across

was spontaneously greeted by singing of La Marseillaise. The outburst of liberal ing that occurred in 1830 in places as widely separated as

provides a yardstick with which to measure the by that expressed in plain language the aspiration

To

return to France,

it is

Louis-Philippe, which, as

craved a

less

the

news of the "Three Glorious Days" feel-

New York, Poland, and Italy

now worldwide audience for a song

of people everywhere to freedom.

not very surprising to discover that the government of

its

opponents alleged, was born on the barricades yet

democratic sort of legitimacy, took an ambiguous attitude toward

La

47

48

MICHEL VOVELLE The new regime could not

Marseillaise.

were singing

it

repudiate the song, and in any case people

everywhere. Indeed, in the early days of the July Monarchy, Louis-

Philippe went about repeating, "I was at Valmy.

I

was

at

Jemmapes." The king was

eager to restore continuity by promoting a certain image of the Revolution: that

embodied by Lafayette wrapped

—an

in the tricolor

image, in short, of a bourgeois

Revolution that ended in 1792 and to ^hich. La Marseillaise, despite a few

provided a

accompaniment.

fitting

On

the other hand, this

was music

false notes,

that smelled

of gunpowder and evoked the flames of subversion. The regime therefore preferred

La

Delavigne. Adopting the same approach that the

Empire (which had

Marseillaise) and that to

some verses of Casimir

Parisienne, a tune written in 1830 as a setting for

we

promote the new song

we

encountered earlier in the case of

tried to substitute Veillons au salut de I'Empire for will

La

encounter again in the future, the government sought

as a harmless antidote to the

For a while, however, going against the

tide

anthem of revolution.

was out of

the question. Shortly after

the July Days, Nourrit, in a revival of revolutionary tradition, sang La Marseillaise at the

Opera: the audience chimed

that followed the in the

in

name of Rouget de

on the choruses, and

in the surge

Lisle could be heard in the hall.

of emotion

Many

people

who knew the true story revealed The impromptu psychodrama ended with the

audience thought he was dead, but someone

that he

was

actually living in poverty.

taking up of a collection for Rouget, the proceeds from which were delivered to at his

home

in Choisy-le-Roi.

The end of

ished but with his dignity intact, the old

and donated

it

of the dead.

Good

to a fund for

wounded

him

impover-

this edifying tale writes itself:

man took the money collected on his behalf

veterans of the July

Days and

fortune never comes alone: although the

Due d 'Orleans under

compromising himself

the Restoration had been unwilling to risk

widows

for the

for the

composer

of La Marseillaise, Louis-Philippe, claiming that he had "never forgotten his former

comrade est gift,

in arms,"

awarded Rouget an annual pension of 1,500

but the bourgeois king was not

known

few years the amount was doubled thanks

francs. It

for being a spendthrift.

to the discreet efforts

was

Over

be able to buy yourself

a

mod-

the next

of Rouget 's gener-

ous protector, Beranger. The popular songwriter wrote to his old friend: "At will

a

last

you

decent redingote for winter." In the stories of Rouget

and La Marseillaise, inextricably intertwined since the Revolution, we thus see mingling of the grandiose and the

bosom exposed on the elderly

at the

in Choisy-le-Roi.

For Rouget, time had run out: he died on

age of seventy-six. His story did not quite end there, however.

In death his destiny again

became enmeshed with the destiny of La

dead heroes are more easily managed than

any

a

not to say the sordid: from Liberty's bared

the barricades in Delacroix's painting to the winter redingote for

composer

June 26, 1836,

trivial,

to hazard a judgment:

live ones. Still,

now

is

as

Rouget was not the Promethean creator

Marseillaise:

good

that he

a time as is

some-

times said to have been, nor was he as colorless and politically inconsistent a figure

La Marseillaise

as

sometimes alleged,

is

a

man

of minor talent transcended by his work and himself

Beyond

astonished by the offspring he had brought into the world.

miserable, forgotten poet

Rouget

as

he really was: a

—an image of

man who

the

whom academics would call great,

tampering with his famous Let us return

now

lines.

So

— we can make

out

who

cor-

continued to write poems and

responded with Meyerbeer and took an interest writer

Romantic Age

in

the image of the

stories,

Saint-Simonism. True, he

is

not a

and Hugo and other poets were not above

what.'*

Perhaps that

to Paris in the aftermath

as

is

should be.

it

of the July Days.

La Marseillaise was It was sung when

on everyone's lips and would remain there until 1832 or 1833.

Louis-Philippe appeared with his family on the balcony in the Tuileries, and the

king joined in

at the

chorus as a

of '89 as well as demonstrating

way of betokening official his

common touch.

of the royal entourage published their

pitiless

It

acceptance of the legacy

was only

memoirs, that the

reported to have been faking: he had only mouthed the words.

anecdote, or does the story reveal the king's true

feelings.^'

when members

later,

sly

Was

monarch was

this just

an

idle

Readers will have to

decide for themselves.

La Marseillaise was sung in theaters everywhere

In 1831 and 1832

in a

resumption

of a practice that dated back to the Revolution. In 1833, however, a change

mate was noticeable. Shortly

in the cli-

after the celebration of the anniversary of the July

Days, another solemn ceremony was held on the Place Vendome on July 28 to mark the restoration of the statue of

La Marseillaise was

Napoleon

to

its

place atop

its

column. The next day,

again sung at the Tuileries, but this time in a spirit not of

com-

munion or patriotic complicity but of revolutionary fervor: the singing of the old

windows was

revolutionary anthem beneath the king's

like a declaration

of war.

In Louis-Philippe 's prisons, which the trials of 1834 filled with political prisoners,

La Marseillaise once again became an almost seditious song. The prisoners seized on anthem and the

the

tricolor to demonstrate their feelings, indeed to enact an almost

religious service: Raspail's prison

Prayer," for

it

was

in the

memoirs

refer to

La Marseillaise

yard and sang the old revolutionary anthem. This was a

and even guards and warders had de

la

Of

Patrie"

were sung:

as

"The Evening

evening that inmates gathered around the flag

this

to kneel in respect

had been an

all

moment of

when the words

in the prison

high emotion,

"L' Amour sacre

but official ritual since the Revolution.

course the participation of guards did not prevent prison authorities from sub-

orning provocateurs to

incite

inmates to

move on

to

La Carmagnole and fa

ira after

finishing the widely respected Marseillaise; the prisoners' intentions could then be

denounced

as subversive.

Republican inmates avoided the trap by unmasking the

informers and locking them in their tells

cells.

Once

again, the anecdote

is

revealing:

it

us something about the duplicity of the government and the police, who, being

La Marseillaise directly, tried instead to tarnish its reputation. And it La Marseillaise stood out from other songs associated with the

afraid to attack

shows

that

49

5°

MICHEL VOVELLE Revolution. La Carmagnole and (^a ira remained subversive and revolutionary, while La Marseillaise, now widely accepted as a patriotic expression of "sacred love for the fatherland,"

was about

to

become

truly the national

anthem of France.

Not without hitches, however. Although memoir writers tell us that the "hymn of became

the Marseillais" once again

Rude completed Triomphe de

I'Etoile.

evoke the heroes of

a seditious

song

Here the warriors, depicted

'92, led

by

after 1835,

it

was

group of sculptures, Le Depart,

his celebrated

in 1836 that

for the

Arc de

in the ancient style in the nude,

a shouting, or rather singing. Victory.

To be

sure,

is here replaced by "Victory," who also wears a Phrygian cap now surmounted by a Gallic cock. And instead of redingotes and blouses, the warriors are now decked out as Romans or Gauls. But it is important to note one fea-

Delacroix's "Liberty"

—

ture of the

mind

is

group not evident

at first glance:

memory

is

calls to

further evidence of the government's ambivalence about the

of Rouget de

Nevertheless,

France had not yet succumbed to "statue mania": in

Lisle.

1838 a proposal to erect a

monument

Rude portrayed Rouget

almost as an anonymous hero, In i%40 La Marseillaise

in

details

of

composer

one of the

in Paris

was

rejected.

of the Arc de Triomphe

friezes

made a comeback with the Thiers government (February-

this dispute,

which

by France, against the Ottoman Austria, are

to the

who can barely be recognized as part of a large group.

October 1840) during an international

a

it

not Marie- Joseph Chenier's Chant du depart but La Marseillaise.

Rude's sculpture

The

namely, that the song that

beyond the scope of

Mediterranean conflict to

a

crisis

pitted the

sultan,

over the so-called Eastern Question.

Egyptian pasha

Mohammed Ali, backed

backed by England, Russia, Prussia, and

this essay. Suffice

it

to say that the issue

European one. The aggressive

prime minister Palmerston were partly responsible for

this,

policies

grew from

of the English

but so were the muddled

who sought an important international role for himself while at the same time hoping to make the public at home forget his stubborn and imprudent maneuvers of Thiers,

opposition to liberal electoral reform by mobilizing French national pride for a for-

The government toyed with the idea of war, reinforced the army, and Paris. The return of Napoleon's ashes to the capital had revived memories

eign skirmish. fortified

of the Empire, and Thiers,

who went

so far as to call himself "the humblest of the

Revolution's children," did not hesitate to evoke memories of the heroes of 1792 as

he faced a coalition of European powers self-confident France.

came

It

was

to the fore, partly as a

allied against a bellicose

in these circumstances that

Marseillaise once again

spontaneous expression of public feeling aroused by

chauvinistic sloganeering and partly as a result of

old revolutionary tune

became what Bugeaud, with

humor, described

"anthem

as an

La

and apparently

government manipulation. The his

for special occasions."

own bluff brand

of military

Performances were encour-

aged not only in the Opera and theaters of Paris, in keeping with tradition, but also in the provinces, at

Rouen, Pau, Arras, and Le Mans.

A special edition of the national

La Marseillaise

anthem was published with

illustrations

by Charlet, an

artist

who

specialized in

depicting patriotic scenes and imperial troopers; Felix Pyat wrote the introduction.

This outpouring of national more than democratic or revolutionary feeling (the

government

capitalized

would prove

to

on the ambiguity) had no immediate consequences but

be of considerable importance later on. Nothing happened right

away, however, because the Thiers ministry soon came a cropper: the king,

who had

been keeping a close eye on developments, had no desire to see a repeat of 1792, of which, in the words of

Charlety, he "did not have fond memories." In October he

S.

entered into negotiations with England, thus stabbing his incautious prime minister in the back. icy:

it

1S41, La Marseillaise

By

was again out of

was suffering from the effects of this shift in pol-

Contemporaries were surprised, however, to discover

favor.

that other countries, especially

Germany, now had songs of

their

own to counter the

French anthem. Nikolaus Becker, a minor bureaucrat from Cologne as well as an amateur poet, wrote a song called Rheinlied to make the point that "they shall

German Rhine

not have the free

deutschen Rhein]." That

German

this

from Prussia

states

[Sie sollen ihn nicht

song met with enormous popularity throughout the

to Bavaria

is

a fact of

only such song: Schneckenburger's IVacht

"To

the Rhine, to the Rhine!

[the French]

haben, den freien

am

some

significance.

Rhein called for the

Who wants to guard the river.''"

was not

It

the

river's defense:

These songs were

just

not quite as fervent, and French

lib-

as aggressive as

La Marseillaise though perhaps

erals as well as

democrats found the implied threat disturbing. They responded

two ways. Lamartine felt a need

to revise La Marseillaise

aspect and substituting a "Marseillaise of peace" and

Roule

libre et

superbe entre

in

by purging its "sanguinary"

good

will

(May

1841):

tes larges rives,

Rhin, Nil de I'Occident, coupe des nations,

Et des peuples

Emporte

assis qui

les defis et les

boivent tes eaux vives

ambitions

.

.

.

[Roll on, Rhine, Nile of the West,

Free and proud between thy broad banks!

Goblet to

Thy

settled nations

and peoples

who

drink

rushing waters, sweep away their threats and ambitions

.

.

.]

This was the pacifist response, representing one possible strategy for the bourgeoisies of the West. But

who wrote

about

La

it

hardly needs saying that historians such as Jules Fiaux

Marseillaise during

World War

Lamartine 's lyricism. They preferred, as more

in

I

did not look very kindly on

keeping with the French character,

the nonchalant and cavalier response that Alfred de Musset offered a

Nous II

I'avons eu votre

Rhin allemand,

a tenu dans notre verre.

month

later:

51

52

MICHEL VOVELLE

Un couplet qu'on s'en va chantant Efface-t-il la trace altiere

Du pied de nos chevaux marque dans votre sang? [We

held your

We held Does

a

it

German Rhine,

our

in

glass.

marching song erase

The proud prints our

horses' hooves

Left in your blood?]

A tavern song, grumbled Lamartine, who was less conciliatory than he is often portrayed as being. Nevertheless, beyond these oratorical duels over raised beer steins

loomed enter a

a

growing menace. The adaptable, durable Marseillaise of 1792 was about

new phase with the

Still,

age of nationalism.

the days of the fraternal Marseillaise,

that of Musset,

to

were not over

yet.

more

in the spirit

The song enjoyed

of Lamartine than

a brief flowering during the

Second Republic. In 1848,

a year

of revolution across Europe, the old revolutionary

anthem could be heard

many

foreign capitals.

in

a heroic touch to failure and defeat: in

sang

La Marseillaise

to

welcome

1

8

51

in

exile in the

France in the spring of 1848,

It

was played,

for example,

additional verse, forgotten for

of '48 with

all its

hopes and

more than

[Beloved

when

tree,

in the

named

again became a

seemed

were planted.

An

to capture the spirit

le

gage

become

.

.

.

the token

our hopes and wishes:

became fashionable was

States.

and celebrations across

"trees of liberty"

to

remember Rouget de

.

.

.]

Lisle: in

Siecle published a capsule biography, a laudable it

United

to rallies

half a century,

Mayest thou flourish through the ages It

lent

notre espoir et de nos voeux

Puisses-tu fleurir d'age en age

Of

it

illusions:

Arbre cheri deviens

De

and

in triumph,

democrats of Marseilles

La Marseillaise once

song of the people, an inevitable accompaniment the country.

was sung

the S.S. Mississippi, the ship carrying the defeated

Hungarian insurrectionary Lajos Kossuth into Meanwhile,

It

for example, the

,

and

May

1848 the newspaper Ze

in a sense a patriotic effort, for

same year that the Musical Gaiette of Leipzig credited

Forster with having written the words of

La

a

Rhenish Jacobin

Marseillaise and set

them

to a

tune by Reichardt. Shortly thereafter, the Gaiette of Cologne attributed the music to

an organist named

Hamman. Thus began

a series

tinue throughout the nineteenth century, as the

of controversies that would con-

work of Rouget de

Lisle

was

attrib-

uted to one composer after another until Julien Tiersot finally proved irrefutably

a

La Marseillaise

was indeed Rouget's work. This posthumous controversy over the authorship

that

it

of

work that was not disputed

a

Marseillaise

No

one

honored

at its inception

shows

just

how important a prize La

had become.

in

France had any doubts about Rouget de Lisle

in Strasbourg,

where the

street

53

in 1848.

His

officer of engineers

had

lived.

And at the Salon of

1849 ^ '^^^ paint-

ing by Pils portrayed "Rouget de Lisle singing La Marseillaise for the

home of

Dietrich, the

memory was

which bestowed the name "Rue de La Marseillaise" on the

mayor of Strasbourg."

It

was

first

time

at the

a historical painting in the style

of the day, a balanced, expressive composition showing the officer silhouetted against a screen

and enjoying the undivided attention of the mayor's family and friends

mixture of intimacy and theatricality.

posterity. Late-nineteenth-century biographers attacked the portrait's veracity:

did the painter not

FIGURE Pils,

2.1

1849.

The

birth of

show

—

The hero already seems to be striking a pose for

Dietrich as the one

who

sang his friend's

verses.^

why

For

us,

La Marseillaise, April 25, 1792: Rouget de Lisle chantantla Marseillaise devantle maire de Strasbourg,

54

MICHEL VOVELLE

H

HARSEILLftlSE, m.m

,„

IB"'

however, these criticisms miss

THERES*

the mark, for Pils's painting

is

noteworthy precisely because

it

established one of the primary cliches of republican imagery.

The Second

Republic, perpet-

uating a tradition that dated back

Great Revolution, turned

to the

La Marseillaise

into a play. It also

associated the song with a cluster

of other revolutionary songs, or at

LA MARSEILLAISE

GILL

FIGURE

2.2

High points

of La Marseillaise:

in

any

rate other

songs inspired

by the Revolution, such

the history

as the

Rachel.

Chant des Montagnards and the

FIGURE

2.3

1870, Mile Theresa.

Choeur des Girondins. In the pre-

FIGURE

2.4

1882, Mile Agar.

vious decade, passionate curiosity

about the Revolution had

produced a number of and the same curiosity

now gave

rise to

histories,

revolutionary fakery: one

thinks of Marx's description of quarante-huitards wrapping themselves in the trappings of the Great Revolution, just as the Jacobins

themselves had done their business "in

The Girondins had sung La their real-life trial.

Roman

trappings."

Marseillaise at the conclusion of

Alexandre Dumas, whose Chevalier de Maison-

Rouge was performed

in

August 1847,

six

months before the

February uprising, portrayed them as singing a verse with which readers of Lamartine and Patrie/ C'est the

de

le sort le

many

plus beau,

le

other Frenchmen identified: "Mourir pour

most beautiful, the most enviable fate]." But even this must be credited

Lisle, for

Dumas borrowed

The Choeur des

la

plus digne d'envie [To die for the Fatherland/Is

these

two

lines

Girondins did not replace

to

Rouget

from Rouget 's Roland a Roncevaux.

La Marseillaise, which remained

as pres-

tigious as ever. Shortly after the February insurrection, the actress Rachel, then, at age

twenty-eight, at the height of her career, "represented"

Comedie-Fran9aise,

just as the "living

Reason. She did not sing the words but rather spoke them spare and grandiose.

The

La

Marseillaise at the

goddesses of Year 11" had "represented"

actress appeared

in a set that

was

at

once

on stage wearing an ancient-style white

tunic and carrying a tricolor flag. Beginning slowly, she gradually

worked up

to a

crescendo and ultimately abandoned herself to a patriotic frenzy. Then, recovering

her calm, the tragedian knelt and wrapped herself in the flag to deliver her sacred invocation, "L' Amour sacre de la Patrie."

It

will

come

as

no surprise

to learn that the

La Marseillaise

performance, or rather service, was

commented on

in religious terms.

"Rachel arouses a holy enthusiasm,"

wrote

Other

Caussidiere.

somewhat

off the

mark

critics,

my

in

view,

described her as "the Joan of Arc

of the French stage." Applauded in

Rachel was greeted with a

Paris,

umphant reception

in Marseilles.

tri-

She

single-handedly raised La Marseillaise to a

new

ness. It

level

is

of national conscious-

instructive to

staging of the

the previ-

performance

described

ously -

compare her

work with

of

L'Offrande d la Liberie during the Revolution. That was a revolutionary tableau vivant; Rachel's performance

was an ardent prayer

to the

apotheo-

sized fatherland, with the actress cast-

ing herself as priestess.

On 1851,

the

morning of December

2,

demonstrators hostile to Louis

Napoleon Bonaparte's coup gathered to sing Later,

Napoleon

La

III

d'etat

Marseillaise.

banished oppo-

FIGURE

2.5

1914, Mile Chenal.

FIGURE

2.6

1918,

Lisle at

nents of his regime to Cayenne,

where they remained years; as they

for

up

Rougetde

the head of the allied

armies.

to fifteen

were loaded onto the

boats that were to take them into exile, the prisoners sang

La

Marseillaise.

During the Second Empire, the hymne

des Marseillais

was once

Napoleon the Great had pro-

more declared

subversive. Just as

moted

au salut de VEmpire and Louis-Philippe had for a

Veillons

time backed La Parisienne, Napoleon the Small opted for the trou-

badour

was

lyrics

of Partant pour

a laudable act

of

filial

la Syrie, le jeune et

piety: the song, also

shorter title Chanson de la reine Hortense, It

was, however,

if

beau Dunois. This

not a lapse of

taste, a failure

(and not the only one of the regime).

known by

the

was written by his mother. of discernment

What chance did

heroism stand of truly catching people 's

fancy.-^

such ersatz

55

56

MICHEL VOVELLE History, as everyone knows, repeats itself as farce; sometimes lines. Just as in 1840,

one had

to reinvent

in the liberal

it

stumbles over

its

the Second Empire tried to reinvent La Marseillaise. In fact, no

came back on

it: it

its

own, availing

of zones of tolerance

itself

Empire, especially after 1868. Although those found guilty of singing

subversive songs could

still

be sent to prison, clever lawyers such as Adolphe

Cremieux sometimes pleaded with judges

to listen to the entire piece before pro-

nouncing sentence. In oppressive times such ruses are commonplace. But by early 1870 signs of change were in the

air.

Henri Rochefort revived his censored newspa-

new title: La Marseillaise. Managers of cafes-concerts sought La Marseillaise still, it is true, in vain. The declaration of

per La Lanterne under a

permission to perform

—

war with Prussia on July

18, 1870,

changed everything: the next day, Richard, the

minister of war, ordered the director of the

Opera

La Marseillaise

to arrange for

to

be sung between acts of La Muette. Echoing Bugeaud's gibe of 1840 about the

"anthem for special occasions" was Emile de Girardin's "Everybody on their feet for

La MarseillaiseV Nothing was only

at the

Marie, the

left to

chance: the national anthem could be heard everywhere, not

Opera but

first

also at the

Carmen) and

ing Rachel, "spoke"

Opera-Comique (where

the Comedie-Frangaise,

La Marseillaise,

the singer

where the

was

Gallic

actress Agar, copy-

as well as at popular theaters like the Vaudeville

and the Gaiete. In the caf'conc'o( the Saint-Martin and Saint-Denis quarters, Bordas did a popular version of the song of the hour.

The music had

tured "the spirit of '92," according to old Auber, Marseillaise

Cloud

in late July 1870,

The field

was written. But to

imperial

of battle

at

La

the

seemed

it

Marseillaise

who was

Emperor, who listened

aged.

It

no longer cap-

ten years old

to a

when La

performance

at Saint-

right.

had

its

moments of heroism

if

Mars-la- Tour, Vionville, and Rezonville. But

not triumph on the

we

also have an out-

raged account by the nationalist writer and politician Paul Deroulede of Prussian fifers

playing a mocking Marseillaise as the defeated and humiliated garrison of

Sedan marched before them.

The

provisional government restored the revolutionary anthem to

place of honor and established

sung on March

18, 1871,

Parisian battalions took

its

actress

Agar gave

former

before the Hotel de Ville in Paris. During the siege, the

it

up

as they launched their offensive of April 2.

Commune, La Marseillaise became more The

its

primary symbolic meaning. La Marseillaise was

During the

than ever the song of the people in arms.

wounded federes

at

not officially banned.

It

yet another interpretation, this time for

the Tuileries shortly before the onslaught of les Versaillais.

After the defeat of the

became on May

a

Commune, La Marseillaise was

republican rallying song, and there are reports of

17,

1877, to celebrate the defeat of

Mac-Mahon

its

having been sung

the day before. Despite

police harassment, onlookers and participants at Thiers's funeral sang

it

in

La Marseillaise

September of repubHcan

that

same year

Dark Side (1879-1918)

Its

In the transformation of

La

Marseillaise from revolutionary song into national

anthem, the period that begins

its

to yet another demonstration of

unity.

Triumph and

cial.

what amounted

in

in 1879

and ends with the

First

World War was cru-

The very triumph of La Marseillaise exposed it to new dangers: of distortion by its adversaries, who could no longer identify with the

proponents and rejection by

sentiments

it

expressed. In the period of nationalist confrontations that followed

France's defeat at the hands of Prussia in 1870, such an outcome inevitable, for the

sive aspects of

La

emphasis was

now on

Marseillaise with

the narrowly patriotic

its call

may have been

and indeed aggres-

to arms, while the song's revolutionary

and democratic content was played down. Thus, behind the apparently unanimous support for

La

was deep-seated uneasiness; the

Marseillaise and the tricolor, there

temporary nationalist compromise achieved

its

bloody climax

1914— 1918, as a nation of workers struggled to find

triumphant bourgeoisie.

What was

its

in the

Union Sacree of

identity in the

seen by the end of World

War

I

anthem of the

as the "crisis

of

La Marseillaise'' developed slowly against a background of officially declared unity. A new battle for the Republic raged around La Marseillaise from 1878 until MacMahon's resignation in early 1879. Now, when the anthem was sung in parades and theaters, icantly,

it

signified an

unambiguous commitment. In Nantes,

a city located, signif-

on the edge of the once counterrevolutionary Vendee region,

of Marceau ou

les

military officers.

enfants de la Republique

drew

protest

a

performance

from counterrevolutionary

The deputy from Nantes, Captain Laisant, himself an officer but a

republican, joined with political associates to

file a bill

proposing that La Marseillaise

be made the national anthem of France. The Chamber of Deputies debated the issue

on January

25, 1878,

only to reject the

bill.

But the day of reckoning was merely

postponed, given the magnitude of what can only be called popular pressure in favor

of the proposal. For the opening of the Exposition Universelle of 1878, President

Mac-Mahon, who was conscious of France's need set a reliable

for a national anthem, decided to

team to work creating one: he asked Deroulede to provide the words

and Gounod the music for a production whose theme was only performance of

this stillborn

exposition. Meanwhile,

on February

14,

be Vive

la

France!

The

masterpiece was apparently at the opening of the

La Marseillaise triumphed.

Mac-Mahon's departure sion

to

1879,

in late

January 1879 precipitated matters: in a historic ses-

which Gambetta presided, the Chamber

at last

voted to

make. La Marseillaise the national anthem of France.

however. Like the Republic

itself,

the

The coronation was no triumph, new anthem achieved its victory by stealth: the

Wallon amendment described La Marseillaise

in restrained

and even veiled terms. In

57

58

MICHEL VOVELLE restoring the song's privileges, the minister of war, General Gresley, invoked the

decree of 26 Messidor, Year

chist opposition, the

which had never been rescinded. Even

ereigns to Paris to hear that, indeed,

song

where in

in

now

Commune as well as the Revolution: "You will invite sov-

La Marseillaisel"

was what happened

became the obligatory accompaniment Paris,

so, the

Speaking for the monar-

difficulty.

deputy Le Provost de Launay poured ironic scorn on a song that

had been the anthem of the

And

III,

anthem did not triumph without

official national

in the years that followed:

to Bastille

Day

celebrations.

La

Marseillaise

One saw

this in

1880 a M. Cernesson, president of the municipal council, hailed the

terms redolent of the period as "the day's she-lion."

provinces, for example in Cherbourg, where Jules

One

also

saw

it

in the

Grevy and Gambetta went

a

month later to inspect the fleet and were greeted by a band ^\3.ym^ La Marseillaise and by processions of young girls wearing white dresses with

tricolor sashes: the staging,

reminiscent of the festivals of the Revolution, was of course to celebrate the triumph

of the Republic. In the same

spirit,

Charles de Freycinet, President du Conseil, inau-

Day in summed up the significance of La Marseillaise for a Third Republic secure its legitimacy: "La Marseillaise is the hymn of the fatherland,"

gurated a statue honoring Rouget in Choisy-le-Roi on the day after Bastille 1882. His speech still

anxious to

a legacy that

reminds of "the heroism of our fathers." More than

that,

it

was

part of

a larger program of national rebuilding and education, "a source of strength, a token

of honor, and a lesson for

all."

For

this late-nineteenth-century statesman.

La

Marseillaise encapsulated a peculiarly French brand of patriotism, a patriotism that rejected territorial expansion

and held out an

ideal

of liberty to other nations:

Foreign peoples themselves appreciate the sentiments that inspire us when

keep the holy flame of patriotism a

war song and

The standard sanglant.

It is

that the Republic

alive. is

a

They know

that France raises today

a

La Marseillaise

is

not

government of concord and tolerance. is

not a bloody one

a flag of progress, of civilization,

This speech was of course

that

we

and of

—

not an etendard

liberty.

prototype for other speeches for future occasions.

There was no shortage of opportunities to celebrate the national anthem.

It

provided

the sonic backdrop to the Centennial of the Revolution in 1889 and for the Exposition

Universelle of 1900.

To be

sure, the pacific tone at times

gave way to a more bel-

when Raymond Poincare was called upon give his own reading of La Marseillaise:

ligerent attitude, or to terms of warning, as

more than twenty years

after Freycinet to

As passionate as one may be for peace, I do not think it ill-advised of us to keep our sacred love for our fatherland alive sooner or

up our

later

at all times,

with the idea that

be forced to repel aggressors by hastening

battalions.

to

we may

arms and forming

La Marseillaise

Song of peace or song of war? The Republic of La Marseillaise had no interest in pursuing the

one aspect or the other

at different times.

behind the fortress

that stood fast issue;

Perhaps that

it

chose instead to emphasize

why some early-twentiethLa

is

century musicologists fought so hard to establish the French sources of

beyond

Marseillaise and to prove

composer. The issue was settled

a

shadow of

(who wrote

its

composer Rouget de Quite apart from

doubt that Rouget de Lisle was the

Hymnes

scholars Constant Pierre (author of Les fran^aise) and Julien Tiersot

a

decade of the century by the positivist

in the first

chansons de la Revolution

et

La Marseillaise and

a history-biography of

Lisle).

this

debate of scholars with

all its

nationalist ulterior motives,

La Marseillaise became a sacred monument to the national genius of France, a monument that invariably commanded respect. There was little appreciation now for the old wish, often imputed to Victor Hugo but actually stemming from Lamartine, to purge the anthem of

its

bloodier sentiments.

When

the journalist

canvassed his readers in August 1906 on the question "Should

he received

rewritten.''"

national

this

anthem of France.

the national

anthem

at

off, lest

It is

in 19 18,

untouchable." Louis Fiaux,

was

less laconic:

people

who propose

who wrote

to

tamper with

it

should keep their

I,

the

fruit,

apparently with

government made an

some

effort to teach

war commissioned an

The triumph of the Third

La Marseillaise, which was played

at the

intoning the words "L' Amour sacre de

year-end ceremonies all

seven verses and

la Patrie."

verse, occasionally adding the sixth and seventh.

the fatherland" and

at

in

which school prizes

bowed deeply when

Their children sang only the

The

selection

when France dreamed of vengeance against Germany,

tion through

anthem

Republic's schools was celebrated to the strains of

were awarded. Our grandfathers sang

on "sacred love of

The

and the minister of

official military orchestration,

public instruction ordered that schoolchildren be taught the national

time

the

a history of

Marseillaise, thus ensuring an unprecedented level of popularity.

minister of

school.

is

they do some damage."

Between 1880 and World War

La

Marseillaise be

"La Marseillaise must remain the

Steps were taken to induce this precious capital to bear success.

La

response from Paul Doumer: "La Marseillaise

France 's bedside. Those

sword hands

Maxime Formont

is

the emphasis

on the hopes invested

in the

first

significant: at a

was placed

younger genera-

whom revenge would be achieved ("Nous entrerons dans la carriere").

The success of this popular pedagogy should not be underestimated, even though we shall soon have occasion to discuss resistance to La Marseillaise. The national anthem was associated with the

loss

of Alsace and Lorraine

song featured a loyal fiddler from the lis

ont brise

lost provinces:

mon violon

Parce que j'avais I'ame frangaise

at a

time

when another

59

6o

MICHEL VOVELLE Et que sans peur aux echos du vallon J'avais joue

La Marseillaise

...

my viohn my soul was French

[They smashed Because

And

fearless

I

played

Amidst the echoes People in

all

in

.]

meetings. This widespread exposure was not without

French national anthem with hat

at the sight

hand

in

of Czar Nicholas

when

time

at a

the song

its

odd

II listening

was banned

Russia as subversive. Yet while French military bands never went as far as the musi-

Guard in playing ZczA/arjez7/awe

cians of the czar's Imperial in

.

on important national occasions,

at festivities in rural villages,

at international

paradoxes, however. True, people rejoiced to the

.

segments of French society thus became familiar with La Marseillaise,

which could be heard and even

La Marseillaise

in the glen

what the French ambassador called

"La Marseillaise

more

little

an elegiac pace, indeed

Ludovic Halevy noted

was generally played maestoso, perhaps

for sovereigns"

of making the piece a

a "bucolic" fashion,

at

respectable.

As

in the

that

hope

the beginning of the twentieth cen-

tury approached, "the tempo slowed increasingly."

What Halevy

described as "La Marseillaise for sovereigns" others called "the

oratorio Marseillaise." After 1900, the national anthem began to

within the French

elite, reflecting

what some

readers

who responded

to the journalist's

anthem and

acter of the national

clearly

did not hesitate to call a "crisis."

critics

Maxime Formont's survey of 1906 was another

draw criticism even

sign of this, although most of the

query sought

showed no

to reaffirm the sacred char-

interest in

pursuing the causes

of the malaise.

Their reluctance need not stand

in

strength of

our way, however. Before 1879,

La Marseillaise lay in the fact that it was a rallying point for all sorts of subversive and rebellious sentiment.

mate

It is

perhaps rather

and

facile

to conclude that the official adoption of the

as the private property of the

able for

song as France's national anthem,

Third Republican bourgeoisie and

any occasion, deprived

the masses.

superficial yet nonetheless legiti-

it

of the distinctive flavor

What began as a revolutionary battle Age of Imperialism: it was a bitter pill

a

modern working

political struggles,

movements had

it

change as

it

class

began

identified

tant study of strikes this

began

to

form

to distance itself

up

in

suit-

had once possessed for

from

to the time of the

a

song with which various popular

Commune.

Michelle Perrot's impor-

by French workers between 1870 and 1890 allows us

was happening. The documentation

is

rich,

government and police kept on the hundreds of

period.

What did

striking

which

to swallow.

France and to engage in social and

that the

Marseillaise,

music

cry had become an instrument of

national pride in the

As

it

official

is

workers

mentioned

sing.''

At

first

thanks to the close watch

strikes that

glance one

in nearly forty percent

to witness

is

took place

in this

tempted to respond La

of the reports. Not surpris-

La Marseillaise

ingly,

La Carmagnole was a close second, being mentioned in more than twenty perThus up to sixty percent of the strikes derived their music from the

cent of the cases.

songbook of the Great Revolution. In

fact, the figure

should be even larger, since

eight percent of the remainder can be classed under the head of "patriotic or revolu-

tionary songs": the Chant du depart was included in this group along with various

contemporary tunes such Hemes, and Le Drapeau tive:

shows

it

as Vive la Sociale,

rouge.

origins and

its

record of these twenty years

that the proletarian revolt

Revolution before developing popular in

The

La Chanson des mineurs de Carmaux, Hun matured

own forms of

its

survival. If

we

La Carmagnole, more

expression.

it

would not have revealed the song's

at the dates of the strike reports, we La Marseillaise actually declined in popuby La Carmagnole: the latter is mentioned

look more closely

discover that toward the end of the period

where

was surpassed

Of

twenty-three times between 1887 and 1890; the former, twenty. ple

on which

drawn from

these figures are based remains limited.

it.''

commented on ers' rebellion:

to

.

.

most insolent at

sort,

night until six in the morning. Never

huge parades of the 1880s,

still

singing

it."

pungent with subversive

under the government of Moral Order, did La Marseillaise begin to lose out

La Carmagnole,

song with which workers could more easily

a

specifically identified with the

and "Vive

la

Sociale!"

La Marseillaise

lose

contest between arrival

La

began

its

it

was generally

identify.-^

When

associated with other songs

more

working class. Just as the slogans "Vive la Revolution!"

to supplant

"Vive

la

Republique!" after 1885,

so, too,

privileged position as a working-class rallying song.

Marseillaise and

La Carmagnole would

did

The

ultimately be decided

of a third contender, L'Internationale, which was written in 1888 by

Pottier

and Pierre Degeyter and performed by a

Lille chorus,

La Lyre des

Although L'Internationale gained popularity within the workers' move-

Travailleurs.

ment throughout the remainder of as a rival to

in 1899

when

a

the nineteenth century,

it

did not immediately

La Marseillaise. Both songs were sung on the Place de la Nation monument to the former Communard Dalou was inaugurated, and

emerge

both were sung again

in 1903 at the

Congres des Amicales d'Instituteurs

But L'Internationale, which originally had been popular primarily in the north of France, socialist

work-

punctuated by choruses of

La Marseillaise, and nobody thought of

a favorite during the

Eugene

the

This went on from ten

.

call for

workers did sing La Marseillaise,

by the

valid conclusions be

In 1895, for example, Leyret had this to say about one such

it.

"The songs were of

once did anyone Still

Can any

course the sam-

Yes, because contemporary observers also remarked the change and

La Carmagnole.

potential

the French

A glance at the official chronicles of the major revo-

lutionary episodes of the nineteenth century

larity to the point

already instruc-

more insistent in its demands than La Marseillaise, occupied

a surprisingly important place.

underground

is

shadow of

in the

groups held

was adopted by

the

in Paris in 1899. It

in

in Marseilles.

Guesdist circles

Congres Unitaire, a convention of various

was sung again

at the

Congres International

61

62

MICHEL VOVELLE in Paris in 1900,

solidated

its

but

it

was above

the 1910

Copenhagen Convention

that

it

con-

position as the song of revolutionary working-class organizations. Jean

Jaures never repudiated

La

all at

La Marseillaise, however,

as he explained in a 1903 article in

Petite Republique entitled "Marseillaise et Internationale, "

where he described

L'Internationale as the "proletarian sequel to La Marseillaise." It

would be overly schematic

to

imagine that there was anything

between La Marseillaise and L'Internationale.

like a duel

the end of the nineteenth century

Still,

offered a rich breeding ground for revolutionary music in the form of a series of associations and publications, the best

Here La Marseillaise flourished not lar versions. It

known of which

is

perhaps

non-conformist popu-

shaped other songs of rebellion even when

its

words and music were

More

working-class struggle.

its call

to

arms was transposed into the new key of

often the workers' songs took the opposite tack, call-

ing for pacifism rather than aggression. Consider, for example, the Marseillaise fourmisienne, i,

rouge.

in

not directly used. Sometimes

on May

La Muse

form but

in its official

which was inspired by

a massacre of

first

workers

verse of at

La

Fourmies

1891:

Allons forgats des filatures

Le Premier Mai vient de sonner. Las enfin de tant de tortures

Levons-nous pour manifester [Arise, ye slaves

Today Tired

rise

we

of the cotton

.

mills.

the First of May.

at last

Let us In a rather different vein,

is

.

of so

up

many

in protest

tortures. .

.

.]

detect a distinct evolution from the days

when

the

songster Villemer expressed the hope that some day there would be "but one Marseillaise for

or

all

later, in 1893,

the people of the world" in his Marseillaise des travailleurs (1873),

when

the teacher Paul

Nimes and turned them lines

into

La

Robin took the verses of

Marseillaise de la paix. Instead,

a preacher

we have

from

the biting

of Gaston Coute's La Marseillaise des requins [The Sharks' Marseillaise], writ-

ten during the French campaign in Morocco:

Allez petits soldats de France

Le jour des Pour

poir's est arrive.

servir la

Haute Finance

Allez- vous-en la-bas crever

[Get a

The

To

move

suckers'

serve

on,

little

.

French

.

soldiers,

day has come.

High Finance,

Go and get yourselves killed

over there.]

La Marseillaise

And

in

La Paysanne

the

same composer denounced the

of

"fratricidal Marseillaises"

different nations while issuing a call to fraternity:

Jetons nos vieux sabots

Marchons, marchons

En des

sillons

Plus larges et plus beaux. [Cast off our old

And march

on,

wooden shoes

march on

In furrows

Ever wider and more

We know how

it

beautiful.]

Sacree on the eve of the great hecatomb of 1914— 1918.

was one of

way to the Union World War I, it must be said,

ended, of course: the pacifist Utopia gave

La Marseillaise.

the high points in the history of

It is

no accident

that

two

of the standard works on the national anthem were published during the war: the patriotic

1917,

monarchist Louis de Joantho's Triomphe de La Marseillaise came out in

and the work of the no

appeared

in 1918.

less patriotic

part scholarly synthesis, part apologia,

anthem played

in

again: French soldiers sang

La

little

enteen, died with the national

by

realize

Marseillaise

a white-gloved

how important It

seemed

that

on the Marne

a role the national

it

was 1792

as they

had sung

anthem on

their lips.

on February

and

it

at

sev-

28, 1915, at Vauquois, fifteen

musi-

conductor died one after the other for the glory of

La

Today's sacrifices echoed yesterday's: the sinkings of the cruiser Zeon-

in

February 1917,

Interallied Parliament at

La

Boselli, the Italian

Rome

republican nor monarchical. tism in blood earned that at first

over

Fiaux describes the slaughter of

Gambetta and the submarine Monge called to mind the earlier loss of the The French war song was played by Allied musicians from the Balkans Britain,

all

more than children, volunteers of sixteen and

the Forty-Sixth Regimental Band: cians led

we

mobilizing patriotic sentiment.

Valmy, and heroes who were

Marseillaise.

conservative republican Louis Fiaux

When we read books such as these, particularly the latter, which is

prime minister, inaugurated the

with these words: "Your national anthem

It is

the

Vengeur. to Great

is

neither

anthem of civilization in arms." This latest bap-

Marseillaise national as well as international consecration

brooked no opposition. The popular songwriter Montehus expressed the

sentiments of the

moment

in all innocence:

Qu'il sach' que dans la fournaise

Nous chantons La Marseillaise Car dans

ces terribles jours

On laiss' L'Internationale Pour

la victoire finale:

On la chant'ra au retour.

63

64

MICHEL VOVELLE known that in the oven We sing La Marseillaise, [Be

it

For

in these terrible times

VInternationale must be For the

set aside

final victory:

We'll sing

it

when we

get home.]

Once again La Marseillaise was played in theaters, music halls, and cafes-concerts. The Rachel of the hour was Marthe Chenal, who also wrapped herself in the tricolor to sing the national anthem. Over her ancient-style tunic, however, she wore a heavy shoulder harness to which was fastened a sword from the theater's prop room. top

it all

off,

she wore an Alsatian cap.

of Gossec's Offrande a

la liberte.

The

Even

Paris

Opera mounted

a

To

new production

the poets got into the act: in January 1917,

Edmond Rostand came to the Opera to give a dramatic reading of his poem "Le Vol de La Marseillaise." Songwriters and composers produced variations on the theme,

sometimes with embellishments of

their

own. And the Union Sacree drew support

from some surprising quarters, including Theodore Borel, the author of Les Chansons de

Vendee. In

la

all

Fleur de Lys, previously

known

from the works of renowned musicians such "anti-Boche" this

for his fairy-tale depictions of the

the abundant outpouring of patriotic music spurred

ditties, allusions to

by

the conflict,

as Saint-Saens to the miscellany

impressive production, Maurice Fombeure offered this harsh judgment in 1936:

"These had more

to

do with the

clinic than

timates the role that this literature

with

all its

with literature." That perhaps underes-

may have played

in a

time of patriotic exaltation,

chauvinistic outgrowths.

This wartime enthusiasm for La Marseillaise culminated on Bastille

when Rouget de

Lisle

's

tions that existed

in fact intended

Pantheon, but such an honor required late, at a

time

may seem

between the two men during

however: Poincare had

too

when

Day

191

5,

ashes were transferred to the Invalides. Since Napoleon's

ashes are also housed there, this decision

it,

of

La Marseillaise were inescapable. Looking back on

the

a vote

surprising in view of the rela-

their lifetime.

There were reasons

Rouget 's ashes

to

be placed

for

in the

of the Chamber, and the proposal came

Chamber was not in session.

Still,

the result of this gov-

ernment misstep was not without significance: the placing of the composer's ashes in the Invalides, a military shrine,

showed

that the

honor was being bestowed on

Rouget as the author of a military anthem, a song that could galvanize the troops and set

them marching.

Amid

the

pomp

of a procession that stretched from the Arc de Triomphe to the

Invalides, President Poincare delivered a speech that defined the purpose of the

occasion.

La Marseillaise, he said, was a "cry of vengeance and indignation from a now than a hundred and twenty-five years ago bend its knee

people that will no more

La Marseillaise

before a foreign power," a cry emanating from a "sovereign nation with a passion for independence,

whose sons would

to a

man choose

Marseillaise, that "deliberate affirmation of

death over servitude."

La

French unity," became the pretext for a

political speech in which the president rejected any possibility of a peace that did not

restore France

As to

lost provinces.

's

the conflict

wore on, however,

widespread reactions of

distaste: the songster J.

La

of bellowing, or the sabotage of

wrote an

the overexposure of

La

Marseillaise gave rise

Deyrmon described "an evening

Marseillaise, " while the journalist R.

Ginoux

under the headline "Rouget de Lisle Protests" and C. Le Senne

article

spoke contemptuously of "La Marseillaise of the tutus." At

were merely

these

first

isolated expressions of disgust, but as the conflict developed in the rear as well as

the front lines, people that

began

when French and

to tire of

easily than their respective national

ers tired of orchestrated heroics.

as

Can

really

it

grounds for indignation but as an index to the

of the war and especially in

its

We should read this report not

mood

of the moment.

La Marseillaise came

reactions against

immediate aftermath,

sounded. With the gradual revival of the

and La

anthems with troop-

be that the watered-down guardroom

of La Madelon triumphed over La Marseillaise}

The most vehement

on

pertinently observes

British soldiers fraternized, songs like Tipperary

Madelon went down more

lyrics

La Marseillaise. Robert

socialist

later,

as the

toward the end

drums of victory

movement,

the criticism

was

expressed in no uncertain terms. Pierre Brizon, one of the French delegates to the

Kienthal Conference of 1919, wrote: turned

it

into a

up and croaked

Thus behind

War I

A

"We

will not sing their Marseillaise.

song for savages. Besides, the king's ugly, wart-ridden toads took it,

which

left

us feeling disgusted.

the apparent triumph.

La

We

will sing

Marseillaise actually

it

L'Internationale."

emerged from World

in a pitiful state.

Revival of La Marseillaise? (1918 to the Present)

The

next turning point

—

a rather paradoxical

one

—

occurred somewhere between

1934 and 1936. In circumstances akin to those in which

more than ever France 's in the prestige

concluded

official national

1871, the republicans of 1879,

his 1918 history

nation versus the Ancien

cism and absolutism," as being

la

loomed

it

was born, La Marseillaise,

its virile

accents

now

steeped

who would have astonished the who

even good old Jules Fiaux,

by describing the song, formerly a symbol of "the French

Regime

allied

now

a

with the governments of European fanati-

symbol of "indissoluble national unity and

universal humanity." Behind the veterans tricolor

anthem with

of victory, began to attract defenders

Communards of

of

They

who now rallied to La Marseillaise and the

the leagues of the extreme right,

whose goal was

to rid themselves

Gueuse ("the Strumpet," a derogatory term for the Republic).

I

cannot avoid

65

FIGURE

2.7

Rude, Le Depart, 1835-36, alludes to La Marseillaise and not to M.-J. Chenier's Chant du depart.

.

La Marseillaise

mentioning that the extremist demonstrators

on February

6, 1934,

who tried to attack the Palais-Bourbon

were singing the verses of Rouget de

Lisle.

Among the

orga-

nizers of that attack was Le Provost de Launay, the son of the monarchist deputy

who had

fought so bitterly against the adoption of the

new national anthem in 1879. who would

Travestied into a symbol of blind nationalism and adopted by those bring

down

the Republic,

was La Marseillaise headed

Outside of France, however, the song was revolutionary

movements everywhere.

was

its

for an ignominious end?

an essential accompaniment of

was played along with L'Internationale

It

welcome Lenin back to Russia on April

still

15, 1917.

Even more

role in the funeral ceremonies for victims of the

February 1917 revolution

Saint Petersburg, here described by the French ambassador

workers, students,

women

and

girls

marched

well imagine

how

right-minded people

Chambrun:

in

"Soldiers,

solemn ranks, singing a mournful

in

Marseillaise along with Chopin's Funeral March. This

You can

to

significant, perhaps,

was

Russia's first civic burial.

felt."

Soviet Russia continued to invoke the legacy of the French Revolution. In 1932, to celebrate the fifteenth anniversary

produced a the

ballet entitled

monarchy on August

La

Europe from Germany

Paris,

with

10, 1792,

ground. Between 1917 and 1920, ings across

of the October Revolution, Boris Assafiev

The Flame of

La

whose theme was

Marseillaise of course in the back-

Marseillaise

was

Hungary.

On

to

the overthrow of

a persistent feature of upris-

April

15,

193 1, at ceremonies

marking the advent of the Spanish Republic, La Marseillaise was played before The

Anthem of

Riego.

Perhaps the most stirring testimony to the

of 19 17, as hopes of an

lyrical illusions

imminent Allied victory mingled with hopes aroused by the Russian Revolution, can be found in the memoirs of dancer Isadora Duncan, in

which she danced La Marseillaise

as a

recalled an

symbol of "the hope

American tour

for freedom, a

new

To be sure, Duncan's bold stroke of setting

beginning, and civilization everywhere." a

who

dance based on La Marseillaise against Tchaikovsky's Marche Slave, intended as

an allusion to the oppression of the people of Russia by the czar, evoked a mixed reaction. Later, in 1921, the French public

improvisation on the theme of ideals

La

was lukewarm in

Marseillaise.

It

its

may be

reception of Duncan's

that the dancer,

whose

harked back to the hopes of the previous century, mistook the nature of the

new revolutionary spirit. That new spirit manifested itself in France in the 1930s. In September 1932, at the funeral of Pierre Degeyter, who had composed the music for L'Internationale, Marcel Cachin had this to say: "No Marseillaise, no religious music, no religious service ever accomplished a miracle such as this." In 1934, shortly after the riots of the

extreme right

in February,

Louis Aragon included a

Jacobins" in his Hourra I'Oural. This

is

poem

entitled

"Response to the

perhaps the most ferocious, most talented,

and most squarely aimed attack ever leveled

at

.

.

67

68

MICHEL VOVELLE

La Marseillaise La Marseillaise avec les soldats de Fourmies La Marseillaise aux colonies La Marseillaise du Comite des Forges La Marseillaise de la social-democratie.

...

Quatre ans de Marseillaise avec Les pieds dans

la

merde

et la

gueule en sang

Marseillaise de Charleroi Marseillaise des Dardanelles Marseillaise de

These

Verdun

.

.

.

need no translation. Aragon goes on

fierce lines

to hail the

impending death

of La Marseillaise: Je salue

ici

L^Internationale contre La Marseillaise

Cede

le pas,

6 Marseillaise

A VInternationale car voici L'automne de

tes jours, voici

L'Octobre

tombent

and ends with an appeal in the accents

of

oii

that stibsumes the

tes derniers accents

.

.

.

most revolutionary lines of La Marseillaise

VInternationale: Qu'un sang impur Abreuve nos

sillons

On va bien voir lequel est le plus rouge Du sang du bourgeois ou du sang de I'ouvrier Debout Peuple travailleur

Debout Les damnes de

Aragon's "Response

la terre.

to the Jacobins"

must of course be seen

of

in the context

February 1934 and the history of the French Communist Party. At the same time, is

a typical product of the periodic crises that punctuate the history of La Marseillaise,

whose exact is

it

relation to the

French Revolution has always been a matter of passion.

polemically legitimate, of course,

if historically

rather unjust for critics shocked

It

by

such language to reproach the poet (as some have been only too eager to do) for a later about-face,

these lines

from

which was by no means his collected works.

a recantation, for

Aragon never expunged

— La Marseillaise

Within two years, however, the situation had changed. Capping a historic

Communist Party

alHance, the Popular Front led the Marseillaise,

These

to revise

its

position

class

on La

which became, along with the tricolor, the symbol of the new party line.

patriotic values

be abandoned to the

and the

class

historical legacy that

came with them could no longer

enemy. The party therefore incorporated them into

its

own

heritage of struggles alongside L'Internationale and the red flag, as Jacques Duclos

explained at ceremonies held on July

Buffalo Stadium to

14, 1935, at

mark

the oath of

allegiance to the Popular Front. His argument, quite Jauressian in tone, linked the

past and the future, the tricolor and the red flag.

La

Marseillaise, the

leader pointed out, "is a revolutionary song, a song of freedom."

Maurice Thorez added his two cents to a enjoying unanimous support

Communist

A few days later,

debate whose resolution was

among Communists. At

a

far

from

meeting of the Communist

International, he explained the strategy of class alliance behind the reappropriation

of the flag and national anthem of France: "The reactionary bourgeoisie knows

full

well that [these symbols] signify the alliance of the petty bourgeoisie and the work-

ing class.

.

.

.

We

do not wish

Did

Communist

the

leaders

abandon the

to

Marseillaise of the soldiers of the

flag

of the Great Revolution or La

Convention to fascism."

make

their

case.''

Leon Blum

certainly grasped their

point. He marked the first anniversary of the joint-action pact with an editorial inZe Populaire on July 14, 1936, on the subject of "Bastille Day dLwA La Marseillaise." He noted that "for years we have neglected La Marseillaise and Bastille Day, the official

song and the

official holiday." Nevertheless,

between La Marseillaise

August 2L

10,

as played

by

the local

he continued to draw a contrast

marching band and La Marseillaise of

of nineteenth-century revolutionary movements, and of Victor

Marseillaise that "soared

The Popular Front

on wings among the

rediscovered

La

On June

Marseillaise.

17, 1936, the left

ored the hundredth anniversary of Rouget's death with a ceremony to rival the official

ceremony

at the Invalides.

"to the mingled strains of

La

two hundred

Marseillaise

And on

which he extolled "the work of

families."

He ended by

Not everyone went along with reaction of the right

their Internationale, there

destructive specter of left,

is

we shall build

a free, strong,

and

in the rec-

and happy

this rehabilitation

only one answer:

Marxism behind the

as a betrayal

of

La

Column of July.

Marseillaise, however.

understandable: L'Action frangaise ran the headline

is

anarchists, libertarians,

tunistic

saying that

July 14 of the same year a portrait of Rouget de Lisle was placed

alongside portraits of Pottier and Degeyter at the base of the

The

hon-

Choisy-le-Roi

and L'Internationale, wrapped

onciled folds of the tricolor and the red flag,

France."

at

Maurice Thorez took the opportunity

to celebrate the occasion with a now-classic speech in

national reconciliation against the

Hugo

bullets."

La

left's

Royale, " while

Le Temps saw

"nationalist" proclamations.

and Trotskyites attacked the new strategy

as

"To the

On the oppor-

of the "pacific internationalist spirit" of the workers' move-

69

70

MICHEL VOVELLE ment.

The

historian Maurice

Dommanget beHeved

that he

was echoing

the authen-

revolutionary tradition when, after denouncing Rouget de Lisle as a "counter-

tic

revolutionary geoisie," he

officer."

went on

who had

written an anthem for the "voracious ruling bour-

to attack "radical-communist patriotism." Nevertheless, the

evolution of the Popular Front led

The the

daily

Nouvel Age, which had been quite

wake of

viously,

more than one

the 1936 Bastille

early critic to reconsider later on.

critical initially,

revised

its

judgment

in

Day parade: "Contrary to the view expressed here pre-

what clearly carried the day

.

.

.

was La Marseillaise not

song

as a nationalist

but as a revolutionary one."

The conversion of

words and images produced

the Popular Front into

of works in which La Marseillaise played an important Renoir's film of that

role,

a

number

among them Jean

and Arthur Honegger's 1937 score for the short feature

title

Visages de la France, which "combined the accents" of both revolutionary anthems,

V

La Marseillaise and Internationale. The antifascist resistance of World War

II fulfilled

the promise of the Popular

Front by infusing the revolutionary Marseillaise with rich patriotic content.

Vichy regime, under no

illusions

on

this score, resorted to the

of promoting a rival anthem: Marechal, nous heard

at illegal

voild.

time-honored

The

tactic

But La Marseillaise could be

demonstrations, in prisons, underground with the Resistance, and

before the firing squad. Aragon alluded to

it

in his "Ballade

de celui qui chanta dans

les supplices":

II

chantait lui sous les balles

Les mots sanglant

D'une seconde II

est leve

rafale

a fallu I'achever.

Une autre chanson

frangaise

A ses levres est montee Finissant

La Marseillaise

Pour toute I'humanite.

[He sang,

as the bullets hit.

The words It

"sanglant est leve"

took a second volley

To

finish

him

off.

Another French song

Came to his lips, Finishing

For

all

La Marseillaise

mankind.]

Having stood the test of time. La Marseillaise was never displaced or even challenged by such

resistance songs as

Le Chant des partisans, which remains

a period piece.

La Marseillaise

When General de Gaulle sangZa Marseillaise in Paris and earlier at Chartres and other places on the

way

to the liberation of France, he lent his authority to the

legitimacy of the national anthem.

World War I but

It

was a weakened Marseillaise that emerged from

a regenerated Marseillaise that

One might have thought

new

that the

emerged from World War

II.

bloody struggles of the Resistance, having

brought about the national reconciliation around La Marseillaise that the Popular Front had previously advocated and of which GauUism later reaped the benefits,

would while

at last

have put an end to the debate. But history

being made, especially

it is

now enjoyed

for

more than

in periods

is

often difficult to interpret

of extended peace such as Europe has

fifty years.

During the Cold War, the debate

that

began in 1936 continued; the Resistance had

not settled the matter. In 1953, Aragon repudiated his "Response to the Jacobins" in his novel Zej Communistes,

La Marseillaise and in this

where he credited Maurice Thorez with having "restored "Underneath

the tricolor to the people of France":

music he truly restored the France of the past

the future." Meanwhile, as late as 1971, Maurice

the "monstrous coupling of

La

this flag

in its entirety to the

and

France of

Dommanget continued to denounce

Marseillaise and L'Internationale," for

blamed Communists acting on orders from abroad,

a

view

shared with Louise Weiss, who, in a series of novels entitled

which he

that he paradoxically

La Marseillaise

(1954),

took up the theme of the Communists' supposed obedience to the dictates of for-

"The

eigners:

anti-Hitlerian

and therefore hawkish Communist Party should not

have opposed civic demonstrations by democrats."

There

is

no denying, moreover,

that

even today there remains more than one

Marseillaise. Like the nationalist bourgeois consensus of

patriotic consensus achieved at the time

World War

had

the right

its

February several.?

which

version,

6, 1934.

But

is

it

the apparent

of the Liberation around the model pro-

posed by the Popular Front was not destined to survive. To each

but that did not prevent

I,

own Marseillaise:

his

defined in Gaullian terms as "above the parties,"

it

from taking

to the streets

on May

13,

1958, just as

it

did on

there only one right-wing Marj-ezY/awe, or are there in fact

With nationalism

as the

common

denominator, extreme

rightists

from the

conspirators of 1958 to the Front National of today have brandished a muscular Marseillaise, the Marseillaise of the paratroop

commandos who shouted down Serge

Gainsbourg's 1977 reggae version of the national anthem cant provocation.

The

liberal right

—

a

silly,

totally insignifi-

adopted a subtler strategy: in 1974, Valery

Giscard d'Estaing ordered that the national anthem be performed

at a

slower tempo,

thus quite naturally following the lead of nineteenth-century conservatives with their "oratorio 'Marseillaise."'

able revival of

No the

Le Chant du

At

the

same time, however, there has been

a notice-

depart as a rallying point for the "liberal" Republic.

challenge to the reigning interpretation of the national anthem has arisen on

left.

In

May

1968,

more than one component of the protest movement clearly had

71

72

MICHEL VOVELLE no great enthusiasm

for

La Marseillaise,

widespread

tual debate or

yet this did not resuh in any great intellec-

shift in attitudes

such as occurred between 1934 and 1936.

Gainsbourg was no Aragon. This naive conclusion brings up a more radical question.

What remains of La

Who even knows the words? How many Frenchmen today are

Marseillaise today?

capable of singing not the three verses that every schoolchild once

Although La Marseillaise

just the first verse?

schools,

it is

knew but even

theoretically taught in elementary

is

no longer part of the compulsory high school

repertoire.

Growing

ignorance of the French Revolution, which has also vanished from the syllabus in recent decades, prevents people from understanding even in elementary terms

La Marseillaise came Have

to be.

"Bouille's accomplices" finally exacted their revenge? Is

the Revolution according to some, "as dead as a doornail?" Is the French no longer less often

how

known their own Revolution;

invoked as a guide for the future; and

it

La Marseillaise,

obsolete,

first,

like

because

second, because the Revolution

third,

is

because no one any longer

yearns to rush to the borders to defend, in uncertain combat, an imperiled nation? Inherited cultural artifacts inevitably

ending with a mystical incantation,

grow

tired

just as there is

with age. There

no point

no point

is

in

in taking these findings,

with their inevitable concomitant of nostalgia and conventional wisdom, as grounds for inescapable pessimism. is

so

full

The

history of

La Marseillaise,

so rich in so

many ways,

of revivals and reappropriations ("marvelous metempsychoses," as Joyce

might have

said), that

any

fatal

need La Marseillaise, they will

prognosis would be imprudent.

know where to find it: as in

1936,

When

the French

where there 's

a will,

there 's a way.

BIBLIOGRAPHICAL NOTES ON LA MARSEILLAISE

La a

Marseillaise has given rise to a vast literature. Here,

glimpse of what

acknowledge

my

is

I

can do no more than provide

available, listing only essential reference works.

I

also

wish to

indebtedness to the invaluable work of Frederic Robert, the leading

expert on the subject.

GENERAL WORKS, DICTIONARIES, AND ANTHOLOGIES Massin, Jean, ed. Histoire de la musique (Paris: Livre-Club Diderot, 1981), 2 vols. Robert, Frederic.

La Marseillaise,

Vernillat, France,

Larousse de la Musique,

2:

977—978 and 1358-1359.

and Jacques Charpentreau. Dictionnaire de

la

chanson frangaise (Paris:

Larousse, 1968). Pierre, Constant. Les

Hymnes et chansons de la Revolution frangaise, survey and catalogue with

historical, analytical, is

and bibliographical notes

(Paris:

Imprimerie Nationale, 1904). This

a fundamental reference work, a masterpiece of scholarship

from the

positivist era.

La Marseillaise

Barbier, Pierre, and France Vernillat. Histoire de France par les chansons, vol. 8,

La Revolution

franfaise (Paris: Gallimard, 1961).

Brecy, Robert. Florilege de la chanson revolutionnaire (Paris: Editions Hier et

Demain,

1978).

HISTORICAL APPROACHES

The

years between the end of the nineteenth century and the end of

publication of a spate of histories of

two

listed

La Marseillaise,

World War

I

saw the

including such major works as the

first

below:

Fiaux, Louis.

La

Marseillaise, son histoire dans Vhistoire des Frangais depuis IJ92 (Paris:

Fasquelle, 19 18). Tiersot, Julien. Rouget de Lisle, son oeuvre, sa vie (Paris: Delagrave, 1892).

scholarship were incorporated in the same author's Histoire de

La

The fruits of later

Marseillaise (Paris:

Delagrave, 1916). Joantho, Louis de. Le Triomphe de reflects a conservative

A sampling of titles from

La

Marseillaise (Paris: Plon, 1917). This curious

monarchist's embrace of 1918 to the present:

Wendel, Herman. Die Marseillaise, biographic

work by

a

German

Fryklund, Daniel.

La

work

La Marseillaise during wartime.

einer Hymne (Zurich:

antifascist that reflects the time in

Marseillaise en Allemagne;

La

which

it

Europa Verlag,

was

1936).

A

written.

Marseillaise dans les pays scandinaves;

and English Editions of La Marseillaise (Helsingborg: Schmidts Bocktryckeri, 1936).

Three pamphlets by an admirer of La Marseillaise dealing with the international reception of the French anthem.

Dommanget, Maurice. De La Pottier:

Les legons de

Delfolie, Valerie.

Marseillaise de Rouget de Lisle a L'Internationale d'Eugene

Vhistoire (Paris: Librairie

La Marseillaise paroles et musique

historique et de critique litteraire

Pares, Philippe.

de Parti Socialiste, 1938). de Rouget de Lisle: Essai de reconstitution

(Montmorillon: Editions Rossignol, 1965).

Qui est I'auteurde La Marseillaise ?{VdLns,: Editions Musicales Minerva, 1974).

See also the review by Jacques Chailley in Revue de musicologie, vol. 62, no. 2 (1976).

Mauron, Marie. La Marseillaise

(Paris: Librairie

Academique

Perrin, 1968).

WORKS OF FREDERIC ROBERT Robert, Frederic. "Des Oeuvres musicales inspirees par a 1919" (doctoral thesis

defended

at the

le

theme de La Marseillaise de 1792

University of Paris IV, 1977; unpublished). This

Some of the informay be gleaned from the following articles. Lettres a propos de La Marseillaise, Centre de recherches d 'etudes et d 'editions de correspondances du XIX^ siecle. University of Paris IV (Paris, Presses Universitaires de

work of fundamental importance mation

it

is

unfortunately difficult to obtain.

contains

.

France, 1980). .

"Genese

et destin

de La Marseillaise,"

ideologie-voie franfaise" (July 1981).

La

Pensee, special issue

on "Mass media-

73

74

MICHEL VOVELLE

.

"Maurice Thorez

et

La

Marseillaise" Cahiers de

I'lnstitut

Maurice-Thorei (January-

February 1972). .

"Zola face a La Marseillaise," Zola Colloquium, Limoges, June 1969; proceedings

published in Cahiers naturalistes (October 1980).

And

in the daily press:

—— "Rouge .

.

et tricolore,"

L'Humanite {October

Heurt

'^Marseillaise et Internationale,

Z,7/w/wa««e (February

3,

5,

1982).

et reconciliation

de deux hymnes fran^ais,"

1984).

LA MARSEILLAISE IN THE EYES OF CONTEMPORARY HISTORIANS Leaving musicologists and biographers Marseillaise ites.

There

aside,

from the contemporary standpoint of

is

no one has yet written social history

a

study of

La

and the history of mental-

nevertheless valuable information to be gleaned from:

(1880-1890) (Paris— The Hague: Mouton, 1974), which deals with the role of La Marseillaise in the French workers' movement of the late

Perrot, Michelle. Ouvriers franfais en greve

nineteenth century.

WORKS RELATED TO LA MARSEILLAISE The

—

following are merely suggestions of key places to look:

Speeches and

articles

by politicians who were obliged

to take a position

on La Marseillaise,

such as Jaures, Jean.

''

Marseillaise et Internationale, "

In addition one

would want

La Petite Republique socialiste (August 30,

to consult the

1903.

works of Leon Blum, Maurice Thorez, and

Jacques Duclos (see Oeuvres completes and Memoires).

—

Novels, poems, and works of fiction. For the contemporary period, for example,

two works

in

very different

Weiss, Louise. 2,

La Marseillaise,

Le Jour de gloire

we have

styles:

vol.

\

,Allons enfants de la patrie (Paris: Gallimard, 1945); vol.

est arrive (Paris:

Gallimard, 1947); vol.

3,

L'Etendard sanglant

est leve

(Paris: Gallimard, 1947).

Aragon, Louis. "Reponse aux Jacobins," (Paris:

378.

GalHmard,

.''?.''.''),

6: 138.

in the collection

Hourra I'Oural,

in Oeuvres completes

But 2iho L'Homme communiste (Paris: Gallimard, 1953),

2:

These two works represent two phases in the evolution of Aragon's sensibility, phases

that themselves reflect

two

historical

moments.

CHAPTER

Liberty, Equality, Fraternity

Mona Oiouf

They

appear, one after another, everywhere:

backs of medals, on

flags, in the

and time again, the words

in

still

hear, these three

documents,

official

And we hear them

solemn assemblies, and

ing convivial banquets. But that ally

watermarks of

We

Liberty, Equality, Fraternity.

bronze, in fabric, on parchment.

demic receptions,

on the facades of town

is

words

at prize

precisely the point:

that so haunt

the other two, as if they

were joined by an

invisible

we

are

now much more

read, time

in stone, in

and cheers dur-

really see, can

trio

we actu-

History and custom

life.'^

mechanically

bond.

calls to

And we associate all

alongside which they

three so strongly with the French Republic, with the initials

so frequently appear, that

on the

ceremonies, during aca-

do we

our public

we

them

as occasions for toasts

have bound them together so tightly that any one of the

mind

see

halls,

attuned to their value as a sort of

logo than to the freight of meaning they carry. Liberty, Equality, Fraternity: the

mood

is

indicative

more than imperative; an assessment

rather than a problem;

something taken for granted rather than a cause of torment. Early evidence that this ubiquitously visible formula was

all

but invisible and

apparently untouchable comes to us from a rather curious source: a speech by Ernest

Renan

to the Alliance

pour

la

Propagande de

contrived to magnify the magical

la

Langue Frangaise

in 1888.'

power that the republican motto still possessed out-

side of France. (It could almost, he said, cause a religious revolution in the

and he regaled

Renan

his audience with the

amusing story of

his traveling

Near East,

companion

Lockroy's "extraordinary success of every sort when he sang 'La Marseillaise' in Lebanon.") Anywhere but

in

such an exotic context, however, what struck him most

about the three conjoined words was their natural consubstantiality with the genius

of France ("so that wherever the French language goes, the Revolution cannot be far

3

78

MONA OZOUF behind") and their banaHty. truths they

It

would nevertheless be very

embody merely "because

Banal! That

is

to say that

has become banal."

it

because they are true!

Here, then,

The

greatest praise

it is

so early,

a short while after reconciling with the Republic.

left

it

on

if

we

one can have for an idea

also enigmatic.

it is

Equality- Fraternity really have seemed so banal in

zon

become banal. is

evidence from a very early date in the history of the Third

is

Republic, and because

years old,

foolish indeed to reject the

they have been abused and have

1888.''

Could the

triad Liberty-

Renan gave his speech only

And the motto itself was only eight

exclude a brief and illusory interlude in 1848: the decision to embla-

the facades of public buildings

was made

in 1880, far too recently to

have

much of a mark on the civic landscape. In order to understand how Renan could it so much for granted, we have to persuade ourselves that this beginning

have taken

was

in fact

an end: that the motto, though

it

appeared young, had actually matured in

from which

it

now emerged with all the authority of its

the depths of French history,

We must also assume that, despite what the history of the

long underground journey. 1

880s reveals,

it

no longer faced any

real adversaries.

And we must believe that it was

henceforth possible for Liberty, Equality, and Fraternity to coexist in harmony, or at

any

Renan's text presumes that the triad was naturalized

rate without turmoil.

overnight, that

and that

it

Can we

identified almost automatically with republican France,

one and

as

indivisible as the Republic

it

emblematized.

really think of nothing else to say about the republican motto.-* If

were completely lieu de

became

it

was somehow

right, "Liberty, Equality, Fraternity"

memoire. If

it is

one,

it is

Renan

would scarcely qualify

as a

because in moments of historical upheaval or cele-

bration, previously inattentive observers have repeatedly rediscovered

its

peculiar

The Bicentennial of the French Revolution in 1989 offered a good example Many commentators felt called upon to draw a contrast between the slogan

features.

of

this.

and the

reality:

it

was fraudulent, they

said, to place the

word

liberty

on

the facades

of prisons, to speak of equality when some went hungry, and to extol fraternity when

immigrants were mistreated in urban slums.^

motto

itself,

helped to keep

such criticism, however,

is

its

No doubt such challenges, as old as the

memory as fresh as an open wound. The problem with

that

it

focuses attention on the relation of each of the

on what made (or failed

three terms to reality rather than

to

make) them into a motto,

namely, their intimate connection with one another (or lack of such a connection).

Consider for the moment only those commentaries which singled out one element of the triad for special attention.

At

the time of the Bicentennial, that

times reserved for equality but even

prominently

in the effusive

more often

honor was some-

for fraternity. Fraternity figured

and conciliatory proposals of Edgar Faure. In the

provinces, Fraternity often took priority over Liberty and Equality: in Clermont-

Ferrand, for example, the peak

known

as the

Puy de Dome was

Fraternity. Paris, meanwhile, chose to dedicate the

rebaptized

Arche de la Defense to

Mount

Fraternity.

Liberty, Equality, Fraternity

Why this bias in favor of Fraternity? Was triad

was

it

to suggest that the third

term of the

oretically

the fulfillment of the other two, and thus to urge the French, already the-

endowed with Liberty and

ticular anniversary celebration

Condorcet,

who

Equality, to try

still

harder? Or, since this par-

tended to focus on heroes such as Gregoire and

were thought to be ecumenical (though without worrying too

much about whether or not they really were), was the emphasis on Fraternity also a way of singling out the most emotional and consensual of the three terms, perhaps with the hope of diminishing conflicts between Liberty and Equality? Or was it to suggest that even though Fraternity was the

last

term of the motto,

was

it

Note

heart and soul? There are arguments for each of these interpretations. first

implies that the triad

is

and the order

in

demand: on this view, the three terms are com-

which they are

implies that the role of Fraternity fact contradictory:

is

set forth is the correct one.

to reconcile Liberty

although the order of enunciation

selves are not readily

made compatible.

The second

and Equality, which are

is

correct, the terms

we may favor, we

are

in

them-

Finally, according to the third interpretation,

the terms are indeed compatible, but their order needs to be reversed. interpretation

that the

actually a triumphant escalation symbolizing an intensi-

fication or increasing socialization of patible,

in fact its

Whichever

reminded that the apparently immutable motto

how difficult it is to bring these three concepts into harmony with one another, and once we realize that even the order in which they are set forth is probelmatic, we begin to doubt that actually conceals a host of complexities.

the motto

some of It

is

in fact

Once we begin

to suspect

"one and indivisible." The Bicentennial debates thus restored

the original flexibility to republican drapery that had

grown

stiff

with age.

forced the French to look back at the complexity of the journey that had brought

them to where they were and rescued from oblivion some of the swirled around the republican triad.

The

"banality"

had

vast debate that

on which Renan had remarked

no longer seemed so banal.

In 1838, Pierre Leroux

composed

hymn

a

motto of our forefathers."^

to "the holy

meant the men of the French Revolution. Yet

By

"forefathers" he

the

work "of no one and everyone. No philosopher had enunciated

the French people

emblazoned

it

on

their banner.

Perhaps

it

lowest rung of society who, inspired by patriotism, was the

that

motto was

the slogan

when

was someone from first to

words that had never been combined before." Leroux reminds us

the

combine three

that origins of the

phrase are shrouded in mystery: "The Sphinx of the Revolution holds on her mysterious banner the formulation of a

problem

by our forefathers." He

first raised

points out that the three terms are inseparable:

"Holy motto of our

forefathers,

also

you

are therefore not an idle arrangement of letters such as people trace in the sand only to

be dispersed by the wind." For

all

the mystery that

emergence, he takes three things for granted: that

it

Leroux sees

in the motto's

originated with the French

79

8o

MONA OZOUF Revolution; that, like any collective creation, unity

it

seemed foreordained; and

We will not quibble about the motto's birth date. its

that

its

was beyond doubt. Scholars have been able to trace

prerevolutionary lineage and have pointed out that the three magic words that

today grace so

many

among

facades were already

those favored by eighteenth-cen-

tury societes de pensees (for example, the one at the

Museum of

Bordeaux, of which

Vergniaud and Gensonne were members and which chose "Liberty and Equality" as its

motto

But they appeared along with other words such as Friendship,

in 1783).

Charity, Sincerity,

and Union. Freemasons favored Equality above

less enthusiastic

about Fraternity, and rather lukewarm toward

showed no

all,

were

slightly

even though

triple

cadences (such as Salvation, Strength, Union) generally appealed

to them. Extensive explorations

of the lexicon of the Enlightenment have also

proved disappointing. One or another of the three ideas turns up frequently through

texts

from the period, but only rarely are they conjoined

cited couplet

from

Voltaire:

sifts

They

Liberty."'

particular predilection for the arrangement Liberty, Equality, Fraternity,

Nous sommes Sans rois

et

tous egaux sur des rives

si

one

as

as in this oft-

cheres,

sans sujets, tous libres et tous freres.^

A great deal of scholarly effort has thus been expended only to confirm the idea that the republican

motto was born during the Revolution.

What cannot be

accepted, however,

anonymous and spontaneous. armed from

If

Leroux

is

Leroux's insistence that

is

to

its

the inventive energy of the masses. In fact,

was

birth

be believed, the motto sprang

fully

was constantly tinkered

it

with throughout the revolutionary decade. Certain moments were more important in this process

moments

than others, and to those

begin with a surprising fact (surprising, the republican motto

Revolution.

From

was never

at

any

it is

We

possible to attach names.

rate, to

most educated Frenchmen):

any point during the

truly institutionalized at

the very first days of the great event, the French

showed

a

predilection for ternary formulas, perhaps because the Estates General consisted of three orders.

Among

these, the first

Masonic echoes could be heard

and foremost was

la

Nation, la Loi,

in the slogan Union, Force, Vertu.

le

Roi.

And then there was

Force, Egalite, Justice and Liberie, Surete, Propriete. Liberte, Egalite, Fraternite also

turns up, but no

Even more

surprising

Jacobin period.

uments

more

often than the others, in fact probably is

the fact that

no

stable ternary

somewhat

less often.

motto was associated with the

On the seals that embellish the vast cartloads of administrative doc-

that the Revolution

produced, such as the papers of the commissaires aux

armies, one finds Liberte, Unite, Egalite; Liberte, Egalite, Justice; Liberte, Raison, Egalite; and even Activite, Purete, Surveillance.

our triad

still

had numerous

rivals,

and

its

The

future

clear,

but

ill-assured. Liberty

and

ternary obsession

seemed

is

— a

Liberty, Equality, Fraternity

Equality seem to have been solidly paired, however: Chinard called them "immortal

companions"

in

which he chose

commenting on

a bas-relief that he did for the city hall of Lyons, for

of the Great King with two allegorical queens;''

to replace the statue

or else they were twins, as in

Durand and Thibaut's proposal

for a revolutionary

temple, in which Liberty and Equality face each other, one with a cap, the other with a level,

and between them the inscription, "They are inseparable";^

or,

twins again,

"pressed close to each other and ready to cover the world," like the small Liberty and equally small Equality tucked

away in the hand of a colossal Hercules in the program

of a sculptural competition from Year in

which they hovered

as

11;^ or,

again, twins in countless official seals

winged tutelary figures above the

terrestrial globe.

In this treasure trove of words and images the relative absence of the ternity is striking. It

was already absent from the

Man and

the Declaration of the Rights of

the Constitution of 1791 but only in an

cahiers de doleances

the Citizen of 1789.

added

article

on

It

word yra-

and ignored

was alluded

rights. In the 1793

in

to in

Jacobin

Declaration of Rights, Robespierre invoked Equality and Liberty (in that order, as

nineteenth-century socialists were fond of remembering) as well as Security and

Property (which the same

Here, Fraternity was men-

socialists preferred to forget).

tioned only in passing, as a possibility connected with a universal extension of the

Declaration of Rights:

"Men of

one nation declares himself

countries are brothers; he

all

to be the

enemy of

all."

who

oppresses only

And Fraternity was also

absent

from the Declaration of August 1793, even though that document made social rights a prerequisite. And as for the program of thirty-seven festivals to be celebrated on decadis [the tenth day of the ten-day

TRANS.])

—

festivals

were devoted

none

a

week

in the

revolutionary calendar

program developed by Mathieu but appropriated by Robespierre to Liberty;

—two

one to the marriage of Liberty and Equality; but

to Fraternity.'

How and by whom was the third term proposed when the motto was first adopted.'^ We know that in May 1791, at the Club des Cordeliers, following a speech on the army by the Marquis de Girardin justice

and universal fraternity

audience expressed

its

(in

which he asserted

as the basis

French people "want

of their Constitution"), the enthusiastic

wish that every French soldier should henceforth wear over his

heart a badge emblazoned with the three

was in the same

that the

words

club, again during a discussion

Liberty, Equality, Fraternity.

And

of military uniforms and insignia

strangely military baptism for the most pacific of the three sisters

—

that

it

—

Momore

proposed the three conjoined words as a motto. They did not occur in oaths, however: not in the oath that the king's flight to Varennes in the oath

of August

10, 1792,

uphold liberty and equality or

which

else die

made it necessary to

ran, "I swear to

defending them." Clearly,

Fraternity to win a place alongside Liberty and Equality.'" in this

more frequently

after the fall

of the monarchy.

reformulate, nor

be loyal to the Nation and to

It

It

it

took a while for

seems to have succeeded

was then

that the directorate

81

82

MONA OZOUF of the Seine departement invited property owners to paint on the facades of their buildings these words in giant letters: "Unity-Indivisibility

of the Republic. Liberty-EqualityFraternity or death." Official corre-

spondence, especially military correspondence, ended with the vibrant

formula Salut

one who

et Fraternite.

that

recalls

And

any-

emblem of

Jacobinism, the painting by Regnault (see figure 3.0),

down

whose canvas

Liberty

is split

by the genius of

the middle

France a heroic

offering

choice between Liberty and Death,

remember

will also

portrayed

with

that Liberty

is

attributes

of

the

Equality (the level) and Fraternity (the sheaf), a syncretism typical of a

newly emergent symbolic system." In other words, the birth of the republican motto was not a spectacular

occasion, nor

was

clearly marked.

it

Official papers throughout the

Revo-

lution often contained brief aphoristic

phrases that might also have served as revolutionary mottoes;

many of

these

were taken from the writings of Voltaire, such as

republicans"

"Who

"Be worthy of being

and

the

everlasting

serves the fatherland well has

no need of forebears." Some commentators have nevertheless tried to give an exact chronology of this uncertain emergence. Aulard suggested

FIGURE

3.1

La Liberte etl'Egalite, "immortal

companions"; bas-relief by Chinard hall of

Lyons, inaugurated

FIGURE

3.2

in

for the city

1793.

Hercules, Liberty, Equality: Le

Peuple souverain; aWeqory by A. Dupre,

ca. 1790.

Liberty, Equality, Fraternity

FIGURE

La Liberte et I'Egalite unies par la Nature;

3.3

anonymous engraving, FIGURE

de

la

ca. 1790.

emblemes anonymous eighteenth-

La Raison rendant honneur aux

3.4

Liberte et de I'Egalite;

century painting.

that the

motto was created

in three stages,

each

corresponding to a distinct phase of the revo-

came

lutionary process.'^ First, he argues, Liberty, the

most popular concept

days of the Revolution.

of August

lo, 1792,

brought Equality into the

limelight. Fraternity's until the

Then

in the early

the insurrection

moment

did not

come

Montagnard period. According

to

Aulard, then, the ternary motto reflects a tem-

who

poral sequence. Mathiez,

Aulard on

agreed with

this point, suggested that fraternity

was an even

later addition,

Masonic

in origin,

The

that did not really take hold until 1848.

revolutionary calendar lends this idea: the revolutionaries

tinguished between Year in by

Bastille

I

some support

of Liberty, ushered

Day 1789, and Year I of Equality,

inaugurated by the insurrection of August 1792.

to

themselves dis-

10,

During the debate on the Girondin

Constitution, Barere shouted: "Until

now we now

had made only the Revolution of Liberty;

we have made the Revolution of Equality, which we discovered beneath the rubble of the throne." And Robespierre greeted the dawn of the Jacobin era with these words:

"The

reign

of Equality has begun."

This attempt tion,

at retrospective rationaliza-

according to which the ternary structure

of the motto faithfully

reflects the

sequence of the Revolution,

is

far

temporal

from con-

vincing, however. For one thing, Fraternity

was by no means

a late invention or a

product of the popular movement;

it

quite early in the Revolution. Michelet

triumph in the

first

pure

appeared

saw its

great revolutionary festi-

83

Liberty, Equality, Fraternity

val, the Festival

of the Federation, participants

"to remain united to the difficulty

very

the French

all

gle motto to emerge.

It

in a single is

to,

for they

probably

commented

They saw and considered them

swear an oath

For another,

fraternity."

why

it

took so long for a sin-

the revolutionaries of not

on the problems with

endlessly

the difficulty of

all:

to

thought was apparent from the

would be quite misleading to accuse

knowing what they were up their motto.

which were obUged

by indissoluble bonds of

of combining the three words

days of the Revolution, and that

first

in

wedding Liberty

to

Equality; the difficulty of combining Fraternity with the other two; the difficulty of arriving at a satisfactory order of enunciation; and finally, the difficulties

from the revolutionary tragedy Originally

it

wedding

ficulty in

itself,

which raised suspicions about

might have been possible to believe liberty to equality, so

perfect equivalence between the two.

ity it

three words.

all

would be no

real dif-

the texts that argued for a

liberty, indeed, there

could be no

But without equal-

in misfortune.

secured by law there could be no liberty: whether the law protected or punished,

was equal treatment

liberty.

What

not share ity

numerous were

Without

under a despot equality was possible only

equality:

that there

stemming

it

—

the equal right to protection or punishment

—

equally.-^

Hence

was no reason

there

more

clearly than Sieyes:

"A

if all

did

to raise the issue of the compatibil-

of liberty and equality or of the precedence of one over the other.

the point

that ensured

did freedom of opinion mean, asked Rabaut Saint-Etienne,

society in

No one made

which one man may be

freer than

another would surely be a very ill-ordered society and would need to be reconstituted."

The

perfectly.

universality of the law guaranteed that liberty and equality coincided

This identity was based on

dence or protection from arbitrary in

an abstract,

juridical

each individual stood

motto such

a

negative definition of liberty as indepen-

rule. It further

manner: the law was

at

scales, the

loi egale,

that equality

of a

was defined

circle,

from which

an equal distance. With such a representation in mind, a

as Liberty, Equality

made

perfect sense.

Volney proposed, with the further suggestion with the

assumed

like the center

And

that Justice

this

was precisely what

be added and

that,

along

sword, and the book, the flag should bear this inscription: "A

la

qui juge et protege."'^

This easy identification raised a whole host of

difficulties,

however. At times the

Constituent Assembly slighted equality for the sake of liberty, as

when

it

imposed

property qualifications for voting, an inequality justified by a concern to ensure

independence on the part of voters. But the Assembly also abridged liberty for the sake of equality: the freedom to favor or disfavor certain children in a will was

contested on the grounds that bequests.

it

reintroduced inequality in the form of unequal

An individual could then create

"active" citizens (that

the property qualifications for voting) and "passive" citizens

is,

citizens

who met

(who did not meet

those qualifications) at will (hence the concern here was in a sense the same as in the first example).''*

Though

well aware of these difficulties, which they debated at

85

86

MONA

OZOUIi

length, the deputies of the Constituent liberty

and equality as

Assembly did not go so

antithetical. In the

far as to conceive

of

Jacobin period things were very different,

because equality was then defined in terms not of rights but of property and pleasure and even individual accomplishment, misfortune, prosperity, talent, success or the lack thereof,

all

common

of which was supposed to be proportionate "to the

mass." This form of equality, which had to do not with each man's equal right to envisage the fulfillment of his dreams but with identity of the result, required the explicit sacrifice

of liberty to equality. As Babeuf showed quite

would not only have

that people

to

clearly, this

meant

be forced to achieve equality by giving up what

they had (a detestable but presumably temporary task) but also forced to maintain equality (an endless task requiring a

would then be necessary humanity," the

man

this

artist

it

a social blight, a "conspirator against

strong enough to do the

necessary to reduce the talented

denominator). In

whole arsenal of coercive means, because

stamp out as

to

work of four men,

it

would be

or gifted intellectual to the least

common

just as

Babouvist conception, there was no longer any room for each

own preferences and predilections, that is, Babouvist banner contained only a single compound word,

person to seek happiness according to his

Hence

in liberty.

egalite-parfaite: a

Were

liberty

the

whole motto unto

itself.

and equality then twins, as peacefully, religiously harmonious

Chinard imagined them.^ Or were they enemies.^ Twins

to

as

be sure, in the sense that

only individual rights could be universalized, and yet also enemies, because liberty is

indeterminate, whereas equality requires determination (equal to whom.'' equal to

what.''),

thus giving rise to that

The men of

they attributed like

modern woe,

the need to

the Revolution meditated long and hard it,

with Rabaut Saint-Etienne, to the

on

times, they saw, as

Baudot

did, a trait of the

when

it

an old nation

attempted reform.

French national temperament

that set the heart beating faster for equality than for liberty, a

theme that,

of Roederer and Tocqueville, had a bright future ahead of

it.

those who, like Necker, laid

it

to others.

Sometimes

this antithesis.

difficulties that

France, paralyzed by custom and habit, encountered

At other

compare oneself

And

in the

hands

then there were

down as a rule that a society of equality could not live

without coercion. Could one inscribe socially and humanly contradictory principles

on

the

tions,

same

banner.''

but surely not

We come now lution, the

to

Perhaps, if

if

one saw

empyrean of

to those

two

men

of the Revo-

soeurs ennemies. Liberty

It is

of harmony rather than contract, of

more

carnal than intellectual,

more

this distinctiveness in its

own

commu-

religious than

more spontaneous than contemplative. The iconography of

emphasizes

and

of another order, the order of duties rather than

statutes,

nity rather than individuality.

abstrac-

an exhortation to immediate, concrete action.

an even more redoubtable task faced by the

of bonds rather than

juridical,

as

problem of adding Fraternity

Eqitality. Fraternity is clearly rights,

the motto were placed in the

it

fraternity

fashion: bambini, bouquets, kisses, and

Liberty, Equality, Fraternity

doves are the attributes of

this third

oped than the other two and who bird's nest in her

left.

Invoked

is

calmer and more fully develin

her right hand and a

sisters

and rarely exported

one image holds a heart

in

less

who

goddess,

87

frequendy than her

(Jacobin Italy liked to attach streamers emblazoned with the words Liberty and Equality to

its

seldom appeared'^),

liberty trees, but Fraternity

the trio brought

this last

member of

the problems of the motto to the fore: the compatibility of the

all

three terms, the order of their appearance, and the order of their enunciation.

What was

the correct order.^

ternal people's

movement

useful to consider

The Revolution

to raise the issue,

two examples. The

Oath, an inaugural

moment

if

did not wait for the allegedly fra-

which cropped up quite

first is

one. Driven from their meeting place

and forbidden to reassemble, the deputies of the Third Estate swore an oath not separate before they had voted on a

new

be

famous scene of the Tennis Court

the

ever there was

early. It will

The

constitution.

to

actual oath says nothing

about the constitution, however, and concentrates exclusively on the simple fact of the deputies' meeting.

There

is

shows the deputies making two out toward Bailly, who,

standing in the center

left

arms

—

the

left is

that

the

of the to

is

ancients, in

which the gesture of the

left

is

by David. The

their right

hall,

artist

arms they reach

points heavenward, pre-

emerge from

their deliberations,

—

each reaches around

arm of

the shoulder or waist of his neighbor. This

this scene

With

distinct gestures.

sumably designating the constitution while with their

image of

a celebrated

fraternity

virile fraternity, inspired

by the

arm tempers and counterbalances the ges-

ture of the right.

The

texts that cluster

around

this

scene specify the FIGURE

kind of fraternity

it

involved: a fraternity of rebellion,

which flourished only because the deputies repudiated their subjugation to the father.'^ In a royal

tion

on

proclama-

June 23, that father had declared the delibera-

Third Estate

tions of the

illegal

and issued

his imperi-

ous order: "I order you. Messieurs, to disperse at once."

The

fraternity of the Tennis Court,

therefore erupted in disobedience,

was

which

a horizontal

rather than a vertical relation, a conquest and not a condition: these

men were

brothers not by heredity, in a

relation of submission to the father, but

Fraternity

grew out of

cemented by the cause

is

liberty;

common

it

by

free choice.

was defined and

cause, and that

common

the authority transcending the entire scene, the

authority designated by Bailly's raised finger, the invisible figure

of the Nation, a voluntary association

of free and equal

men who have

just

gained political

3.6

attributes;

One

heart,

two doves:

Fraternity's tender

anonymous eighteenth-century engraving.

MONA OZOUF

88

existence through a fraternal act. nity

was

built out

The

fraternal

of free individuals, and

its

commu-

fraternity

completed and complemented liberty and equality.

Hence

the order of

what was not yet

a

motto was the

right one.

A second type of fraternity soon emerged from those early days of the Revolution as well, however:

it

was

evident in the discourse of the patriotic Church, in ser-

mons and ceremonies

(such as federative festivals and

civic baptisms) intended to

make

between the constitution and clergy used the

visible the

harmony

The

patriotic

religion.

word fraternity

to

evoke the primitive

made

the

power and wealth,

the

church, the church whose forsaken values actual

Church ashamed of

its

church whose original purity they hoped to revive. FIGURES

3.7, 3.8,

Fraternite;

AND

3.9

L'Egalite, la Liberte etia

drawn and engraved by Debucourt,

eighteenth century.

What was

the patriotic clergy

fraternity: the social

were

identical in nature.'^

saw

in the primitive

bond and the

To

church

religious

bond

establish that identity

also to establish, as the patriotic cures

was

were bound and

determined to do, that any adversary of the society that issued from the Revolution

was by the same token an adversary of

the church of fraternity.

The

doctrine of the

Incarnation was the basis of this identity between the social and the religious. Ever

Adam, men had been figures, however imperfect, of Christ; although the Incarnation did not create human grandeur, it did decisively reveal it. Since God since

Liberty, Equality, Fraternity

but a single man, a unique effect of an indivisible action."'^

man was

Larnourette called the "concorporality" of Christian bears the

men

the Incarnation offered the uhimate proof that "all

made himself man,

mark of

the divine,

are as

The human side of what

fraternity, because, as

each

are brothers.

all

This second kind of fraternity was clearly quite different from the fraternity of the Tennis Court.

Not

and acted upon. But

it

it,

too, did not

was

to

be rediscovered

being voluntary, put to the gift that

have to be put into practice, experienced,

that

test in the

common

came directly from God. As such,

among men Vergniaud,

but a matter of assent. it

it

not invented. Far from

task of building the Nation,

equality, daughter

liberty,

right: fraternity, the true origin

Abbe Gregoire

in

first,

it

The

and most

order of

of

fertile

first.

all

This for-

September 179 when he declared that 1

"religion brings us fraternity, equality, liberty."^' up, therefore,

a

and, according to

of nature.

three principles, capable of engendering the other two, ought to come

mulation was proposed by

was

it

was not a matter of contract or conquest

obviously preceded

was the mother of "true

was therefore not

the motto

It

at its source,

As

the revolutionary curtain

went

revealed not one but two fraternities of different inspiration:^^ the

which followed

and

liberty

equality,

was

the result of a free pact; the other pre-

ceded liberty and equality as the divine workman's mark upon his handiwork. There

were two ways

to chant the Revolution's motto.

This difficulty concealed another, which cast doubt on the very possibility of combining the three antagonistic terms into a single motto. Could fraternity be to the individualistic values of liberty

and

equality.^

To

wedded

the extent that one conceives

of fraternity as the realization of a happy, conflict-free community and the very antithesis

of selfishness,

it

tends to discredit the project of individual autonomy.^^

was this very incompatibility that erupted as to invoke the extravagant

in the

Jacobin period.

Without going so

It

far

pages in which Saint-Just justified incest on the grounds

of the security of proximity and the horror of marrying a foreigner (because for him the

most corrupt peoples were those who obeyed the

much better-known

texts in

incest taboo^'*),

which he sings the praises of amicable

we

can

cite the

fraternity: not

only does he hold in Institutions republicaines that friends ought to be buried in the

same grave and wrapped

in the

same winding sheet, but he further states that any pact

not concluded in conditions of fraternity

is

to

be considered null and void. There

no more eloquent statement of the opposition

and equality and the distrust of the individual ego than exhibits the

preeminence of fraternity and

its

is

to the independent values of liberty

priority over

this proposition, all

which

individualistic values.

Jacobin fraternity was symbolized by "fraternization," a procedure in which the

"advanced" militants

in a section,

backed by deputations from other, more combat-

ive sections, joined together to expel their

thus

wore

the face of death. ^'^

How,

more

then, could

tepid fellow members.^^ Fraternity it

have joined

its sisters

part of the revolutionary motto.'^ It obviously excluded liberty, because

it

to

become

was accom-

89

9°

MONA OZOUF panied by violent coercion.

who dreamed of

It

even excluded freedom of conscience, since to those

the fusion of self and others, the

or even, as Saint-Just said, of not thinking sion:

"Whoever

and those

fact

it

of thinking for oneself

was tantamount

to criminal seces-

was

also incompatible

thinks about nothing thinks about evil."

with equality, since ers

at all

mere

It

established a sharp distinction between those

who were

not: "In a free people," the Section des

"there are only brothers and enemies," and here there

was no

who were broth-

Marches declared,

possibility

of trans-

We can gauge the degree to which fraternity was

forming the enemy into a brother.

invaded by suspicion and hatred, and even measure the distrust of a fraternity that

was alleged

to

be an expansive outgrowth of liberty and equality, by examining

Barere 's speech of Messidor, Year II, attacking the practice of holding civic banquets

during sectional

festivals.^^

fraternity" so threatening.''

What made

the touching dining rituals of the "tables of

To begin with,

the very fact that they

were touching: the

"indulgent" were attacked for their readiness to offer "premature amnesty." In addi-

The banquets were

"overzealous" were attacked for their excess.

tion, the

sions for confusion

—

the very opposite of the hoped-for fusion: they

also occa-

combined the

confusions of nighttime and drunkenness and mingled the sexes and the

sects.

They

brought chaos, which abetted the intrigues of "hideous aristocracy," and occasioned accolades that failed to disclose the

weak at heart while providing camouflage

most dubious encounters.^^ Worst of

moment was

ripe:

all,

for the

they promoted reconciliation before the

revolutionary times were not meant for achieving fraternal una-

nimity. Revolutionary fraternity

meant "succoring the unfortunate, defending

oppressed patriots, eliminating corrupting aristocrats, and denouncing disguised counter-revolutionaries."

was

far too

soon

equality. Fraternity

arrived,

a future, since

thought, and

it

Revolution had

verbs of rapprochement, two verbs of distance.

fraternity

encompassing the entire

must instead be "restrained": so much

Once Thermidor

much of

Two

dream of

to

it

it

just

much

for liberty.

was so

difficult to sustain

in

it

in practice or conceive

word and deed. The men of

motto had nearly plunged them.

in

the

Now

they were preoccupied lib-

of course, and also to equality, provided that the definition could once again be

limited to equality of rights.

On the other hand, they were anxious not to follow the

slippery slope to "real" equality implicit in and required

At

it

measured the depth of the abyss into which the uncontrollable

with restoring the links to 1789 and, beyond, to the inaugural Enlightenment: to erty,

It

for

might seem that our ternary motto no longer had

had compromised with death

vicissitudes of their

earth: so

a time

when

the most universally

ures of the period, put

it,

it

in his report

ity inserted

bosom of gentle and

entirely satisfactory as a motto,

on public instruction. The

between

its

feeling of fraternity.

need was, as Daunou, one of the key

for "repose in the

"Order and Liberty" seemed posed

felt

by the

fig-

peaceful passions,"

and he therefore pro-

same formula, sometimes with equal-

two more respectable companions (Liberty, Equality,

Liberty, Equality, Fraternity

Order), appeared in the ministerial acts of Year VI and continued in service until the First

Consul came up with a motto of

later,

Flaubert encountered the latter in his travels, inscribed in gold letters on cof-

fee cups that

his

own: Liberty, Public Order. Fifty years

had survived the debacle of the

First

Empire.

In his Memoires d'outre-tombe, Chateaubriand wrote about the difficulty of white-

washing the threatening

when

can motto

it

was

suffix "or death" that

was frequently added

to the republi-

painted on the walls of deconsecrated churches.

Though

painted over, the words had a habit of stubbornly showing through, like an allegor-

of the indelible nightmare of revolution.

ical revival

triad,

which stood

like the ruins

of an unfinished monument.

sible to believe in the possibility

olutionaries

had believed

endowed with

rights

It

the

was no longer pos-

of wedding freedom of thought and equal rights

with fraternity and equal outcomes.

were loosened, how were they

The Terror now haunted

When

bonds among free and equal men much less live in, fraternity.'' The rev-

the

to conceive of,

that individuals, before

belonging to any community, were

and that such isolated rights-bearing individuals could some-

how muster the inspiration and energy necessary to reconstruct the entire social fabric; everyone now believed that this idea had been an aberration, an aberration that summed up the meaning of the Revolution. "Liberty, Equality, Fraternity" truths at

was therefore an

war with one another. There

is

extreme

left

motto, a series of partial

no better index of the

the age than the consciousness of this absurdity tain air of family

illogical

—

intellectual climate

of

a consciousness that lends a cer-

resemblance to apparently antagonistic philosophies of the

and extreme

right, socialist as well as traditionalist, all predicated

on the

notion that once a community embraces the idea of individual rights, chaos and dis-

order follow.

The same notion

liberals. Liberals

that equality

what

Mme

fueled the irreconcilable

as equal protection rather than equal enjoyment,

by

contrast, set

which they regarded

social as well as a fraud. Indeed, they

now developed

their

tion to the debate, an idea with a great future ahead of

greater

sympathy

was

socialists

and that

no

store

own distinctive contribu-

it:

namely, that liberty

for equality. In their eyes, equality could take

The only

the mother of Liberty and Equality,

it

was the

was by

sole

a

one of two forms: lev-

value of which Utopian

and the

social expres-

commandment:

Fraternity, as

fraternity, a truly distinctive principle

sion of love. For the citizens of Icarie

is

much

of individuality (Fourier), whereas

the opposite of equity (Saint-Simon).

approved was

by lib-

as a pure negation of the

does not contribute to the general prosperity. Not that they had

orchestration limited the exuberant profusion

eling

and

de Stael called "savage equality," in her eyes a Jacobin invention, was

erty in the sense of independence,

if it

socialists

accepted the heritage of rights, of liberty and equality, provided

was defined

repudiated; they had no use for fraternity. Socialists,

sham

war between

itself sufficient to

hold the community

91

92

MONA OZOUF together.^' True,

Cabei did accept the other two terms of the motto, but only on a

condition that no hberal can abide: that hberty should be defined as "the collective

union of

all

individual forces."

When

Cabet's

troupe

little

New World, it is to the strains of a new Chant du depart, by volunteers wearing black velvet tunics and gray

at last

embarks for the

sung on the deck of the ship

felt hats:

Proletaire, seche tes pleurs,

Allons fonder notre Icarie, Soldats de

la Fraternite,

Allons fonder en Icarie

Le bonheur de I'Humanite. Also

at stake in this clash

between

pretation of the French Revolution.

socialists

and

The phases of

liberals

was of course the

the event that one

inter-

camp admired

(1789 for the liberals, 1793 for the socialists), the other reviled. Histories of the

Revolution gave up trying to derive a single meaning from the event: instead of a unitary process historians began to see contradictory episodes (the triumph of indi-

vidualism followed by attempts to "deliver the

Human Race from

the monster of

individualism"^^) and divided leaders (those who, like Buchez's Girondins, do not

understand that "the goal of the Revolution

who do were

is

the

work of

and those

understand, like Robespierre and his friends). These syncopated histories

a far cry

from Clemenceau's

later contention that the

unified whole; they seemed to leave no

room

for a

Revolution was a

new opportunity

bloc,

or

comprehensive interpretation,

hence no way of making sense of the republican motto. In a

Fraternity, "^^

fact,

1830 did not create

for Liberty, Equality, Fraternity: the republican

triated the tricolor flag but not the three sacramental words,

and

it

monarchy repasaw no need

for

any motto other than Order and Liberty. Compared with the Napoleonic motto Liberty, Public Order,

which slammed the heavy door of Public Order on the idea

new motto had the advantage of allowing liberty a little more breathing room thanks to the conciliatory virtue of the coordinating conjunction. But who of Liberty, this

actually

saw

this.''

Yet there were places and minds alive or in

out-of-the-way places

like those

ered the religion of the lost

the goal and the Republic after another; the

is

its

resurrection

underground

La

sites in

laid.

Marginal minds and

which George Sand discov-

the "Invisibles";^'* the meeting places of

the means"; the courts in

left;

was

Tribune wrote in 1833, "liberty and equality are

Masonic lodges,

brochures of the extreme

which the memory of the old motto was kept

word among

those secret societies of which.

one

in

which the groundwork for

like the

which republicans were

Lodge of

tried

the Indivisible Trinity; the

the minutes of the insurgent workers in Lyons, dated

according to the old republican calendar 22 Germinal, Year XLII; the walls of Sainte-Pelagie; and the pages of certain reviews:

when La Revue

republicaine

was

Liberty, Equality, Fraternity

born

in 1834,

editor,

its

Dupont, the attorney for the Societe des Droits de

rHomme,

explained that the purpose of the pubHcation, the true "social goal of the nineteenth century,"

was equality, "which entails as a consequence liberty for the individual.

All

men aspire to liberty and equality, but one cannot achieve that goal without the help of other men, without fraternity." In his eyes

observation justified "the three

this

terms of the republican motto." Thus the words were passed on, from tribunal to pamphlet, from banquet toast to editorial, until

campaign of

"Between

that time

when your

they resurfaced in the banquet

when the new light own home, religiously

ancient faith died and the time

be given unto you, every night,

shall

at last

1847. In Lille, Ledru-Rollin urged his audience to hope and believe:

in the

privacy of your

repeat the immortal creed: Liberty, Equality, Fraternity." In predicting the victory of democracy, Ledru-Rollin paid

had surreptitiously

that

matured it:

in a climate

laid the

groundwork

for

it.

The

homage

to the ideas

old motto had in fact

of dissidence that outlived the circumstances that had created

socialism for Pierre Leroux, traditionalism for Chateaubriand and Ballanche. For

these two, the conviction that each age of

word included

human

history reinterprets the divine

a rehabilitation of the revolutionary age,

have played an indispensable part republican motto:

all

in the fulfillment

that the revolutionaries

which could

now be seen to

of Christianity, as well as of the

had lacked was a

full

awareness of their

motto's supernatural origins. Liberty, because the progress of God's creatures

toward the Good willed by their Creator assumed their free consent. Equality, because the equality of souls postulated by Christianity heralded the coming equality

of the

classes.

And

Fraternity, of course, since the law of love

was

the original

contribution, the very spirit of Christianity. Interpreted in this way, the values of the

motto became that

was

irresistible, the

positive at

dor of his

last.

generative and regenerative principles of a history

Chateaubriand would grace

style in the conclusion to the

from being at its political

its

its

with

all

Memoires d'outre-tomb e, written

end, the religion of the Liberator

period,

this insight

is

barely entering

its

the splen-

in 184 1:

"Far

third period,

period of liberty, equality, fraternity."^^ Neither he nor

Ballanche dwelt on the order of the three values or on any contradictions that might exist

among them. Taken

together, their mission

Christianity. Like Christianity itself, they

was

to fulfill the

promise of

were but another expression of the human

idea in progress.

Another dissident

thinker, in this case a dissident

from socialism, was Pierre

Leroux, whose effervescent mind also strove to resurrect the shattered motto.

No

one saw more clearly than he that the "holy motto" was not a truism but an enigma, "the mysterious triangle that presided over our emancipation and

upon our

laws."

And no one was

less

was

set as a seal

disposed to hide the difficulties involved in

holding such contradictory values together.

What did the proponents of individual lack.'^ And what did the champions of

sovereignty with their contempt for equality

93

94

MONA OZOUF collective sovereignty with their

contempt for

liberty also lack?

A

religion capable

of reconciling their partial truths, a religion glimpsed by Rousseau credits as the motto's father)

"science" did Leroux have in mind? its

(whom Leroux What

even though he lacked the necessary "science." It

involved,

first

of

assigning each term to

all,

proper place. Liberty must be acknowledged as the goal (since society owes

isfaction to the individual), equality as the principle (a law prior to

and fraternity

(a sentiment

governing the actions of the

all

citizen) as the

sat-

other laws),

means. Next,

the motto's genealogy had to be revealed: the line ran from the liberty of the

Spartans and

Romans

to the equality of the

way of

Rousseauian Enlightenment by

the fraternity of early Christianity. This syncretic formula telescoped three ages of

mankind: the energetic activity of the ancient republics, the

Middle Ages, and the

critical reflection

lofty

emotion of the

of the Enlightenment. Finally, the three

terms must not be separated. The tragedy of the French Revolution was to have witnessed the confrontation of three sects that mutually exterminated one another, each

two and brandishing

insensible to the sanctity of the other for Robespierre, Liberty for

own banner:

its

Equality

Danton, and Fraternity for Desmoulins.^'' Note

that in

attempting to retrace the history of the motto, Pierre Leroux reserved the middle place for Fraternity. Fraternity socialism: the original

was

in

any case

in

vogue among adepts of Christian

emblem proposed by Buchez shows

Jesus trampling

hydra of sensuality, selfishness, and pride and waving the banner of This fraternal Christ

is

on the

fraternity.^''

flanked by two winged figures, part angel, part

woman:

Liberty carries a sword, while Equality holds an open book whose text proclaims love of

God and

one's neighbor.

A

order Liberty, Fraternity, Equality:

correct reading of the motto thus implies the

this is the

same order

that

Leroux had

in

mind

in

1830 and expressed in 1847 in dreaming of the bright future that lay in store for

France after

it

"understood

finally

its

formula religiously": "Liberty will reign,

ternity will reign, equality will reign." This

impose

in 1848

when

Before looking

the

at the

dream seemed

fra-

was the formula he would attempt

for a time to

have been

to

fulfilled.

motto's sudden reemergence in the wake of a second revo-

lution in 1848, however, let us pause for a

moment

bright future in store, that of Michelet. Michelet

to

examine

was prepared

a synthesis

with a

to agree with the pre-

ceding thinkers that the motto's origins were Christian: he took seriously the idea of

"new dawn"

1789 as a

in

which bishops and

priests

had busied themselves with

rein-

terpreting the religion of Christ in revolutionary terms. But something prevented

him from

fully accepting the Christian interpretation: the

insurmountable and

ulti-

mately unacceptable division that Christianity posited between the natural and the supernatural.

was

The

subjugation antithetical to religion.

Hence

human salvation is utterly dependent on divine favor who could not accept a religion of grace, privilege, and the rights of man. Nevertheless, man cannot do without

idea that

repellent to Michelet,

in place of the old altar, "filthy

and worm-eaten," he would have to

Liberty, Equality, Fraternity

new

erect a

one, "higher and

more

That new

truthful" than the old.

altar

was noth-

ing other than the republican motto.

As

a

man of his time,

motto, Fraternity. That

Michelet was most enthusiastic about the third term of that

is

why for him the central moment in the Revolution was the

Festival of the Federation,

which he took

to

be emblematic of a sudden and mirac-

ulous lowering of class barriers, of a reconciliation of the people with the bour-

and of fraternal unity among men. But even

geoisie,

the appearance of a

new

ority of individual rights ("before being brothers,

claimed for the people was

was therefore

How,

if

France owed these boons to

religion, Michelet continued to believe in the essential pri-

justice,

one has

The

not duty."

to be"^^):

"What had to be

traditional reading of the

motto

correct.

then, does

one move from rational communication between

individuals to fraternal

which he summarized

and equal

How can one brandish both the banner of indi-

communion?

vidual rights and the banner of

free

Michelet was well aware of the difficulty,

fraternity.''

in his journal in

1847 after a

visit

from

a

Communist weaver

from Rouen. The worker and the historian had discussed ways of reconciling communitarian preaching with the progress of individualism in the modern world. difficulty, tive,

or

is

Michelet noted, was

this: "i. If fraternity is left to feeling,

effective only in brief

and made imperative,

it is

moments of enthusiasm.

no longer

voluntary, and that brings us back to sentiment, which

For Michelet there was only one

way of

written into law

to extend

we have

rather than being of another order. After

it, it

nature

is

view that

same

the

from the

all,

feelings of equality

the just

fulfills his

see others recognized as equal for

fraternity

is

all,

hence that

all

man

and

human

not a bond of kinship, as

relies

on himself but wants

ternal solidarity," then ternity: the

it is

easy to

duty; he always feels obliged to

and respecting the idea that human

beings are brothers. If one takes the it is

for Christianity,

Michelet 's syncretism

is

above

the Republic

bond of

which creates an justice, in

which

individual liberty and equality to fra-

like the steps

of a majestic staircase, easy to

at a time. is

far

from philosophically convincing. One struggles

grasp the idea of communication that that

others. It

be able to count on others through "fra-

move from

words of the motto are thus

climb one step

to

justice

does not believe that the

unjust solidarity between the sinner and the innocent, but a

each person

must be

already rejected."

do more. Equality does not mean simply accepting one's equality with

means wanting to

The

not effec-

resolving this difficulty: to transform fra-

ternity into a feeling that derives naturally

material performance of an equitable act

2. If it is

you want

fraternal. 3. If

it is

all

is at

other rights." Yet that syncretism was historically effective.

was

established,

order, with the emphasis

on

assurance that the Rights of

it

to

once rational and fraternal and of a "right

turned to

its

Once

old motto, arranged in the canonical

"fraternal solidarity."

Man were by no means

And

it

turned to Michelet for

exclusively a charter for indi-

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i

just as Christ

at

Deux

veritads, in

tedious length that,

redeemed Adam's

sin, Eiffel in

turn absolved the "grandsons of Noah": Eiffel,

Pour

dans ton amour, efface leur grand crime.

la gloire

Eiffel,

de Dieu, lance

la

tour sublime;

dans ton genie, eleve un vaste

Ou le peuple et les [Eiffel, in

Rois viennent a ton appel.

your love, erase

For the glory of God, Eiffel, in

autel,

their great crime.

raise the

tower sublime;

your genius, erect a vast

altar

To which people and Kings may come when you

call.]

Despite proposals to build similarly grandiose towers, such as an 1822 project by the English engineer Trevithick to erect a thousand-foot perforated cast-iron tower or

another unrealized project to build an equally

World's

Fair, the Eiffel

Tower, "rooted

in the

tall

tower for the 1876 Philadelphia

deep clay on which the

of Crenelle hunted reindeer and bison,"^^ seemed

at first

first

inhabitants

"a great joke on the priests,

revenge for the ancient failure of the masons of Shinar."^^ All-powerful science would build the

Tower of Babel

that the

God

of the Bible had forbidden.

It

will

come

as

no

The

Eiffel

Tower

many of the poems sent to Eiffel compared his tower to the Tower of comparison made all the more irresistible by the obvious rhyme with Eiffel:

surprise that

Babel, a

Fleche inebranlable et

jolie

Grande revanche de Babel, Cette tour est

le saint autel

Ou I'humanite

se rallie.

[Unshakable and handsome tower,

Stunning revenge for Babel,

This tower

At which

And this more

is

all

the holy altar

mankind comes

together.]'"'

lapidary verse:

Esclavage: Tour de Babel. Liberte, progres:

Tour

Eiffel!

—

A. Franiatte

Long after the patriotic revanchist cries had faded and surprise and irritation at the "awkward stance'"" had dwindled, it is clear

tower's "scaffoldlike appearance" and that there

was a simple reason why Parisians had been so quick

Tower:

could be seen from everywhere.

it

symbol but an unavoidable

was not only

It

to accept the Eiffel

a republican

and secular

sight. It thus fulfilled the nineteenth century's obsessive

need for a beacon to guide and illuminate. The tower unified the twenty arrondisse-

ments of the

city as effectively as the

new avenues and uniform building codes,

turn-

ing a patchwork of neighborhoods into a single capital. Maupassant deplored the

omnipresence of the tower as one more reason to "steeple," the tower

dominated

new

a

Paris

flee the city.

Like a "beacon" or

whose center of gravity had

shifted

noticeably toward the west, a Paris of "broad boulevards" and "splendid prome-

nades" praised by the same people

who had

signed the 1887 protest petition. In his

very handsome japonisant album of 1902, Trente-six vues de Riviere paid tribute to a pylon that for nonsensical view of the

nent beauty of the great

otherwise multifarious

loomed

as a distant

past.'"'^

In Riviere's paean to both Hokusai and the

modern city.

Paris," the

a distance

it

"war machine," "unmoving and

all-seeing,"

city. It

and

it

it

could seem rather

was slender yet somehow protec-

and comforting. During the Great War people thought of

and "guided the day":

"imma-

Poking up through the clouds, covered with snow,

of Saint Genevieve, watching over the sleeping a

Henri

tower became the sole focal point of an

beacon above an ocean of roofs. Close up

awkward and cumbersome, but from tive

la tour Eiffel,

many was still what Huysmans called "a totally

was

at night

it,

as they

used to think

Paris's secular patroness, it

"controlled the battle"

363

364

HENRI LOYRETTE Et

lumiere en toi

la

fait

bien voir que

France,

la

Meme dans le metal, garde une transparence.

Not only was

[And

the light in

Even

in metal, retains its transparency.]

you shows

clearly that France,

the tower visible everywhere, but

everywhere, thereby making an old dream come writers, painters,

''^

also allowed people to see

it

true. In the nineteenth century,

and photographers had climbed "as high as they could." Victor

Hugo had gone up to the top of Notre-Dame in order to bring medieval Paris back to life. The Goncourt brothers had gone to the top of the labyrinth in the Jardin des Plantes to find, "between the tops of the green trees

extending as far as the eye can

Une page d'amour

to write

supposed to be to

make

And

Fourteenth Arrondissement.

could

Haussmann's

Paris.

Montrouge and beyond: one a telescope

it

in the

aerial

ocean of roofs

to Vincennes,

on

a clear

the

from Saint-Denis

work claimed drew up

of the Environs of Paris, Showing Points Visible from the Top of the that

now

is

photography, aimed

day one could see

as far as

to

that with

Raoul

to read signs in Pontoise thirty miles away.

d'Esclaibes d'Hust, director of the tower's service d'optique,

which indicates

is

the Eiffel Tower's second platform the visitor

enthusiastic admirer of Eiffel's

was possible

its

Musee d'Orsay) of what

Nadar, the pioneer of

From

pieces of the great city

Victor Navlet went aloft in a tethered balloon

from Boulogne

at last take in the city

.

which Paris with

(1878), a novel "in

drawing (today

.

Zola had climbed the heights of Passy in order

a character.'"'^ In 1855,

a patient

his lens at

see.'"''*

.

a "Special Eiffel

Map

Tower,"

Evreux, Provins, Chateau-

Thierry, and even Chartres and Beauvais. But the ability to see long distances was

The

not the whole story.

city

looked different from above, and

it

was possible

to

point out well-known monuments, to trace the gradual urbanization of the western quarters of the city that the tower overlooked, and to follow the regular pattern of streets, the strict

alignment of gray stone facades, the emergence of a church here

and there, and the green patches that indicated squares. Faced with

which was not

cle,

in 1889

were

at all like

as astonished

Height did not arrest the be running, thrusting glory of the

Age of

what people had imagined, those who

by what they saw

city's

movement but

as

from making

a

mockery of

memory

tranquillity. In 1923,

else air

—

specta-

tower

it:

"Pedestrians seem to

their legs out like automatons."'*^ People realized that the

Iron, far

Gothics" and obliterating the

new

the "Paris of the sublime

of bygone eras, actually made

wrote a Priere sur la tour Eiffel: "Before

the world

new

Montesquieu's Persian had been.

accelerated

contemplate the centuries in effort,

this

visited the

it

possible to

Giraudoux, updating Kenan's

my eyes lie the ten thousand

acres of

where more has been thought, talked about, and written than anywhere

the freest,

most

elegant, least hypocritical crossroads

on the

planet.

The

and empty space below are the accumulation of Heaven knows how much

light

wit.

The

and

intelligence,

taste.

'"^^

Forty years

erated Giraudoux's prayer.

He

Eiffel

Tower

another worshipper, Chris Marker,

later,

reit-

shot a black-and-white film of the Paris of General

de Gaulle and the Algerian War, a film in which lovely images of the capital are

accompanied by of thought.

.

.

a voice-over narrative: "Here, on-the-job accidents are accidents

On this acre of land, the contemplation of Watteau has caused more

.

Hugo have been the main The filmmaker went on to interview crow's-feet in any museum or varicose

crow's-feet than anything else, and Corneille, Racine, and

cause of the delivery boy's varicose veins. '"'^

who obviously had not contracted veins in any bookstore but who spoke quietly about everyday life, exhausting hours, Parisians

and the

Apart from

its

the tower soon

orchestrated by

on

it.

It

meet.'*'

was another reason why

tibiquitous presence in the Paris sky, there

became

The tower was

icon.

tion

of making ends

difficulty

its

a familiar object:

it

enjoyed quick and extensive success as an

treated to an unprecedented publicity

promoter, Gustave

was famous even before

it

Eiffel.

was

campaign

skillfully

Repeated protests also focused atten-

finished:

between the spring of 1886 and

the inauguration of the tower three years later, countless brochures, articles, and

images eventually in

Le

Soir

tried the patience

on September

1888,

protested: "Until this

finished to general and even universal satisfaction, don't

tower

is

Eiffel

Tower

nuts ought to leave us in peace and stop

into our ears at every artifacts

13,

of even the most benevolent observers. Writing

Henry Buguet

hour of every

In 1939,

day.-^"

hammering

Romi

phenomenal

you think

that the

their gigantic nail

exhibited a collection of

of Eiffelomania: plates, Camembert boxes, bottles, candlesticks, scarves,

brooches, parlor games, trowels, lamps, wallpaper, and postcards.^*' His analysis of the

phenomenon

is

shrewd: "During the

first

ten years, from 1888 to 1898, the sou-

venirs had one purpose: to prove that one had been to Paris, seen the Exposition

He gives this touching description of families gathered in the evening around the new totem: "In the provinces, the man who brought home a thermometer or a pincushion deftly encased in a metal Universelle, and gone up to the top of the tower."

replica of the

tower was

would gather round

a

kind of hero. Every night, the children of the village

in silence to hear the picturesque tale

of the dizzying ascent."^'

Small workshops in Paris and the provinces turned out countless replicas of the

tower

in

sugar or attached to a barometer, souvenir candlesticks and candles, as well

as Eiffel

Tower lollipops, pens, bottles. Erector sets, and key rings.^^ One of the rea-

sons for the tower's success was that tural shorthand: a couple

able

number of

The

it

was so easy

to replicate in a sort of architec-

of clumsy pilings, an arch, and a vertical shaft with a

crisscrossed girders sufficed to

popularity of such images had as

its

convey the essence of the

corollary the disdain of

suit-

icon.

artists.

Hauss-

mann's construction projects caught the eye of painters much more quickly than did the Eiffel Tower.

There was of course the

artists'

protest petition, but weren't the

365

FIGURE

10.7

Georges Seurat, La Tour Eiffel, 1888.

The

signers

Tower

academic painters? The tower wasn't a suitable subject for Degas, and

all

Monet did not live in Pissarro,

Eiffel

who

Paris

and no longer painted views of the

capital.

painted innumerable urban scenes, or Gauguin,

But what about

who

lauded "the

Gothic iron lace,"^^ or the neo-impressionists (Seurat excepted). Luce, Raffaelli, and

many other painters who shunned conventional descriptive painting of the city's historic center

The

urbs?

and turned

Eiffel

their attention to industrial innovations

Tower, located

small factories and modest

as

was

it

in a

and shadowy sub-

changing neighborhood

in

which the

homes of the Fifteenth Arrondissement vied with

the lux-

urious apartment buildings and private residences of the Seventh, should have

caught their eye. Yet only Seurat showed any interest in the tower as

was being

In 1888 he painted a small canvas entitled The Eiffel Tower, perhaps because he

built.

was

it

fascinated

by the formal

similarity

between

his style

and the tower's audacious crisscrossing of metal

The "Steel Muse For the

Eiffel

of a

of juxtaposed brushstrokes

girders.^"*

New World"

Tower the Exposition

Universelle of 1900 nearly proved

enthusiasm dwindled, and the criticism did not

let

fatal.

up. In 1894, as plans

made to build two new exhibition halls for the latest exposition,

the fate of the tower

was vigorously debated. Notwithstanding the concession granting Eiffel the the profits

at its first

meeting that the architects could submit

proposals that would involve eliminating or modifying the Eiffel

Tower. In the Journal des debats (July 20, 1894), Mascart was one of the rare voices to deplore this decision. idea of "modification": "Surely there

The only

is

possible modification

He poked

fun

at the

no question of making

would be

to shorten

it

it,

while preserving a base for which there would no longer be any

And he bristled at the thought of demolition. The archiwho submitted proposals in 1894 exerted all their ingenuity

excuse." tects

to

prove him wrong, pulling out

all

change the appearance of the tower.

the stops in their efforts to

A

designer by the

name of

Lauzin offered the opinion that "what was the centerpiece of 1889 is all

too likely to

become

the wart of 1900."

He went on

pose transforming the tower into a giant waterfall.

to pro-

Drawings

preserved in the National Archives show that most of the proposals suggested only

FIGURE

10.8

right to

from the tower's operation for a period of twenty years, the exposition

planning commission decided

taller.

Popular

were being

minor changes

to the tower's design,

la Colonne du XIX^ siecle, plan to transform the

Exposition Universelle of 1900, by Henri Minderof(?).

Eiffel

Tower

how-

for the

367

HENRI LOYRETTE

368

FIGURE

10.9

Another plan: Le Palais du

siecle,

by Charles-Albert Gautier, 1889.

ever. In a concession to the prevailing taste of the

moment, Bernard and Cousin sug-

gested surrounding the tower with four smaller towers to be attached to lands. tic

Henard and Devic proposed transforming

clock.

And Devic wanted

conies, and arcades.

it

into a

it

watchtower with

by gara gigan-

to decorate the structure with festoons, statues, bal-

For the time being, however, the tower was saved by the

mediocrity of the proposals as well as by

Eiffel's tenacity, existing contracts,

and

The government signed an additional contract with the Tower Corporation on December 28, 1897, under the terms of which the tower

budgetary

restrictions.

became an

official part

was to be

of the 1900 Exposition Universelle; the only modification

the addition of electric lighting to illuminate the structure at night. Despite

improvements intended

to increase profits, public interest

tower received only 1,017,281

visitors, a decline

had waned:

an exposition that "flouts nature and logic at will"^^ mounted structures (of buildings such as the fully concealed, the Eiffel

question of demolishing

thanks to Eiffel

its

real

Grand

Palais

Tower seemed out of

it

though limited usefulness this

1900 the

at a

time

when

metal

and the Gare d'Orsay) were care-

date;

arose again a few years

had adroitly harped on

in

of fifty-one percent from 1889.^^ In

it

had aged

later,

it

rapidly.

When the

survived, but just barely,

as a platform for scientific experiments.

theme ever since 1889, and, understandably pre-

The

Eiffel

Tower

occupied about the fate of his masterpiece, he had actively promoted experiments in

communications, meteorology, and aerodynamics.^^ In 1903, the French

optics,

Association for the Advancement of Science was obliged to publish a vehement "Protest Against the Demolition of the Eiffel Tower."

Engineers followed

When Eiffel's

suit.

The

Society of Civil

concession came up for renewal, the highly

respected architect Jean-Louis Pascal, a disciple of Charles Garnier and the Institut, presented a report to the prefect of the Seine. Despite

up the divergence of opinion on the matter:

clusions, the report pointed

The

interest of a

problem

as fresh

unique structure, the

scientific

and practical solution of a

today as in the past, the durable curiosity of visitors amazed

view from

by

the

of

this structure for past, present,

thousand

a

feet up,

and above

and future

larly for meteorological observations, for

—

comparable resources

and destroy, perhaps

will

we

all

the exceptional suitability

scientific research,

one might wish

sacrifice all this to strict aesthetic

judgments

great cost, without any compensation for the

at

to

and particu-

which no other structure offers

monstrous edifice that would surely look better on a height than that

member of

favorable con-

its

have been more beautiful. ...

If

it

city, a

in a valley

no one would think of building it on the present site or perhaps anywhere but

it

were

does

exist.

to destroy

Do

you not think

what

it

that the

world would be astonished

continues to regard as a stunning monument.'^

After bitter debate, those

who

and

else;

if

we

'"'^

favored keeping the tower carried the day.

world would not be astonished. The tower's "algebraic beauty" no longer praise,

and

did not exist, surely

Eiffel himself, diplomatic

and

tired

The

elicited

of the struggle, no longer dared to

own creation. The tone of Pascal's report is clear: "Since it is already there, let it stay." The "centerpiece" of the 1889 exposition, the "triumph of the engineer-

praise his

ing art,"

and

a

was nothing more than

a

worn-out

tourist attraction for visiting provincials

laughably oversized scaffolding for a few scientific experiments.

Le Gaulois (December

In a long article in

applauded the tower's survival.

19, 1910),

He began by

Henri Lavedan sardonically

rehearsing the usual derogatory

metaphors: the "lightning rod of Paris," the "winds' Aeolian harp," the "skeleton of an antediluvian animal," a "single-branched Jewish menorah," a "telescope standing

on

its

big end." Then,

like

most

artists in

1889 and like

many

a twentieth-century

writer (Andre Maurois, Paul Landowsky, Maurice Genevoix, Julien Green), he lam-

basted the "overwhelming, gigantic, barbarous ugliness ... of this singularly aggressive

and tyrannical

sky,"

.

.

.

and "slaughters

Piranesi-like kiosk," it."

Above

all,

which "climbs

all

over the

city," "fills the

however, Lavedan, writing twenty years

after

the tower's completion, attacked the undiminished divisiveness of this "ill-tempered sentinel built all

on the Champ-de-Mars on the

the soothing talk of scientific utility,

shifting sands of revolution." Despite

no one should forget

that the

tower was "the

369

370

HENRI LOYRETTE daughter of 1789" and therefore "not animated by a very healthy its

tower was not, despite appearances, the good fairy of Syndicalism, the column of Riot, the

seem

on

Whatever

spirit."

usefulness as a beacon for airplanes or an antenna for the wireless telegraph, the

me, ready,

like bullets to

for the E. T.,

and they

will

black flag of anarchy from

Saved

in extremis, the

and 1914 support it

like the rifles

it

it

received no

climb

of sedition, to

fire at

its

will

in order to fly the red flag

it

but "the basilica of

and bolts

Strikes." Its "nuts

day the great uprising begins, make no mistake, people

the

use

electricity

Notre-Dame of

any moment, and head instinctively

of massacre and the

peak."

Tower found

itself

more than 150,000

abandoned by the

between 1901

public:

to 250,000 visitors annually.^'

The only

could count on came from engineers and the military, which continued to

These experiments played

for experiments with wireless telegraphy.

the tower's survival:

begun

in 1898

and acknowledged

in

a role in

1908 to be of military

value, they proved instrumental in establishing the first transatlantic radiotelephone link in 191 5.

During World War

that protected Paris

to be a

the tower's wireless facilities guided the airplanes

I,

and intercepted enemy communications. The tower thus ceased

symbol of sedition and became

a protective presence, giving off

from

top

its

intermittent and sustained rays that Marcel Proust acknowledged as a "friendly vigilance."^^

was

For

its

hailed in 1917 as the "unheralded victor of the

As

a

combatant

in 19 14

and a

sedition that Henri

Tower ceased

to

be seen

No longer the cathedral of

Lavedan had vilified, the tower now shared the triumphs and sor-

rows of all of France. For the Exposition of 1937 and red searchlights, while

American

troops, the tower

Marne" by Ze FigaroP

resistant in 1940, the Eiffel

and as a "daughter of the Revolution."

as "sacrilegious"

dello for

German

role in "intercepting the telegrams" of

after the Liberation

troops.^"* In

1989

its

role

it

was

was illuminated with blue, white,

was converted

it

into a military bor-

commemorating

limited to

centennial, independent of the bicentennial of the Revolution that

it

was

its

own

originally

built to celebrate.

The triumph of

reinforced concrete might have rendered the metal-framed tower

technically obsolete, but it,

whose

of the

its

ultimate triumph

industrial achievements

artists

who

it

came

was

to symbolize. It

celebrated and in a sense re-created

ApoUinaire, Robert Delaunay, and Rene Clair.

turned

this "totally

to outlive the century that created

became

it,

as Florent Fels called

the

contemporary

such as

GuUlaume

The devoted admiration of

nonsensical" structure into a symbol of

symbol of the new age,"

men

it

modern art,

in 1928.''^ Earlier,

the

few

"the ultimate

Lavedan,

in the

article quoted above, had grasped the fact that the tower represented "not beauty but

industry" and inspired only "industrial meditations and metallurgical fantasies."

world was not that of Haussmann's sober masonry

and garlanded museums of fine

arts, city halls,

Its

structures, of lavishly festooned

and government

ministries. It called

— The

to

mind only "such

and

colossal structures as railroad stations, docks, stock exchanges,

Greek and Roman

in

Tower

But for those who, "tired of the ancient world," had "had enough

fish markets."

of living

Eiffel

antiquity," the very associations that the academician

denounced were so many grounds

for admiration.*^^ Robert

Delaunay "observed,

contemplated, and adored from every possible angle" this "steel muse of a

new

world. ""^"^ In a series of paintings on which he began working in 1909, he insisted on the tower's indefatigable energy: a quarter of a century after

Tower

still

overwhelmed the sad and

lifeless

its

inception, the Eiffel

buildings around

it.

Red, yellow,

orange, or green, Delaunay's towers seemed to push aside the gray buildings of

everyday Paris as Samson pushed apart the columns of the temple. To

its

zealous

new

admirers, the "useless beauty" lent itself readily to the most outlandish metaphors:

she was the "shepherdess" of a bellowing flock of bridges,"^^ a "celestial probe, "''^ an

"anxious

tall

giraffe,"^" the "world's aviary,"''' the "belfry

of the airwaves. "^^

Louis Aragon she even revealed, "between her spread iron legs genitals of a

woman. "^^ Delaunay marveled

which brought together ideas things, eyes, books,

at this

Berlin, Moscow."''''

.

.

To

the unsuspected

"new

source of

as diverse as "bridges, houses,

New York,

.

inspiration,"

man, woman, play-

Between the two world wars the

tower thus became a symbol of the modern, dynamic, and industrial, the quintessential

expression of the "soul of the machine age."^^ This

Rene

Clair's Paris qui don,

vators.

Germaine Krull turned the

thus

its

is

the tower that

we

metal frame and the mechanism of

that "incomparable" poet,

A monument that had been obsolete,

contested, and uncertain of

and rhymes" of

find in its

ele-

structure's "beams, girders, and rivets" into the

poem by

"verses, words, Eiffel.'''

showing off

a

Gustave its

future

became the very symbol of modernity.

The that the

crackling "blue coiffure of the wireless" gave visible evidence every night

tower was

useful.'''' It

could also be debonnaire, as

into a giant billboard for Citroen: for eleven years the

Bernard called the

"Widow Citroen."

demonstrations, a

site for

to say nothing lion lovers, 1953.

It

also

when

it

was transformed

tower became what Tristan

proved useful as a rallying point for mass

beauty pageants, and a platform for various

of four hundred suicides. "The

some of whom ended

in tragedy,"

The monument had none of

Eiffel

feats

of daring,

Tower has had twenty-five mil-

fan a headline in Samedi soir on June

the arrogance or stiff pride of a symbol.

It

4,

devel-

oped a personality, ready to "take a stroll" and "jump across the Seine" because "there is

joy and sunshine in the

streets."''^

And

in a cartoon published at the time

Liberation, the tower appeared as a strapping, rather gauche

of the

young woman who wel-

comes the equally commanding figure of General de Gaulle with the words, "Mon grand!" Persistence as well as incessant change, the ability to

an entire century, to a

song or

this, that,

a

poem

summon up

small

moments

sum up

the

memory of

as well as great ones, to call to

mind

or a motif for a painting, a tasteless souvenir, a holiday, or a war

and so much more

is

what the French celebrate

in the Eiffel

Tower.

371

FIGURE

10.10

"The Zeppelins pass, Paris

smiles"; engraving by

FIGURE Eiffel

10.11

Tower

L.

Bombled, 1915.

The "Widow Citroen": the illuminated.

FIGURE

10.12

The

Eiffel

Tower with

its

new

laser

lightii

FIGURE

Jean

10.13

Effel.

Mon

Grand.'

August

25, 1944;

drawing by

FIGURE

11.0

The

battle of Verdun, April 1916.

CHAPTER

Verdun Antoine Prost

Great battles linger

in

every nation's memory, especially battles in which the

national identity asserts itself in an effort to halt the advance of an aggressor.

Thermopylae the case of

in antiquity

Verdun

is

and Stalingrad

not exceptional.

World War II

in

It is

are

good examples. Hence

nevertheless an interesting case to study

for anyone who wishes to understand how events are transformed how national memories are crystallized in historic sites.

1916:

The

A

Battle

and

Its

Verdun

is

well

terrain played an essential role. Northeast of the

descent to the

around the

from west forest. It

east

known

as the

of Verdun.

From

to east, crossed the

Meuse River

the

is

a rather

191 6 the front stretched in a

Argonne and Vauquois

it

the

the land rises gently

abrupt

wide arc

ran north of the city

Meuse, and touched the Meuse Heights

then descended into the

at the

Caures

Woevre plain, where it first veered toward the south-

and then turned southwestward

south of Eparges and the

known. The configuration of

Meuse Heights, from which there

Woevre plain. At the beginning of

city

symbols and

Aftermath

military history of the battle of

toward a plateau

into

until

Meuse River

it

once again crossed the Meuse Heights

at Saint-Mihiel,

which the Germans occupied.

The German offensive began on February 21 on the right bank of the Meuse in the sector of the Caures

met with success.

and Haumont forests and was directed toward Verdun.

On

this

command

point was that the

quickly

February 24 the French abandoned the Woevre plain and

back onto the Meuse Heights. a fight. Petain took

It

On February 25, that night

the Fort of

Douaumont

and reorganized the

Germans might attack on

the left

front. His

fell

fell

without

major fear

at

bank of the Meuse northwest

I I

378

ANTOINE PROST of Verdun, because right

if

they broke through in that sector, the troops committed on the

bank were vulnerable from the

He

rear.

along a line that ran from Hill 304 to the Dead

came on March

feared attack

Vaux on

fortress at

bank restored

("Courage!

.

.

.

On les aura!"),

The German advance

On March

8, a

The danger was not yet

were stopped on April

offensives

Man

10, the date

and

attained

[another

hill]

and beyond. The

and on March 7 the Germans also moved on the

5,

the right bank.

the front.

therefore set up a blocking position

its

in early

French counterattack on the

over, however. Additional

left

German

of Petain's famous order to his troops

June (the fortress

at

Vaux

fell

on June

7).

ultimate point of penetration in early July: an

offensive launched on June 23 threatened to seize the last ridges before Verdun, which

then would have

come under

direct

Germans

German

Somme

Franco-British offensive on the

artillery fire.

On

July

relieved the pressure, and

suffered a serious defeat at the fort of Souville.

however, a

i,

on July

12 the

Now the initiative was with

the Allies: a first French offensive on October 24 resulted in the recapture of

Douaumont and Vaux; a second offensive, in mid-December, restored the front to the line

covered by the fortresses.

why

This bare summary raises a number of questions. To begin with,

Germans choose

to attack Verdun.'^

The

did the

military reasons are obvious: the objective

was difficult to defend, because artillery was to play an important role in the battle and men, materiel, and munitions consisted of

the French supply lines for

gauge railway line and one small country road. Furthermore,

from the German

side, the

Verdun

an offensive could be launched to eliminate

envelop

it

it.

at

salient constituted a

any time; hence

The German

tactics

one examines the front

permanent

salient

with a pincers movement by launching attacks

of the Meuse.'^

one narrow-

threat,

from which

made sense for the Germans to try

it

But why, in that case, attack the

if

just

may have been

head-on rather than try

at

two points on the left bank

designed to pin

down

the French

forces around Verdun, but other possible reasons have been suggested as well.

Germans may have been trying to "bleed" attrition in

which

it

would be obliged to make

may have chosen Verdun centrally located striking at

the French

"France's moral main

commitment of its forces.' Or they

this thesis is that

that

Verdun already occupied

It is

not obvious that this was

to attack.

line [le boulevard it

so.

A city

Verdun was more

Above all, they may have been

moral de

was formulated

a central place in

la France]."^

after the battle. It

French national

all

assumes

memory before

19 16.

such as Reims, where France 's kings were

once anointed, would probably have been a more potent symbol. To be appeared in

The

army by luring it into a battle of

rather than Belfort for strategic reasons:

and offered a broader front

The problem with

a full

to

sure,

Verdun

pre- 19 14 French history books because of the treaty signed there in

843 to divide up the Carolingian Empire. Already a fortified city in the time of the

Gauls, Verdun was further fortified in the twelfth century and again in the seventeenth century

by Vauban. In the nineteenth century

its

defenses had been beefed up

Verdun

with a triple ring of fortifications stretching

Verdun thus became the center of

the

all

way

a veritable "fortified region."

forts,

Douaumont, was an awesome

tiges

of Verdun's important military past did not count for

fortresses

citadel

The

last

of the

around Verdun had been disarmed, and

their

much

in 191

in 1919,

why, when he commanded the army group

he not been more concerned with

its

artillery. If

last

Verdun had actu-

Thus

Verdun was no

to mistake effect for cause. It

sciousness that

assumed only

it

but after the war

change take

this

The very

it

was surely not

was

February

first

21 to this:

was obliged

German

days of the

probably

French national con-

The very anachronism of

the

battle:

of France's national memory,

When did

March

it

9.

offensive were undoubtedly the

just a military objective,

enemy onslaught,

lent dramatic intensity to the

The memoirs of

postpone his

Dead Man) was

trip first to

The still

front

in flux,

would jeopardize the would not

hesitate to it.

weeks from

Raymond Poincare give evimoment the battle broke out but

President

February 26 and then again to February 29; i."*

Serrigny has told the story of the presi-

on the

left

bank of the Meuse (between

Hill

and Petain was afraid that a German success

rear of his troops

on the

envisioned a possible withdrawal of French forces to the

"Don't even think about

moment

indeed a national symbol.

the French retreat, the disorganization of the

would collapse

dent's meeting with Petain.

ident that he

is

So the question then becomes,

he wanted to go to Verdun from the

to

in this sector

battle.

a central element

he did not actually depart until March

304 and the

of the

the central element.

and the fear that

dence of

cities.

symbolic value

place.'^

force of the

front,

its

to grant the city a place in

as a result

when Verdun became more than

The

for

late nine-

up one of the most indubitable consequences of the

alleged reason points

before 19 16, Verdun

is

Verdun

attacked

was

of the "three bishoprics" annexed

from many other

different

Germans

to say that the

it

charge of the area in 1915, had

France in 1552 (along with Toul and Metz). For the pedagogues of the

teenth century,

in

Furthermore, prewar textbooks

defense.^^

attached no special significance to Verdun, the

in

the

5:

cannon had been removed

been a "symbol" for France and the entire world, as General Dubail said

ally

new

of reinforced concrete. Yet these ves-

order to reinforce the French army's inadequate heavy

to

Meuse Heights.

to the

abandon Verdun

if it

right bank.

He therefore

bank and

told the pres-

left

seemed necessary

to

do

so.

General," Poincare immediately responded. "It would

be a parliamentary disaster."^

Of

course Serrigny wrote with the intention of injuring Poincare, and he failed

to recognize that, for a

lawyer

like Poincare, the

were one and the same. Yet the anecdote ical

still

National Assembly and the Nation

points up the crucial issue of those crit-

weeks: should Verdun be held regardless of the

over their topographical Petain nor the

young

cost.'^

The

strategists

maps were not dogmatic about defending

who pored

the city: neither

officers of the general staff ruled out a strategic withdrawal.'^

379

380

ANTOINE PROST however, sensed that the

Politicians,

of Verdun would have a tremendous impact

fall

on public opinion. For reasons of morale, they wanted

the

army to dig in on the right

we have just seen. It was also the position who on February 22 made his view clear to

bank. This was the president's position, as

of the prime minister, Aristide Briand,

General

supreme commander, whose detractors accused him of planning

Joffre, the

gave orders to defend Verdun on the right

a retreat to the left bank. Joffre in fact

bank, both for reasons of morale and because of military superstitions about the rain. lost

On

ter-

several occasions he ordered Petain to counterattack in order to recapture

ground.

An exasperated Petain offered this reply on April 9:

"I ask for

your con-

fidence and beg you not to be misled by a few calculated partial withdrawals."'' But the concept of a deep defensive position time. Petain

was regarded

was promoted

who dreamt

Second Army. Petain was to

wipe away In June,

flared

still

when he

in

Army Group of the

of taking the offensive, assumed charge

at the

On May i, moreover, he Center, and

command of

when Verdun was left

a portion of

Verdun, but from a distance; he was seen

at

danger of coming under direct German

in

Verdun

in

French hands, so that

plausibly maintain that the city had not fallen.

gauge the

state

the

received the news. fire,

debate

up anew. Petain's staff studied the possibility of falling back to the Meuse;

would have still

a tear

backbone.

of commander of the

to the position

Nivelle, a "fighter"

was neither understood nor accepted

as a pessimist without

From

political leaders

this small

hypocrisy

this

could

we can

of public opinion: Verdun had become a symbol.

By this point, however,

a split

had developed: the symbol was not the same for the

troops at the front as for people in the rear. Behind the lines the battle quickly took

on heroic proportions. Was as

opposed

to

an Allied,

this

affair.^

because the defense of Verdun was purely a French,

Be

that as

it

may, the battle rapidly achieved a spe-

cial status. L'lllustradon devoted an extraordinary

amount of space

countless drawings and photos of remarkable documentary value. battlefield as a lunar landscape, completely

discussed the trenches at length.

mentary. In

fact, a

The

covered with

realistic

to

it,

publishing

They portray the The articles

shell craters.

images were contradicted by the com-

process of euphemization had begun.

The weekly magazine

por-

trayed the entire nation as united behind the soldiers of Verdun, modest heroes

all

and unflaggingly confident. The wounded smiled courageously; the more seriously

wounded were not shown. anyone died

shown

at

that the

A

reader of

V

Illustration

Verdun. Gerard Canini, whose work

magazine actively misled

impressive stocks of heavy artillery shells, at

Verdun.^

returning

would never have known

And on May

from the front

13

it

identified a

its

readers:

I

it

am drawing on

that

here, has

published photographs of

when in fact there was a shortage of shells

group of fresh reinforcements

as a unit just

lines.

This idealization of the battle misled some people into describing the event sincerity in terms of the sort generally

found only

in official citations.

in all

On July

11,

I

Verdun

1916, for example, the

Academie Frangaise

"admiration, gratitude, and respect." six

times in 1916. His

the city of Verdun,

last visit,

all

that

is

With

all

the battle

's

a

13,

message of

a

was

to

bestow

six

decorations on

symbol of heroic resistance: "The name

German dreams

purest, best, and

become synonymous with

Army

president of the Republic visited Verdun

on September

which thereby became

Verdun," he declared, "which sents ...

The

Second

sent the

turned into a symbol

most beautiful

in the soul

.

.

.

now

of France.

repreIt

has

patriotism, bravery, and generosity."^

of France 's attention riveted on Verdun and

all its

people anxious about

outcome, the stubborn resistance of French troops there

elicited

whole-

hearted and sincere admiration. Less noble sentiments also emerged, however.

Verdun became not

may

just a national

seem, a fashionable place to

symbol and

visit.

lieu de

memoire but, incredible as

For five months Verdun was the place

it

to be.

We are still a little shocked by Serrigny's accounts of important guests and academicians invited to lunch

by Petain

may seem improper at

at his

headquarters in Souilly. Such frivolous diver-

Many decorations were awarded behind the lines at Verdun, to the dismay of soldiers at or on their way to the front. Take Louis Barthas (an antimilitarist, to be sure) en route to Verdun on May 3, 1916. His entire division was ordered to form up in a vast meadow so that Joffre sions

such a time and place.

could award Petain the Grand Croix of the Legion d'Honneur. Joffre reviewed the troops and awarded various decorations, after which the troops went on parade.

"When the parade was over, Joffre, automobiles and

their

sumptuous chaps."

A

who found

set off for

table to celebrate a

month

later, Joffre

jumped

into

Bar-le-Duc, where they probably gathered

at a

Petain, and their entourage of brass

medal earned with the blood of thousands of poor

came

to inspect the division

cigars to the troops: "This distribution of gifts

of

rum

reminded us of the cigarette and glass

that the executioner generously offers the

For the combatants, Verdun was indeed

were sustaining

terrible losses.

When

condemned man."''

a place rife

but symbolizing chiefly death and sacrifice. front

of a Captain Garnier,

the general "friendly and generous" and quick to pass out watches and

with symbolic significance,

They knew

a unit

that the troops sent to the

found out that

it

was going

to the

knew at once that many of them would not be coming back. "At six one night, we were just sitting down to supper when the news came and took away our appetite. The orders were that the regiment and in fact the entire division were to move out in buses at seven." A little later, in the fall, this song was sung in the line,

the soldiers

trucks carrying replacements to the front:

Adieu

la vie,

C'est pas

adieu I'amour, adieu les femmes,

fini, c'est

C'est a Verdun,

Qu'on va

pour toujours de

cette guerre infame.

Douaumont ou Vaux

laisser sa

peau

381

382

ANTOINE PROST Car nous sommes tous des condamnes C'est nous les sacrifies.'^

Verdun's reputation turned

image owed civilians

it

into a prize

worthy of immeasurable

a great deal to the collective anxiety of the first

looked

at

them en route

to

sacrifice.

This

few weeks: from the way

Verdun, the soldiers were

in

no doubt

as to the

gravity of their situation, and the sounds of endless shellfire, which could be heard

from great distances,

left

them under no

illusion

about what to

Verdun's reputation also owed a great deal to conversations encounters between troops from different units

maneuvers occasioned by the

in

it.

front

some twenty miles

to

of the vast

By

lines.

divisions

among

I, it is

because nearly the

the divisions committed to

own supply of fresh troops by rotating contrast, Petain tried to

French divisions were sent up to the front one

army

and

soldiers

not just one battle

World War

major unit to Verdun only once. He himself called

the ninety-five existing

is

On the German side,

relieved; they ensured their

regiments in and out of the front

Verdun

if

others but the battle that sums up the whole of

Verdun were not

among

in the course

battle.

This brings us to a very important point:

entire French army took part

who met

But

expect.'"*

his

after another.

were committed

commit each

system a "relay [noriaf:

to

On July

seventy of

15,

Verdun along an

active

long, from the Avocourt forest west of Hill 304 to the

La

Laufee forest south of the fortress of Vaux. Only twenty-three divisions were sent to the line

more than once

Battle of the

in this sector in 191 6,

Somme made it more difficult to

and that was because

rely

on the

after July

For Petain, the relay system served the needs of military

efficiency.

More than

any other general, he was aware of the ordeal that a week on the front lines represented.

years

later,

At Souilly he often watched

he described the

fate

the

i

relay system.

as replacement troops

at

marched

Verdun by.

Ten

of those troops in measured and moving words.

He

portrayed them as they reached their destination on the far side of the Meuse and

came under

movement of

the

guides

on

shelling, hindered in their

own,

toiled

at

the evacuation of the

wounded and

supplies, shivering with cold at every stop, seeking in vain the

who were supposed

their

and

march by

to

show them

the

way

forward, taking up their positions

random, and suddenly encountering the enemy. "Our men suffered

beyond the imaginable," he wrote.

Hence he believed

that to force sol-

diers

who had already been through this hell to return to the front would undermine

their

courage and persuade them that he wished to see them dead:

was

to hold out at

all

costs, then

it

was

if

the objective

better not to have demoralized troops

on

the

front lines.

Inspired by military considerations, the relay system had important consequences for morale. It

made the battle of Verdun the battle of the entire army. As a result,

stakes changed.

The

soldiers

who went

to the front

advanced through terrain

the

that

Verdun

was unfamiliar but not

entirely

unknown: they had heard about

had preceded them. Before experiencing the

battle,

it

from those who

they had imagined

it,

and that

experience later fed the collective imagination. Verdun thus became a sacred place: a place

of sacrifice and consecration. Going to Verdun was a kind of

ipated,

vaguely foreseen, feared,

and inevitable. The names that

martyrdom

marked

this ascent to

became

familiar to everyone,

no

soldier's

tion

memoir

fails to

and

men-

them: the Faubourg Pave, the

Sainte-Fine chapel, the ravine of Froideterre, the shelter at Quatre-

Cheminees. The shared

FIGURE

11.1

The

Fort of

memory

Douaumont, May

19,1916.

FIGURE

11.2

Aerial

view

battlefield, July 2, 1916.

of a portion of the

initiation: antic-

383

384

ANTOINE PROST of a great and ultimately triumphant ordeal was thus inscribed in the names of places that everyone recognized.

Two collective memories of Verdun thus took shape simultaneously in 916. The was a national memory national in two senses: it was the memory of the memory structured by the press,

entire nation, a izens,

and daily conversation; and

hence national

it

memory of

intimate in

its

the combatants,

also a this

the authorities, prominent local

memory

bowdlerized

partial,

filled

memory, and

tales

battle

was

by

over,

stature thereby took

still

bound together by

cit-

with patriotic pride,

linked to

and

it

through

men on

of

which was narrower, denser, more

pride, as well as laden with emotion, anguish,

two forms of memory were once the

was

Alongside

in that sense too.

from the front and through the

ters

the

1

—

first

leave,

let-

was

and more

vivid,

grief. In 1916 these

the proximity of the event. But

1917, the only links that

remained were Petain, whose

on extraordinary proportions, and the very

which the

sites in

heroic action and sacrifice had unfolded. Those sites then became a symbolic battle-

ground:

how would

they be commemorated, and what enduring significance would

be bestowed on them as a

The At

Cults of

first

ration

the

of soldiers

Memory

memories of those who had witnessed the battle with gratitude and admi-

from

ticipated in

result.''

a distance

were more powerful than the memories of those who had par-

directly.

The number of people behind the lines exceeded the number What is more, those in the rear were not kept busy fighting

it

at the front.

the war, which raged

combatants were

on even

after the battle ended. In 1917

in a position to

memoration consisted

in

bestowing the name Verdun on squares,

vards. Further study will be needed before

process, which probably followed hard that

it

was widespread: there

is

on

it.

The

battle

is

on the heels of

neutral:

it

streets,

and boule-

can give an exact chronology of

recalls the

Similarly, the battle

mary and secondary schools, but end.'^

we

victory.

not a city in France without a

This form of commemoration particular interpretation

and 1918, only non-

commemorate. The most common form of com-

There

is

this

no doubt

Rue de Verdun.

event without imposing any

of Verdun was taught in both

pri-

the history books did not turn the story into a leg-

of Verdun was treated in the same

way as

the battle of the Marne,

and although the portrait of Petain was always associated with

it,

it

was often

World War I, Joffre and Foch. memory of the battle into the very soil of Verdun were a very different matter.'^ The very sincerity of those efforts inevitably reflected flanked by portraits of the two other marshals of

The

first

attempts to etch the

an interpretation of the pretation

battle,

may have sounded

one of patriotism and heroism. Although that

rather hollow to

reluctant to refuse the conventional

homage

many

inter-

veterans of Verdun, they were

to their valor.

Verdun

in

The first commemorative initiative came from the city of Verdun. From its refuge Paris, the municipal council decided in July 1917 to erect a monument to com-

memorate the battle. Proposals were accepted on June

23, 1920,

and

several years,

and it

final plans

in

August 1919, the

were approved

was not until June

March

in

23, 1929, that the

first

stone was laid

1921. Construction

took

monument was inaugurated,

with the president of the Republic in attendance. Built adjacent to the twelfth-century ramparts and integrated into the city

monument

to victory, not a

whose

memorial of the

resistance

battle. It

it

was

symbolized, this was a

monu-

also a municipal

ment, hence not an embodiment of the national memory.

A second monument was begun later, in

19 19, but built very quickly

rated, also in the presence of the president of the

and inaugu-

Repubhc, on December

8,

1920. It

offered a conventionally heroic view of the battle as people behind the lines imag-

ined

it.

monument was an actual event: the resistance of two platoons of almost wiped out by withering artillery fire. Unfortunately there was

Behind

the 137th,

this

nothing unusual about field.

The

Trench of

site,

this slaughter,

now known

Rifles, either

as the

which was duplicated elsewhere on the

Trench of Bayonets, was originally

itself,

mass grave,

or because other soldiers had planted

a

common practice

rifles in

two platoons had allegedly been buried

fixed bayonets awaiting an

minor but was

in fact

to

mark

a

it

became

a legend: the sol-

alive while standing erect with

attack.

stereotypes in which rear-echelon patriots delighted.

Georges Scott would

ground

The change from rifles to bayonets seems significance. The bayonet evoked a whole series of

enemy

of great

had obliterated the

the

at the time.

This incontrovertible fact was soon embroidered until diers of the

called the

because the dead men's weapons, which had been placed on

the parapet of the trench, remained visible even after shells

trench

battle-

later write:

Of

such images the

"What you saw mL'Illustration

... is

artist

mere imagery.

What I am doing for myself, for afterward, ... is very different, as you will see."'^ The bayonet conjured up a comic-book ideal of heroism, a false idea of courage and sublimity according to which soldiers quivering with patriotic emotion and joy

yearned for nothing better than to attack the enemy. The

reality

was more somber:

Petain quite rightly noted that soldiers did their duty simply and without bravado.

An

anecdote will suffice to

1916.

A

young

speech" to his shavetail.

illustrate their state

lieutenant, facing his baptism

men in

by

fire,

A veteran of the Marne interrupts him:

the trenches.

Shut up and give some orders."'^ Pierre Mac Orlan puts

patriotic death

was the death of

howitzer shell could not

understood the word ports.^'

fill

it

"Stuff

succinctly:

it,

"A

a novice in war."^"

The legend of the Trench of Bayonets was a pious

A

The event took place in tries to make a "patriotic

of mind.

up

"fill." Shells

fraud, but a fraud nonetheless.

a trench in the sense in

dug craters even

which noncombatants

as they collapsed structural sup-

When a trench was pounded by shells, the soldiers did not quietly stand their

385

386

ANTOINE PROST ground waiting

to

be

killed.

They took cover

in the shell craters.

rarely used, and only for attacking, not for defense.

under

is

is

right to think that the legend of the

while standing up.

lic is

visit

Trench of Bayonets

Verdun had about the

more, no historian nowadays believes the story

Meyer, and Perreux deem

men's

12, 1916, the

137th

form of shelling rather than an infantry

in the

absurd ideas that the earliest tourists to

What

Bayonets were

was

Why would the men have fixed bayonets.'' To drive the attackers back.^

attack.

But the attack came mainly

Norton Cru

On June

it

it

reflects the

battle.

was

told.

Ducasse,

highly unlikely that soldiers could have been buried alive

They argue that the bayonets were "probably attached to the dead

the fact."

rifles after

as

assault.

The legend

is

one "whose implausibility the general pub-

not in a position to appreciate." Yet having demystified the story, they repudiate

their

own

criticisms

and declare the legend

edifying patriotic imagery and reality

One finds the same formula and Today's

book.^"*

official

is

It is likely

that

guidebooks reveal the truth yet

some men of

difference between

reconciliation in Jacques-Henri Lefebvre's

In the Trench of Bayonets, history and ...

The

be authentic.

obliterated: "Here, legend rejoins history."^^

same

the

to

myth

the 137th

justify the deception:

still

are ultimately indistinguishable.

were buried

alive, as

unfortunately

often happened. Others lay dead or gassed in the bottom of the trench,

whose parapet

lay their

Nowadays we may

memory

.

The Germans

.

at stake in the debate.

Immediately

The commemoration of

a

on

finished filling in the grave.

myth

we

are barely

after the war,

like this

however,

one meant that the

of the rear echelon was silencing that of the combatants. Veterans of the

war were too

scattered and too glad to be back in civilian

heard. Verdun stake

.

refuse to choose between history and legend:

aware of what was once things were different.

rifles.

became

a central site

of the national

were not merely two images of the

life to

identity,

battle, Nivelle's

make

their voices

but of what

and

nation.'^

Petain's, or

At

two con-

ceptions of military valor: the nature of the combat had implications for under-

standing

why

France had gone to war and what

In the end, however, the veterans' battlefield at the

it

had fought

memory won out.

for.

In fact, the condition of the

end of the war forced the nation to accept their interpretation. They

did not have to mobilize to impose their view.

By

1919, places like

craters, shrapnel,

Douaumont, Vaux, and

the

Dead Man were nothing but

and bodies. Tourists walked off with bones and

skulls.

shell

Scrap metal

who collected wagonloads of copper and steel, frequently dug up the remains of both French and German victims. Things could not be left as they were. The bod-

dealers,

ies

had

to

be gathered up, rescued from curiosity seekers, and suitably honored. The

need for a collective burial place was obvious. It

was

posed.

at this

time that the idea of building an "ossuary"

at

Verdun was

first

pro-

The word itself is worth pondering, for it indicates a symbolic shift. The peo-

Verdun

pie

who

more

first

proposed building a commemorative monument

was attenuated by plainly air.

at

Verdun used the

and heroic term mausoleum. The association of mausoleum with death

literary

By

a certain architectural splendor.

evoked anonymous mass

burial.

By

The library at Verdun contains plans

Allied Heroes Fallen

on

for a "National

the Field of Honor."

It

ossuary

of a mausoleum was

Mausoleum

for

These were drawn up

secretary of the Societe Nationale des Beaux-Arts.

word

contrast, the

19 17 the idea

was perhaps

in the

French and

by the

in 1916

in reaction against

such monumental proposals that L'lllustration on February 23, 1918, published a

drawing with

this caption:

the ruins of the Fort of

was Msgr.

It

ossuary

"The most beautiful mausoleum

he traveled through the

idea supposedly

16, 19 19. In that

barracks was built on the

were stored relics

there,

and

same

site.

came

to

first

proposed building an

him on November

year, a

it

22, 1918, as

way home

publicly at a meeting at the Trocadero

temporary ossuary

in the

form of

Remains retrieved from each sector of the

tourists

were invited

a

wooden

battlefield

come and "pay pious homage

to

on

to the

of our glorious defenders."

The Ossuary of Douaumont was

thus the

work of

a private group,

soon declared a war charity with the bishop of Verdun as ingly, religion It

dead of Verdun:

of Fleury, Vaux, and Douaumont on his

districts

to Verdun. In any case, he announced

February

who

Ginisty, the bishop of Verdun,

Douaumont. The

at

for the

Douaumont."

was

its

played a major role in transforming Verdun into a

religion that

made Verdun

commitment. But church and

whose president

felt that

memoire.

lieu de

a peaceful place of reverence for the dead,

veterans were able to accept the religious interpretation of the

Church might have done more

which was

chairman. Interest-

to extol the victory

state

site.

and

In the past, the

and demonstrate

its

were now separated, and France was

a

patriotic

country

he could not personally attend the victory mass and sent

wife to represent him: religion therefore had no officially recognized place

his

except to honor the dead. Since commemorative structures had to be secular in character, only a burial vault of

was therefore designed

some

as a funerary

sort could

be openly religious. The ossuary

and religious monument open to

all

religions:

the technical specifications given to the architects indicated that there

room ary.

for Protestant, Jewish,

and Muslim

facilities

Given the large number of Catholics who

ified that the

must be

alongside the Catholic sanctu-

died, however,

it

was further spec-

Catholic portion of the building was to be the largest and most cen-

trally located.

Construction of the ossuary took twelve years.

The first stone was laid on August

20, 1920, well before final plans were approved on

the edifice

was inaugurated on September 18—21,

March

dent of the Republic, and his successor returned to guration ceremonies, which ran from August 6 to

24, 1923.

The

first

part of

1927, in the presence of the presi-

Douaumont

8, 1932.

for the final inau-

387

ANTOINE PROST

388

FIGURE

11.3

The

first

Ossuary

The

of

Douaumont.

project

drew

the support of

might be more accurate

many people

to say that those

besides

its initial

promoters.

project without mobilizing widespread public support. Building the ossuary cost

teen million francs, only one million of which structure

It

promoters could not have completed the

was contributed by the

state

fif-

when the

was already nearly complete. The ossuary committee mounted an exten-

sive publicity

campaign

to raise the

remaining fourteen million francs.

munities offered support: 122 French

Local committees were

set

cities

and

Many com-

made contributions. money by organizing

18 foreign cities

up throughout France

to collect

"days in honor of the dead of Verdun," "patriotic evenings," and "solemn concerts," reviving age-old traditions

participation

of communal festivals and charity

was extensive: the national committee chairman was

sales.

Catholic

the bishop of

Verdun; the most active propagandists were Msgr. Ginisty and Canon Lombard; the chaplain of

shrewd

Douaumont gave

skill as

Ossuary Charity followed nent citizens from local

unstintingly of himself; and the treasurer, a

an investor, was also an

all

ecclesiastic.

in the footsteps

Abbe Mouton.

man

of

Nevertheless, the

of the Union Sacree by calling on promi-

parts of the political spectrum. In Avignon, for example, the

committee was chaired by an elementary school inspector, and

his

board

Verdun

included the principal of a

girls'

boarding school, the vice-president of a disabled

veterans' organization, the principal of another school, a city-hall stenographer, and

an employee of the treasury department. The secular middle class was thus quite involved in the project. Elsewhere, for example in Tourcoing, the committee was

more bourgeois: an

official

its

board included an entrepreneur, two merchants, an

from another veterans' group, and

war widow. Thanks

a

these countless volunteers, tens of thousands of

anonymous

industrialist,

to the

work of

contributors provided

unknown soldiers. If the financing for the Ossuary of Douaumont was truly national, its architecture set it apart from all the other monuments to the dead of World War I. It is nothing like the funds for the burial of tens of thousands of

the churches of Notre-Dame-de-Lorette or tiful. its

Indeed, the jury that selected

functional qualities:

its

interior

Dormans.

Still, it

Leon Azema's proposal

was spacious enough

to

cannot be called beau-

was impressed by

in 1923

accommodate major

cere-

monies; the religious parts of the edifice were separate from the parts that would receive the remains of the dead and itself to

away with roughly one-third of

it is

is

no

is

which

rises

German

Ossuary

its

a

Each of

its

from what

monument

was

fifty

years

in character. Its

As

also looks rather like a pillbox. fifty feet

above the plateau,

it is

is

like a gigantic

cemetery

stele:

to the dead.

vate services: grieving widows and parents

at

came

Verdun. Long ago there were pri-

to

honor slain husbands and sons. In

between the two world wars, graying veterans

the period

it

four faces has a cruciform structure, in

Various kinds of religious services are held

still

it

hundred and

funerary intent. Indeed, the tower

an immense

is

lent

doing

contributions dwindled).

nor civilian nor military

forces, but

more than

neither a beacon nor a bell tower.

keeping with

when

available (and allowed

intended to evoke the dike that the defenders of Verdun hoped to

erect against the invading

for the tower,

and the modular structure

became

different today

unclassifiable, neither religious

squat structure

the

visitors;

the original plan

The Ossuary of Douaumont ago:

welcome

construction in several stages as funds

haunted them. Pierre Mac Orlan describes

also

came

men who brought

their first visit to the battlefield but, realizing that other family

to visit a site that their families

on

members soon became

bored, returned alone to pursue their private memories. Each veteran explored on foot the sector he tle.

knew best and noted every change in the terrain since the great bat-

In the 1 930s, the issue of whether or not to replant the former battlefield with trees

provoked

a great debate

among veterans.^*"

Before long more formal services were also organized. These generally ended with a solemn ages to the

visit to the

site.

By

Ossuary. For a long time veterans' groups

1927 or 1928 such groups had

made

pilgrim-

become powerful, and many spon-

sored excursions for their members. Veterans liked to get together and talk about old times, tion.

and

battlefields, especially the battlefield at

These pilgrimages often featured

silent

Verdun, were

marches ending

a natural destina-

at the

Ossuary. Silence

389

FIGURE

11.4

Inauguration of the Ossuary of

were complete) on September

18, 1927.

Douaumont

(only the

tower and central portion

of the edifice

ANTOINE PROST

392

FIGURE

11.5

The completed Ossuary

of

Douaumont.

had always been the rule

at the site: the statue

of Resignation that had stood in front

of the temporary ossuary indicated the need for quiet with a finger across It

would have been unseemly

to speak in the presence

its

mouth.

of the dead, and here the dead

were everjrwhere. Veterans who marched together could share memories more than those

ily

When

who made

solitary visits to places significant only to themselves.

troops went to the front in 1916, they started out in groups and dispersed as

they came closer to the

line.

By

contrast, the

bringing together remains collected from

all,

culminated inside the cloister in

The most organized of Bataille, rial

eas-

Ossuary was all

a

common

objective for

parts of the battlefield. Pilgrimages

silent meditation, as if

keeping

these veterans' pilgrimage were

which one veterans' group began organizing

service included a vigil in the Ossuary's cloister.

vigil

known

over the dead. as Fetes

in February, 1927.

At dawn

de

la

The memo-

a procession

made

its

Verdun

way around

the cloister and laid wreaths

mourning on July

was somewhat

12, 1936,

veterans, including

German and

chapel to the cemetery of

on each

The

burial vault.

national day of

different: at eight in the evening,

Italian delegations,

Douaumont, where each man took up

a position in front of

a grave. Together, they took an oath to preserve the peace and then laid wreaths

These veterans' services were memorial

steps of the Ossuary. pacific in character.

20,000

marched from the Sainte-Fine

on the

services, civilian

and

"La Marseillaise" was not sung; there was no military parade or

no

presentation of arms, and there were to meditate in silence.

official speeches. Participants

Given the immensity of the

sacrifice

were expected

being commemorated,

peace was the supreme value, taking precedence over individual and national pride. Different in tone were the Fetes de

la

Victoire organized from 1920

on by the

city of Verdun. These ceremonies sustained the "national

memory" of Verdun

opposed to the "veterans' memory." The date chosen, June

23,

since the final

German

offensive launched

was too

July 12, but the latter date

two days, the ceremonies included

on

that date

was

as

was rather arbitrary,

finally turned

back on

close to Bastille Day, July 14. Spread out over a

parade

in

which

battle flags

were carried into

the city, a religious service, a review of the troops, official speeches, and a military

parade, ending with a memorial vigil at the Ossuary.

The inauguration ceremonies

of 1927 and the even more spectacular ceremonies of 1932 belong to the same tradition as the Fetes de la Victoire: although the dead

was on celebrating France and There

its

were not forgotten, the focus

victory.

no better indicator of the character of the Fetes than the personalities

is

chosen to preside over them. Two-thirds of the ceremonies through 1952 were presided over by generals and marshals. In the interwar years Marshal Petain officiated at this

Verdun on four separate occasions, and President Poincare

was an

official

After World

NATO.

and

War

In 1956,

patriotic

II,

twice. Clearly,

commemoration.

however, the climate changed. In 1954, Germany joined visiting the battlefield were officially received by the

Germans

municipal authorities of Verdun. Franco-German reconciliation and the construction of la

Europe were the order of the

Victoire.

dwindled.

The

On

day. Civilians

now presided

over the Fetes de

difference between official, commemorations and veterans' rites

September

West Germany went

moment of silence. The character of

22, 1984, the president of France

to the

and the chancellor of

cemetery of Douaumont and stood hand

pilgrimages to the

site also

in

hand

in a

changed. As veterans grew older,

it

became increasingly difficult for them to explore the battlefield. As the years went by, their

numbers dwindled. Nature reclaimed the

craters. Tourists,

as vacations

site,

who had been coming to Verdun

and

forests

since 1919,

soon covered the

were democratized and the automobile made travel

people visited Verdun every year.

shell

grew more numerous easier.

Half a million

Many knew only that a memorable battle had taken

393

394

ANTOINE PROST

how the batde had been waged or when or over what They needed explanations, guides, and signs. As the last survivors of the bat-

place there, but they had no idea terrain. tle

carried their emotion-laden

memories

to the grave,

it

became increasingly neces-

sary to organize commemoration: history substituted for fervor.

Meuse decided

In 1939, a veterans' group from the at

Verdun

as other

called for a

groups had done

in

bureau"

to build a "veterans'

Le Havre, Orleans, and elsewhere. The plans

huge library and diorama, but World War

II

forced the project to be

abandoned. The Comite National du Souvenir de Verdun, which had existed since 1926,

was revived

Under

in 1951.

the leadership of Maurice Genevoix, the

decided in 1959 to build a memorial on the battlefield;

of

it

was inaugurated

At

the veterans' memorial visitors can obtain maps, photographs, and

all

sorts

concerning the

There

battle.

also a

is

museum where one

imagine what the battlefield was

than a religious institution.

about the battle of Verdun

Now

is

like.

The memorial

is

documents

can view the

types of weapons used in 1916 along withliistorical reconstructions that ier to

group

in 1967.

make it eas-

an educational rather

that the last veterans are gone, teaching visitors

the only

way to

perpetuate

its

memory.

From Memory to Symbol The commemorative ceremonies

that take place at

and complementary memories of the meditative, memorial

But Verdun

is

Verdun thus

offer three distinct

battle: the official, patriotic one; the veterans'

memory; and the historical memory that is imparted to tourists.

not a national symbol solely by virtue of these local commemorations.

Just as the "relay system"

meant

that large

numbers of

soldiers experienced the hell

of the battlefield, the interwar pilgrimages and commemorations made hundreds of

thousands of French people aware of what had happened there. Other discourses

have also shaped the nation's collective consciousness: Verdun has been spoken of constantly since 1916.

There

is

no

single

What have people answer

years. Broadly speaking,

Verdun.^^

The

By then the

first

field

it.''

What

at the

time of the battle and culminated in 1922 or 1923.

saturated, and there

was no outpouring of new works

the tenth anniversary of the event. In this first period, are already familiar

by early

were juxtaposed. The

historians of the battle such as

the point of view of the general

prominent role than ordinary sized the heroic

people said changed over the

one can distinguish three successive waves of books about

began

was

said about

to this question.

staff, in

and moved easily

official, patriotic

it

told the story

from

which generals and colonels play a more

Books

in this

category naturally empha-

in the narrative space

niques on the one hand and feats of arms on the other. precisely the opposite tack:

mark

discourse was promoted

Henry Bordeaux, who

soldiers.^^

to

two discourses with which we

defined by staff

The

commu-

veterans' discourse took

highlighted the testimony of individuals,

who claimed

Verdun

to give not an

overview of what happened but an authentic account of the typical

soldier's experience.

Some of

the best

war memoirs appeared

ing those of Delvert, Gaudy, Jubert, and Daniel Mornet.^^

remembrances of mud,

these

in this period, includ-

The brass had no place in

and death.

fear, misery,

In the late 1920s people began to take renewed interest in books about the war and especially about Verdun, as if

Verdun had begun

ond wave of publications appeared

at this

to epitomize the entire war.

The two now merged into

time and continued until 1939.

discourses that had characterized the earlier period remained but one.

It

was no longer possible

to ignore the horror of the battle or to paper

with patriotic homilies. There were too

many

A sec-

many bodies buried

in the Ossuary,

it

over

and too

films such as Verdun, souvenirs d'histoire (1928) and Les Croix de bois (1931)

showed unforgettable images of

the daily shelling.^"

ascribed to the two books that

mark

Emblematic value can thus be

the beginning and the end of this period:

Marshal Petain's La Bataille de Verdun (1929), which struck just the right tone in

moving description of the

soldier's plight,

its

and Jules Romains's Verdun (1938), which

represented an impressive effort to synthesize diverse points of view.

The most

characteristic feature of the period lies elsewhere,

attempt by veterans to regain control of their

More than

a decade

own

had passed since the end of

however:

history, the history

in the

of their war.

Memories had faded;

hostilities.

nightmares had subsided. Veterans claimed an increasingly important role in national life.

Andre Tardieu became

World War I

the first veteran of

to

head the government,

and the Chamber of Deputies expressed the belated gratitude of the nation by approving a veterans' pension. Writing the history of the war was no longer a task that could

be

left

to

The moment

lines.

Andre Ducasse

men who had

not fought in

for a combatants' history

led the

way with 1932.

or

who had

served only behind the

had arrived.

his introduction to

combattants, a collection of excerpts

Flammarion brought out in

it

La

Guerre racontee par

from the best published war

stories

But Verdun was not the only subject of

1933, Jacques Pericard published his

monumental Verdun,

a

work of

this

les

which

work. In

534 large-format

pages copiously illustrated with contemporary photographs. This book sold extremely well

and

left its

mark on subsequent writing about the battle. Pericard had

the testimony of veterans, ly half

wove

of these unpublished eyewitness accounts found their

a detailed chronological narrative

told sector ter

by

sector,

solicited

more than 6,000 of whom responded to his queries. Rough-

day by day,

in

way into

the text,

around them: here was the story of the

some

cases hour

by hour. In

which battle

addition, each chap-

included appendices dealing with general questions such as replacements, medical

services,

and so on. Based on the most pertinent individual accounts, these digressions

kept the chronological narrative from

Pericard 's Verdun tion.

was important

becoming monotonous.

for

more than

just the richness

of

its

documenta-

The text succeeded in combining official, patriotic history with the testimony of

395

ANTOINE PROST combatants.

attempted to bring the broad view of the

It

generals, colonels, and majors

view of the

battle, the staff

who were abundantly cited, together with the soldier's

view. But the two vantage points were very different, and the battle that one saw from

each was not the same In fact, the

and

as a lieutenant

The

the very contradiction that

in 191 8

had published

les

other words.

the

it.

Still,

In fact,

transformed by the shouted "Dead

it

men

morts! [Dead

men

book

Debout

entitled

les

the

is

A stereotypical

tale

of heroism, in

the stinging criticism that

Norton Cru

how the combatant's memory was was not Pericard himself who had

an interesting example of

memory

of the rear, for

arise!" It

was Maurice Barres, who, in

were, by accepting

it

as the title

the Trench of Bayonets, as sacrifice that

combatants, includ-

moment when enemy, galvanizes his men by

the

arise!]."

book did not deserve

it is

In Verdun he expressed outrage that

immense

many

Pericard had fought at Verdun

a controversial

phrase in commenting on Pericard 's narrative. as

Verdun was a compromise.

central episode of this vibrant tale of patriotism

shouting "Debout

it,

this

knew from their own experience.

whose position has been overrun by

Pericard,

leveled at

Rather than a synthesis,

book embodied

ing Pericard himself,

morts.

battle.

it

To be sure,

of his book.

his preface,

He believed

Norton Cru had

cast

had used the

Pericard had authenticated in glory, in

heroism.

doubt on the authenticity of

the criticism were tantamount to a denial of the

if

was made

at

Thiaumont. But Pericard was

also a soldier of the

who knew what the battle was really like and had experienced its true misery. He saw courage in the routine events of the soldier's life and had no use for patriotic bluster or showpiece offensives designed to impress people in the rear. He encouraged ranks,

the

myth even

It

as

he sought to win a hearing for the authentic voice of the

was probably about

this

time that the public image of the battle became estab-

lished. In the national imagination

strous shelling of any

Verdun was noted above

—monstrous

war

The Germans had massed more than twenty-five yards of the front. shells larger than 120

iber, or

roughly one

shelling

is

in people

in

all

for the

both intensity and duration

1,200 artillery pieces, or one

On July

15,

most monmonths).

(six

gun

for every

they fired twenty-one million howitzer

mm in caliber and no doubt even more shells of smaller calshell for

what made the

's

soldier.

site

minds with shell

also consequences of the

every square yard of the battlefield. This heavy

look a piece of lunar landscape: Verdun was equated

craters.^'

heavy

Other characteristic features of the battle were

shelling.

Moving reinforcements up

to the front

was

incredibly difficult. "Every night," Petain later wrote, "one watched small columns

climb the slopes toward the smoke of battle on the plateaus: lines of grave,

men, conscious of the

fate that lay in store for them."^^ All lines

converged on the few points where nications trenches

course with the

were subject

it

was possible

were crowded with supply

to cross the

details

silent

of communication

Meuse. The

commu-

and replacement troops and of

wounded who were being evacuated. Pinpointed by the enemy, they

to frequent shelling,

and many men were

killed or

wounded on

their

Verdun

way

to

and from the

The

front.

closer the exhausted troops

shallower the trenches became, until they were flanked by shell craters. forest

remained

intact.

"We

little

came

to the front, the

more than shallow depressions

stepped over the dead and wounded. Not a tree in the

Here and there

a section

of trunk was

left

The

standing.

rocky ground was strewn with grenades, ammunition, weapons, overcoats, corpses,

and bodies that were

still

breathing."^^

At night replacement troops

tried to ren-

dezvous with guides from the units they were relieving. If they missed the ren-

men on point could suddenly find themselves face-to-face with the Germans. Or else, "by the light of exploding shells and flares, the relief troops

dezvous, the

might discover the remains of the unit they were supposed to replace

at the

bottom

of a shell crater.

Once

a unit reached the front lines,

it

was

days of living

in for four to six

Replacements were repeatedly given the simple order

to

move

hell.

into "vaguely orga-

nized lines of shell craters" and to hold their ground at

all

might be intense but intermittent skirmishes with

more frequently, grenades,

what most lenting,

soldiers

and merciless

Troops went hungry because the supply first

few months of the

because there was no shelter and

men became which

all

of the

the systematic, persistent, unre-

it

down on comrades

details rarely reached their destination.

from the

battle they also suffered

was obviously impossible

rain

the

sorts

And

the

of debris lay rotting.

human

War II, Verdun came

condition. Defenseless soldiers

to symbolize a breach of the lim-

were forced

to lie

abandoned

to the elements

—

rain,

snow, wind, and cold

—and

most basic human needs, they found themselves shorn of the

ilization.

and cold,

to light a fire.

on the

aged, devastated earth and subjected to endless shelling. Cut off from ety,

or

in the next crater.

so terribly thirsty that they drank the foul water from shell craters in

Like Auschwitz in World its

Although there

They came away with images of bodies pulverized

shelling.

torn to shreds or buried alive. Shells crashed

During the

rifles or,

remembered about Verdun was

costs.^^

To be

sure, these

were tough, hardened men, used

bare, rav-

human

soci-

unable to satisfy

last vestiges

of civ-

to sleeping

on the

ground, to working themselves into a stupor, to living without heat, and to surviving on the most meager rations: the age of

week

not yet arrived. Nevertheless, a reaches of the

human

condition,

at

modern comforts and mass

Verdun was

a

leisure

had

journey to the outermost

beyond the imaginable.

And yet, despite their exhaustion, "amid this living hell and against all probability, our men held," Petain wrote. The losses were terrible: some regiments returned from the front reduced to the least fifty percent.

The

deliverance. Soldiers

who

with fatigue, their heads

much

as ghosts:

size

of a company. Most units suffered casualties of

at

troops looked forward to the arrival of their relief as to a

returned from the front in the predawn hours reeling

still

pounding from the

shelling, looked like nothing so

397

398

ANTOINE PROST They marched with bowed heads and

sad looks, bending beneath the weight

of their packs and holding their mud-caked their faces

was almost the same

as the color

rifles

by

their slings.

of their overcoats.

new mud had caked upon were covered with it. They did not have

ered everything and dried, and ing and skin plain.

.

They were

.

.

like convicts just released

The

Mud

color of

had cov-

the old. Their cloththe strength to

com-

from the prison of war, and when

they looked up at the roofs of the village one read in their eyes unspeakable

depths of pain.

As they

raised their faces, their features

and twisted by suffering. Their mute faces seemed

dirt

seemed trapped

in the

to cry out in horror at

the incredible awfulness of their martyrdom.

The

public image of the batde that predominated in the period 1929-1939 thus

achieved a sort of balance.

It

reflected an accurate

had lived and died and did not equate

their

and

realistic idea

of

how soldiers

courage with ignorance or contempt for

danger. Petain wondered whether the soldier of Verdun had been touched by special grace that

had made

a

hero of him.

He

some

rejected the official military line

man simply did his duty: "We who knew him, we know that man, with his virtues and his weakness, a man of our people,

according to which each

he was quite simply a

whose thoughts and emotions remained attached shop, his office, or the farm where he

... to his family circle, his

grew up." In doing

his

work-

duty conscientiously,

"he went to the front without enthusiasm, to be sure, but also without faltering."^^

The hero of Verdun was not

the soldier

who

charged the enemy with fixed bayonet

out of love for the fatherland or hatred of the Boche.

returned from the line

He was

who

rather the ghost

muddy and haggard but having held his ground. What France that the nation had survived because men had been

remembered about Verdun was

willing to endure an inhuman, dreadful, and murderous ordeal.

World War

more

II

buried the

memory of Verdun and

replaced

it

with memories of

dreadful atrocities. Histories of Verdun ceased to be runaway bestsellers.

not until the joined

by

late 1950s that

still

new works on that

had appeared

in the 1920s

and 1930s and

addressed to a public that counted fewer and fewer veterans of the battle

number. The crucial need was no longer

texts

at

overview of the

by Durassie

to

didactic

among

its

defend a particular interpretation of what

Verdun but to keep people from forgetting about

were therefore both more

blow account

was

the battle began to appear, and these were

others on the occasion of the fiftieth anniversary of the battle in 1966.^^

These were shorter than the works

had happened

It

still

it

entirely.

and more general. They aimed

at

The new giving an

who knew very little about it rather than a blow-bymen who had been there. J.-H. Lefebvre's book, published

battle to readers

directed at

in i960,

is

a richly detailed narrative history yet

still

a far cry

from the

book by Pericard that it replaced: it was not a pious monument to the memory of those

who had

died at Verdun. Just as the veterans' memorial and

museum

supplanted the

Ossuary of Douaumont, history supplanted the age of comradely commemoration.

FIGURE in

11.6

September

22, 1984: President Mitterrand of

paying their respects to the dead of past wars.

France and Chancellor Kohl of Germany

join

hands

400

ANTOINE PROST "Anyone who was not

Verdun was not in the war." These words, spoken while the

raged, suggest a lasting identification with the experience on the part of

battle

still

those

who

shared

World War.

First

at

it.^^

It

For

me and my contemporaries, Verdun epitomizes the whole

was not only the war's climax but also

the decisive battle that determined the

outcome of the

its

essence.

It

was not only

conflict but the battle that

exhibited the features most characteristic of that particular war.

Verdun was it

was neither

defeats but

also a "pacific" battle. It

bury them

is

nor an

a humiliating defeat

in the depths

remembered

act

all

the

remind former enemies of

vividly because

of their unconscious: where are the

rations of the debacle of 1870 or the disaster of June 1940.^ ples are reluctant to perpetuate the

more

of aggression. Nations remember their

memory of their conquests:

their humiliation

commemo-

On the other hand, peodo so would be

to

to

and to boast of having been a predator

German advance was turned back. In a memory of World War I as a whole: it was a war brought on by German aggression, and waging it was legitimate because France was merely defending its own soil. Winning the war did not mean taking anything away from the enemy; France simply remained France. state.

Verdun was

broader sense, the

With Verdun was

memory

of Verdun thus coincides with the

the nation affirmed itself but not at the expense of anyone else. This

a flattering idea, in

which national pride was coupled with international moral-

France could be seen as the unvanquished warrior fighting on behalf of

ity.

and

liberty. It

hence

it

justice

could flaunt the banner of Napoleon alongside the principles of 1789:

offered what has been called une certaine idee de la France.

Finally, if

a defensive victory: the

Verdun was the memory of

few French people today can

Verdun was

like,

a terrible

fully appreciate

most people have

at least a

and supremely deadly ordeal. Even

what the suffering of the

vague idea

that

soldiers at

hundreds of thousands

of soldiers (roughly 270,000 in fact) died there under dreadful conditions. details

of

this

enormous

sacrifice

been piously preserved: that

may have

it is life

which

faded from memory, but the lesson has is

sacrosanct, not death, and

how legitimate or necessary some wars may be, peace is worth more. of the French people the soldiers of Verdun

live in

no matter

In the

memory

grave and respectful silence as

exemplary heroes, to be sure, but also as innocent victims whose have been spared. By making Verdun a key element of is

The

its

lives

national

would

better

memory, France

saying not only that the greatest victories are defensive but that the price of vic-

tory

may

surpass

all

measure.

The transformation of the event into a symbol has erased many of its details, however. It is receding ineluctably into the past, and our national memory is the poorer for it.

For French people today, Verdun

People

is

not a clear and vital

memory but a vague

idea.

know that it was horrible and that in the end it was a victory, but it is no longer With each passing day the ordinary men who suffered and died

part of today's world. at

Verdun sink deeper

into another universe, into a past that

is

gone forever.

^

t

Verdun

The

Symbolically, therefore, Verdun marks the boundary between two worlds.

old world in which

men were

capable of enduring conditions that have

unimaginable and of sacrificing their blaze of glory.

The new world

is

one

lives for the sake in

of duty ended

at

Verdun

but

now

With today's

it is

mankind

tanks, missile,

as a

whole

that

again experience horror, but in new,

Because of

this,

Verdun occupies

among

pos-

and nuclear weapons, war no longer means a slow accu-

more brutal, more

do not require the inward consent of

not one episode

is still

threatened and not France as such.

is

mulation of individual deaths through a lengthy ordeal of suffering.

is

in a

which the nature and meaning of patriotism

have changed. The specter of war remains, and slaughter on a vast scale sible,

become

others,

The world may

rapid and massive forms that

their victims.

a

unique place

one element

in France's national

memory.

in a series, but rather the

It

apogee of

nineteenth-century patriotism, which culminated in an immense sacrifice, a sacrifice that

was

at

once superhuman and supremely inhuman. Thus the collective imagina-

tion can neither forget

it

nor truly comprehend

an irreducible share of sacred mystery, which

is

it.

The memory of Verdun

what

qualifies

it

includes

as a legend.

401

PART

III

IDENTIFICATI ONS

—

CHAPTER

The

Cock

Gallic

Michel Pastoureau

France today has no

emblem other than

official

the Constitution of the Fifth Republic. the advantage of in

making

every sense, both the

Such

its flag,

as specified

a state of affairs,

unique

by Article in

2 of

Europe, has

the tricolor a powerful force for unification, symbolizing,

state

and the nation. Yet

it

also has

drawbacks

in the

realms

of diplomacy and protocol. All the other states of Western Europe have distinctive coats of

arms and emblems

sions frequently arise

in addition to their flags. In international politics occa-

when symbols of

simultaneously or in succession, and other countries display their

make do with an

at

all

emblems and

unofficial ad

three types are to be displayed either

such times France finds

itself at a loss.

While

coats of arms, the French are obliged to

hoc symbol.

Of these ad hoc symbols, the ones most frequently used are the map of France, the "RF" monogram

The

(of the Republique frangaise), the lictor's fasces, and the Gallic cock.

cock, however,

is

chosen as a symbol of France more often by foreigners than by

the French themselves. the cock

The French

and even more reluctant

to

just

now seem

make

it

reluctant to

a true national

eagle or the British leopard [as the lions passant guardant

were technically styled

in

medieval heraldry

There

is

likes

nothing

it

the

is

this divergence. It existed as

For one thing,

it

German of arms felt

symbol of France,

Its

long ago as the

history

is

late

instructive in

helps us to understand the poverty of con-

temporary French symbolism. For another, state

like the

or not.

new about

respect.

honor on

trans.]. Such doubts are not

Middle Ages and has persisted through modern times.

more than one

this

British coat

symbol

on the

abroad, apparently: for the rest of the world, the cock

whether France

bestow

it

raises the issue

and symbols of the nation are related over the long run.

how symbols of the What is more, the his-

of

12

4o6

MICHEL PASTOUREAU tory of the symbolic cock its

is

bound up with

the mythical history of ancient Gaul and

people: both involved significant political, ideological, and cultural stakes. Finally,

the case of the Gallic cock demonstrates the effects of foreign scrutiny

of French symbolism. The foreign eye posed,

if

is

an essential part of

on the history pro-

this story. First

not imposed, by foreigners, the cock nevertheless became an authentic sym-

bol for France, a symbol as rich in content as

if it

had been chosen by the French

themselves. Indeed, at the end of the twentieth century, the cock

(no doubt because

it is

politically

more

neutral) than

is

less controversial

most of the other symbols

that

can claim, along with the tricolor, to represent the France of tomorrow.'

A It

Play on

Words

was not the French or even the Gauls but the Romans who first associated Gaul with

the cock.

There was a simple linguistic reason for this:

in Latin, the

word

for an inhab-

itant

of Gaul, gallus, was the same as the word for the king of the farmyard.

first

century

B.C.,

From the

poets and prose writers used this double meaning to construct inge-

nious metaphors, develop allegories, and make outrageous puns. Caesar, for example,

more than once used

the phrase tumultus gallicus to describe the fiery spirit of the

Gauls; his contemporary Varro reserved the same phrase for the behavior of a cock

among

hens.^

A little later,

Suetonius compared the voice of Nero to the crowing of

a cock and ironically insisted that even the Gauls had been awakened by

Yet while the Gallus/gallus play on words literature,

it is

not true that the

Romans

was not uncommon

treated the cock as a

it.^

in classical Latin

symbol of Gaul. For

them, the animal that best symbolized the country was traditionally not the cock but the boar. Boars the Gallic diet.

were

plentiful in the forests of Gaul,

and boar meat was

A celebrated example can be seen in the breastplate of the great statue

of Augustus from the Prima Porta of Rome, on which Gaul

woman

a staple of

holding a sign with an image of a

is

represented by a

boar."*

Despite the symbolic supremacy of the wild pig, the cock nevertheless figured

on numerous stones.

had

Gallic objects

and monuments, including coins, figurines, and carved

Contrary to what nineteenth-century scholars believed, however,

little

and was

to

do with independent Gaul.

in fact far

more Roman than

It

this

appeared chiefly in the Gallo-Roman era

Gallic.

The cock was

actually an attribute of

several gods, including Apollo, Minerva, Mars, and especially Mercury. bird, responsive to the diurnal cycle, the

mythology and

religion.

It

cock

cock played an important role

in

A

solar

Roman

served as an oracle and warrior's attribute, was associ-

ated with the sun, and already in antiquity symbolized victory, vigilance, and fecundity. It

was most frequently connected with

the cult of Mercury, a

god particularly

venerated by the Gallo-Romans. Most of the images of cocks and cock-shaped objects that archaeologists have uncovered over the past

two centuries

in

what was

The

Cock

Gallic

once ancient Gaul were originally votive objects offered up to Mercury, the god of

commerce and eloquence,

creator of

the arts, and universal messenger

all

—

a

god

who, over the centuries, came to be identified to one degree or another with the ancient Celtic

The

god Lug.^

play on words between Gallus and gallus amused the literate.

increasingly rare after the great invasions and less

vanished from Latin

as the father

texts.

by the

early Middle

For example, Isidore of Seville

It

became

Ages had more or 570—636), who,

(ca.

of medieval etymology, sought to divine the essence of things through

the history of words,

saw no

relation

gallus derived, astonishingly enough,

only bird that one

castrated."^

and glossed

lessly repeated

between the cock and Gaul. For him, the term

from the word

Because of

castratio, since the

this surprising

after Isidore, the

cock was the

etymology, which was end-

cock was for centuries neglected by

encyclopedias and the zoological literature. Isidore, one of the most widely copied authors of the Western Middle Ages, stripped the cock of

made It

it

faintly ridiculous

was not

to use the

until the

—something

it

had never been

its

pride and virility and

in antiquity.^

end of the twelfth century that Latin

texts

was no longer

a literary joke

of France,

who was

and rashness:

real political content,

stigmatized as a gallus.

like the cock,

The

critics

No

one

was now used by ridicule the king

berated his vanity, stupidity,

he was swift to take an aggressive stance.^ Neither Louis

VII nor Philip Augustus, the two French kings mocked in these

cock as an emblem.

it

England or the Holy Roman Emperor to

writers serving the king of

this association

of the sort that Suetonius and the poets of the Late

Empire enjoyed so much. Having acquired

lys.

once again began

double meaning of gallus to link Gaul with the cock. But

texts,

adopted the

On the contrary, they were the first two kings to use the fleur de

in the royal

entourage ever thought of glorifying either king by com-

paring him to a cock.

The pejorative

association of the cock

nated elsewhere, and for centuries

of the Capetian and,

policies it

was Ghibelline

the cock

image

Italy in the

later,

it

image with the king of France thus

was used only by foreigners

in the

monarch of

Germany,

second half of the thirteenth century that resorted to

to discredit the expansionist policies

who had

of the French army led by set

out to conquer himself a

southern Italian peninsula. Various polemical and prophetic texts

portrayed the French cock as victim of the imperial eagle. the

denounce the

Valois sovereigns. After England and

Charles d'Anjou, the brother of Saint Louis,

kingdom

to

origi-

the skies

The "skewering gaze" of

overwhelmed the "lightheaded" king of the farmyard.^

The eagle-cock opposition would remain a constant feature of European symbolism

down

to

The

World War

political

I.

use of a Latin play on words to turn the cock into an ethnic or geo-

graphic symbol raises two questions, one linguistic, the other historiographic.

was

this

play on words translated into the vernacular, and

who understood

it.''

How And

407

4o8

MICHEL PASTOUREAU when In

rooster).

the only

common word

but until the seventeenth century It

twentieth century). There (Gallic).

is

first

had a strong

it

was not

became more common than jal (which and gaulois

for the gallinaceous fowl

This word, of obscure origin,

derived from the Latin gallus}^

coq

the

We begin with the first question.

modern French,

English cock, tury,

kingdom of France become conscious of having

did the inhabitants of the

Gauls for ancestors?

rival in the

until the reign

persisted in

is

coq (cf.

appeared in the twelfth cen-

many

word jal (or jau),

of Louis XIII that coq

regional dialects until the

no obvious phonetic or semantic connection between

Thus

the Latin

pun could be duplicated

in the vernacular

only with jal, which became increasingly rare as the centuries passed. Furthermore, the connection

between jal and gaulois or Gaule

between gallus and

Gallus.

As

historians,

we

is

much

eloquent than that

less

are therefore entitled to ask

how

long

the verbal connection between the cock and the inhabitants of Gaul remained perceptible,

to

and by

whom

other than

scholars.''

For by the fourteenth century one had

be either Italian or a Latinist to understand the connection. This was even truer

the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. In French the connection today, and in the

Germanic languages

probably explains

why

why

it

is

in

very tenuous

never existed." This linguistic obstacle

over the long run the French failed or refused to understand

other people wished to

Another plausible reason

make

the cock their symbol.

for the rejection

is

symbol originated with a pun

that the

(and a pun involving a vulgar fowl and a dead language

at that).

The

Gallic cock

is

an "eloquent" symbol, a symbol whose choice was dictated solely by a play on words rather than

by more ambitious ideological or symbolic considerations. From the sev-

enteenth century to the present, such symbols have been deemed rather undignified if

not downright degrading.

To be

was not

sure, that

when such eloquent images were considered

the case in the Middle Ages,

and effective because

especially rich

they combined two ideas or entities in a single word or image. ues was subsequently stood on to

promote the Gallic cock

case

on

all

as a

its

This system of val-

head, however, to the point where those

symbol of France

in 1792

and 1848 chose

who

tried

to base their

sorts of erudite arguments, including archaeological findings (cocks as

offerings to Mercury), yet never mentioned the Latin wordplay. After the seven-

teenth century, to originate with a

pun was

to

be born a bastard.

An Imposed Emblem Let us go back to the thirteenth century, Latin,

compared the French

to cocks.

They knew that the words Francia and nor anyone

else

was

when

several foreign writers,

Gallia could be

writing in

synonymous, but neither they

clearly conscious of the historical link

and Capetian France. The most

all

Their knowledge was purely philological.

common

opinion

at the

between ancient Gaul

time was that the history of

FIGURE

two

12.1

silver

The cock,

bird of

Berthouviile, 1st century

FIGURE

12.2

Mercury:

pieces from the Tresor de

The same.

c.e.

FIGURE

12.3

century

The placing

(detail).

of a

cock atop the church

of

Westminster Abbey: Bayeux tapestry,

late

1

1th

The

France did not begin until the third or fourth century,

when

Gallic

Cock

the Franks, supposedly

descendants of the Trojans, came and settled on a substantial portion of the territory that Clovis

would

make

later

his

kingdom.

before that settlement, and there was not

was known about what happened

Little

much

interest in the question. It

was not

century that people began to see a link between the territory

until the late fourteenth

of France and the country that the Gauls had inhabited, as described by Caesar in his Gallic Wars.

about

And

whom

it

took several more decades for the history of those fierce Gauls,

various authors succeeded in gathering reasonably coherent informa-

become attached

tion, to

to the history of the Franks.

between the Gauls and the Franks was Gauls,

exist: the

one of them,

it

was

after

said,

artificial

had occupied the

To be

sure, the connection

and based on pure legend, but

soil

it

did

of France since time immemorial;

being banished, allegedly went and founded Troy; his descen-

dants supposedly returned in the third century under the their ancestral lands.

name Franks

As Colette Beaune has shown with

great

skill,

to

reoccupy

the French

had the Gallic ancestors they had lacked a century before.'^

finally

As long

as this connection

was not firmly established, that foreigners tried to

it

between the history of Gaul and the history of France

was difficult

for the

French

to accept the

symbolic cock

impose on them, particularly since the symbolism associated

with the bird was not especially positive. In myths, folktales, bestiaries, and encyclopedias, the cock

was generally described

in rather pejorative terms: vain,

bative, nasty, oversexed, stupid, ostentatious, vainglorious, tery, the

Renart, as a

cock often

who

is

fell

flat-

Roman de To adopt or accept the cock

victim to other animals, like Chanteclerc in Le

deceived over and over again by the fox.

symbol was thus

com-

and susceptible to

to diminish

one 's value, and for that reason cocks were rarely

found in seals and coats of arms other than those of commoners.

When

it

came

to

names, however, peasants and artisans often coined nicknames based on the word coq to

poke fun

we have

at

someone whose behavior was presumably in some way

cock-like: thus

not only Coquet, Coquard, Cochet, Coquerel but also Gau, Galle, Galinet,

Lejau, Jalet, and so on.

Foreigners accordingly had a field day comparing the king of France and his subjects to cocks. as well as texts.

From

the fourteenth century on, they did so

For example, several chronicles

tell

siege of Cassel in 1328, Flemish rebels against the

Valois

(who claimed

to

have "discovered" his

Salic law), unfurled a gigantic

title

the story of how, during the

new king of

France, Philip VI of

to the throne

under the supposed

banner on which the image of

together with this ironic inscription:

"When

this

a

cock appeared

cock crows, the 'discovered' king

will enter here."

The canvas cock obviously could not

tured the

A

city.''*

by means of images

sing,

and Philip never cap-

fifteenth-century miniature in a manuscript of the Grandes

Chroniques de France depicts this banner, which marks one of the earliest attempts to

use the Gallic cock as a

mark of

ethnicity.'^

411

FIGURE

arms

of King Charles VIII supported by two Opus christianissimum seu Davidicum domus Franciae by Brother Johannes Angelus Terzone of 12.4

white cocks.

Coat

Title

of

page

of

Legonissa, 1495. One cock

is

trampling a

bolizing the king's victory over his

The "ethnic" cock

FIGURE

12.5

from

a

manuscript

1470

(detail).

of the

lion,

the other a fox, sym-

enemies' strength and cunning.

of the siege of Cassel: miniature

Grandes Chroniques de France,

ca.

The

Gallic

Cock

After the middle of the fifteenth century, the use of the cock to symboHze the

French king and

his subjects

the imperial states. Nearly

became increasingly common

in Flanders, Italy,

and

such images were intended as propaganda directed

all

against the Valois dynasty, including Flemish miniatures portraying a French defeat

hands of Burgundians,

at the

Italian

Charles VIII and Louis XII, and

medals attacking the peninsular policies of

German

prints

remarking ironically on attempts

by various French kings to win imperial election. All of these images proved

Many cropped up again in the seventeenth century during the Thirty War and the various wars waged by Louis XIV. Various images depicted the

durable. Years'

Gallic cock at grips with the imperial eagle, the English leopard,

and the lions of

Venice, Spain, and the United Provinces. Meanwhile, however, the French had ceased to treat the cock exclusively as an image imposed on them by others.

had accepted

it

as their

They

own.

An Acknowledged Symbol In the late Middle Ages, in fact, several Valois sovereigns chose not to repudiate the

ridiculous fowl that enemies of France it

as an

end,

emblem and turned

men

of

letters in their

had

foisted

on them.

Instead, they

embraced

ambivalent symbolism to their advantage.

its

To

that

entourage emphasized not the oversexed, ostentatious

cock of folklore but the courageous, vigilant cock found in

patristic writings

and

Christian symbolism.

The cock at

in fact

comes off

quite well in a

number of

patristic texts: as

he crows

daybreak, he drives away the demons of the night and awakens the faithful from

sinful darkness.

Hence

the bird could be seen as encouraging conversion and

heralding the resurrection to come. This positive symbolism was obviously based

on the Gospel text concerning Saint Peter and the cock ("Before the cock crow, thou shalt

deny me

thrice").''^

Glossing the texts of the Fathers,

liturgists

and symbolists

of the Carolingian and feudal periods sometimes compared this Christological cock

monks who,

to the lar

like the bird,

preachers and clerics

sang the hours of the day, and sometimes to secu-

who watched

over their flocks as cocks watched over their

hens. For instance, in the celebrated Rationale divinorum officiorum compiled in

about 1285, Guillaume Durand explained that the cock, a symbol of victory and vigilance,

ten the priest

had the power to chase away demons. His crowing called upon

God

to has-

dawn of Judgment Day and

was

like the

who

Pisan,

Hence

the cock

sought to lead his flock toward salvation.'^

Various writers

drew on

the Resurrection.

who

this clerical

served French kings after the end of the fourteenth century

and

who compared

liturgical

Charles

imitated in the next century

V

symbolism. The

to a

first to

do so was Christine de

cock watching over his subjects.'^ She was

by various polemicists and pamphleteers who defended

413

414

MICHEL PASTOUREAU the legitimacy of Charles VII or the anti-Burgundian policy of Louis Italian

XI

or the

ambitions of Charles VIII. In 1495 one Francophile Italian writer even ded-

icated a text to Charles VIII prophesying the success of the French expedition in Italy

and glorifying the king under the name

ficiently glorious to

Gallus}'^

This epithet was deemed suf-

be taken up by several authors

in the

applied to both Louis XII and Fran9ois

I.

after his accession to the throne there

was apparently

based on the theme of the cock as

next generation and

In Frangois's entourage before as well as a

whole

political

program

an attribute of Mercury and Mars,

a solar bird,

an emblem of the ancient Gauls, a lucid and proud animal capable of reading the stars

and defending

his turf.

Mythology, astrology, history, and archaeology were

invoked to celebrate the animal, which

in the

end came to occupy

a relatively

important place in the symbolism of the monarchy alongside the fleur de

lys, the

crown, and the salamander. ^'^

Images now took up where

texts left off.

They drew on

a

very ancient belief

(reported by Pliny) according to which lions are not afraid of any animal except the

white cock.^' Accordingly,

artists

depicted the Valois cock as an immaculate white

bird from which the lion of Venice or the Netherlands fled in panic. Abroad,

mean-

while, other images responded to these by showing an eagle or a lion picking the

was anything but white.

feathers of a cock that

This frequent recourse to the heraldic or paraheraldic bestiary

and sixteenth-century

image of the cock.

A

political

imagery probably did

plant image like the

lily,

in late-fifteenth-

a great deal to

no matter how pure or

promote the royal, could

scarcely be set against an eagle or a lion. Animals do not enter into combat with plants.

Hence throughout

the sixteenth century there

was growing emphasis on

the

cock, both inside and outside France. In the next century France definitively adopted the cock. in royal

propaganda

or nation.

as a

symbol

It

played a growing role

either of the sovereign himself or of the

When the future Louis XIII was born in

kingdom

1601, for example, Henri

IV

(the

king famous for promising a "chicken in every pot") ordered the striking of a medallion that

the

showed the dauphin holding

kingdom

stands beside

him with

when young Louis became engaged

a scepter

its

and

a lily

feet planted

to the infanta

on

while a cock symbolizing

a globe.

Anne of

Eleven years

later,

Austria, Parisians cele-

brated by decorating the Place Royale with images of cocks, symbolizing France,

and

lions,

symbolizing Spain. Images of the same two animals appeared in the same

square once again in 1660,

XIV

when

the city celebrated the marriage of the future Louis

to Marie-Therese.22

The two animals appeared, however, not

together but in conflict in coins,

medals, prints, and other images stemming from the wars of the seventeenth century. at

Sometimes the Gallic cock was depicted

other times the bird was

as frightening the Spanish lion, while

shown being devoured by

the big cat.

As in the sixteenth

The

century, moreover, the Spanish eagle, the English leopard,

Hon frequently shared

and the Batavian

iconographic bestiary on medals achieved

its

lion.

The

its

Gallic

Cock

meal with the imperial

propagandistic use of this

peak during the wars of the League

of Augsburg: a veritable metallic war proceeded in parallel with the military oper-

very allegories on which Louis

ations. France's adversaries turned the

once prided himself to their

own

Provinces struck no fewer than

On one of them,

defeats.

the

Dutch

lion,

crow only

will

Louis

drawn

XIV

to the

if

to the

"Non cantabit nisi

a tri-

artistic

Gallic

German

"^^

media

as a

it

por-

comple-

(his personal

sym-

symbol of the monar-

cock defends the Golden Fleece

eagle, the Hispanic lion, and the English

leopard: coin struck for Louis XIV 12.7

resurgat

theme of the cock. He had

image of the sun

The

12.6

against the

FIGURE

setting

the sun rises again].

bol) and the fleur de lys (the

FIGURE

is

mouth

seems to have been particularly

trayed in a variety of

ment

medallions commemorating French naval

symbol of maritime power. The legend

dent, a

ironically proclaims:

[He

in its

in

1691.

Setting sun and cock losing

its

voice: satirical

Dutch medal celebrating the French defeats of 1692. FIGURE

12.8

on a hook:

The

Gallic

satirical

cock duped by

Dutch medal, 1708.

its

had

advantage. In 1692, for example, the United

six

the royal sun

which holds

XIV

enemies and caught

and the Gallic cock

is

fleeing

from

415

4i6

MICHEL PASTOUREAU chy and dynasty). The cock represented the nation, and several images depicted

crowing

is,

Here the cock was

in

every respect the bird of

of Louis XIV. But Louis did not stop there.

He asked the artists work-

to salute the radiant sun.

Apollo, that

it

ing on Versailles to design a

—

new architectural order

the French order

of the palace's rooms. Le Brun's design was chosen because

which cocks alternated with

fleurs

de

The new "French"

lys.

it

—

for several

featured capitals in

capitals can

still

be seen

atop the columns of the Galerie des Glaces at the Palace of Versailles. Paralleling the

gence of interest

renewed symbolic and

artistic

attention to them, but interest in the Gallic past

was born

dition

to

now intensified. A whole erudite tra-

with that indefatigable writer and influential

treatises, starting

emblems and symbols. Father Claude-Frangois Menestrier, explained were proud,

that the Gauls their

had paid only sporadic

demonstrate that the Gauls were the ancestors of the French.

Authors of heraldic theorist of

importance of the cock was a resur-

in the Gauls. Sixteenth-century scholars

free,

emblem not because of

quintessential

and fearsome warriors who had chosen the cock

a play

as

on the word galliis but because the cock was the

symbol of courage and victory. Archaeological findings were invoked

to substantiate these scholarly speculations: every discovery of an ancient object in

the shape of a cock

Under Louis

was greeted with something very

XV

the cock

became

more

a

like nationalist

discreet presence.

It

enthusiasm.

returned to the

limelight, however, at the beginning of the next king's reign, during the

war

for

American independence (1778— 1783). The political bestiary was once again invoked in several prints that

showed

the cock of France supporting the

American serpent

and eagle against the English leopard. In 1782, a commission charged with designing a seal for the thirteen rebellious colonies proposed that a cock be placed as a crest atop the escutcheon of the

new United

States of

America

French aid but also of the young nation's courage and ally chosen,

theless

When

as a

symbol not only of

liberty.^^ In the seal

of course, the cock was replaced by an eagle, but the proposal never-

shows how popular and prestigious the cock symbol was the French Revolution

aware of

eventu-

came

a

few years

later,

in the early 1780s.

the revolutionaries were well

this.

The Cock as an Emblem

of State

The Revolution was in fact a high point in the history of the Gallic cock. Amid the proliferation of new symbols, the cock ensured a certain continuity with the Ancien Regime while at the same time reflecting the new thinking. From the spring of 1789 to the fall of 1792, the cock was often the principal emblem of opposition to the royal fleurs

de

lys.

More than

the French people as a lions

engraved

at the

the cockade, the pike, or the liberty cap, the cock stood for

whole rather than

for a particular faction. Prints

and medal-

time of the Estates General already used the cock in conjunc-

The

tion with the spade as a

same

the

1790,

be

as the

when

set

symbol of the Third

Ancien Regime cock, however:

the Constituent

it

Assembly considered

Cock

The

revolutionary cock was not

was

a rural fowl.

At the end of

symbol" for France

a "national

to

alongside the royal coat of arms, the commission charged with looking into

image of

the matter proposed an

borne

Estate.

Gallic

aloft at the

end of

a

cock with wings outspread as a sign of victory,

a soldier's pike

and identified by the motto "Cantat expug-

[Now he crows, now he fights]." The idea was dismissed as too but many people regretted the decision. In the December 26, 1790, issue

natque vicissim highbrow,

of Revolutions de France rejection of

et

de Brabant, Camille Desmoulins, for one, deplored the

what he considered an "ingenious and

patriotic" proposal.^''

In the following year the cock appeared on a coin, the celebrated constitutional

ecu of six livres engraved by Augustin Dupre, which introduced the

new symbol

to

a large audience.

An image of the king appeared on the coin's face, while the reverse

side depicted the

Genius of France drafting a constitution under the watchful eye of This second image was reproduced on various other

a cock, symbolizing the people.

coins issued before 1795; later lated

Finally, after the fall

In one form or another

known tips

it

as assignats

forms including

at

it

official seals,

Valmy).

It

fit

in

propaganda

and ceramics.

a wealth of different meanings:

Its

was not regulated

it

mission.

At

The men of Year

such,

it

of

symbolic content

in

any way.

It

it

remained an unfet-

had the advantage of

could represent not only the country and nation,

was already the case under the Ancien Regime, but also the people

As

in a variety

the circumstances. Unlike, say, the cockade or, later,

emblem. Compared with other revolutionary emblems,

Republic.

symbol.

stamps, and certificates and even at the

was widely used

prints, illustrations, medallions,

the tricolor, the use of the cock

vigilant state.

state

could be found not only on coins and the paper currency

could of course be adapted to

as

as recently as 1914."^

of the monarchy, the cock became virtually a

but also on

of flagstaffs (as

tered

enjoyed an even greater vogue on coins that circu-

under the Second and Third Republics

II

in

arms and the

looked upon the cock as a guardian of the

appeared on the seals of comites de vigilance and representants en

the height of the Terror,

when

the authorities

went

after the

weather-

cocks that had once been an exclusive privilege of the nobility, they spared the ones

on churches because these were seen

as beneficent protectors of the citizenry

despite the fact that Christian symbols

were widely attacked

in this period

—

this

of revo-

lutionary iconoclasm.

The patriotic cock was tion as well as of the

still

a thoroughly Gallic symbol.

The men of

the Revolu-

Enlightenment believed the Gauls to have been the ancestors

of the serfs and peasants, whereas the invading Franks were thought to have been the ancestors of the nobility.

The Revolution

of which they had been deprived by the

dawn of

a

new

thus restored to the former the liberty

latter,

and the cock crowed not only for the

era but also for the victory of the people.

417

4i8

MICHEL PASTOUREAU The romantic image of

the patriotic cock proved durable, not only because

all

French symbolism of the nineteenth and twentieth centuries derived from the symbolism of the Revolution but also because the cock established a certain continuity

with the symbolism of the Ancien Regime.

comes from nothing. Every new symbol

When it comes to symbols, nothing ever

is

seen in relation to older ones, which

it

opposes, replaces, or complements. Contrary to a widely held view, the French

Revolution introduced few innovations in the realm of emblems and symbols.

drew on sources

a repertoire

it

tricolor), the

color^^),

of colors and figures already used before 1789;

borrowed from were the Ancien Regime American Revolution

new

Obviously, the Revolution grafted

Thus

the

and the

(for the liberty cap, the pike, and, again, the tri-

and freemasonry (for the compass,

ingredients.

among

(for Hercules, the cock,

It

column, and so on).

triangle, level,

or different meanings onto these borrowed

was

the cock of the First Republic

a

composite that symbolized

the Gauls of antiquity, the French nation as constituted since the end of the Middle

Ages, and the patriots in arms,

who

kept an eye as jealous as the cock's on the gains

of the Revolution.

Under the Directory and Consulate, symbols and the Terror were

no longer flaunted

attributes

quite so aggressively; this

cock to move to center stage. Only the

tricolor,

compromised during

opened the way

for the

with which the cock was frequently

associated, enjoyed a comparable "national" dimension. Indeed, France's enemies

were under no

war on

illusion

about

the cock as they had

was so great

this,

done

and

in texts

and images they continued to wage

for six centuries.

that in the spring of 1804

it

At home,

the

vogue

for the cock

almost became the symbol of the

new

regime: the Empire. But Napoleon never overcame his hesitations and doubts, thus frustrating the cock of a role that had

The

selection of an

emblem

several respects, and both Alain

the background. the

The

seemed within

to represent the

newborn Empire

18,

interesting in

Bonaparte had been casting about for a sym-

new

the legacy of the past, including both the Ancien

and a great deal of

emblem of compromise and hope, friends and relatives, the other torians, artists,

is

period from March to July 1804 was decisive. Even before

bol that would not only herald the advent of a

task,

grasp.

Boureau and Herve Pinoteau have ably explored

Empire was proclaimed on May

was no easy

its

and scholars.

effort

the First

era but at the

Regime and

went

same time claim

the Revolution. This

into the search. In seeking an

Consul consulted with many people:

two consuls, the members of the Conseil Opinions were divided. Cambaceres,

his

d'Etat, his-

for example,

favored bees ("a republic with a leader"); Segur, a prominent figure of the Ancien

Regime, backed the

was

lion;

briefly tempted).

grounds

that

it

Duroc, the oak

Lebrun went so

had been

a

tree;

Laumond,

far as to

the elephant (Bonaparte

propose the fleur de lys on the

symbol of France since time immemorial. In the end, the

Empire was proclaimed before

a

symbol was

selected.

At

this

point Napoleon

grew

The

impatient: he

was already looking ahead

to his coronation

and

its

Gallic

staging.

Cock

On June

celebrated meeting of the Conseil d'Etat, he called for a vote of those

12, at a

A

present.

substantial majority voted in favor of the cock!

inevitable, given the degree to

The choice seemed

which the bird had incarnated the history of France

through several different regimes. But Napoleon hesitated. Could he choose

new

"fowl" (volaille) as the symbol of his

empire.''

a

Already he could envision for-

eign medallions and prints showing the poor bird at grips with the eagles of Austria, Prussia, and Russia.

People in antiquity and the Middle Ages could easily accept the symbolic equiv-

modern

alence of the cock and the eagle, but in the impossible.

The

evocative

ogy but on zoology.

In early

summer,

Denon's influence, he suddenly decided

in favor

From

Empire.

First

among others, although it could for the

emperor or

Under

his

still

1804 to 18 15

be seen

government but

the Restoration the cock

fell

Then, under

of the eagle, a decision officially

it

it

was absent from

the

remained one symbol of France of most

at the tips

flagstaffs. It

stood not

for the nation. into disgrace. Because the bird

during the Revolution, the Bourbons found

it

peared from

It

all official

better.

lo, 1804.

cock was not chosen does not mean that

fact that the

became

rejected the cock. For a

want of anything

marked by an imperial decree issued on July

The

Napoleon

therefore,

brief time he opted in favor of the lion, for

symbolism of the

era such an equivalence

power of animal symbols now depended not on mythol-

objects and insignia.

unacceptable, and

it

had strayed

gradually disap-

remained, however, an indelible fea-

and became, under Charles X, a symbol frequently used by ene-

ture of popular art

mies of the monarchy. In a song entitled "Le Vieux Drapeau," Beranger asked that le

bon coq des Gaulois, which could "hurl thunderbolts" as well as any eagle, be

restored to France.

A little later, in

for a revival of the

cock

Allez!

Vous n'avez plus

Sur tous

les

Mais

il

Mais

c'est le

Et son

vous

cri

L'aube du [So,

1827, the pre-republican Victor

in his astonishing

"Ode

I'aigle,

Hugo also

Vendome":

a la colonne

qui de son aire

plus hauts fronts portait votre tonnerre. reste

encor I'oriflamme

coq gaulois qui

et les

reveille le

lis.

monde

peut promettre a votre nuit profonde soleil d'Austerlitz.

you no longer have the

eagle,

which from

its

aerie

Hurled down thunderbolts on the proudest of heads. But the oriflamme and the

lily

are yours

still.

What wakes up the world, though, is the Gallic cock, Whose cry promises to bring the dawn of the sun

Of Austerlitz

to

your darkest

night.]

called

421

MICHEL PASTOUREAU

422

This

call

was heeded during

named

Philippe

lieutenant-general of the

first

August 6 prescribing

that the

by the National Guard.

No

the Revolution of 1830.

sooner was Louis-

kingdom than he

cock be reinstated

as

Later, the cock reappeared

issued an order

on

an emblem on flagstaffs carried

on

certain administrative docu-

ments, on functionaries' plaques and medallions, and on officers' swords. Although

Monarchy did not make

the July tic

emblem

(this role

role that the

The

was

cock had

national cock

lost since 181

was

symbol or even

the cock an authentic state

discreetly left to the fleur de lys),

did restore

it

a dynas-

much of the

5.

also brandished

by the opposition, however. In 1840

a

spate of caricatures appeared depicting a king with a pear-shaped head and a bour-

geois umbrella selling or plucking a cock that stood for the "wretched people of

France."

on

And

in 1845,

when Marshal

Soult

made

the mistake of replacing the cock

certain items of military headgear with a royal

opposition lashed out at what ers called

it

crown

insignia, the left-wing

took to be a reactionary measure. Opposition lead-

on the renowned medievalist

Vallet de Viriville to prove that the cock

had

always been one of France's foremost national symbols, and in the summer of 1845 the scholar published a series of rather brash articles in

The

Le

Courrier fran^ais?^

revolutionaries of 1848 also favored the cock, which they exonerated of any

compromise with

the fallen

monarchy and

having served for eigh-

in fact praised for

teen years as a symbol of patriotic FIGURE

12.13

Cock atop July column: medal commemorating the Revolution

fervor and resistance to royal reac-

of 1830.

Such service

tion.

to the nation

deserved a reward.

On

February govern-

26, 1848, the provisional

ment asked their red

down and once more

Parisians to take flags

embrace "the Gallic cock and the three colors

when

France. "^^

The

.

.

symbols venerated

.

the Republic

And

so

was founded it

came

in

to pass.

cock was not simply embraced

but promoted:

it

now

appeared on

the great seal of the Republic

engraved by Jean-Jacques Barre,

which was adopted official seal

as France's

by a decree of April

23.

Surrounded by a welter of other images symbolizing the labor and

took

its

human

fruits

of

genius, the cock

serene and watchful place

The

on the rudder of the ship of This same

seal

was adopted

state,

Cock

423

guided by a seated figure representing Liberty.

virtually without

change by the Third, Fourth, and Fifth

Republics, thereby consecrating the cock as once and (perhaps) for

of

Gallic

all

an emblem

state.^^

Backto the Gauls In the interim, however, before

most recent

its

consecration on the great seals of France 's three

republics, the cock suffered another period of eclipse during the

Empire, when

it

was everywhere supplanted by the

Second

eagle. Pliable archaeologists

and

numismatists went so far as to argue that the cock had no historical right to be the

symbol of France. In

dredge up old arguments

hesitate to

It is false

to say that the

raised cocks

them.

1852, to flatter the

It

in the

dark centuries of the Middle Ages that priests

it

modern

be, since

medallions used against

us by the Spaniards, Austrians,

Dutch, and English.

We

there-

fore have the right to protest at

the sight of cocks all

on our

flags.

too readily heeded the

arguments of ignorant plagiaand thus

failed to notice

doing so they were un-

critically

embracing contempt-

ible foreign satires.^"*

Although the views expressed here were not totally inaccurate,

they were far too polemical and reductive to survive the Second

Empire. The revival of the Republic after 1870, and even after 1875,

a

went hand

in

writers,

is

.

.

.

The

first

placed

cock, notwithstand-

not a national symbol for our

it

served as the model for various satirical

1835:

on their farms, but the bird enjoyed no particular distinction among

was

country, nor should

that in

used by a legitimist hack in

of cocks atop towers and church steeples.

effigies

rists

regime, one mediocre scholar did not

Gauls ever used the cock as a symbol. They of course

ing the arguments of certain

People

first

new

more

hand with

triumphant revival of the cock.

figure

12.14

Cock ornament on rudder

Republic, 1848.

of the Republic: seal of the

Second

424

MICHEL PASTOUREAU Besides regaining

its

place on flags and on the great seal of France, the fowl also

appeared on coins, stamps, and other

official tokens.

As

the century

wore on, cocks

cropped up everywhere. At the Exposition Universelle of 1900 they were tibiquitous,

and the rear gate of the Elysee Palace on Avenue Marigny cock lording If the

it

over

all

cock made a comeback

in the final years

not alone: the Gauls returned with

it.

By

this

featured a vigorous

to the tribes of Gaul, Mercury,

of the nineteenth century,

it

was

time they were fully a part of the

no discussion of

nation's historic patrimony, and

nod

now

the other attributes of the Republic.^^

the cock

was complete without

a

and the great Celtic god Lug. But whereas the

had honored the Gauls of the Roman period, people now also, indeed primarily, honored the inhabitants of independent Gaul, the tribesmen whom Caesar had been able to vanquish only through deception and betrayal. neoclassical revolutionaries

In truth, nationalists

had been interested

century, at least since the romantics.^''

in the

pre-conquest Gauls for more than a

Knowledge of

been accumulating for decades, however, and

the pre-conquest period had

after 1871 nationalist

propaganda seized on these heroic "ancestors" of the French

and revanchist purposes.

German, and French

It

became fashionable

historians devoted as

historians devoted to primitive

much

and republican

for patriotic, military,

to contrast the Celt with the

attention to the Gauls as

German

Germania. Scholars passionately debated the exact

location of the battle of Alesia, excavations were

begun

in

many

places,

and the

heroes of independent Gaul were celebrated. Whereas the Ancien Regime had been interested mainly in Brennus, the brutal leader of the Gauls

Frenchmen

B.C.,

in the

who sacked Rome in 388

second half of the nineteenth century revered that authentic

who remained an obligatory feature of textbooks well memory stocked with a gallery of was one way for the schools to accomplish their function of

romantic hero, Vercingetorix,

into the twentieth century.^'' Creating a collective

common

ancestors

national integration, not only for the children of immigrants but also for children living in provinces texts

whose connection with one another was

"scholastic pantheon,"

Caesar.^^ defeat.

and

still

tenuous. Classroom

and school-prize books invariably included what Christian Amalvi has called a

which began with an image of Vercingetorix surrendering to

The vanquished hero always looked proud and

Also

in his favor

was the

institutional conflicts

around

whom

everyone could

course also the Christian cock, its flock."^*^

on the cock's

in ideological

conflicts that

were

and other textbooks. Vercingetorix was neither Joan

He was

a

consensus hero for the entire nation, a figure

rally.

So was the cock. Alongside the

Church and

Gauls were not an issue

between the Church and the Republic,

reflected in classroom histories

of Arc nor Robespierre.

fact that the

glorious in spite of his

patriotic

who

and republican Gallic cock there was of

roosted atop steeples and seemed to protect the

We saw earlier that this Christian association had little effect

status during the First Republic,

and the same was true of the Third,

The

The

at least until 1918.

steeple cock

village than to the parish.

national animal.

The

It

was

was apparently seen

still

as

Cock

Gallic

425

belonging more to the

a rural cock, the village counterpart

of the

republican cock and the village cock were cousins, both with a

strong "Gallic" ancestry.

Under the Ancien Regime,

the expression "Gallic cock" had mainly a geographic

and heraldic significance. The bird stood for France as the leopard stood for England

and the eagle for Germany. In the nineteenth century the symbol added anthropological significance to this historical one. ciated with the ideas of

of his Dictionnaire

freedom and frankness. As

word evoked

in 1873,

The

adjective "Gallic"

a

more

was asso-

Littre indicated in the first edition

"the customs of the

good old days" when

men were proud and rough, honest and sincere, and confident in nature and their destiny.

the

His definition included examples for each of these various senses and mentioned

now obsolete expression

"c'est

un bon Gaulois," which was

to

be taken as

a

com-

pliment. But Littre ended with a further connotation of the word, associated with the idea of bawdiness or impropriety; in fact the

though omitted by

word gauloiserie, meaning "bawdiness,"

had been included

Littre,

in the Larousse

du XIX^

siecle the

year

before. Political freedom shaded into freedom of

manners, which

in

tiousness and excess.

turned shaded into licen-

FIGURE

The Gauls enjoyed

some

tation for debauchery, but

Epoque image.

this

seems only

a repu-

on the eve of La Belle

to

have enhanced their

And the cock, a lascivious bird, indeed an

ancient attribute of Lust, could easily be assimilated to this notion. Indeed,

it

was through

rear gate of the Elysee Palace, the

Cock, that gauloiserie made as various presidents

its

the

Gate of the

discreet entrance

indulged in amorous

"acquaintances." Historians, without focusing directly

on the

lusty reputation of the Gauls, nevertheless did their part

tion

by emphasizing the

historical

connec-

between the cock and the ancient inhabitants

of French

soil.

Writing

France, for example,

the cock

in Lavisse's Histoire de

Gerard Bloch explained

was associated with

the

that

god Mercury,

revered by the Gauls long before the

Roman

conquest (which according to the present state of

our knowledge

is

correct),

and that they had

already singled the bird out as their favorite ani-

mal

(a

more dubious

proposition).""

12.15

Georges Clemenceau caricatured as

Gallic cock, 1906.

a worri-

426

MICHEL PASTOUREAU

R)UR LA France

VERSEZ VOTRE OR

LOr Combat FourLaMctoire FIGURE

and in

An Englishman

)2.16

Gallic

cock

into fighting:

tries to

goad

a

German eagle

drawing by Olaf Gulbransson

Simplicissimus, before 1914.

FIGURE

The cock as defender

12.17

of the fatherland:

poster by Abel Faivre for the national loan of 1915.

FIGURE in

France sewing back the provinces recovered

12.18

World War

I:

advertisement by Jean Mich for Automoto

sewing machines.

During World War

became

a

I,

the cock once again

dyed-in-the-wool patriot.

It

partici-

pated in the war on every front, especially the

propaganda

front,

through posters, medals, film

(the French film

company Pathe had

logo), and song.

It

German

eagle,

chased away.

a

cock for

was forever tangling with

which

it

either

a

the

awed, flattened, or

On the German side the roles were

reversed: the French cock

was always

frightened,

Some images used all of modern advertising. In 1915,

plucked, or defeated.

the

techniques

for

The

Cock

Gallic

example, the government tried to encourage French citizens to aid the war effort by

exchanging their

showing

hoards of gold for war bonds. The campaign relied on a poster

idle

a warlike

cock springing up from

France, contribute your gold. Gold

war songs the

Above Some,

all, it

a coin to attack a

The slogan accompanying

collapses in panic.

is

this

German

fighting for victory." In several popular post-

was prominently featured on countless memorials one

Metz

in

who

hummed along in homage to France's victorious troops."*^

Gallic cock

like the

soldier,

image read: "For the sake of

that

was destroyed

showed

in 1940,

to the

war dead.

a triumphant cock

dancing on a dead eagle.

During World War to

its

the

II,

dung heap." Instead

Vichy government

promoted

it

Germanic symbol versus

cisque (a

new symbol, the Frankish battle-ax, or franThe cock's patriotic reputation

a

a Celtic one).

flourished underground, however. Every time a cock

atop a church bell tower,

was seen

it

"send the Gallic cock back

tried to

was

installed or reinstalled

as an act of resistance. Resistance

unorthodox ways of expressing itself: one Camembert factory launched

known

as

Le

coq hardi.

The

standing on a globe with

government

visional

its

a

new brand

triumphant cock with wings outspread

label featured a feet exactly

found some

on top of Germany.

in Algiers issued a series

''^

Later, in 1944, the pro-

of eight postage stamps on which a

cock, standing beside a Croix de Lorraine (the symbol of Free France), crowed the liberation of France.

What Emblem Despite

its

for

France?

win

theless failed to

Fifth Republics

it

full

ished.

The

The

still

first is

cock has never-

did under the Third Republic.

its official

decline actually began before it

it

be seen on coins (the

on several postage stamps, but

the reasons for

past, the

acceptance as a symbol of France. Under the Fourth and

has played less of a role than

be sure, the symbolic cock can 1958) and

and not-so-recent

patriotic virtues in the recent

last

of them engraved in

and quasi-official role has dimin-

World War

II,

in the 1920s

and 1930s, and

are diverse.

the decline of rural France.

The

Gallic cock

was always associated

primarily with the land, the village, the countryside. During the Revolution

already linked to the spade. tect the village soil that

specialty for the

it

was

When it took its place atop the bell tower, it was to pro-

much more

effectively.

Everyone knew

a

handyman whose

was mounting weathercocks, and every peasant away from home longed

cock on the village

their force in the city,

stripped the

number of

bell tower.

however.

Such nostalgic emotions and mythologies

When

the

peasants, the cock

and prestige. To urban eyes the cock to

To

mind chickens and manure. As

is

number of

city dwellers finally out-

no doubt shed some of

mainly a farmyard animal.

the death

lost

its

It

old charisma

inevitably calls

agony of the countryside drags on,

it

427

I

The

becomes

less

and

less likely that the

To most people nowadays

national symbol.

about the bird, and chooses its

it

favor.

cock will hold on to or regain

therefore adds

it

little

there

in the

something

is

way of

Cock

Gallic

place as a

its

faintly ridiculous

prestige to the country that

for a symbol, no matter how much ancient or recent history may weigh in To many French people today the idea of choosing a cock to represent

France on the international scene

is

can only be meant ironically, and

when

bol one has to

French

wonder

nothing

less

than ludicrous

not outrageous.

if

foreigners choose the cock as France

It

sym-

's

they aren't laughing up their sleeves.

if

officials therefore largely

avoid the symbol or limit

its

use to areas con-

sidered unimportant, such as sports stadiums. Unlike politicians, bureaucrats, diplo-

mats, and soldiers, however, athletes,

who

also represent France in their

own

way,

sometimes use the cock as an insigne in international competitions. Further research is

needed to identify those sports

since

when,

in

in

which the symbol

from the folklore of

athletics. In

used and on what occasions,

Tournament, French fans released

By contrast,

a live

as "cocks" (and

cock onto the

in soccer, a primarily

as "the blues" or "the tricolors."

much

is

to be learned

rugby, for example, a sport with solid rural roots,

French players are often characterized

match).

is

what form, and with what connotations. There

Even

during the Five Nations

field at the

beginning of each

urban sport, French teams are referred to

in athletics, then, the national

connotations (as well as a connection to what rugby players

cock has rural

like to call gauloiseries,

the lewd demonstrations in the interval before the third period).'*'*

The

fact that the

cock

is

also a Christian

status in twentieth-century France.

tions did

As we have

state. In

Catholics and non-Catholics alike. After

The Church used ingly secularized

undermined

the cock for it

1916 the cock was

World War

Gallic cock that could Finally, the decline less real decline is

I,

propaganda purposes, and

still

at the

a

height

symbol

to identify this evangelical

all

for

however, things changed. as France

became

increas-

attempted to use the steeple cock for missionary purposes.

by some Catholics

its

seen, the bird's Christian connota-

inevitably irritated proponents of laicite, and this

intention

also have

no harm during the Revolution or the Third Republic, even

it

of conflict between church and

effort

symbol may

The

cock with the national cock

may have turned

people against a

too readily be confused with the Christian one.

of the cock can also be linked to a

less significant

of the Gauls. Despite the success of comics

to entertain, not to

but nonethe-

like Asterix

(whose

promote an ideology, and from which the cock

is

vir-

tually absent)

and despite the ubiquitous presence of the celebrated blue pack of

Gauloises, the

French cigarette, the day of nationalist historiography and mythology

is

over.

The myth of "our ancestors the

generations of schoolchildren, anthropologists have tions,

and

in the

end

all

Gauls," which did so

is dead.''^

worked very hard

this effort

has paid

much harm to

so

many

Historians, archaeologists, sociologists, and to avoid ethnocentric reflexes

off.

and

reflec-

Although the Gauls have by no means

429

MICHEL PASTOUREAU

43°

been discredited or

of the national cultural pat-

cast out

rimony, they are no longer called upon to weld France together, to boost

or to encourage the French

its spirits,

to seek revenge against their neighbors. In this there

probably reason to

is

rejoice.

Despite this multifarious decline and these various handicaps, there

is still

some small chance

once again become an

will

French nation

if

official

not of the French

France will sooner or

later

its flag.

cock

emblem of Like

state.

it

the

or not,

be obliged for reasons of

emblem

diplomatic protocol to choose an played alongside

that the

to

be

dis-

Choosing such an emblem

is

a

very delicate matter, however. All the old symbols with historical claims to this role are too strongly identified

with political or ideological positions to FIGURE sional

12.20

Postage stamp issued by the provi

government

in

unanimous support. This fleur

1944.

de

cisque,

is

clearly the case with the

lys, the liberty cap, the eagle, the

and even the

command

lictor's fasces

(now

bee, the fran-

associated with

fascism), the Croix de Lorraine, and the bust of Marianne. All connote too strongly a party or an idea

the

left.

and arouse doubts

cock has a chance,

If the

it

if

not outright rejection by either the right or

may be

as a

symbol of compromise. The farm-

yard fowl, the poor man's eagle, the Gallic peasant's bird, having survived the centuries

a

and weathered any number of regimes without compromise, might well offer

compromise

solution, not fully satisfactory to

anyone but not too overtly obnox-

ious either. In any case, this choice has already been sanctioned abroad. In Belgium, for example, the

Francophone

1975: the Gallic cock

cultural

community

bors, the matter seems settled, but France herself itself is a fact

officially

adopted the bird

in

now stands beside the Flemish lion. For all of France's neighstill

of some significance for cultural history.

hesitates

and

balks.

That

in

FIGURE

13.0

Jeanne d'Arc by

Blois,

one

of the

innumerable statues of France's national

saint.

CHAPTER

Joan

of

Arc

Michel JVinock

"It

would be most

interesting,"

wrote Anatole France, "to trace the

Maid of Orleans through the ages. But

who

looks into the

since the

way

in

it

would

memory

take an entire book." Indeed,

to the

day she was burned

at the stake in

Rouen must

first

confront the profusion trial (or,

condemnation, rehabilitation, and canonization), and her death.

A visit

Centre Jeanne-d'Arc in Orleans, founded in 1974 by Regine Pernoud

behest of Andre Malraux,

is

a daunting experience: the sheer

(more than 8,500 volumes, thousands of films,

anyone

which the memory of Joan of Arc has been perpetuated

of images and texts that have accumulated around her glorious exploit, her rather, trials:

of the

and other source materials)

is

multifarious posthumous existence the ages.

One

slides,

hundreds of

at the

volume of material

files

of press clippings,

enough to discourage any editor.' The heroine's

is

obvious

at a glance:

her

name has lived through

can attempt to gauge the magnitude of her renown by looking

at

Le

Livre d'or de Jeanne d'Arc, which Pierre Lanery d'Arc published in 1894. Although

it

made no claim to be exhaustive, this "rational and analytic" bibliography was already quite extensive, yet writers and artists remained undaunted. Indeed, to judge that has

been written, painted, sculpted, rhymed, and

able catalog appeared,

many works ranging attests to

it

set to

music since

by

all

this invalu-

probably served as a stimulus.^ Joan of Arc has inspired so

in quality

from the

vile to the

sublime that their number alone

her renown even beyond the borders of France.^

Let us dwell for a

moment on

output before going on to look

the abundance of this literary, artistic, and historical at its

meandering and contradictory course. At one

time or another every citizen of France has heard the story of

from Domremy,

how

the

humble

girl

whom nothing in her background predestined for greatness, became

one of the few people

to

have changed the course of history, for which she has been

13

434

MICHEL WINOCK remembered ever

Her memory

since.

is

preserved everywhere, from the greatest of

houses to the humblest of cottages, in forms ranging from the most august to the most insignificant. In schools, secular as well as parochial,

young children

learn about the

miraculous adventure that took a peasant's daughter to the siege of Orleans and the cathedral of Reims. Since the nineteenth century countless histories of France have

familiarized readers with the bonne Lorraine: Sismondi, Henri Martin, Michelet,

Theophile Lavalee, the Riancey brothers, Victor Duruy, Emile

Keller,

and Lavisse

joined with others in celebrating the heroine.'' These textbooks, which brought his-

tory within the reach of

all,

encyclopedias. Diderot,

still

were supplemented

for a smaller

skeptical about the story,

number of

skimped on

readers by

details,

but nine-

teenth-century encyclopedias invariably painted a mythological portrait of the Maid: Barbier's dictionary of 1820, Feller's Dictionnaire historique (1781 and 1832),

and Poujoulat's Biographie

Michaud

universelle (1818, 1837, 1861, 1873, 1^^4)5 Peignot's

Dictionnaire historique et bibliographique (1821), and Bescherelle's Dictionnaire national (1S46, 1853, 1875, 1881) inaugurated a long line of alphabetically arranged

works offering an account of the

and martyrdom of Joan of Arc tailored to

exploits

readers of various ages and backgrounds, from the liberal and republican audience of the

Grand Dictionnaire

universel du

Encyclopedic universelle du

The memory of

XIX^

XX^ siecle

(1870) to the Catholic readers of the

siecle

(1904).^

the sainte de la patrie (the

two nouns reconciled Catholic France

with Republican France) was also kept alive in

many

other ways. Filmmakers were

quick to latch onto Joan's story: Georges Melies, Cecil B. DeMille, Carl Dreyer (with the assistance of the incomparable Falconetti), Marc de Gastyne, Victor

Fleming (who ensured

that several generations

trayed by Ingrid Bergman), Jean Delannoy

would think of Joan

(who

as she

was por-

directed Michele Morgan),

Roberto Rossellini, Robert Bresson, and, surprisingly, the Soviet director Gleb Panfilov

all

filmed the history and legend of the "sovereign virgin."

that, the story

had been a favorite of playwrights, who offered

interpretations.^ It

was staged

drama, as dramatic poetry a as

boulevard comedy

Schiller,

in the

as a

mystery play

in front

thousand different

la

Paul Claudel, and

manner of Jean Anouilh. Non-French

George Bernard Shaw, and

Bertolt Brecht

Bernhardt 's triumph in the role of Joan play by Jules Barbier that had scored

another triumph in 1909, when,

at the

at

before

of churches, as a moralistic

Charles Peguy, as an oratorio a

la

a

Long

writers such as

were also drawn to the tale. Sarah

Porte-Saint-Martin in 1890, in a mediocre

its first

success in 1873,

was followed by

yet

age of sixty-five, the celebrated actress played

in

Emile Moreau's Le Proces de Jeanne. Musicians also took up

the subject: Reinhard

Anselm Weber, Rodolphe Kreutzer, Richard Wagner,

Giovanni Pacini, Franz

Liszt,

the

Maid of Orleans

acts,

and above

all

Giuseppe Verdi, whose opera

in three

with a libretto by Solera, was performed in Milan in 1845. Paul Pierne wrote a

symphonic poem, Max d'Ollonne composed the opera Jeanne d'Arc a Domremy, and

FIGURE a film

Maria Falconetti

13.1

based on the record

FIGURE

In 1948, Ingrid

13.2

a film directed

FIGURE

Maid

Carl Dreyer's Passion of Joan of Arc (1928),

Bergman played

a Hollywood-style

Joan

of

Arc

in

by Victor Fleming.

In

13.3

play the

in

of the trial.

1970 the Soviet director Gleb Panfilov chose Ina Churikova to

of Orleans.

George Bernard Shaw's Saint Joan (]22b).

FIGURE

13.4

Ludmilla Pitoeff

FIGURE

13.5

Another Joan "made

in

in

the U.S.A.": Jean Seberg

in

Otto

Joan

in

Jules

Preminger's Sa/nt Joan (1957). FIGURE

13.6

In 1890,

Sarah Bernhardt revived the

role of

Barbier's play, with music by

Gounod; poster by Grasset. She would play Joan

again at the age of sixty-five

in

Emile Moreau's Le Proces de Jeanne.

436

MICHEL WINOCK Arthur Honegger provided the music for Claudel's Jeanne au bucher. Joan's

was

also perpetuated

memory

by every imaginable

genre of literature: histories, essays,

and poems. What

fiction, biographies,

French writer has not written about

from Fran9ois Villon

her,

Many have

to Alain?

found her irresistible: Lamartine, Barante, Michelet, Auguste

Comte, Alexandre

Dumas, Eugene Sue, Louis Guizot, Theodore de

Barbier,

Coppee,

Jules

Banville, Fran9ois

Prudhomme, Anatole

Sully

France, Maurice Barres, Charles Peguy,

Leon

Bloy, Georges Bernanos, Joseph

Alexandre

Delteil,

Arnoux,

Brasillach, Thierry Maulnier,

Clavel,

Andre Malraux. Few

figures have received such

What

is

Robert

Maurice historical

homage.

more, the name Joan of Arc

has lent itself to a variety of purposes since the nineteenth century.

used to

sell

It

has been

mineral water as well as to

distinguish Catholic youth groups and political organizations.

been portrayed

The Maid

in a variety

has

of stereotypi-

cal attitudes: listening to voices, deliver-

Her image

ing Orleans, dying in Rouen.

has been associated with official cere-

monies, local

festivals, post cards,

church

windows, almanacs, picture books, and souvenirs for pilgrims and tourists. Her

name has been engraved

in iron, bronze,

and stone. Thousands of statues depicting her as an inspired shepherdess or intrepid warrior can be found in every

FIGURE

13.7

Joan

of

Arc on the top of

a

cheese box

from the Union Laitiere of Lorraine.

yOlIURETlES

FIGURE

mark

VOlIURES LaJeann['d'Arc

13.8

of

"La Jeanne d'Arc," the registered trade-

an automobile manufacturer; poster by Louis

Oury and Stanek,

late

nineteenth century.

Joan

village in France, decorating latories,

or lording

it

in the fervor for Joan.

monuments

over town

to the dead, tucked

away

in

of Arc

church ambu-

Beauty and ugliness have been conjoined

squares.''

Not a single departement or canton has been exempt from

labor of public and religious commemoration. In short, one 's

first

impression

this

is

of

an overwhelming volume of memorabilia, of endless repetition of an interminable

When

litany.

the boxer

Alphonse Halimi,

became world bantamweight champion

a

French Jew born

North Africa,

after defeating his British rival, his first

thought when a microphone was thrust in his face was simply, of Arc."

in

"I

have avenged Joan

He may have known nothing about the Maid of Orleans other than what he a grammar school textbook. He had surely heard his teacher talk about

once read in

any

had driven the English out of France

(a

crude but

widely accepted version of what actually happened^) was part of his

common

her. In

knowledge Yet

this

case, the idea that she

—which

memory.

says a great deal about popular

abundance, not to say overabundance, of remembrance should not be

allowed to conceal certain chronological and geographical discontinuities and the ideological factors responsible for them. tral

memory: fragmented,

conflicts

The memory of Joan of Arc

controversial, and instrumentalized,

it

is

not a neu-

also reflects the

of ideas that have divided the French since the dawn of the modern

A Mobile Memory:

Variations

era.

Time

in

All writers interested in the posterity of Joan of

Arc have been struck by the contrast

between the sixteenth, seventeenth, and eighteenth centuries, during which she was neglected and forgotten, and the nineteenth and twentieth centuries, actively

remembered.^ In broad outline,

this

view of the matter is

when

she was

fairly accurate (as

the

above review of the bibliography and iconography of the subject suggests), but

it is

in

need of modification

vances, about which ular Joan

I

was during her

in several

important respects. In addition to local obser-

have more to say

shall

lifetime.

later on,

Her personal

it is

important to note

qualities (including a

how pop-

remarkably

beautiful face for an illiterate peasant), her stunning exploit, her initial success

ultimate sacrifice, and the miraculous quality of the

few years from

Domremy

to Vaucouleurs,

whole adventure, which

and

led in a

Vaucouleurs to Chinon, and Chinon to

Reims, where Charles VII upon his coronation could take comfort in the possession of a previously contested legitimacy, and then finally from Reims to these things left traces in

foreign as well as French observers.

some

(like

Rouen

—

all

contemporary writings, beginning with the chronicles of

those of Perceval de

These narratives were already contradictory:

Cagny and Jean

Chartier) favored the Armagnacs,

while others (like those of Georges Chastellain and Enguerrand de Monstrelet) favored the Burgundians. ness accounts

Memoirs

round out the corpus.

inspired

by

the

same chronicles and by eyewit-

Among these was the Journal du siege d'Orleans,

437

438

MICHEL WINOCK

And

written in about 146 1, which provided the inspiration for later narratives. first

works of

all

appeared,

art celebrating la Pucelle also

siege d'Orleans, a verse play

among them

the

the Mystere du

of 20,529 lines written between 1435 and 1456, and above

the poetry of Christine de Pisan,

who

the simple shepherdess, "braver than

as early as 1429

any man

in

was singing

Rome," and

the praises of

the prose

poem

that

Alain Chartier wrote in the same year in praise of the "singular virgin."

Opinions about Joan were not unanimous, however. In the sixteenth century, Burgundian tradition (and especially Monstrelet's chronicle) tradition: in Instructions sur le fait de la guerre (1548),

still

Guillaume

vied with Armagnac

Du

Bellay portrays

Joan as nothing more than an instrument of the French court. Even Girard du Haillan, the author of

De

I'estat de

mercy des

affaires de France (1570), reputedly the first

national history to be written in French, casts doubt

on Joan's

chastity as well as her

mission. The Wars of Religion revived the partisan uses of Johannic memory, which the Ligue manipulated to its own advantage. Already, however, Etienne Pasquier's Recherches de la France sketched the outlines of a conciliatory role for Joan.

The

sev-

enteenth century seems to have taken a disdainful attitude toward a heroine "too Gothic," to use Chateaubriand's term, for a century that took ancients and identified the Middle implications for Joan's

its

models from the

Ages with barbarism. Even more serious

memory was La Pucelle ou la France delivree, a poem in twenty-

four stanzas and 1,200 lines, to which Chapelain devoted six years of his

was published

in 1656,

was stigmatized

it

as such

Maudit

became a type of

all

that

life.

When it

was most ridiculous in literature and

by Boileau:

soit I'auteur

Son cerveau

in its

dont I'apre

tenaillant,

et

dure verve.

rime malgre Minerve,

Et de son lourd marteau martelant

le

bon

sens

A fait de mechants vers douze fois douze cents. [Accursed be the author whose harsh, hard verve,

Gnawing

at his brain,

And who,

with his heavy

rhymes despite Minerva,

hammer hammering home good

Has fashioned twelve times twelve hundred nasty

sense

verses.]

Chapelain's zeal turned out, as Quicherat remarked, to be "as damaging to Joan's

memory

as a

second

ishing neglect of the ical

providentialism

trial

for heresy."'"

Maid

in his

made no

Proof of

Meaux is an

under Louis XIV, Joan of Arc had ceased to be of it

was

in the

can be seen in Bossuet's aston-

allusion to the "voices" she supposedly heard.

skepticism on the part of the bishop of

Nevertheless,

this

Abrege de Vhistoire de France: the theorist of histor-

interest to

men of refined

seventeenth century that one of the

works on Joan was produced. Written between 1625 and 1630, the Pucelle d'Orleans, from which later writers

Such

excellent index of public opinion:

would draw

freely,

intellect.

first historical

Histoire de la

was the work of

439

Joan of Arc

Edmond ogy

Richer, a former syndic of the facuky of theol-

University of Paris and a confirmed Gallican

at the

who used

the best available source,

still little

known

at the

time despite the publication of several abridged versions,

namely, the records of Joan's trials." published in

—

a sign of the times

The work was

—and would

in fact

not

remain

manuscript form for two centuries.

The

supernatural,

all

too obtrusively present in the

story of Joan of Arc, inevitably predisposed the philosophes against her.

Of course it would be misleading to reduce the

eighteenth century to Voltaire's this

La

Pucelle. Nevertheless,

long poem, later judged sacrilegious, was read and

reread

by

Voltaire

's

admirers,

who

liked to recite lengthy

excerpts at social gatherings. This comical demolition, in

which the warlike virgin must endure the amorous attentions of her ass,

of writers

like

is

sometimes seen as a grotesque parody

Chapelain. But in the serious Dictionnaire

philosophique, Voltaire gave a succinct statement of his

opinion of the maiden he had mocked in verse: tunate idiot." In attacking Joan, Voltaire

"Think of Joan not

attacking the clergy:

innocent but as a fearless idiot inspired; a village heroine her; a hearty girl

who

"An unfor-

was above

all

as an inspired

FIGURE

L'Arrivee

13.9

La Pucelle ou

believed herself to be

who had a great role thrust upon

whom the inquisitors and the doctors sent

la

France delivree

Chapelain devoted

poem

six

of 1,100 lines in

ment

with the most cowardly cruelty."'^ This judg-

also reflected a widely shared

large part this to

on the

Middle Ages.

rehabilitation of the "age of cathedrals." Saint-Marc Girardin

that piety

We

we have been caught up

was nothing but

by scoundrels.

in a great revival

We

a crude superstition.

As

Ages were nothing but an age

in

turies.

far as religion

which

fools

's

eyes,

was con-

were duped

Ages and

saw only the passion

and the legacy of the crude barbarian customs of the

fifth

for

and sixth cen-

Greedy, debauched monks, theological dispute, disputatious warriors,

and pointless wars, including the Crusades: cle

had

taste for the

are fond of the chivalrous rituals of the Middle

the heroic adventures of medieval knights: Voltaire battle

of

readily admire the fervdr of their piety. In Voltaire

cerned, the Middle

of the Middle Ages.'^

its

century depended in

say in 1838:

For some years now,

that, for Voltaire,

was the

to this

author a number

say nothing of Voltaire's

lewd parody.

in the nineteenth

life

twenty-four stanzas. This

contempt for the

Middle Ages. The refurbishing of Joan's image

(1656).

years of his

"later-day Aeneid" earned of nasty epigrams, to

to the stake

de Jeanne a Chinon;

engraving by Bosse after Vignon, for Chapelain's

specta-

MICHEL WINOCK

44°

Still,

the

aroused by Voltaire's

stir

La

Pucelle

surely contributed, as Quicherat suggested, to the revival of the study of Joan of Arc. Scholars to

examine the

and

it

was

still

was

first

of

all

par

began

the three- volume

by Abbe Nicolas Lenglet-Dufresnoy, Jeanne d'Arc

trials,

end of the Age of Enlightenment

at the

that the first "scientific" histories of Joan

appear. There

began

unpublished records of her

to

work

Histoire de

vierge, heroine et martyre d'Etat, suscitee

la Providence

pour

retablir la

monarchie franfaise,

des proces et autres pieces originales du temps

tiree

(1753— 1754). Lenglet-Dufresnoy neglected to say that he

had pillaged the

Richer, but the truth the plagiarizer

Still,

source, and his

still

unpublished work of

came out shortly after his death. had

work

at least

copied a worthwhile

stimulated renewed curiosity

about the subject. The next step was taken by

FIGURE

13.10

Voltaire, inspired

Clement de I'Averdy,

a

Parlement of Paris and

a

by Cupid, writing La

the

Academie

et extraits des

manuscrits

de la Bibliotheque du Roi, published in 1790, earned

by Ransonette after Gabriel de Saint-Aubin.

him

the praise of Jules Quicherat:

account, the

first

"The

first

correct

work worthy of modern science."'"^

revolutionary period was not a propitious time for the glorification of a

woman whose its

conseiller in the

member of

des Inscriptions. His Notices

PucellevjhWe trampling on Chapelain's poem; engraving

The

former

reputation rested on her having restored the

monarchy and affirmed

loyalty to the Church. Nevertheless, Louis-Sebastien Mercier, the author of the

Tableau de Paris and a future deputy of the Convention, wrote a verse drama in four acts entitled Jeanne d'Arc,

Comiques

which was performed

at the

Theatre des Delassements-

in 1790. In 1802, in his preface to a translation

of Schiller's Die Jungfrau

von Orleans, Mercier launched a frontal attack on the "depraved and libertine brain"

of Voltaire.

He

linked Joan's cause to the cause of the people: had she been alive in

would have taken

1789, she surely

Bonaparte, always attentive to

part in the attack

shifts in public opinion,

on the

Bastille.

Meanwhile,

authorized the revival of the

annual commemoration of Joan in Orleans, which had been suspended since 1793,

and congratulated the

"The

illustrious

capable

when

city for building a

new monument

Joan of Arc proves that there

her independence

Several factors conspired to

Arc." There was

first

of

words, "loved with an

at

all

is

is

to the glory of la Pucelle:

no miracle of which France

is

not

threatened."

make

the nineteenth century the "century of Joan of

the romantic

times rather

movement, which,

murky passion

in

Georges Goyau's

historical apparitions that

Joan of Arc

embodied the soul of ality or

hymn."'^

mee

a people or that epitomized

consciousness: Earlier,

la Pucelle

it

and expressed a collective person-

was seduced by Joan and

Le Brun des Charmettes, with

in 1841

his Histoire de Jeanne d'Arc

d'OrUans (1817), and especially Barante, with

Bourgogne (1839), heralded the

produced Michelet's

shift in sensibility.

And

surnom-

his Histoire des dues de

then came Michelet, whose

Jeanne d'Arc, part of his monumental Histoire de France, had a tremendous influence: the idea of Joan as a national epiphany

had a bright future ahead of

the second important factor in the revival,

would

inspire

works about the Maid of Orleans. "The patron

tant

saint

some of

Patriotism,

it.

the

most impor-

of an invaded nation," as

Paul Deroulede called her, became the heroine of France's founding myth. Henri

Martin called her the "messiah of nationality." revival following the

fall

and Msgr. Dupanloup,

A

third factor

was the Catholic

of Napoleon. Pious popular works about Joan proliferated,

who had been bishop of Orleans since

1849,

worked

tirelessly

for her canonization: "I hail the saint in her," he exclaimed in his 1869 panegyric. Earlier, in i860,

Henri Wallon published a Jeanne d'Arc with a Catholic

book went through

slant; the

from the Academic Frangaise,

several printings, received a prize

and was praised by Pope Pius IX.

memory

Joan's acteristic

also benefitted

from the return

to the sources that

was char-

of nineteenth-century historical research. After Frangois Guizot's efforts

led to the

founding of the Societe de I'Histoire de France, that organization

recruited a

young graduate of

the Ecole des Chartes, Jules Quicherat, to prepare a

complete edition of the records of Joan's condemnation and rehabilitation

To

this task

Quicherat devoted nine years of his

life,

in the process

what Georges Duby has called "staggering erudition." For the records of Joan's two

were made available ical

documents

trials,

trials.

demonstrating first time,

the

based on manuscripts in the Bibliotheque Nationale,

to the public, in Latin to

that could be assembled,

be sure, "together with

all

the histor-

accompanied by notes and explanations."

In 1867, Vallet de Virille published the first complete French translation of the rehabilitation

And

In 1868, Ernest O'Reilly published translations of both

trial.

then Joseph Fabre, an ardent admirer of Joan's, whose

name

again in our story, published a translation of, the condemnation the rehabilitation in 1888.

Others versions

for rigorous study of Joan's adventures

followed.'*^

were

in place.

will

trial in

trials.

come up

1884 and of

Now the resources necessary Countless

new works began

to appear.

France's military defeat in 1871 and the lengthy meditations on the nation's fate that followed, the political struggles

between republicans and monarchists, and the

nervousness of the Church owing to

its

clericals all

worked

in favor

now by Emmanuel

loss

of public authority and attacks by anti-

of the glorification of Joan of Arc, over whose

memory

various parties

fought. Everyone invoked her as a symbol. In 1875 a statue of

Joan

Fremiet, commissioned by Jules Simon, was installed on the

441

442

MICHEL WINOCK Place des Pyramides. This served as a signal:

commissioned the

Maid 's popularity was expressed

She became involved

in businesses

new images of

"What

in all the departements.

is

all sorts.

availed themselves of the heroine 's name.

were

most varied and surprising ways.

in the

of

the virgin warrior

more," writes Pierre Marot,

Shops, restaurants, and hotels

The most

diverse objects bore her

stamp: utensils, beauty aids, candy, exotic foods, liqueurs, beers, soaps, and

even cement!

It

was almost beyond

belief.

School notebooks were decorated

with her banner, and children's games were placed under her patronage: games of "snakes and ladders" featured the episodes of her

games" included her house

The end of

Domremy

the nineteenth century

thriving nationalist

The

in

movement

life,

and "construction

and the Place du Vieux-Marche.

marked the apotheosis of Joan of Arc,

seized

upon her

as the

as a symbol.

twentieth century completed the divorce between scholarly history, which

was now defined by

critical

reading of the sources, and the use of the Joan of Arc

myth by

antagonistic parties. Various nationalist factions tried to appropriate the

memory

of a

tion.

woman who

had once been seen

as the patron

of national reconcilia-

As republican patriotism waned in the second half of the twentieth century and

after the

elementary schools gave up on inculcating respect for the nation's heroes,

Joan of Arc as national symbol was effectively surrendered to the nationalists of the

extreme If

right.

one were

curve would

to

rise

graph the intensity of the

and

fall

sharply.

memory of Joan of Arc versus time,

Not much admired and indeed sometimes

the

deni-

grated in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, she became an object of wide-

spread admiration in the nineteenth century owing to the convergent effects of contradictory forces.

Her memory

tion with the Middle Ages. historical "science,"

at first suffered

Once her

history

but later benefitted from

its

associa-

was duly authenticated by nascent

Joan enjoyed newfound popularity stemming from the passions

of the democratic age, only to find herself monopolized in the end by a faction.

A

Mobile Memory: Variations

in

Space

memory of Joan varied in intensity and even vanished during certain periods, it persisted in places directly linked to her name, including Domremy, Vaucouleurs, If the

Chinon,

Poitiers, Tours, Orleans, Patay, Gien, Troyes,

La Charite, Compiegne,

Rouen, and Bourges.

On May 8,

1429, the very

day the English

lifted the siege

of Orleans, the

idents improvised a procession of thanksgiving to their patron saints,

Euverte.

We know

the details of this occasion from

VInstitution de la fete du 8 mai,

chronique

anonyme du

La

city's res-

Aignan and

Delivrance d'Orleans

et

XV^ siecle recemment retrouvee au

FIGURE

13.11

Lorraine and

After the loss of Alsace-Lorraine

in

1871,

numerous statues

Vosges regions. This one on the Ballon d'Alsace

mere sentinel but

a

symbol

just a short

of

Joan were erected

way from

the border

in tfie

was

not a

of revanchist sentiment.

At Domremy, Joan

her father's garden receiving the divine message; sculpture by Allar

FIGURE

13.12

(1891),

photographed by Agnes Varda.

in

444

MICHEL WINOCK Vatican et a Saint-Petersbourg, first published in 1883 (Quicherat had produced an

of the

earlier version

text).

For the English, Orleans had been the

last obstacle, the

bridge across the Loire that offered access to Berry and central France, or what Marie-

Veronique Clin has called "free France."'^ Apart from the .site,

Orleans was the city of

Duke

Charles,

some fourteen years

the battle of Agincourt

earlier.

place of considerable symbolic importance as well.

months of blockade was

forces after long

strategic

importance of the

who had been a prisoner in England since Hence

town was

this fortified

The sudden retreat of

enthusiastically hailed

by

a

the English

the people of

who had made her entrance into the city on April 29, had been received by its residents with a tremendous outpouring of joy, "as if they had seen God appear among them," in the words of the siege journal. It was in her honor that the celebraOrleans. Joan,

tions inaugurated

On May the city

on the day of victory were repeated every year thereafter:

7, bells

are

rung

at

Sainte-Croix and Saint-Aignan; heralds go about

announcing the procession.

Over

the previous few days the streets to be used by the procession are

cleaned and repaired. Stands are erected in places fixed by tradition. In the

Augustins section [which takes

sumptuously decorated Elsewhere,

at

its

name from an

to serve as

old convent], these stands are

temporary resting places for

the Church of Saint-Paul near Porte Dunoise,

relics.

.

.

.

the choir children

and singers of Sainte-Croix and Saint-Aignan perform motets. Preceded by marchers carrying echelettes [small bells], the cortege gets under

The

way.

civil authorities join the

procession, and the choir children of Sainte-

Croix and Saint-Aignan and Saint-Pierre-Empont accompany the marchers with their songs. that

The

singers are rewarded "with small pates." Care

is

taken so

laymen "do not mix and mingle with churchmen," and the sergeants of the

Due d 'Orleans make

sure that the procession remains orderly.

After a hiatus due to the

Wars of Religion in the sixteenth century,

the festival

was

extended to include a veritable historical reconstruction:

The

militia divided into

the turrets.

two camps, one on the

A young man

after all] represented the

lie

de

dressed in ancient costume

la

[it

to

was the Renaissance

Maid. Salvos of cannon and fireworks welcomed the

procession. In the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries a

banner said

Motte, the other on

young boy

carried a

have been Joan of Arc's. This boy, chosen by the mayor and

aldermen, participated in the festival until the Revolution. At some point a rose wreath was introduced.

When the procession had completed its rounds, (attested as far

back

at the city's expense.

as 1474). After 1817, the text

a panegyric to Joan

of

this

was delivered

speech was generally printed

With great flights of oratory famous prelates such as Freyssinous

Joan of Arc

and Dupanloup availed themselves of the opportunity to point admiringly to the designs of Providence.

This celebration proved to be too religious and monarchical for the revolutionary

and the

taste,

val

were therefore halted

festivities

in 1793.

Bonaparte restored them in

under the control of the bishop rather than the

1802, but

grew more magnificent than ever under

of Joan of Arc really got

started.

civil authorities.

which

the Restoration,

is

The

when

Under the July Monarchy, which ended

festi-

the cult

the alliance

of Throne and Altar, the aldermen of Orleans once again secularized the celebration.

Between did not.

1831

and 1852, the

civil

and military authorities participated, but the clergy

The Second Empire and Third Republic ended this ostracism, however. Mac-Mahon went to Orleans on May 7, 1876; Sadi Carnot, a true republi-

President

can, did the

same

in 189 1.

With the separation of church and

state, the

combined

civil

and religious ceremony once again became problematic. In 1907, Clemenceau forbade

civil

magistrates and military officers to march in any procession that included

members of

the clergy. In the end, the clergy itself refrained

from marching on the

grounds that representatives of the Masonic Lodges would also be taking Disputes of this sort flared up repeatedly in the years leading up to World the

Union Sacree put an end

to them. After the war, in the

same year

part.

War I, until

that

Joan was

canonized, a national holiday was established in her honor, thus ensuring that the

Orleans 1929,

festival

when

the presence of legate,

would continue

and several French

A particularly splendid year was was celebrated

in

On May

prelates.

10, 1929,

Le Republicain orUannais du

and her memory have always had the power to smooth out our

disagreements, for she seems to protect our city in the present and the future

as she did in the past.

But

this

innovation was that Joan was years other heads of state

Lebrun

be a major event.

Gaston Doumergue, Raymond Poincare, Paul Doumer, the papal

Centre wrote: "Joan political

to

the five-hundredth anniversary of the "deliverance"

in 1939,

time her power has transcended our city limits."

now portrayed by a girl rather than a boy.

would go

One

In subsequent

to Orleans to preside over the festival: Albert

Vincent Auriol in 1947, General de Gaulle in 1959, Valery Giscard

d'Estaing in 1979, and Fran9ois Mitterrand in 1982.'^

Apart from the annual ceremony, Orleans perpetuated the in stone.

memory of Joan of Arc

A first monument celebrating the liberation of the city was built on the bridge

across the Loire in the early sixteenth century: Joan

is

shown kneeling alongside

the

king before Christ on the Cross with the Virgin standing beside him. This statue was recast

and restored

after

being mutilated by Protestants in 1567.

When the old bridge

monument to the Maid was placed in storage and forgotten. Pigalle was commissioned to do a new statue, but his project was never completed,

was demolished

and

in 1745, the

in 1771 the old

Rue Nationale and

monument was the

Rue de

graphical center of the

city, a

restored to a

la Vieille-Porte.

new

new

On

statue of Joan

setting at the intersection of the

the Place

du Martroi,

in the

by Foyatier was erected

geo-

in 1855.

445

446

MICHEL WINOCK Meanwhile, the people of Orleans took la Pucelle, actually the residence

where Joan had

stayed.

ful reconstruction

What is

it

upon themselves

of Jacques Boucher, the

today

known

as "the

to preserve the maison de

Due

d' Orleans's treasurer,

house of Joan of Arc"

is

a faith-

of the old residence, which was destroyed by bombing in 1940.

It

has a become a museum, which offers visitors an audiovisual re-creation of Joan's entry into Orleans.'^

The

enduring devotion to the liberator

far

from the cathedral,

women whom

its

citizens

today as Domremy-la-Pucelle,

chateau on the

Meuse

lage belong to

Champagne

century.

is

further evidence of the city's

have always looked upon as their

and protector.

Another prime conservatory of Joan's memory

Known

on

recent addition of the remarkable Centre Jeanne-d'Arc

same name, not

the street of the

is

her native parish of

this village, less

Domremy.

than ten miles from Neuf-

River, has fewer than three hundred inhabitants.

Does

the vil-

or Lorraine.'* Scholars disputed the issue in the nineteenth

Domremy stood on a brook that formed the boundary between the provinces

of Lorraine and

le Barrois.

Because the course of

this

stream varied between the

fif-

teenth and the nineteenth centuries, scholars asked whether Joan of Arc's house stood

The work of Henri Lepage and

on the

left

finally

convinced most authorities that Francois Villon was right to have given Joan

the

bank or the

nickname

la

right.

bonne Lorraine. In any case,

when

J.-C. Chapellier has

the anniversary of the annexation

of Lorraine to France was celebrated in 1866, Joan of Arc was represented in the historical procession. Later, the veneration

ory was phonetically linked, made

The Maid's The

of Lent

Her

brothers' descendants

arms "of azure with

crown and flanked by two

memory

impossible to think of her as champenoise.

worked

family was ennobled by the king in 1429 under the

right to display

live in the

house

lilies."

silver

sword and gilded

to keep her

name du

hilt

site

memory

Lys, with the

topped by a golden

Descendants of Joan's brother Jean continued

until the sixteenth century.

to

The villagers of Domremy cultivated the

of their illustrious compatriot. Thus on Laetare Sunday [the fourth Sunday

—

young people of

TRANS.] as well as other days of the year, the

gathered under the "tree of fairies" that had figured in Joan's trials.

of

mem-

house, which Montaigne visited in 1580, has been a pilgrimage

since the fifteenth century. alive.

it

of "Alsace-Lorraine," to which Joan's

this tree that

—

she was supposed to have heard voices

It

the village

was in the shade

a charge that she denied,

because the association of voices with a tree could have led to condemnation for witchcraft.

Not

far

from

this spot, a

chapel was built at the end of the sixteenth cen-

tury in honor of the Maid and the Virgin. Joan's house, with a bust of her ensconced

above the doorway, soon became an

attraction. Frangois-Joseph

Henrys,

who

repre-

sented the Haute-Marne in the Legislative Assembly, was proud of having saved this statue

from revolutionary vandals.

In the eighteenth century, however, the house ily.

was acquired by

In 1818, the conseil general o{ the Vosges decided to

buy

it

the Gerardin fam-

on the grounds

that the

Joan of Arc

house was, "for France and above

all

for the Vosges, a historical

monument associated

with great and glorious memories." Nicolas Gerardin agreed to 2,500 francs,

the property for

sell

even though a German aristocrat had offered him 6,000. This gesture

earned him the Legion of Honor. Louis XVIII added a contribution of his own:

mon-

20,000 francs were allocated for the restoration of the house and the erection of a

ument

in Joan's honor.

of a school for young

Work was done the

An

girls

additional

sum was

allocated for the founding and

from Dom.remy and the neighboring

to restore

village

and preserve "Joan's house." The sculpted

lintel

arms of France and of the du Lys family, which the Gerardins had moved

own house, was

returned to

arms were restored. The house was

its

built. Later, the

with

to their

coats of

and fireplaces were repaired. The planned school-

church was restored and enlarged.

a fourteenth-century statue

Damaged

original place above the doorway.

floors

upkeep

of Greux.

To

day

this

it

contains

of Saint Margaret.

Abetted by the construction of railways, Joan's house soon became a tourist attraction.

Between

May 8,

1854,

and

May

8, 1855,

mainly from nearby villages and towns

there

were 3,200

visitors.

came

Pilgrims

Lorraine and Champagne, but also from

in

By studying the books in an idea of how the fervor for

Orleans, Paris, Belgium, Germany, and even England.

which

visitors

recorded their impressions,

we

can gain

Joan grew over the course of the nineteenth century and gain access to people's thinking. Pierre

Marot, the author of an in-depth study of the cult of Jean at Domremy,^''

points out the high level of

Anglophobia among people who signed the

visitors'

books

during the July Monarchy: "The English will never rule France!" visits

varied with international tensions.

The frequency of The years 1870— 1 871 were particularly favor-

able for meditation in these sacred precincts. Surprisingly, however, also stopped to visit,

Schiller

and

they, too, paid

had portrayed and

the separate states of

who had become

Germany were

German

soldiers

homage to the woman whom their compatriot a

symbol of nationalism

at a

time

when

seeking to form a union. Emigres from Alsace

and the Moselle quite naturally looked to the patriotic virgin for solace after the Treaty of Frankfurt.

Domremy monarchists.

suffered the effects of conflict between republicans and Catholic

The celebration of the centennial of Voltaire's death in

ticularly difficult time,

about which

I

shall

1878 was a par-

say more later on. Nevertheless, the

grimage that followed, which brought some 20,000 people to the now-famous village,

gave

rise to

plans for a

the architect Paul Sedille to

new

sanctuary.

draw up plans

1

88 1.

It

in Paris

which was

commissioned

to

be erected in

The first stone was laid on November

took a long time to complete the building. There was a series of money-

raising subscription campaigns, the

sou de Jeanne d'Arc, the

committee

for a basilica,

Bois-Chenu, where Joan had heard her voices. 3,

A

pil-

little

which every

most memorable of which featured the so-called

girl in

number of pilgrims increased

France was asked to contribute. Meanwhile,

steadily: 20,000 in 1878, 35,000 in 1894.

The basil-

447

448

MICHEL WINOCK ica

was completed shortly

August

World War

after

I

and consecrated

August

1926.^'

War. This church, dedicated

to give thanks for France's victory in the Great

Virgin,

in

On

23, 1920, Marshal Foch visited Joan's house and then went to the sanctuary

was

especially devoted to prayers for peace

to the

and on behalf of France 's

sol-

both living and dead. Escutcheons, frescoes, and mosaics reminded visitors of

diers,

the saint's mission and retraced the episodes of her

The

third sacred place associated with the

made

Charles VII

memory of Joan of Arc

his entry into the city in 1449. After the rehabilitation

gilded bronze cross

Rouen.

of 1456, a

fountain was replaced in 1754 by a

structure

The crumbling

old

monument topped by another statue of Joan. This

was destroyed by bombing during World War

new

at the

of the Maid capped a

a statue

Renaissance-style fountain on the Place du Marche-aux-Vaux.

the building of a

is

was erected near the spot where Joan had been burned

At the beginning of the sixteenth century,

stake.

life.

A law passed in

II.

1920 provided for

on the very spot where Joan had died. Today, the

reconstructed Place du Vieux-Marche faithfully reflects the lawmakers' idea of Joan's

memory. Next

to the

Church of Sainte-Jeanne-d'Arc one

Galerie du Souvenir dedicated to the saint. feet

finds a statue and a

A cross of rehabilitation more than sixty

high dominates the spot on which Joan died

at the stake in 143 1.

One of the

old

houses in the neighborhood has been converted into a Joan of Arc museum. Various

commemoration ceremonies have been held

in

hundredth anniversary of Joan's death, with

Raymond

1938,

A

Edouard Herriot came few days ago,

I

I

was walking on the Mount of Olives and Hill.

I

felt a

powerful emotion.

have today on the spot where Joan died,

nations, having reconciled

and become friends

together to pay our respects to the

now

in the cause

With her

It is

on

this place

a similar feel-

two great

of peace, are come

sacrifice she affirmed the inviolable rights

from across the Channel and ourselves.

services that,

of

young peasant girl from Domremy. Joan has

face of manifestations of force. She has today friends

in the Valley

that our

two imperishable claims on our gratitude and on everyone 's France.

five-

Poincare in attendance. In

to exorcise the square:

Jehosaphat and on Calvary ing that

Rouen, including one on the

where her presence

become It is

a

respect.

of the

She saved

spirit in the

bond between our

many we now bow

in gratitude for her

is still

so palpable,

our heads with respect and affection. Orleans,

Domremy, Rouen:

and honor, where her folklore kept her

memory

three places

where Joan

is

remembered

has been cherished most continuously. Fervor and

image fresh even when France succumbed

Paris, the capital, outside

in gratitude

which Joan met with

failure,

to intestine quarrels.

does not figure on the

there has been no shortage of processions in her honor

list.

Yet

there, particularly since

Fremiet's equestrian statue was installed. But Paris, where

all

dissension in France

Joan of Arc

converges, has not preserved the it

memory

of the

girl

from Lorraine

in calm; rather,

has served as a backdrop for rival interpretations of her myth. In Paris more than

elsewhere, the

memory

of Joan became a political prize even as her history was

unraveled by the scholars and widely publicized.

A

Disputed

Memory

Joan's dramatic adventures and death have

wake.

We need not dwell

on

all

left

centuries of controversy in their

the false legends and counterfeit Joans of Arc.

interesting to note, however, that these fantasies,

It is

which usually involve miracles of

one sort or another, were frequently associated with interpretations that turn up later ideological disputes.

Take, for example, Pierre Gaze's

La Mon de Jeanne

in

d'Arc

of 1802, which portrays the Maid as the child of an adulterous affair between Louis d' Orleans

peasant

and Isabeau of Bavaria, thereby resolving the enigma of how

girl

from

a

a

young

French backwater could have so impressed the court of Charles

VII. Here, her illegitimate but august birth served to obviate any need for divine inspiration. After the play, the

was defended

idea, fleshed out with a

The play was revived regularly and always drew recepThe impulse to eliminate the supernatural from Joan's story thus

rise to the

most implausible romantic

devotion to the documents, found

it

hard to

ent in the various schools of thought that

teenth century. plexity,

gory.

Hence

there

was always

a

fictions.

rid

Even

it

were

filled in,

grew up around

their

the subject in the nine-

life

into an alle-

parties.

Meanwhile,

leaving a Joan of unquestioned symbolic clar-

succinctly, the nineteenth century

produced three

Joan of Arc (which sometimes coexisted): the Catholic patriotic people

all

danger of simplifying Joan's actual com-

thereby turning the historical personage into a myth and her

To put

The

historians, for

themselves of preconceptions inher-

Her banner and her sword became symbols of opposing

the gaps in her history ity.

semblance of argument,

as a thesis.^^

tive audiences.

gave

same

images of

distinct

saint, the incarnation

of the

of France, and the patron of exclusive nationalism.

Catholic Model

Joan of Arc's zealous Catholic admirers had to wait a long time before the papacy

was willing

to proclaim their heroine a saint: her canonization

by Benedict

only 489 years after her death and 474 years after her rehabilitation. tion trial,

which

not in any

like the

condemnation

way acknowledge

"divine mission."

Its

that the

trial

was conducted by

The

rehabilita-

the Inquisition, did

champion of the king of France was on

a

findings were purely negative, simply annulling the incorrect

verdict that had sent Joan to the stake. Furthermore, the fact that Joan had

demned by

XV came

a tribunal of the Inquisition,

whose findings were

been con-

fully ratified

by the

University of Paris and met with no opposition from the pope, was always cited in

449

45°

MICHEL WINOCK arguments. In order to

anticlerical

justify the iniquity

of 143 1,

at the

conclusion of a procedure that was for the

most part perfectly regular

under canon law, Church apologists

were reduced

to placing the

blame

on Bishop Pierre Cauchon, who had sold out to the English, and the bish-

who had supwhen the canonization process began in Rome ops of the Sorbonne,

ported him. Thus in 1894,

and Joan was declared "Venerable," the archbishop of

Ah!

We

Aix declared:

admit that she was

sent to her death

...

a

bishop

by

a

bishop

who was no

longer French in the slightest

because he had sold himself to the English.

Pope

But

Callistus

avenged the Virgin of remy.

her

He

III

Dom-

ordered a revision of

He

trial.

dismissed and

nullified the sentence as the

most monstrous since

We are still to

Pilate's.

waiting for as

much

be done for the countless

innocent victims condemned

by the revolutionary tribunals. Bishop Cauchon

is

no more

one of ours than Judas was,

we have

because

him

in a

repudiated

most authentic and

solemn judgment. Cauchon

was the precursor of

who profaned our

Voltaire,

brightest

and purest national glory.

FIGURE 6\.

J

rf***

}M^'''>

(1889).

13.13

Paul Gauguin, Jeanne

d'>4/-c

— Joan

of Arc

Cauchon's posthumous condemnation logically implied condemnation of the University of Paris, which had officially backed Cauchon's decision. Jesuit Father Ayroles, a tireless defender of the "true

title

L' Universite

tre la liberatrice.

thumb of

c/e

to the

Joan of Arc," to castigate the

was published

Paris theologians of the fifteenth century. His indictment

under the

It fell

1902

in

Paris au temps de Jeanne d'Arc et la cause de sa haine cen-

Ayroles described the Sorbonne of that period as being under the

the Burgundian party and aspiring to wield religious authority as a "state

within a state." According to Ayroles, moreover,

it

was within the university that the

"schismatic" and "radically subversive" doctrines that led to the Great Schism took shape.

The

significance of Ayroles's interpretation for the ultramontane late nine-

teenth century

is

clear

from the following sentence: "The Maid's most implacable

enemies were the most implacable enemies of the Papacy."

The

struggle between Catholics and anticlericals, which raged without letup

throughout the nineteenth century, intensified dramatically

at certain points involv-

ing Joan's memory. In 1878, plans to celebrate the centennial of Voltaire's death in

May, to add

had

insult to injury

sullied la Pucelle}^

—provoked

of France" and organize a protest. the statue of Joan recently erected

A demonstration was set

icalism."

"To Jeanne

la

the

for

May

man who "women

30 in front of

Voltaire

's

defenders

same day, but rather than abandon Joan

urged people to deposit wreaths

their adversaries they

on

tried to mobilize the

on the Place des Pyramides.

called for a counter-demonstration that

this inscription:

a Catholic counterattack

The Duchesse de Chevreuse

at the

To the French heroine. To the

Lorraine.

to

base of the statue with victim

of cler-

Both demonstrations were banned, and no notable incident occurred.

There were other incidents

in 1894

An

press for Joan's canonization).

(Pope Leo XIII had decided

in

January to

appeal issued by the "Travail et Vrais

Amis

Fideles" lodge to Freemasons and freethinkers defined the terms of the dispute:

On May 30,

143 1, the

Church ordered Joan of Arc

to

relapsed heretic. In taking this decision, the clergy its

logic, since

by heeding private

voices, Joan of

be burned as a heretic and

was

perfectly consistent in

Arc was

in reality

only heed-

ing her individual conscience, which directed her to save France. She was a

who believed In the name of

rebel

in herself, in spite

historical truth,

maneuvers, which are aimed

of the theologians.

one can therefore protest these

at exploiting the

sympathy

clerical

that Joan of

Arc

has acquired.

For freethinkers, the best way at the

May

do

this is to deposit a

base of the statue of Joan of Arc this coming

30 was the response to

instrument of the

some

to

clericals.

May

8:

the victim of the

30.

Church could not be the

But the appropriation of Joan by their enemies drove

anticlericals to reject the national heroine

was "an unfortunate

May

wreath of mourning

idiot." So, for

and repeat Voltaire's

example, L'Action on April

14,

jibe that

she

1904, published

451

452

MICHEL WINOCK an attack on "idolatry" and on the idol herself: "Sickly, hysterical, and ignorant, Joan of Arc does not deserve our sympathy even though she was burned to death

by

priests."

This was an extremist position. Most free-thinking militants had no

intention of allowing the Catholics to "usurp" or "co-opt" the national heroine.

The

battle

was waged on

"Joan's mission." deliver France

too human.''

One of

several fronts.

Did not her

this the

fertile

failure to reach Paris, her arrest,

from the English during her

To

most

the

lifetime

themes was that of

and her

inability to

prove that her actions were

response was that the coronation

at

Reims marked the

all

true

culmination of her mission.

Another controversial

The

"voices."

issue deserves further exploration: the question of Joan's

was not explored during Joan's

issue

sequent glorification and the intervention: "Saint Michael

call for

whose

this role

trial.

But her sub-

canonization popularized the idea of divine

the luminous explanation of the miracles performed

is

by Joan of Arc," wrote Msgr. Ricard Michael was cast in

rehabilitation

more

in 1894.^'^

Owing

to his angelic nature. Saint

easily than Saint Catherine or Saint Margaret,

was more than doubtful (Rome removed them from the

historical existence

any

liturgical calendar in 1969). In

case,

one could follow Richer

in

assuming that

the inspiring angels had availed themselves of popular beliefs of the time the better to persuade Joan. Nineteenth-century freethinkers

invoked modern psychiatric the-

how Joan had been moved to action by a hallucination. Anatole France summed up this way of looking at the matter: "What does all this mean ories to explain

except that she had hallucinations of the senses of hearing, sight, touch, and

was most

In her case, the sense that

was

affected

ter

he quoted in an appendix. In

fact, the

some of the bizarre features of the case: "In all

hol,

and

teria."

this clarity

same subjective

as an exception but as

seers of the

common

same

sort

that

seeing Joan not

a class of religious visionaries

share a certain family resemblance."^^ Reduced to a

all

"and countless other

lost its supernatural trappings.

ou etude medico-psychologique sur

which he explained everything

transition

same

Joan was suffering from hys-

felt justified in

this sort

from childhood

in

les

voix et

Some

have a physiological

86 1, for example, Alexandre Brierre de Boismont had published

in

the

due to alco-

one of

mental disorder, Joan's case

historique,

is

up

who

even believed that psychic disturbances of 1

his diagnosis pointed

these hallucinations, there

medical opinion, France

this

Still,

certainty, as in toxic hallucinations

and certainty may well suggest

Encouraged by

his let-

doctor was cautious in putting forward con-

clusions about which he said he could not be certain.

objective clarity, the

To back up

Dumas, whose

that of hearing."

explanation, the writer had consulted an "eminent scientist," Dr.

smell.''

De

les revelations

doctors

basis. In

Vhallucination

de Jeanne d'Arc,

terms of "an organic disorder caused by the

to adolescence

through a change

in the circulation

of the

blood." At almost the same time Dr. Bertrand de Saint-Germain published

La

Psychologie morbide dans ses rapports avec la philosophie de Vhistoire (i860), in which

Joan of Arc

he argued that Joan of Arc's behavior was the result of her not possessing "attributes"

all

such materialist explanations. Henri Wallon's

Jeanne d'Arc (i860) asserted that Joan's mission

made

the

and "senses" of a woman.

Catholic publicists attacked

still

all

453

came from heaven. Although Wallon

with a certain moderation,

his point

FIGURE

13.14

Alfred Boucher,

FIGURE

13.15

A

Jeanne

many

at

Domremy

and

clerical

d'Arc.

statue exhibited at the Salon of 1906 by Antonin Mercie,

France meurtrie, erected

later Catholic

in 1902.

who

also sculpted

Jeanne recevantson epee dela

454

MICHEL WINOCK more aggressive

authors took a

Joan could no longer be

lished,

because once the secular Republic was estab-

line,

a hostage to the enemy.

left as

The archbishop of Aix,

Msgr. Gonthe-Soulard, wrote the following in 1894:

Joan belongs to the Church. Leo XIII recently wrote: "Columbus noster Christopher Columbus

is

ours!" Joan

is

also ours.

Nobody can deny

this.

est, .

.

.

In vain, the falsifiers of history have tried to take her from us

by distorting her

image and portraying her

Keep your great

men. Put them

in the

from you. But Joan of Arc and forever.

ibly

.

.

as a victim of hallucinations.

We would

Pantheon. is

ours,

.Joanna nostra

from her

first

day

La

Anatole France, monument de cynisme

to her last, incontrovert-

La

sectaire.

Pretendue Vie de Jeanne

Beyond

academicien and disciple of Voltaire, Ayroles aimed his barbs

Does he belong

Masonic Lodge.^

to a

at

do not know, but he

I

gator of the sect's most extreme doctrines.

.

.

yet another proof of Christianity provided ant.''

.

Vraie Jeanne d'Arc, provided an elo-

quent answer to Anatole France in a pamphlet entitled

M.

.

Saints cannot be secularized.

est.

In 1910, Father Ayroles, the author of

d'Arc de

.

never think of taking them away

What is the

.

by

a feat as

the Dreyfusard

Freemasonry: is

surely a propa-

Blessed Maid

charming

as

if

it is

not

radi-

Anyone who does not see God-Made-Man in the Maid does not know her.

May 8, 1869, Msgr. Dupanloup and the who had participated signed a petition to Pope Pius IX asking

After the celebration in Orleans on

twelve other prelates that steps

be taken to

of Joan of Arc.

initiate

It is

procedures leading toward an eventual canonization

important to note that the Catholic cause was no longer

owing

identical with the royalist cause,

Dupanloup and Wallon. Leo XIII This was inevitably seen as a

finally

to the efforts of liberal Catholics like

responded to the bishops' petition

political gesture

in 1894.

on the part of the pope, who had

decided to encourage French Catholics to accept the Republic, which had recently

demonstrated a "new

spirit."

The

first

step

toward canonization was beatification,

which was aided by testimony regarding the "miracles" accomplished by the Venerable Joan. Three nuns stated that they had been healed after invoking her

name. ization

A papal bull issued on April on May

16, 1920,

was then concerned

was

to restore

powers (the Holy See having the Church,"

and

state).

no

The

sion," nor did

—

less

official

it

vouch

at the

18, 1909,

declared Joan "Blessed."

also seen as a political act its

Her canon-

on the part of Rome, which

diplomatic relations with the victorious great

lost its

nunciature in France

—

the "eldest daughter of

time of the controversy over the separation of church

Church did not claim

that Joan

for her "voices." Still less did

had been on

a "divine mis-

make Joan

a martyr, since

it

she had been sentenced to death by a "canonically constituted tribunal of the Inquisition" (Jean Guitton). She

became

a saint

owing

to her purity

and her exem-

Joan of Arc

plary virtues.

Her universal character was thus preserved from

a particular nation. Nevertheless,

identification with

French Catholics, having become patriots and

indeed nationalists, habitually confounded the religious saint with the national one. In truth, however, the exaltation of Joan as a national

symbol did not originate

entirely with the Catholics.

The Republican Model

An ardent champion of history

was not

the

monarchy held up

likely, at first

as living

proof of the supernatural

glance, to satisfy republicans

selves as children of the Enlightenment. Voltaire

audiences long after the death of

its

's

La

Between

author.

who

in

thought of them-

Pucelle continued to

draw

1755 and 1835 the play

went

through twenty- five editions. But between 1835 and 1881 the number of editions was only thirteen, suggesting that philosophical irony about Joan, her "voices," and her chastity held less appeal than in the past.

To be

sure, materialist writers

produced

who in 1845 described Joan as De la folie comideree sous le point de et judiciaire. The medicalization of Joan's

additional denigratory works, like that of Dr. Calmeil,

an "hallucinatory theomaniac" in a work entitled vue pathologique, philosophique, historique

we have seen, that of Anatole France. But France 's

case gained support, including, as

tone was not devoid of a certain respect: between 1840 and 1914, Joan's status

changed dramatically. Positivism, theology,

made

a place for her in

far

its

from relegating the Maid

to the

bygone age of

own calendar. Auguste Comte was dismissive of

both Voltaire and the Church: he insisted on honoring "appropriately the incomparable virgin

who was

left to

fend for herself by impotent theology and whose

metaphysical cynicism dared to besmirch even in France. It is

the

noteworthy that Auguste Comte

first

alluded to Joan of Arc in 1841, that

same year in which Michelet published the

fifth

volume of

which deals with the reign of Charles VII and the whole Joan event in the history of Joan's memory. Quicherat's definitive

work would not be completed until

common

is,

his Histoire de France,

epic.

This was a major

relying on dubious sources (since

Still

of de I'Averdy, Michelet transformed the Maid's image. of heroism and popular

name

"^^

sense, and 'he

1849), primarily the

He

works

turned her into a model

saw her above

all

as the

founder of

French nationalist sentiment. The hundred and thirty pages devoted to Joan were subsequently published separately under the

sums up Michelet 's ardent For the

first

title

Jeanne d'Arc. The introduction

vision:

time she [France] was loved as a person.

And she became a person

on the day she was loved. Until then there

vague idea of she

became

was only

a collection of provinces, a vast chaos of fiefs, a

a great country.

a nation [patriej.

But on that day, through the force of one heart,

455

456

MICHEL WINOCK Lovely mystery! Touching, sublime!

young heart

set a

whole world on

fire

How

and gave

the

immense, pure love of

a

new life, the true life that love

it

alone can give.

As

a child she loved everything, say witnesses of her time.

She even loved

animals. Birds trusted her to the point of eating out of her hand. She loved her

above

friends, her parents, but

most wretched of

all,

most worthy of pity

the

She loved France so much!

One saw

this

on

the

from behind

filled

Frenchmen, heart,

let

And

who

time, this ravishing image of the fatherland

did not dare venture out of their fortresses.

God

is

not denied but relativized. History's veritable

whom

Joan

is

the sublime incarnation.

are the founders of the fatherland, of the national

was

also the first of the

simultaneously, the Virgin

.

Although Michelet was style,

and

way Joan

his errors

is

the catalyst of a

new age .

.

as the

In

was

community, and Joan of Arc, the

new

world. "This

just beginning. In

last

figure of the

her there appeared,

melodramatic

criticized for his unbridled lyricism, his

of documentation, his book was an event, a revolution in the

of Arc was represented, and

caricature. Jules Quicherat, trial

that

The people

and, already, the Fatherland."

struction of the patriotic myth,

the

sallied forth

and they passed beneath the

from her tenderness, her tears, and the blood she gave for us.^^

humble peasant's daughter, past

time was France.

appeared before Orleans. All the people

first

first

at that

France, touched, began to love herself.

us always remember that our fatherland was born from a

called "the people," of

is

.

the poorest of the poor, the

them with enthusiasm. The people boldly

In Michelet's narrative,

agent

.

their walls, they flew their banner,

eyes of the English,

woman's

.

day she

forgot their peril. Seen for the

gripped them and

And

the poor.

all

also,

no doubt, the impetus behind the con-

which nationalism would exaggerate

to the point of

who took upon himself the daunting task of publishing He himself accepted the idea of Joan

records, declared his debt to Michelet.

founder of patriotism:

many

hearts there existed isolated sentiments that had only to be

into one, just as at

mysterious It

way

to

many places

there

were fragmented forces

had

in

some

be brought together to make a national force.

was these two things

that Joan

of Arc achieved

Another admirer of Michelet, Henri Martin, France."

that

combined

in France.^''

']

also glorified the "liberator of

The book he published about her in 1856 is obsessed with ethnological who accused Charles VII of having betrayed Joan "in the

interpretations.^' Martin,

middle of her mission," favored the Celtic soul, which a whole school of contemporary thinkers associated with the democratic the

Germanic race of

majores, or nobles,

spirit

of the minores, as opposed to

which had been defeated

in the

French

I

I

Joan of Arc

Revolution. France drew

its

natural thirst for liberty from

its

Gallic and Celtic

essence, and Joan expressed this national priority, significantly in opposition to the

Roman clergy, which was prisoner to

the letter and blind to the

spirit.

Joan of Arc, the daughter of the people and virgin-mother of democracy, thus

Many writers now spelled her name Jeanne Dare, folde Viriville, who had protested the "aristocratic form"

acquired republican attributes.

lowing the lead of Vallet

given to the patronymic "of this illustrious commoner," which he said distorted "the individual's true

physiognomy." At

first

misunderstood and

Church, abandoned by the king she had restored Fatherland, which

is

the

their solidarity, strength,

name

that the People

and acted

condemned by

the

Joan had revealed the

assume once they become aware of

and greatness. Although she

past, repeated inherited legends,

later

to the throne,

still

in traditional

spoke the language of the

ways, she actually symbol-

ized the future. Rebellious against the Catholic hierarchy, ready to resist foreign

Occupation, brave to the point of temerity, compassionate toward the oppressed,

clear-minded by instinct and without instruction, she represented the heroic rising of

and the power of ordinary people, thus anticipating the

the Third Estate at

Valmy: "Vive

France, to

all

la

Nation!"

As Georges Guibal

said:

"Her memory

.

.

.

battle cry

belongs to

of France, to France renewed and rejuvenated by the Great Revolution

of 1789." She "defeated the great sin of the Middle Ages: the Inquisition."^^ In the Grand Dictionnaire du

XIX^

siecle (1870),

Pierre Larousse offered a

good

summary of the left-wing view in his article on "Jeanne Dare." His lapidary answers to questions that others regarded as unresolved left no room for doubt: 1.

Did Jeanne Dare

2.

Did not

actually have visions.''

the source of her

from an exalted sense of 3.

4.

most

(No)

certain motivation

patriotism.''

lie in

feelings

stemming

(Yes)

What were the king's true feelings about her.'' (Indifference and distrust) What has the clergy always truly thought about Joan.'' (That its duty was

hinder her mission, her,

condemn her

to die, and,

on the pretext of

to

rehabilitating

burden her memory with apocryphal legends.)

In the early years of the Third Republic,, republicans simultaneously harbored

two different

attitudes

toward Joan. More

mainly to take the Lorraine patriot's chy.

More

centrist,

onciliation

above

sought

radical, rationalist republicans

memory away from the Church and

the

monar-

"opportunist" republicans wanted to use Joan as a symbol of rec-

all

partisan quarrels.

Proposals to establish a national holiday in Joan's honor came from various quarters.

In 1880 a

Comite de

la

Fete Civique de Jeanne d'Arc was formed

of Emile Antoine and Dr. Robinet,

who

at the

behest

repeatedly approached the Ministry of

Public Instruction about the matter. Anxious that Joan not be

they denounced a crusade "wherein the banner of Joan of Arc

left to is

the Catholics,

unfurled as a sign

457

MICHEL WINOCK

458

whereby the Revolution

will

be defeated, and which

intended to substitute for the Rights of authority of God."^^

Anyone could

Man

is

in society the

join Dr. Robinet's

committee provided they were "republican" and willing to

"acknowledge the natural and human character of Joan of Arc's work."

The people of Rouen were

called

upon every

year to demonstrate on the Place Saint-Ouen:

How

could republicans possibly

great citizen

who was

fail

to cherish the

the victim of an incestuous

alliance that the separation of church

make

forever

impossible.''

and

state will

Joan of Arc and the

Republic therefore served the same cause, the Fatherland that rules

all,

and encountered the same

enemy, clericalism, which places the

spirit

of the sac-

erdotal and noble class above the public interest. FIGURE

13.16

Jeanne d'Arc aux

image d'Epinal

(a

fleurs

de

The

lys;

popular series of picture

Protestants,

who were

lican party, tended to portray

often the soul of the repub-

Joan as a precursor of Luther

cards), early nineteenth century.

and Calvin. In June 1890 the inauguration of a statue of Joan

in

Nancy sparked

Debidour, dean of the faculty of

letters,

a

polemic between the historian

and Msgr. Turinaz,

who

objected to the

professor's use of the epithet sainte laique, or secular saint. Joining the fray, the local

Protestant pastor had this to say in his Sunday sermon: suspect,

"Rome will

always find her

and not without reason from the orthodox point of view. She was

in fact so

fundamentally evangelical a Christian that her judges were not wrong to condemn "^^

her as a heretic.

In 1889, the congress of freethinkers meeting in Paris defined the meaning of the

annual

festival: the

Republic "alone," they said, was in a position to pay homage to

"incomparable woman,"

who had

set

an example of "sublime patriotism." In the

lowing year, Lucien Herr, the librarian

at the

Ecole Normale Superieure, was

memory

the first important socialists to invoke the heroine 's entitled ists

"Notre Jeanne d'Arc." Close to the so-called

who honored

political tactic,

a

the

memory

Herr argued

of the

that the

Commune

an

fol-

among

article explicitly

allemanistes, republican social-

and looked

Church had no

in

this

to the general strike as a

right to institute a cult in

honor of

woman who had died at its hands. He attacked a book by Lesigne, published the year

before,

which was critical of the Joan "myth" and abandoned the bonne Lorraine

"clericals."

Four years before the bishop of Aix was

to claim Joanna nostra

est,

to the

Herr

to us. And we do not want anyone to interWhat were the socialist writer's arguments.'^ That Joan was born into the poorest class of society; that she pitied her peasant brothers for the way they were

wrote: "Joan

is

one of ours, she belongs

fere with her."^''

459

Joan of Arc

armed

mistreated by bands of

men; and that she

C OMPLAINl'E Ln

that "she never forgot

was

a

LA

.SfIR

voilbnte.

HI.VJ^ (.)RI Q( IE PircKLLK D-OR[,F.ANS

woman of the peo-

Everyone but the people

ple."

betrayed her: she was abandoned

by Charles VII, by the great lords, by the moderates, by the Church, and by the theologians of the Inquisition.

to the

"She does not belong

monarchy, which allowed

her to burn, or to the court, which

ordered her to be burned, or to the

which burned the

clergy,

poor, ignorant girl."

Only

the

people believed in her unwaveringly; she

was herself the incarna-

tion of the people,

which saved

itself:

"Let the Church leave her

to us;

it

has a profusion of saints,

male and female,

whom we would

never dream of taking from

was

It

that

in a

very different

young Charles Peguy,

socialist

volume of 897.

spirit

also a

PORTJ'vAlT DE .lEANNE rvev-siiscifeV

and close to Lucien Herr,

wrote and published the

1

it."

in

The book was the work of a

all

his

speaks volumes:

apres avotr

FIGURE

and

at a

time

when

e("e

13.17

Joan co-opted by the sansculottes: the beginning

enthusiasm into the battle for Captain Dreyfus.

"To

of readers, but

ARC ../'^/^PIJCELLE D' ORLEANS.

les Sans-ciilo/tfs d 'Qi'/e'aiis eii Roi'Pii en (M-riiet' yioe cojnnie sDi'ciert?

anticlerical career, 1792.

all

the

men and women who

to establish the universal socialist Republic. "^7 ful

1)

c\n'Z

who would

socialist republican

soon throw

e.spri7

the nationalist

from Lorraine. The

is

clear

about

dedication

trilogy reached only a

lives

hand-

attachment to the figure of Joan

's

whom I will

from the pages

The

have given their earthly

movement was preparing

nationalists,

completely successful, as

will

Peguy 's

attests to the intellectual left

it

say

to

monopolize the heroine

more

in a

moment, were not

that the socialist leader Jean Jaures

devoted to Joan, most notably in his major theoretical work, L'Armee nouvelle, published in 1910. Here, Jaures introduced a

peasantry. far

"There was nothing

beyond the

fields

)7''^2.

first

Jeanne d'Arc

his

en

new note:

that

Joan was not the voice of the

local or agrarian in her soul or thinking.

She looked

of Lorraine." Furthermore, Jaures did not trouble to hide the

religious aspect of Joan's inspiration:

of her republican

460

MICHEL WINOCK It

was not

deliver

a peasant rebellion that gathered strength in her.

all

of France in order to put

Christendom, and

justice.

To her

icent that, in order to carry

Church doctors

itself, to

this

its

to

strength at the service of God,

plan seemed so religious and so magnif-

out, she

it

She wanted

had the courage to stand up to the

invoke a revelation superior to

all

other revelation.

To

the

who called upon her to justify her miracles and her mission in terms of more things in the book of God than in

the holy books, she said: "There are all

your books."

ant soul,

whose

A prodigious speech, and one at odds in a sense with the peasfaith is

from the patriotism of the landowner, which

The

At

is

divine voices that Joan heard in her heart

of the mild, bright blue

we

based primarily on tradition. But

are a long

way

ambiguous, narrow, and harsh.

came from

the highest reaches

sky.^^

of Joan acquired what

this point, the socialist (but typically Jauressian) vision

might be called an ecumenical character, not unlike the vision of the Third Republic's founders. Gambetta believer in Joan of Arc." invasion.

Two

is

widely reported to have

He saw her above all

as a

am

said: "I

symbol of patriotism

a

devout

in a time

of

years after the guiding spirit of French defense efforts died, Joseph

Fabre dedicated his book, Le Pwces de condamnadon, to Gambetta's memory. In that

same

year, 1884, Fabre, a radical

lishing an annual holiday in

deputy from the Aveyron, introduced a

honor of Joan of Arc, the

"festival

bill

estab-

of patriotism." In set-

ting forth the grounds for such an occasion, he noted that the United States cele-

brated not only

its

Independence

Day

but also George Washington's birthday. So

why could the French Republic not celebrate, along with Bastille Day (which became the national holiday in 1880), a day in honor of Joan of take place

on May

8,

the anniversary of the deliverance of Orleans, rather than

30, the anniversary of Joan's death,

which was perhaps too close

deliberately sought the goal of national reconciliation:

could unite in a healthy

bill,

among them

"On

this

communion of enthusiasm. Joan does

party; she belongs to France."

the

This celebration could

Arc.''

Two hundred

and

fifty

to July 14.

day

all

May

The bill

the French

not belong to any one

deputies of

all

stripes signed

Sadi Carnot, Barodet, Paul Bert, Ranc, Clovis

Hugues

(the

author of a series of poems about Joan), Floquet, Lockroy, Camille Pelletan, Constans, and

Tony

Revillon.

Another Gambettist, the poet Paul Deroulede, who

had helped found the Ligue des Patriotes newspaper, Le Drapeau, and of press favored the that the clergy

bill.

its

in 1882, offered the support

gymnastic clubs.

On

the

of the group's

whole the republican

Nevertheless, a majority of deputies voted against

would somehow monopolize

the Senate in 1894, reintroduced his

bill,

the occasion. Fabre,

which

twenty signatures in support. In presenting the

Prime Minister Charles Dupuy defended

it

this bill

it

for fear

who was elected

to

time drew some hundred and to the Senate

in these terms:

"The

on June

festival

8,

1894,

of July 14

is

Joan of Arc

M. Fab re

the festival of liberty. otism.

One could

call

it

calls the festival

of Joan of Arc the

the festival of independence."

couraged the senators from introducing amendments to the

by the Senate.

It

was not

until 1920,

festival

of patri-

Dupuy's eloquent speech bill,

dis-

which was approved

however, that the Chamber of Deputies also

decided to act on the idea of creating a national holiday in honor of Joan of Arc.^'

was

Clearly, there

a

spectrum of republican values

in the nineteenth century.

"Hard-core" republicans radically rejected the Catholic image of Joan: Joan of Arc was an early democrat because she was a because she was betrayed by

and

first

woman

in their eyes,

of the people and

the privileged institutions of the

Ancien Regime,

and foremost by the Church, whose victim she became.'^^

A "centrist" ver-

sion of Joan,

more

all

sensitive to her patriotic message, sought to use her

memory

as

symbolic cement for a nation divided by intestine struggles. Governmental republi-

Gambetta, worried about making the regime acceptable

cans, the heirs of

were reluctant

to "play the Joan card" in the anticlerical struggle.

that Spuller advocated in the early 1890s, together with

Leo XIII's wish

Catholics adhere to the Republic, briefly created conditions in which for Fabre's bill to be passed, but only

by the Senate,

to all

The "new

it

that

and

spirit"

French

was possible

for the ideological conflict

between republicans and Catholics remained profound. Before long, the Dreyfus consequences would sweep away the dream of national unanimity.

A

Affair and

its

new

movement, nationalism, suspicious of parliamentary government, now

social

emerged and seized on the memory of Joan and her purposes.

The myth became

exclusive, one-sided,

cult for counterrevolutionary

and aggressive: Joan was

cele-

brated as the patron saint of the extreme right.

The

Nationalist

During the

Model

1890s,

two currents of thought would

nationalism, which reached

those two currents

its

join to

form the great

high-water mark in the Dreyfus Affair: the

was Christian patriotism, which came from

river of first

of

the right, and the sec-

ond was republican revisionism, which survived the death of the Boulangist movement. Catholicism, long associated with the monarchist cause and profoundly

odds with revolutionary France, had sion,

which

it

saw

as a

persecuted clergymen

initially

at

been suspicious of the nationalist pas-

pure product of 1789 or 1792.

The

"patriots" of that era

had

who remained loyal to the pope, confiscated church property,

and destroyed or mutilated religious icons. Over the course of the nineteenth century,

however, nationalist feeling was gradually liberated from

its

The

origins.

defeat of 1871 had a decisive impact: French Catholics imbibed the revanchist spirit

along with other citizens. Their political hopes were vested in a restoration of the

monarchy, but for many Boulangism was the

last gasp.

By

1890, they

were divided

and ready to try something new. Leo XIII had urged them to accept republican tutions in order to

change

their spirit

from within. But

for

many

insti-

Catholics, the

gap

461

462

MICHEL WINOCK between them and the revolutionary tradition was so wide

that they

bihty of reconciHation within the framework of a parUamentary

by Freemasons. In their eyes, Joan was not merely a symbol of

saw no

possi-

RepubHc controlled

the

Church

they had been seeking canonization since 1869 but also what Michelet had

for

whom

made her,

namely, the patron saint of France. For example, Msgr. Ricard, writing in 1894, bor-

rowed

the

words of Father Monsabre:

Let us honor, in Joan's person. Christian patriotism, in order to protect France against the

armed

alliances that threaten her, in order that, in the understand-

ing that Jesus Christ she [that

is,

her master and true judge, or, as Joan said,

is

France] might, in the

spirit

of

this valiant

and holy

quer her frontiers, regain her place in the world, and

Church] her duties

fulfill

droicturier,

virgin, recon-

toward you

[the

as eldest daughter.

was now doubly celebrated

In the clergy's encomia, Joan

the faithful believer in the supernatural

expressed in the formula that

"it

and the loyal

as "the

patriot.'"*'

model of both

The same

idea

was

was Mary who gave France Joan of Arc." The pur-

pose of Joan's divine mission was of course to restore the monarchy and peace, but it

had a national dimension

As Catholic

as well.

attitudes evolved,

some of

the

most impassioned republicans

declared themselves disappointed with the existing government, which they

deemed incapable of taking steps to prepare

The

career of a

wing

man

nationalists

for France

's

revenge against Germany.

way moved to

Paul Deroulede illustrates the

like

(who did not

themselves such)

call

in

which many

the right (and

left-

began

to think of themselves as nationalists). Deroulede, a Gambettist republican influential in the

Ligue des Patriotes, became convinced about 1886 that the recovery of

the "lost provinces"

would never happen

until

France had reformed

itself inter-

nally: the parliamentary regime, vilified as inefficient

and corrupt, would have to

be replaced by a plebiscitary regime that would invest

full

tive

power

approved by the masses. The Ligue thus turned out

to

in a chief execu-

be one of General

Boulanger's staunchest backers.

The

rump became

the base of the

wing of anti-Dreyfusard nationalism.

Chamber and

later in the

a

change of regime

the deputy

left

Boulangist

movement

failed in 1889, but

First in the

pages of La Cocarde, Maurice Barres continued to

in the

name of

the revolutionary tradition

itself.

its

call for

Yet although

from Nancy invoked the memory of previous revolutions, including the

Commune, he did not fail to exalt the memory of Joan of Arc, who "was a saint for He became her ardent propagandist.

all."

French nationalism would never achieve unity, not even against the Dreyfusard

enemy. Composed of many factions, torn between plebiscitary republicanism and the

neomonarchism of the Action Fran^aise, nationalism never

political line,

nor did

it

produce

settled

a providential leader in the years

on

a

uniform

between the

Joan of Arc

Dreyfus Affair and World

War I.

It

did,

however, circulate a number of stereotypes

that insinuated themselves into people's minds.

Among

was the image of

these

a

"Judeo-Masonic" Republic, which nationalists repeatedly denounced. In blaming a

narrow conspiracy of Jews and Freemasons for France's troubles, the

would appeal

offered a simple explanation which they hoped

to large

nationalists

numbers of

people as well as strengthen social bonds by finding a scapegoat for the hostility of a defeated

and frustrated nation. The mythology of anti-Semitism, popularized by

Drumont and La tors,

ideology. tions

Croix and propagated

by Rochefort,

Jules Guerin,

and other ora-

provided the nationalism of the early twentieth century with a truly unified

The

secular Republic,

God out of

and drove

which persecuted the Catholic teaching congrega-

the public schools,

a deicide people which, after being held in

the instrument of as the

mark of

its

said to be obedient to the will of

check for centuries, had

upon

at last hit

vengeance. People were taught to see government corruption

the usurer, of the ever greedy

Men

pus Rothschild.

was

moneymen,

such as Vacher de Lapouge and,

"scientific"

key to understanding world history:

between the

races,

the tentacles of the octo-

later, Jules

Soury provided

was nothing other than

it

a

a battle

an eternal struggle between Aryan and Semite. Aryan France was

threatened by Jewish invasion. In the elaboration of this mythology, to which Catholics, socialists, anthropologists,

and biologists

all

contributed, the Jews were associated with the diabolical,

while Joan of Arc was associated with the

So whereas the Jew was painted

celestial.

as the quintessential foreigner, the organized manifestation

of anti-France, Joan was

glorified not only for the magnificence of her achievements but as the

embodiment

of the French essence. In texts that deal simultaneously with Joan of Arc and the Jewish myth, 1.

I

find four explicit contrasts:"^^

Joan's agrarian roots are contrasted with the

"nomadism" and urban

orienta-

tion of the Jews. Joan represented the rootedness of the peasant, tradition, labor,

and

the folk, whereas the intellectualism.

Jew personified rootlessness, speculation, and disembodied The Dreyfus Affair introduced the term "intellectual" into common

currency. Nationalists contrasted intellectuality with popular instinct and sense. Joan of Arc, illiterate but clear-sighted,' was extolled as the

spontaneous wisdom of the people, the same wisdom exhibited by those tributed to the

monument

for Colonel Henry. ''^

common

embodiment of the

who

That wisdom was portrayed

con-

as tri-

umphing over academic pretentiousness. Here the continuity with the Joan myth was condemnation of Joan, many

clear: just as the

Sorbonne had backed Cauchon

academics

time of the Affair backed Dreyfus in order to

2.

at the

Joan, the incarnation of the Fatherland,

Whereas she had worked

in his

was

condemn

the army.

the opposite of "anti-France."

to bring about national unity, the

destroy French society. She served France; the Jews betrayed

Jews were working it.

to

She unified; the Jews

463

464

MICHEL WINOCK dissolved. She defended a territory; the Jews conspired to conquer the world.

Fatherland

is

a person;

money

has no odor.

The

obsession

The with England made the

symbolic antinomy complete. The bonne Lorraine sought to drive the English out of France, whereas the Jews were in league with perfidious Albion. Toussenel had that

Judaism and Protestantism were both

shipped the golden ness 3.

its

calf."*"*

intrinsically anti-Catholic

Anglophobia, a durable feature of French nationalism (wit-

resurgence in 1940), was nothing but a geographical variant of anti-Semitism.

Joan also stood for the virtues of the

alism.

shown

and both wor-

As Father Ayroles put

thought."

The Dreyfusard

it,

spirit as

to the forces of materi-

Republic, the Republic of the anticlerical

daughter of Freemasonry, which was

itself

"Masonry," Abbe Stephen Coube wrote

Cauchon. Unable

the legacy of

opposed

Joan was "the nightmare of rationalism and free

to

bloc,

was the

preyed upon by "Jewry. '"^^ in 1910, "has piously taken possession

burn Joan anew,

it

memory

attacks her

of

instead."

Coube also commented on Louis Martin's view, expressed m L'Erreur de Jeanne d'Arc (1896), that

it

was unfortunate

that Joan

had prevented the king of England from

becoming king of France: "This argument was welcomed accepted by the abominable Minot, Blatin, and Naquet. that frightful

little

Jew [Naquet] would be party

in the

Lodges,

prostitutes in

4. Finally,

ticular

all

was

One might have guessed that

to this attack

on

patriotism.

"'^'^

In defining the attributes of Joan's spirituality, authors invariably insisted

Drumont observed, "provide

purity and virginity, whereas the Jews,

it

on her

the bulk of

the major capitals."

Joan was the finest flower of

a superior race, the

Aryan

and

race,

in par-

of Celtic stock. Without mentioning Semitism, Henri Martin praised the

Gallic blood that flowed in Joan's veins.

Gallic blood"), as did

land"). She

Drumont

was admired

("It

Agathon had

was

the

same idea ("the

a Celt, Joan of Arc,

for her soldierly courage, while

being incapable of fighting

fair,

arms

in hand. "It

is

who

first line

of

saved the father-

Jews were denounced

only within the

last

as

few years,"

Drumont wrote, "that people have noticed how very peculiar a creature the Jew is, a creature whose nature is different from ours, who operates in a totally alien way, and whose

The mayed

aptitudes, conceptions,

and brain

differentiate

him from us

absolutely."'*^

ethnological obsession of the late nineteenth and early twentieth century disnationalists like Barres,

however, who, though convinced of

ism, had to admit that the French were not a race.

Still,

some

racial

determin-

nationalist writers never

passed up an opportunity to mythologize the Gallic origins of the French, which Joan

symbolized

in opposition to the Semitic invasion.

For example, Raoul Bergot, the

author of several works, published a study ofJeanne d'Arc et I'histoire moderne in 19 13.

Writing in a tradition of overtly a product "of the

racist anthropological history,

immutable autochthonous race of Gauls"

—

he portrayed Joan as

hardly a novel idea, as

— Joan of Arc

we have seen. But using this cHche, Bergot went on to interpret Cauchon's "betrayal" terms as well. In order for the bishop of Beauvais to persecute Joan, betray

in racial

the national cause, and send the tially

Maid

to the stake,

he had to be of another race, essen-

moment Bergot

un-French. Everything becomes crystal clear the

truth:

"Cauchon had Jewish blood

gies, the historian

in his veins."

Basing his case on dubious genealo-

concludes that "Cauchon's hatred of the Maid and sympathy for

the English are readily explained.

Cauchon

did not betray his country.

He was obey-

man

belongs to his

ing the instincts of his origins. Before belonging to a country, a race.""*^

reveals the

Orators of the extreme right had hinted

at the

same conclusion ten years

ear-

lier,

but Bergot based his argument on recent scientific discoveries: "Anthropology

tells

us that

all

by opposing

Is this

instincts

by the anti-Semite

have imposed

a

nationalists shouted

spoken

—

—

its

number of

both "Long

live

Jews

historically, as a

—

out-

the other positive

victim of the Jews. But

Joan of Arc was France, a sort of composite

the virtues of the "race," whereas the Jew,

who

lacked peasant and Catholic

was anti-France.

The Thalamas

Affair of 1904

ment's appropriation of Joan.^"

Dimier called her) and a

—and

French antibody to that danger. Only the most

ontologically, nationalists believed that

roots,

one negative

passions,

danger

It is

French

sides of a single coin.'*'

common

as a "bacteriological"

saint as the

"Down with the Jews!"

Joan of Arc!" and

deranged lunatics seriously portrayed Joan,

all

sense that

public demonstrations and speeches in which

various forms shared two

hostility to

worship of the national

of

of the myth of the Jew fab-

as the antithesis

itself a historian's reconstruction.'' Yes, in the

two slogans were complementary, two

nationalism in

divided

formal symmetry on the various themes involved, but no, in the

sense that there were any

as if the

men

and stemming from different and contrary races."

representation of Joan of Arc

ricated I

national and social facts arise from antagonism between

saint

marked the culmination of the

The

nationalist

move-

"national and Christian heroine" (as Louis

of the fatherland became the nationalists' rallying point,

symbol of the reconciliation of Catholic

tradition with national passion.

When

a

teacher at the Lycee Condorcet delivered a lecture in which he questioned the supernatural parts of Joan's story and used contemporary attitudes to explain

heroine had been put to death, the Action Fran^aise and tunity to

wage

otic outrage.

a

its allies

campaign against the ruling Bloc des Gauches

On December

15, 1904, at the

was

and unable

the

in the

name of

patri-

behest of the Action Fran9aise, a meet-

ing was organized in the Salle des Horticulteurs on the "against Joan of Arc's detractors."

why

saw a golden oppor-

Rue de Crenelle

in Paris

Edouard Drumont, France's best-known

anti-

letter to the

organizers that was

read to the audience, a letter that clearly revealed the structural

homology between

Semite,

the

ill

two antagonistic myths,

to attend, but

that

he sent a

of the corrupting Jew and that of Joan as redeemer:

465

466

MICHEL WINOCK You

are familiar with

my and my friends'

Enemy who century and who

ideas,

and you

know what name we

ascribe to the

has taken the place of the invading English of the

fifteenth

is

attempting to subjugate us through the corrupt-

ing power of gold, just as England sought to subjugate us through the brutal force of iron. ever, la

That enemy we

do not want to

insist

call the

Jew and the Freemason. Today, how-

on this point.

I

merely want to shout with you: Vive

France! Gloire a Jeanne d'Ard'^^

And rally

I

the participants in the meeting to defend the

responded with the shout: "A bos

memory had become

who

memory of

A has

Joan of Arc natu-

Francs-Masons f Joan's

les

the private preserve of the anti-Dreyfusards. "In

wrote the anti-Semite Gaston Mery, authors

les Juifs!

"it is a fact

worthy of attention

any case,"

that the only

subscribe today to the English argument against Joan of Arc are emi-

nent Dreyfusards."^^ In view of this background,

published Le Mystere de

it

la charite

will

come

as

no surprise

anti-Drey fusard nationalism greeted the book warmly

Peguy 's

to enjoy success during his lifetime).

with his former

socialist friends

the Dreyfus Affair

were

all

the

Of

and moved closer

more eager

Barres set the tone in L'Echo de Paris.

were we

to

(it

was the only work of

to Catholicism,

welcome him

Two weeks

later,

and the losers

into their

On

February

28,

Maurice

"Well, now, children,

Georges Sorel, another former Dreyfusard who had become

nationalist convert, also

commented: "A former Dreyfusard

otic ideas are entitled to guide

had not also been a

patriot!

in

camp because

Drumont was even more

La Libre Parole. His article ended with these words:

right.''"

when Charles Peguy

course Peguy had already broken

he had been one of the captain's most ardent defenders.

effusive in

that

de Jeanne d'Arc in 1910, the leading spokesmen of

contemporary thought." As

if

is

a

claiming that patri-

the Dreyfusard

Peguy

This point was made by Georges-Guy Grand, an enemy

of nationalism: "Some have seized on Le Mystere as a pretext to denounce the bankruptcy of humanitarianism, Dreyfusism, and democracy. Easy now. Peguy was a patriot at the

same time he was

a

Dreyfusard. "^^ Peguy himself

felt

the need to

explain his position, which resulted in one of his strongest works, Notre jeunesse, in

which he continued and painted

to

invoked the Dreyfusard "mystique"

a remarkable portrait of

in

no uncertain terms

Bernard Lazare, the obscure but dauntless

san of the revision of Dreyfus's sentence. Thanks to Peguy and Jaures, brothers but

still

arti-

now warring

sharing the same love for mankind, republican idealism prevented

the anti-Semitic, anti-Dreyfusard nationalists

from monopolizing the memory of

Joan of Arc.

To sum

up, then,

we may

say that three models or archetypes or images of Joan of

Arc took shape between 1840 and

19 14. First, the continuing conflict

between the old

Joan of Arc

France and the new, between the France that stemmed from the CathoHc monarchy

and the France

that

stemmed from revolutionary democracy,

God

messenger from

Church against the

pitted the

myth of

the

against that of the daughter of the people, the religion of the

religion of the Fatherland.

the stakes in this struggle were transformed. the Catholic heritage with

new

strains

Under

the Third Republic, however,

A new right, whose ideology combined

of national messianism, anti-Semitic pop-

ulism, antiparliamentarism, and anti-intellectualism, attempted to take over Joan's

memory and

to a certain extent succeeded. Barres, Maurras,

Coppee, Lemaitre, and other,

lesser figures did

Drumont, Rochefort,

what they could

to identify Joan's

cause with their own. Their efforts were not totally successful, however. For

many

anti-Drey fusard republicans, Joan had a different significance, and the homage they paid her embodied a different set of concerns.

The outbreak of World War I would

confirm the manifold functions of Johannic memory.

A

Functional

Memory

when Joan of Arc's name has been raised in the twentieth century, it has rarely been for disinterested reasons. In a period that has seen

Lorraine heroine and her

memory for two opposing purposes: to

many new historical works on the

statesmen and political parties have used her

times,^'*

to unite the

French people on the one hand and

advance the cause of a particular party on the other.

The Function of Maurice Barres,

Unification

who in December

iday in honor of Joan of Arc,

when

the fatherland

eigner."^^

1914 filed yet another

made

was invaded; she

World War

I

was thus

bill

to create a national hol-

a note to himself at the time: is

the incarnation of resistance to the for-

ideal for uniting the

of Orleans. Under the Union Sacree, the

"Her cult was born

French

in

homage

to the

Maid

enemy was no longer at home; he wore

the

pointed helmet of the Kaiser's army. Even as priests placed France under Joan's protection (Stephen

Coube

said that "nothing

more powerful than she was on in

more

is

lost

when one

earth"), the h^ad of state

has in heaven a liberator

and

secular language to her example of courage and valor.

which resulted

in the restoration

his ministers alluded

The

victory of 191 8,

of Alsace and Lorraine to France, proved to be the

perfect opportunity to reconcile the Republic with Joan of

Arc and

to fulfill the

wish

of Joseph Fabre and Maurice Barres that a holiday be created in her honor. The

deputy from a

new bill There ical,

Paris, president

to that

is

of the Ligue des Patriotes, explained

end on April

why he had

filed

14, 1920:

not a single person in France, regardless of his or her religious, polit-

or philosophical opinion, whose deepest need for veneration

is

not

satis-

467

468

MICHEL WINOCK by Joan of Arc. Any of us can

fied

Catholic.'^

She

is

Are you

altars.

a martyr and a saint,

She

a royalist.'^

is

Are you

find our ideal personified in her.

whom

the heroine

Church has

the

who made

it

just placed

on

its

possible for the son

of Saint Louis to be consecrated according to the Galilean sacrament

at

Do

than this

you

reject the supernatural.'^

was

mystic; she .

.

.

Never was anyone more

practical, indisciplined,

For republicans, she

is

the acknowledged great.

and

sly, as

a child of the people, .

.

realistic

Reims.

soldiers are in every period.

more magnificent than any of

Finally, socialists cannot forget that she said: "I

.

have been sent to console the poor and unfortunate." Thus claim to Joan of Arc. But she transcends them

all.

No

all

parties can lay

one can confiscate

her.

Around her banner the miracle of national reconciliation can be accomplished today, just as

On

it

was accomplished

June 24, 1920, the

festival

five centuries ago.^'^

of Joan of Arc was officially recognized: "The

French Republic annually celebrates the otism."

The Republic took

on May

16, in the

this step

festival

of Joan of Arc, the festival of patri-

even though Benedict

XV had canonized Joan

presence of fifteen thousand French pilgrims, six French cardinals,

and sixty-nine archbishops and bishops, with the government of the Republic represented by Gabriel Hanotaux acting as special ambassador. After the the electoral victory of the Bloc National in 1919 had paved the reconciliation in the

name of

the

now sanctified memory

Union

Sacree,

way for this national

of Joan of Arc.

In 1921, under Prime Minister Aristide Briand, France reestablished diplomatic relations with the Vatican.

Raymond

The

1928 electoral victory of the Union Nationale led by

way for France and the Vatican to come to an agreecommemorate the five-hundredth anniversary of the deliver-

Poincare paved the

ment about how

to

ance of Orleans. In the following year, Gaston Doumergue, a Protestant, became the first French head of state since the separation of church

an

and

state to take part in

mass. Speakers on both sides implicitly confirmed the church-state rap-

official

prochement. Gabriel Hanotaux, the historian of Joan of Arc, drew

"On

the ceremonies at Orleans:

this

day of national celebration,

the nation are present. Flanking the president and the

this lesson

all

from

the powers of

government of the Republic

are the clergy, the army, the people, and the successors to the magistrates of defense. If

on

Foch

is

not here, he

is

nevertheless present, for an idea does not die. His soul lives

in loyalty, patriotism,

Vieux-Marche

in

and

Rouen on

faith." In 1931,

Raymond

Poincare, speaking

the five-hundredth anniversary of Joan's death, exalted

"the living image of the Fatherland." Like Armistice Day,

Arc was now

at the

November

11,

Joan of

a key reference, connoting French unity and solidarity in the face of

foreign threats and other challenges of the day.

What context.

is

more,

this

symbolism was soon extended beyond the narrow national

As Barres observed

in 1920,

"today

we can

see that this girl bore within her

Joan of Arc

the seed of the

League of Nations, of the patriotism

that respects other nations so

may respect it." Many observers commented on Joan's universal dimension. Specifically, in the 1970s, her name was invoked on behalf of building a new Europe. Roger Secretain, the mayor of Orleans, had this to say in La Republique du Centre that they

(May

8,

fier."

On May

1977): "Unwittingly, Joan of

Arc worked

for Europe, because she

13, 1979, several deputies invoked Joan's

name

was

a uni-

in calling for a united

Europe: "Joan," declared Senator Albert Voilquin of the Vosges, "who helped us to unify France, will allow us to construct the Europe of tomorrow." Fifteen years later.

President Valery Giscard d'Estaing, speaking in

Rouen for the inauguration of

the Joan of Arc Memorial, called upon the young people of France "to go forth into the world, to learn through dialogue and exchange will

become

what we have

in

common in what

the century of coexistence." Henceforth reconciliation

knew no

limits:

Joan of Arc would preside over the unification of the entire planet.

But

all

of these transnational speeches date from the period preceding the

elections to the

European Parliament by universal suffrage on June

wards, the goal of reconciliation seemed more remote.

It

be reverting to partisan political use of Joan's memory.

seemed

One

first

10, 1979.

After-

that France

might

reader of Le

Monde

offered this complaint: "Poor Joan the Maid, poor Joan of France, poor Saint Joan

of Arc. You're being used

—

like

Mere Denis

for selling

washing machines

—

to elect

maximum number of candidates from the Union list."^'' Indeed, under cover of unity, the Maid's memory continued after 1920 to be widely used for partisan purthe

poses. Paris

For some, Joan's sword symbolized not patriotic unity, as the deputy from

had hoped

in 1920,

The Function of

but partisan combat.

Identification

Of

all

the

most dynamic heir of anti-Dreyfusard nationalism. Joan of Arc was

organized political groups in the interwar period, the Action Frangaise was

the anti-Marianne par excellence. Charles

its

symbol,

Maurras drew from her story a

political

moral that guided his movement: namely, that in working to have the king anointed at

Reims before the invaders had been defeated

iron law laid

down by Maurras

militarily, she

himself, "Politics first!"

was

The

illustrating the

political situation

offered pro-royalist Action Frangaise militants countless opportunities to engage in fisticuffs

when

with their opponents, as

the Cartel des

at the

and 1926, protesters became involved Place des Pyramides. But

when Pope

the Action Frangaise used Joan in a

betrayed."

Two

time of the Thalamas Affair. For example,

Gauches prohibited Joan of Arc Day parades

books contributed

Georges Bernanos's Jeanne

in

in Paris in 1925

brawls around the base of the statue in the

Pius

XI condemned Maurras's

ideas in 1926,

new way, emphasizing the theme of "innocence to the defense of the movement against Rome:

relapse etsainte (1929)

sur la politique de Jeanne d'Arc (193 1). Like the

and Charles Maurras

s

Meditation

Action Frangaise, Joan had been con-

469

470

MICHEL WINOCK demned by an ignorant Church. She became until Pius

XII

lifted the

a

symbol of

ban on the Action Frangaise

Between the two world wars, there was scarcely

anticlerical

independence

in 1939.^^

a single fascist league that did not

invoke Joan's name. Georges Valois, the founder of the Faisceau and inventor of a fascism d lafrangaise in 1925, wrote: "If Joan of Arc were to

would make war on

man

France. "^^ In

of

to the worker,

and grandeur

to

search of a political formula that would combine the "social" and the

Domremy," he wrote

est

wage

toil, a just

"national," Valois staged a vast rally at to

today, she

who are robbing the public treasury in order to bring

the thieves

peace and justice to the

come back

in his

Domremy on May

movement newsletter.

Why did we go to Domremy.'*

moments.

"It

22, 1927.

was one of

"We

have been

fascism's great-

In order to speak the will of the French

people to the king of England, the British Parliament, and the merchants of Manchester. ... In order to assert that

we

are a great

movement of

the French peo-

ple."^° In the 1930s, the proliferation of leagues greatly increased the

demand

for

Joan's patronage. Pierre Taittinger invoked her protection for the Jeunesses Patriotes.

The Croix de right

Feu, Solidarite Nationale, and every other

remembered

pay her homage. Whether

to

movement of

the extreme

as royalist, fascist, or "national vol-

unteer," she presided over countless antiparliamentary demonstrations. In 1932, the sculptor

Maxime Real

Rouen before being

crippled in

who

del Sarte,

World War

I

March

did the statue of Joan at the stake in

and joining the Action Frangaise, pro-

posed creating an Association des Compagnons de Jeanne d'Arc that would accept

members of

different political persuasions.

The

clutches of the nationalist right, however, except

national saint rarely escaped the

on

official occasions.

Meanwhile, the Catholic Church, having canonized Joan tion of defending her

churches were

in

honor of the new

The

rise

saint.

of the Catholic scout movement

figure. In that

same

magazine for use

more scout

year,

units

were named

Doncoeur founded

in the religious training

"One begs

after

youth.*"'

Joan than after any other

the Cahiers du cercle Sainte Jehanne, a

newspaper Je

suis partout, expressed his

the people of France not to turn the highest

into a right-thinking

provided

among French

of scout leaders. Robert Brasillach, a jour-

nalist writing in the extreme-right- wing

alarm:

in the 1930s

Many

named

of France, Father Doncoeur devoted him-

"spiritual reconstruction"

self to the task. In 1930,

it.

Catholic youth clubs often

another opportunity to spread an anti-liberal image of Joan

Dreaming of the

had every inten-

image against attempts by the government to secularize

named

themselves after her.

in 1920,

youth-group heroine.

symbol of

their race

'"^^

Brasillach nevertheless had plenty of opportunities to observe that in the years

leading up to

World War

II,

Joan was

still

useful for vilifying Jews and excoriating

Masons. Consider, for example, two documents from Orleans that show Joan being used as an instrument of exclusion tract

shows her

in

just as in the

time of the Dreyfus Affair.

One

1939

armor above her motto ("She who personifies the French Race

Joan of Arc

and drives the Foreigner out of France"), flanked by four Stars of David inside

which we can read the words: "Army, General Bloch, Jew;

Justice,

M. See, Jew;

ParHament, Jean Zay, Jew; MunicipaHty, Mayor Lewy, Jew." The commentary reads: "In the historic city, the Jews,

the Parlement, and the Municipal

having seized control of the Army, the Courts,

Government, are writing the

first

page of deca-

dence in our History." In the same year, shortly before the traditional city

festival,

during which Claudel's Jeanne d'Arc was to be performed in the presence of President Albert Lebrun, a poster advertising

La France enchamee, Darquier de

Pellepoix's anti-Semitic newspaper, proclaimed: "After the conquest of Orleans

the Jews,

now we have

And

"The

by

this:

the conquest of Joan of

'centerpiece' of this celebration

by

Arc by the Jewess Ida Rubinstein." is

the performance of Jeanne d'Arc

Claudel, with the participation of the Jewess Ida Rubinstein, the

Freemason Jean

Herve, and music by the Jew Arthur Honegger."''^ France's defeat and occupation in World

War II would

fulfill

the fascist writer's

dreams: Joan was called upon to champion Vichy's National Revolution, and not

even the most extreme partisans of collaboration with Germany disowned her patronage. Several of her attributes allowed her to be invoked as a sponsor for the

ideology of I'Etatfrangais.

The Vichyite doctrine of a

well with Joan's provincial roots: "She

daughter of peasants.

.

.

.

was an agrarian," wrote H. de Sarrau, "the

She was raised

orous and blessed with sound

"return to the earth" accorded

as a peasant, a

common

good peasant of France, vig-

sense and a lively sense of humor."^"*

Brasillach himself contrasted Joan with the defunct "Judeo-Masonic" regime: "Joan

has nothing to do with money, with ideologues, with the false defenders of a rotten civilization, since she

associated with eternal youth and creative vitality."

is

Anglophobia was once again

more today than great,

a central

French passion: "The English, perhaps even

in the fifteenth century,

want

to see the

end of France as a unified,

and free nation."

Dorsay, the Je suis partout journalist the Allied

bombing just prior to the

comparison, between the virgin

who

voiced this hatred of England during

Liberation, also reminded his readers of another

who

saved the fatherland in the fifteenth century

and Marshal Petain, yet another providential- leader bestowed upon France by God:

"The same thought,

the

same

instinct impelled this

very young and very simple

peasant girl and the great old soldier toward the same historic destiny. Both under-

stood the meaning of French unity."^^ unity had not prevented to death.

The

Of

course Petain's understanding of French

him from sentencing

contradiction was

(in absentia) the leader

more apparent than

Joan of Arc blessing the Hitler-Petain handshake

hand

to

at

real,

of Free France

however: the image of

Montoire and lending a helping

pro-Nazi anti-Semites marked one of the darkest moments in Joan's posthu-

mous existence. Certain propagandists revived the Jewish race."

It

the

myth

that

Cauchon had been "of

only seemed right, therefore, that Joan,

who had

died at the

471

472

-1428-29 ft

Jeanne

MICHEL WINOCK

1938-39

ORLEAnS auxJUtfS

hands of the EngHsh and the Jews, should support

their

enemies in the present war! Some barbs were reserved for intellectuals: "Like today's GauUists,"

wrote

in 1944, "the intellectuals

Maurice Pujo

of her day, those of the

University of Paris, expected great things from England." Petain,

whose high

office inclined

him

to greater

moderation, contented himself with calling for unity

under the aegis of Joan of Arc. Let

all

the French hold

from across the Channel: "Stop

fast against the sirens

your ears against foreign propaganda, and

rally

behind

your leader."

FIGURE

13.18

"When

the

One of Joan's functions was to bring the French together: Germans deify disloyalty and cruelty and when, justified by

their ideal, they

us

rally

around

propose crushing the weak and enslaving the world, a virgin

who

sacrifice, to proclaim with

essence

of

power

is

Jeanne d'Arc centre FIGURE

13.19

is all

one voice. Frenchmen

to deliver

in

of

all

parties, that the

and protect" (Maurice Barres,

1914).

les Allemands; engraving by Solom.

Jeanne d'Arc centre

card, published

let

courage, goodness, righteousness, and

Orleans

in

1939.

les /u/fe;tract in the form of a post

Joan of Arc

FIGURE Front;

FIGURE

Joan l