If you're interested in French revolution I highly recommend watching the movie made in 1989. It's in 2 parts, both are on YT, and Lafayette is played by Sam Neill. AFAIK it was the most expensive French movie until some time ago.
I second this. The revolution is still a highly politicised topic, but this movie is fairly balanced. It has an international cast so most dialogs are dubbed. I don’t know any better movie on that topic.
Don't forget that he fought in the French civil war on the loosing side. History does not like loosers.
OTOH, they do celebrate Lafayette in Vendée where Lafayette is considered a regional hero. The famous theme park Puy du Fou has one of its attractions dedicated to Lafayette.
> in Vendée where Lafayette is considered a regional hero
> famous theme park Puy du Fou
For people unfamiliar with this: Puy du Fou was created by a nationalistic politician born in the region. This politician, Philippe de Villiers, is getting closer and closer to the french far right, he's anti islam, anti europe, anti migrants, and go as far as to say that the French government is on its way to give away part of its territory for it to be ruled under sharia.
I have no experience with the park but from the articles I found I wouldn't be surprised if every "historical" events presented there are heavily interpreted/romanticised
They are heavily politicized in their presentation of France history (for example one of the spectacle is about the christians persecutions in Rome, where the christians are the good guide, and the romans are the bad guys).
Another famous recent event is that they bought one of Joan of Arc ring, but it was mainly a nationalist move more than something important to preserve (Joan of Arc is from the east / north part of France) (for more infos: https://fr.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anneaux_de_Jeanne_d%27Arc).
Overall, the parc is an entertainment place as much as a political tool, but not a lot of people are aware of it, and most of them are eating their propagande like the true story of France (due to lack of education on history mainly).
> (for example one of the spectacle is about the christians persecutions in Rome, where the christians are the good guide, and the romans are the bad guys).
This a political or controversial view? News to me.
>(for example one of the spectacle is about the christians persecutions in Rome, where the christians are the good guide, and the romans are the bad guys).
A not bad alternative view on the subject.
The Darkening Age: The Christian Destruction of the Classical World
Why do you feel the need to tell people that the park creator is a nationalist? It is not a crime and the park is about history and entertainment for families and kids on school trip.
I don't think it will be a surprise to you that people creating and managing companies take an active part in the company's vision and direction.
Just like medias owned by far right or far left entities will put a far right or far left spin on everything they treat.
I never said it was a crime, I'm just saying that the park creations shouldn't be interpreted as factual nor accurate depiction of historical events.
It's like arguing that Jesus did XYZ because that's what you saw in the movie "the passion of the chirst". As I said in another comment, as long as you don't pretend you're providing historical facts it's all good, but it's not the case here.
You don't even have to go that far. It's obvious that the intention of the company's creator are carried through the company actions, be it nationalism, environmentalism, religious views, &c.
All sources are biased but some are more biased than others. Nationalists are the last people I'd trust to give an accurate depiction of their country's history.
You don't meet this guy when you visit the park. The park is an artistic endeavour to let kids and families learn about some french history in a fun way; the same history that you find in school textbooks. No politics involved.
> The mere fact that French Revolution can be told from the point of view of losers is a revelation to many French.
The French Revolution is always told from the point of view of losers. Most of its most prominent actors ended losing at some point and the whole thing ends with an epuration followed by a military coup.
The myth surrounding the Revolution has little to do with who won or lost. Like most of what the French view as their history, it is a construction dating from the rise of nationalism at the end of the 19th century.
Actually probably more than nationalism, marxism theorised the french revolution as one of the key step of the march to socialism (the bourgeois overthrowing the feudal system, that was meant to be followed by the workers overthrowing the bourgeois system). I suspect this had more influence than nationalism on the school history books of the last 50 years.
The Wikipedia section you referenced above is not about facts, it's a collection of vague complaints.
Note that I never said that Puy do Fou presents the true facts. But the attacks of French historians on Puy du Fou I saw so far are not based on facts at all.
Then why are history books filled with false facts? And that's in the case the government didn't decided to suppress history classes altogether, as it might make people think (I'm referencing the deletion of history classes in scientific high shool section). Paille et poutre...
What? You should be sure, it's just basic common sense. Facts are facts, and almost everything is nuanced, but for instance claiming that the Holocaust didn't happen, the French did nothing in WWI, or that the Nazis were socialists are entirely factually wrong takes.
Even right wing historians find the orientation of the puy du fou wrong.
Ainsi, comme le soulignent Jean-Clément Martin, historien spécialiste de la Révolution française, de la Contre-révolution et de la guerre de Vendée, et Valérie Sottocasa, maître de conférences en histoire moderne à l'université Toulouse-Jean-Jaurès, le spectacle, « d'emblée militant et symbolique »12 exalte « le mythe d'un âge d'or durant lequel nobles et gens du peuple étaient soudés par un même idéal communautaire »11 mais « qui a servi jusqu'à nos jours à consolider une culture politique dont témoignent les commémorations du Puy du Fou, sans doute les plus spectaculaires du genre11 ». La mobilisation des populations locales dans le cadre d'« une association défendant les valeurs de la famille et de la tradition » s'inscrit dans ce cadre : il s'agit de « populariser une idée de l'histoire de France teintée de Contre-Révolution »13, comme le montrent en outre dans les années 1980 et 1990 les thématiques des colloques qui s'y déroulent ou l'utilisation de la venue d'Alexandre Soljenitsyne. Jean-Clément Martin et Charles Suaud font remarquer en outre que le spectacle de la Cinéscénie dépeint une société paysanne vendéenne faussement uniforme « privée de ses contradictions internes, soumise aux aléas des saisons et des traumatismes extérieurs », occultant à la fois les affrontements ayant eu lieu en Vendée entre catholiques et protestants pendant les guerres de religion et les rapports de domination économique et sociale13.
If a made a super show where elvis and the big foot came to help the french revolution with some Grey Extra terrestrial it doesn't make true facts on history.
As long as you don't pretend they're actual facts it's all good. When you try to muddy the line between history and fantasy it's another story. fyi their slogan is "History awaits you" ...
I think your outsized negative reaction is due to the fact that Puy du Fou does a better job popularizing history than your average French history teacher.
That they take a slightly different view at historical events is ever more outrageous, but it only shows how one-sided and politicized history education is in France.
FYI, I am an outsider not really interested in French politics, just happened to leave in a nearby country.
I can guarantee you, it is not. This is 100% about what you just said and 0% about French history teachers, of whom I've met none, or Puy du Fou, which I had never heard of before these posts.
Indeed. Puy du Fou is a refresher from the usual Asterix/Efteling/Disney attractions parks.
One thing I noted though is that one has to know French history and French culture to fully appreciate. The scene about the travel of Laperouse is told by the captain of the 2nd ship. Figures around the pond speak in the voice of Depardieu. The whole Lafayette story is a major blow to the official teaching of the French Revolution, you have to know the extent at which the same teaching of history is imposed on everyone to fully appreciate the courage of the park administration.
Thirded this recommendation. I'm ploughing through the 5th of (so far) 10 series - the Spanish American revolution - and every single one has thus far been fascinating. I cannot wait to then circle back around to his History of Rome podcast, which from reviews looks to be held in high regard.
I recently had the pleasure of being in the Naval Museum in Cartagena. When the tour guide got to the section of the museum featuring Vernon's attempted takeover of the city, I was ecstatic. I was like, "I know about this! George Washington's brother fought in that battle!" Thanks to Mike I can be THAT guy on history tours now lol.
Agree, it's a slog for the fist couple dozen episodes as Mike gets into his groove but it's really great and I look forward to listening again once he wraps up Revolutions.
The author had nice, if somewhat demure, things to say about Mike Duncan. I absolutely love his Revolutions podcast and find his series on the French and Haitian revolutions to be particularly fun and interesting.
> France, an ancient, highly centralized country with a strong taste for ritual, seems to require a visible symbol of order at its center.
It's kinda cliché, IMHO. France (and many European nations) has been build around the belief that centralized power help to ensure political stability. As soon they are no more/less centralized power, every region starts to organize itself and territorial conflicts of interest emerges.
It's not about the power to be visible, more than being effective.
In his memoirs (largely about 1848 and its aftermath), de Tocqeville said that the French could create anything but a free government and destroy anything but centralization. The first half seems to have been disproven.
Are there successful nation states that do not rely on centralized power? Take the US for example after 1865 it was made clear that the US has one capital, one leader and one government.
From my read of history, empires start off more like republics and then centralize over time until they collapse under their own weight. It was said best by Aristotle: "Republics decline into democracies and democracies degenerate into despotisms."
The book "Why nations fail" makes the claim that centralized institutions (among other things) are necessary for building a prosperous country. It's a very interesting read.
But more seriously: if high federalisation means more mechanisms actually end up working fine without top-down directives, isn't that a good thing...? Without going all Bakunin, surely requiring fewer "chiefs" to achieve the same levels of prosperity can be considered a step forward for society.
If you are interested in Lafayette and eager to travel, I suggest you visit the beautiful town of Le Puy-en-Velay in the Massif Central where his statue is proudly erected. Off the beaten path for most, but rewarding for the others.
Then go to tiny village Chavaniac where you'll visit the castle he lived in for a while, that carries his name.
We don't "celebrate" Napoleon or any other historical figure at all. They are mentioned in history books and promptly forgotten after graduation, they have statues that are just part of the scenery, they have streets and high schools named after them that no one give a second thought about, they are talked about for a couple of days when the media figure it is the Nth anniversary of this or that, etc.
They are just part of a background the layman doesn't cares about.
So titles like "Why don't the French celebrate Lafayette?" tell more about the author/editor of the article than about its subject.
Huh, I must have visited a different country then. It seems there isn't a single Bridge, Column or otherwise important building in Paris that hasn't a pompous "N" mounted onto it.
So it's a technicality? Technically every bridge bears his symbol, but no, "celebrating" him we are not.
I mean you have to willfully interprete the word "celebrating" as people dancing in the streets out of joy to read the parent's parent comment that way.
In other words: "It's in the background" rather means it's the foundation upon which (as other comments have pointed out) the French Revolution's winning side's narrative rests.
"It's in the background" means exactly that. They are just bridges that we cross to get from A to B, without a care in the world for their alleged symbolism. We just don't care.
I interpret "celebrating" as remembering something in a positive way. We're just indifferent, he's one of a few dozen important guys we heard about in history lessons, and that's it.
This is like saying that the continued existence of cathedrals is a celebration of Christianity. The République celebrates the Napoléons as much as it celebrates Roman Catholicism or kings: not at all.
In Rome you can still find Mussolini’s obelisk and some fascist inscriptions here and there. Italians definitely don’t celebrate Mussolini these days (well, some do, but you get the point).
Napoleon had a tremendous impact on many western nations long after his defeat. The most notable and positive example in my opinion is the base of the modern civil law system still in effect today in many of the conquered countries. The same codes based on the Napoleonic code were also exported to the colonies of those countries and many others which then retained it after their independence. See https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Napoleonic_Code. And IMHO the civil law is a much better legal system than the common law used in most of the US, the UK and Australia among others. This goes to show that it's never binary and even the worst tyrants and dictators also sometimes achieve good positive things. This is probably valid for all of them.
a) his discontempt for Germany (which he successfully embarked on, considering him dissolving the German Empire)
b) his utilization of enlightenment policies to subdue countries, creating a narrative in which Napleonese France IS the enlightenemnt (which is of course BS)
In the case of Germany, apart from forcibly recruting citizens into his army where they mainly served as cannon fodder, apart from the pillaging of french troops, apart from massive increases in taxations for the poor that were already hit due to unemployment caused by his continental system, apart from churches being repurposed as horsestalls as a form of practical joke, the worst thing he did, was that he utilized things like the code-civil and other enlightenment reforms to turn a new tiny middle-class into loyalists, stirring up division Germany still hasn't really freed itself from.
His policy was the equivalent of when today's West is forcibly bringing "democracy" to Iraq/Afghanistan/..., instead of letting it arise organically, which in turn taints the whole franchise, the whole idea, as un-Arabic, un-Muslim etc.
Reforming the law to enable anyone to work in any job would have happened likely anyways, but Napoleon propagandizing it into his idea, into a french idea, he effectivly laid the groundwork for the discontempt in Germany for enlightenment ideas till this day. And yes, this includes post-napoleonese German anti-semitism.
Germany didn't even exist during the Napoleonic campaigns so I doubt he had much contempt for it. The Napoleonic wars are actually a catalyst in the formation of modern Germany as a political entity by definitely ending the Holy Roman Empire and cementing Prussia as a major power in the region.
> His policy was the equivalent of when today's West is forcibly bringing "democracy" to Iraq/Afghanistan/..., instead of letting it arise organically
But this is it arising organically. For all intent and purpose France and Germany share globally the same political area. They are direct neighbor and their histories constantly intermingle. The French Revolution is not an exogenous event catapulted on Europe from outside. It is a product of the time and is directly linked to France position in what was already a very connected Europe.
In France, you mostly see him as a caricature nowadays. In general, the urge to see people as war heroes, regardless of their abilities or achievements or who they thought against, is almost absent in continental Europe, especially compared to the US and England.
I guess the reason being WW1 + WW2 are being considered as absolutely horrifying wars, and Napoleon's invasions are seen as ruthless acts that created the imbalanced situation that led to two world wars.
"In France, you mostly see him as a caricature nowadays."
Certainly not, not for 60% of French people at least, if you check the polling regarding the last ceremony.
"Napoleon's invasions […] created the imbalanced situation that led to two world wars." what? That's quite a stretch you're proposing here.
Tho, in my biased sample, French I talked with were not shocked at that that Napoleon is remember negatively where I am from. They took it as understandable that parts of world he came through will see him destruction from abroad.
Oddly, Americans got offended over idea of Napolean not being hero or worth praise. On HN there was even pearl clutching about "judging past by current standards", but he was disliked significantly more at his time (of course, for us it is past irrelevant history for them it was death of close ones, property destruction and hunger).
"Judging [the] past by current standards" sounds like the person you were talking to may not have cared so much about Napoleon, as much as they care about all the cheap statues of literal Confederate slave-owners and defenders of slavery that got reactionarily dotted over the American South. There's been a big movement over the past decade in America to tear them down (IMHO, rightfully so) and a lot of people consider that "rewriting history" (which is rich considering the history of the Lost Cause).
While he certainly did invade and conquer, France was at war with the major powers of Europe before he came to power. The revolutionary government declared the Rhine as the natural border of France, laying claim to parts west of it. Also, the other powers didn't want the revolutionary ideals spreading. I find this ironic since Britain at that time had a more democratic system than others and still it opposed revolutionary ideals.
That is white washing the imperialist nature of Napoleon.
A continent dominated by France was not in the best interest of England just as a continent dominated by Germany wasn't a hundred years later.
With the exception of Poland I think but we might be a bit biased due to the whole independence thing (however brief it was). People aren't disillusioned and the shit that happened isn't necessarily ignored but the overall sentiment is very positive I would say. He's even explicitly mentioned in the second verse of our anthem
Napoleon is as much responsible for creating modern France as the French Revolution is.
He put a end to the Revolution's chaos, defeated European attempts to invade France and destroy the Revolution, rewrote French law from scratch, and reorganised the country.
There is a tendency for self-flagellation these days but it is right for him to be celebrated in France.
Ignoring this recent self-flagellation trend, I think the main division in France is political. Napoleon is of course The Empire, authoritarianism and militarism and he is often not liked especially on the left. The main conflict here is for the Republic to celebrate someone who ended the republican system, but IMHO it is perfectly possible to celebrate someone as a country for their achievements and overall impact even if they did not subscribe to the current political system, not least when they were instrumental in creating the modern country, as mentioned.
Perhaps what as also changed is that patriotism is being seen more and more suspiciously.
> He put a end to the Revolution's chaos, defeated European attempts to invade France and destroy the Revolution, rewrote French law from scratch, and reorganised the country.
That he certainly did not.
The uniformisation of French laws had been started two centuries before the Revolution but the French kings didn't have the power to modify civil laws. As soon as the revolutionaries took it, Cambacérès started petitioning for the promulgation of an unique code based on a merger of the Coutume de Paris and the written laws of the South. It took close to a decade to finalize the text and reach somewhat of a consensus but by the time Napoleon took power the whole thing was done. Apart from promulgating the code, he had very little to do with it.
He also didn't stop attempt to destroy the revolution. He did that by himself. Did you miss the part where he had himself crown emperor and how it's defeat was followed by the restauration.
I don't understand why some people keep crediting Bonaparte with what is mostly work done by the first constitutional assembly.
I think you show yourself that Napoleon was a continuation of the Revolution, which was under more serious threat from the European monarchies' coalition to invade France and restore monarchy as it was.
That's not his legacy. That's the revolution legacy. Napoleon is the sad conclusion to it. His main achievement is showing through his conquests that the old great European powers were no more and by that setting the stage for the European modern states. As the man, there is nothing to celebrate in his legacy. He is very liked by some proto-fascists in France however who would much rather attribute to a providencial man the achievements which were actually made by the constitutional assembly and the republics that followed him.
It's ambivalent and fairly neutral. Analysis of his career is colder and mostly focussed on technical aspects rather than heroism. People are more excitable about Napoléon abroad.
During the reign of Napléon III France was celebrating Napoléon's birthday as a national holiday, “Saint Napoléon”. However, this was already in decline in the 1860s, as Napoléon's role was eventually re-evaluated, and the centenary in 1869 (which coincided with a severe crisis of the authority of Napoléon III) wasn't celebrated nationally any more. As this was also soon followed by the end of the Second Empire (as an effect of the Franco-Prussian war), this holiday inherently connected with the dynastic ambitions of Napoléon III wasn't any more.
Edit: If interested in the subject, there's a thesis (in French) by Émile Kern, “Représentations et images contrastées de Napoléon dans les commémorations : de 1869 à 2009”, Université de Montpellier 3, 2011; http://www.theses.fr/2011MON30093
There are remembrance ceremonies periodically. The last one occurred this year, with a speech from the president. The problem is that, as everywhere else, the extreme-left is generating controversies and trying to re-interpret History with today standards and pressuring everyone to not celebrate people like him.
That's a video by a British YouTuber, who has entertaining videos with quite often interesting perspectives, but who I think is quite biased in favor of a rosy British perspective.
I don't think he's a good example for attitudes of _French_ people towards their own history, which us what this thread is about.
Lindybeige is extremely dishonest, if not deluded. He's probably the worst history-adjacent content-creator I'm aware of that isn't outright known as an alt-right pundit.
He is pretty famous in France. Most cities have a street with his name, everybody learn about him in school. I think a lot of people don’t consider him that important compared to other french personalities.
That’s funny, i was going to agree with you that he certainly was famous enough to have his street name… then i thought about it and i must say i’m now more persuaded than ever that he is not really famous in france not even by this low threshold, because in my n=1 sample, i’ve never seen a rue lafayette or avenue lafayette of my life!
Hell, he's not that well known in the US either. I know in my Revolutionary War studies, the French were pretty much a footnote. Not saying all teachings were as poor as mine, but I know the textbooks I used were used in a several other states.
You're joking, right? How many counties and cities in America have "Fayette", if not "Lafayette" in their names? That's our guy here. I was absolutely aware of him via my history classes at least as far back as high school no more than 20 years ago. But perhaps they stopped teaching actual history and relevant characters since then.
It's probably been about 20 years since I did American Revolutionary history in school and yea his name pops up, but he's treated as a minor character and a footnote. Gotta be honest, I only just learned his first name was Gilbert...
Which the French pronounce, zheel BEAR (with the usual guttural R at the end). (Source: lived in France as a kid, had a family friend by that name; cf. Stephen Colbert.)
My history classes ~20 years ago definitely made me aware Lafayette existed, but I'd say the extent I learned was that he was a French General in Revolutionary War.
I bet most Americans who have heard of him assume his first name is "Marquis."
I don't dispute that at all, but I have a feeling if you were to do a "man on the street" type of poll, it would be pretty telling. If you're willing to stipulate that the readers of HN probably have a greater grasp of history than the larger percentage of the population, I'll stipulate that most HN readers probably have an idea of why Lafayette's name is used to name cities/streets/parks.
I get that, I just prefer to not take too much stock in what a "man on the street" doesn't know about... much of anything really.
I just lament that sad state of public education in America generally, and more pertinently how people just think Lafayette was the guy from Hamilton (in some bastardized form, I presume.)
I never saw the musical, nor will I, but the man who is almost single-handedly responsible for getting the French to save our asses deserves a bit more renown in my opinion.
"He's very well known in the US, except by the people who live there" isn't much of a position. If you want to talk about whether he's well known, you're stuck with the fact that nobody knows who he is. Those aren't distinct concepts.
Okay, but you came at me[0] with the "you're joking" line, when you just self-owned admitted that a large population of the US would not know who the man was. I never said that I didn't know, but yet you challenged my statement like it was wrong while now admitting that it's sadly probably accurate.
[0] not saying it was hostile, just challenging something you deep down knew but didn't want to admit
Indeed, there are more than twenty American cities and towns named for the man, and scores more of townships, places, squares, parks, and streets. There are five streets named Lafayette in New York City alone. The Wikipedia article of American places named for Lafayette doesn't even mention some others that I happen to know like Lafayette Park in San Francisco.
I have been trying to read more about the events and personalities involved in the French Revolution and its aftermath. This is a reading list of what I'm trying to follow (in no defined order):
They are good, but keep in mind that some of them are fiction. They are not historical account.
Another great one is "The Old Regime and the Revolution" by Alexis de Tocqueville. It is about how France worked before the revolution and it explains a lot in a lot of ways.
I lack a lot of cultural context here but, France has a long history. You can trace the current country to the first Frankish kingdoms in 496. And that's excluding the Roman period and the Gaul before it.
That's a lot of historical figures over centuries of existence. At some point, you can't celebrate them all.
> Two centuries later, the liberation of France was turned, by the French imagination, into a French victory, albeit with some gallant support from the Americans
No, that's absolutely not the way we think about the liberation of Europe by the American army.
I didn't read the NY Times articles since it's paywalled.
But your translation is inaccurate. it would be more something like:
"They were decided to occupy France like an enemy territory"
It was not the French who described the liberating force as an enemy, but that the liberating for was acting like an occupying force and didn’t see the French as allied but as enemy.
I know some free masons. Some have silly rituals and get made fun of from time to time. Yet, they are committed to bring about education and that hasn't changed through the centuries.
Far less cringe worthy than many student fraternities and I wouldn't say they hide themselves too much, this is mostly based on rumors.
Secret societies like the Illuminati are mostly less successful than people believe. I mean everyone knows them by now...
You'd think anytime the French did anything that messed with the Brits would be celebrated. Sure, it also helped the Yanks, but you don't have to care about that part. That sounds pretty French to me
1- https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0ofCqCc3S1s
2- https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YgtK2BnMmUM
https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0098238/