More Evidence of the Weirdness of Human Nature
While trying to cool off today I picked up Thackeray's Paris Sketch Book and began reading idly. Third or fourth item in, what do I come across but "the Fetes of July." That means, commemoration of the Storming of the Barricades (or at the time the Glorious Three Days 27-29 July, 1830. Fictionally written up so passionately in Les Miserables.)
Thackeray seems to have been traveling through France in 1839. He comments frequently about people who remember the French Revolution quite well, and how some brag about it, some lie about it, some joke about it. How Napoleon Bonaparte is still such a subject of popular interest that his dull nephew, who had no quality whatsoever but his name, could manage to become emperor. See if this reminds you of political anniversaries today . . .
Quote:
Paris July 30, 1839
We have arrived here just in time for the fetes of July. You have read, no doubt, of that glorious revolution which took place here nine years ago, and which is now commemorated annually in a pretty, facetious manner by gun-firing, student processions; pole-climbing for silver spoons, gold watches, and legs of mutton; monarchical orations, and what not; and sanctioned, moreover, by Chambers of Deputies, with a grant of a couple of hundred thousand francs to defray the expenses of all the crackers, gun-firings, and legs of mutton aforesaid. There is a new fountain in the Place Louis Quinze, otherwise called the Place Louis Seize, or else the Place de la Revolution, or else the Place de la Concorde (who can say why?), which, I am told, is to run bad wine during certain hours to-morrow; and there would have been a review of the National Guards and the Line--only, since the Fieschi business [a plot in 1836, he and his two cohorts were summarily executed], reviews are no joke, and so this latter part of the festivity has been discontinued.
Do you not laugh, of Pharos of Bungay, at the continuation of a humbug such as this?--at the humbugging anniversary of a humbug? The King of the Barricades is, next to the Emperor Nicholas, the most absolute sovereign in Europe; yet there is not in the whole of this fair kingdom of France a single man who cares sixpence about him, or his dynasty--except, mayhap,a few hangers-on at the Chateau, who eat his dinners and put their hands in his purse. The feeling of loyalty is as dead as old Charles the Tenth; the Chambers have been laughed at, the country has been laughed at, all the successive ministries have been laughed at(and you know who is the wag that has amused himself with them all); and, behold, here comes three days at the end of July, and cannons think it necessary to fire off, squibs and crackers to blaze and fizz, fountains to run wine, kings to make speeches, and subjects to crawl up to greasy mats-de-cocagne in token of gratitude and rejouissance publique!--My dear sir, in their aptitude to swallow, to utter, to enact humbugs, these French people, from Majesty downwards, beat all the other nations of this earth. In looking at these men, their manners, dresses, opinions, politics, actions, history, it is impossible to preserve a grave countenance. Instead of having Carlyle to write a History of the French Revolution, I often think it should be handed over to Dickens or Theodore Hook; and oh! where is the Rabelais to be the faithful historian of the last phase of the Revolution--the last glorious nine years of which we are now commemorating the last glorious three days?
I had made a vow not to say a syllable on the subject, although I have seen, with my neighbors, all the ginger-bread stalls down the Champs Elysees, and some of the "catafalques" erected to the memory of the heroes of July, where the students and others, not connected personally with the victims, and not having in the least profited by their deaths, come and weep; but the grief shown on the first day is quite as absurd and fictitious as the joy exhibited on the last. The subject is one which admits of much wholesome reflection and food for mirth; and besides, is so richly treated by the French themselves, that it would be a sin and a shame to pass it over. . .
end-quote.
Thackeray seems to have been traveling through France in 1839. He comments frequently about people who remember the French Revolution quite well, and how some brag about it, some lie about it, some joke about it. How Napoleon Bonaparte is still such a subject of popular interest that his dull nephew, who had no quality whatsoever but his name, could manage to become emperor. See if this reminds you of political anniversaries today . . .
Quote:
Paris July 30, 1839
We have arrived here just in time for the fetes of July. You have read, no doubt, of that glorious revolution which took place here nine years ago, and which is now commemorated annually in a pretty, facetious manner by gun-firing, student processions; pole-climbing for silver spoons, gold watches, and legs of mutton; monarchical orations, and what not; and sanctioned, moreover, by Chambers of Deputies, with a grant of a couple of hundred thousand francs to defray the expenses of all the crackers, gun-firings, and legs of mutton aforesaid. There is a new fountain in the Place Louis Quinze, otherwise called the Place Louis Seize, or else the Place de la Revolution, or else the Place de la Concorde (who can say why?), which, I am told, is to run bad wine during certain hours to-morrow; and there would have been a review of the National Guards and the Line--only, since the Fieschi business [a plot in 1836, he and his two cohorts were summarily executed], reviews are no joke, and so this latter part of the festivity has been discontinued.
Do you not laugh, of Pharos of Bungay, at the continuation of a humbug such as this?--at the humbugging anniversary of a humbug? The King of the Barricades is, next to the Emperor Nicholas, the most absolute sovereign in Europe; yet there is not in the whole of this fair kingdom of France a single man who cares sixpence about him, or his dynasty--except, mayhap,a few hangers-on at the Chateau, who eat his dinners and put their hands in his purse. The feeling of loyalty is as dead as old Charles the Tenth; the Chambers have been laughed at, the country has been laughed at, all the successive ministries have been laughed at(and you know who is the wag that has amused himself with them all); and, behold, here comes three days at the end of July, and cannons think it necessary to fire off, squibs and crackers to blaze and fizz, fountains to run wine, kings to make speeches, and subjects to crawl up to greasy mats-de-cocagne in token of gratitude and rejouissance publique!--My dear sir, in their aptitude to swallow, to utter, to enact humbugs, these French people, from Majesty downwards, beat all the other nations of this earth. In looking at these men, their manners, dresses, opinions, politics, actions, history, it is impossible to preserve a grave countenance. Instead of having Carlyle to write a History of the French Revolution, I often think it should be handed over to Dickens or Theodore Hook; and oh! where is the Rabelais to be the faithful historian of the last phase of the Revolution--the last glorious nine years of which we are now commemorating the last glorious three days?
I had made a vow not to say a syllable on the subject, although I have seen, with my neighbors, all the ginger-bread stalls down the Champs Elysees, and some of the "catafalques" erected to the memory of the heroes of July, where the students and others, not connected personally with the victims, and not having in the least profited by their deaths, come and weep; but the grief shown on the first day is quite as absurd and fictitious as the joy exhibited on the last. The subject is one which admits of much wholesome reflection and food for mirth; and besides, is so richly treated by the French themselves, that it would be a sin and a shame to pass it over. . .
end-quote.