France

France

RELATED LINKS:

World History and Trivia Europe

PAGE CONTENTS:

Who Killed Napoleon?

Napoleon Bonaparte Tidbits

The French Re-Re-Re-Re-Republic

The Separation of Church and France

Paris

Who Killed Napoleon?

From an inauspicious birth on the island of Corsica in 1769, Napoleon Bonaparte rose to crown himself emperor of the French in 1804--before he even turned 35. By 1811, he had conquered most of Europe, too. His English adversary, the Duke of Wellington, once said that the French general's presence at a fight "made the difference of 40,000 men."

So, who could kill such a man? Army cooks. Or so says a new study by an international team of pathologists investigating the cause of Napoleon's death, 200 years after the fact.

For generations, rumors have swirled that Napoleon, who died at just 51, was poisoned--presumably by British agents. The British captured Napoleon in 1815, after the Battle of Waterloo, and promptly exiled him to an island in the South Atlantic. He died there in 1821. In his will, the former emperor said, "I die before my time, killed by the English oligarchy and its hired assassins."

He was speaking metaphorically (and a bit melodramatically), but rumors of foul play were soon on the wind. In 2001, those rumors got a shot in the arm when researchers discovered that locks of Napoleon's hair contained abnormal amounts of arsenic. Still, claims of conspiracy failed to convince many scholars. The arsenic could have come from Napoleon's hair tonic or early-19th-century medicines.

Enter the new study, which--if correct--would clear the barber, the British, and anyone else who wanted to see Bonaparte blown apart. It finds that Napoleon died from a "massive gastric hemorrhage," brought on by advanced stomach cancer. Doctors doing Napoleon's official autopsy made essentially the same determination in 1821, after finding a 4-inch (10-cm) tumor in the ex-emperor's abdomen.

The new study goes on to suggest that Napoleon's diet might have been to blame for his cancer. But don't get your soufflé in a snit. The study isn't faulting French cuisine per se. It's blaming old-fashioned French army fare.

As Napoleon once said, "an army marches on its stomach." And, on his own marches over lands from Egypt to Russia, General Bonaparte likely ate "salt-preserved foods, thoroughly roasted meats, and few fresh fruits and vegetables." Such a diet, the study says, would have made Napoleon a prime candidate for infection by Helicobacter pylori bacteria, which can lead to the sort of cancer that killed him.

Debate about Napoleon's death will surely continue. After all, conspiracy theories are notoriously hard to kill. And Napoleon made plenty of enemies during his rise from unknown officer to general (in 1793), to first consul of republican France (in 1799), to emperor. For roughly a decade, he was the most powerful man in Europe--before Waterloo, the British, and perhaps too much roasted meat brought him down.

--Steve Sampson

Napoleon Bonaparte Trivia

Although most people think that Napoleon was short, he was actually five feet, six inches tall (1.676 meters), an average height for a Frenchman in those days. However, this fact will probably not keep people from continuing to make fun of him because he's short.

Napoleon Bonaparte loved white horses so much, he owned at least fifty.

One of Napoleon's drinking cups was made from the skull of the famous Italian adventurer Cagliostro.

Napoleon Bonaparte was always depicted with his hand inside his jacket because he suffered from "chronic nervous itching" and often scratched his stomach sores until they bled.

He had conquered Italy by the age of 26, but he was an ailurophobe, meaning he had an irrational fear of cats. (If he even thought there was a cat in the room, he was reduced to a quivering wimp!) He he!

During his reign, Napoleon commissioned 3 scientists to invent something that would properly store food supplies for his army as they invaded Russia. Their invention: canned foods. One of the scientists was Louie Pasture, the scientist responsible for the pasturization process. Their version and process for the canned food is almost exactly the same to this day. The only draw back was that no one had a good way to open the rather thick cans, so the soldiers used their knives, bayonets and sometimes rocks. This resulted in some pretty serious injuries, like cutting off one's finger!

WHERE WAS NAPOLEON BORN?

Not in France. He was born on the Mediterranean island of Corsica of Italian parents.

Did Napoleon invent canned vegetables?

Sort of - Because Napoleon believed that armies marched on their stomachs, he offered a prize in 1795 for a practical way of preserving food. The prize was won by a French inventor, Nicholas Appert. What he devised was canning. It was the beginning of the canned food industry of today.

The name "pumpernickel" was coined by Napoleon's troops during the Napoleonic Wars. His men complained that although they were often poorly fed, there was always bread for Napoleon's favorite horse, Nicoll. Thus the word "pumpernickel" was coined--pain (bread) pour (for) Nicoll.

Napoleon suffered from ailurophobia, which is a fear of cats.

How did Napoleon Bonaparte finance his invasion of Russia in 1812?

With counterfeit money. After printing it at a factory he set up in Paris, he used it to purchase military supplies.

Why were Napoleon's laws his legacy?
Napoleon took 14,000 French decrees and simplified them into a unified set of seven laws. This was the first time in modern history that a nation's laws applied equally to all citizens. Napoleon's seven laws are so impressive that by 1960, more than 70 governments had patterned their own laws after them or used them verbatim.

What was the first item made of aluminum?
The first known item made from aluminum was a rattle - made for Napoleon III in the 1850s. Napoleon also provided his most honored guests with knives and forks made of pure aluminum. At the time, the newly discovered metal was so rare, it was considered more valuable than gold.

Napoleon favored mathematicians and physical scientists, but excluded humanists from his circle, believing them to be troublemakers.

The French Re-Re-Re-Re-Republic

On July 14, 1789, a throng of Parisian revolutionaries sent a message to France's ancien régime, storming a walled fortress--the Bastille--that had long housed the regime's political prisoners. The fortress fell, and a few years later, so did the king. France became a republic.

Then the republic fell. And re-formed. And fell. And re-formed. And fell. . . . Here's a petite look at why France salutes its Fifth Republic today.

In France, where Le Roi ruled with a power unchecked by parliament, it was especially good to be king. From 1610 to 1789, four Louies built palaces, fought wars, and indulged nobles, largely on the backs of France's middle and lower classes. By 1789, tensions between Louis-loving aristocrats and ever-more-Enlightened commoners had boiled over.

That year, Louis XVI reluctantly recognized the authority of a representative legislative body, which set to work on a constitution that would embrace liberal ideals. Three years and one king's head later, France chose republicanism--in name, at least. A republican reign of terror, take-a-number service at the guillotine, and civil war alternating with mob rule pretty much put the kibosh on real republican spirit.

It was 1795 before France actually became a liberal republic with a two-house legislature and five-man executive branch, and even then the ruling party rigged the game. By 1799, a group of conservatives had cooked up a parliamentary coup. Recognizing the need for a little military backup, they tapped the hot young general du jour, Napoleon Bonaparte, to deliver the message. The Little Corporal did them one better. He emerged as the central figure of the new government.

Napoleon crowned himself emperor in 1804, effectively ending the First Republic. Yet he soon lost his empire trying to expand it. Having sacrificed beaucoup troops in a botched attempt to invade Russia, he was unable to defend France against attack by a group of European allies, who restored the monarchy in 1815.

Kings co-existed with constitutions for three decades. Republicans for the most part took a legislative approach to securing additional freedoms. But when bills concerning extended suffrage were rebuffed by the king's ministers, liberals began to whip up discontent the old-fashioned way, through violent political demonstrations. Louis-Philippe, ever the gentleman, abdicated the throne in 1848 rather than put down a protest that threatened his palace.

The reformers seized power, proclaimed the Second Republic, and allowed all adult men to vote. France would be ruled by a president and one-house legislature. Yet in a lesson in the power of name recognition, the people made their old emperor's nephew, Louis-Napoleon Bonaparte, president.

In 1851, President Bonaparte staged a coup and drew up his own constitution. By the end of 1852, Louis-Napoleon, president, had become Napoleon III, emperor. Napoleon III was a kinder, gentler autocrat--fairly liberal as emperors go. Yet in typical Bonaparte style, he wasted military resources attempting ill-advised land grabs, leaving France vulnerable. Prussian forces entered France in September 1870, captured Napoleon III, and ended his empire.

The armistice that ended the Franco-Prussian War mandated the Third Republic. In 1875, the National Assembly drafted a new constitution, setting up a bicameral legislature with a president and cabinet. The government that resulted survived for 70 years--a French republican record--on a policy of peace, prosperity, and plenty of colonies.

In May 1940, however, Nazi Germany invaded France. By June, France was in ruins, and the government was on the run. In a remarkable last-ditch effort to keep the French afloat, Winston Churchill proposed that Britain and France merge into a single nation. The response was a resounding "no thanks." The French government fled, and the Germans occupied most of the country, setting up a puppet government at Vichy to rule the rest.

Think of the Fourth Republic as a political hiccup. During the war, General Charles de Gaulle led both the French resistance and France's government-in-exile. With the liberation of Paris in August 1944, de Gaulle's provisional government gained nearly unchallenged authority. De Gaulle spent the next year mopping up, then called for an assembly to create a new republic, preferably with a strong executive position tailor-made for him.

He resigned his post as leader of the provisional government in 1946, hoping that the public would call him back to service. The public didn't quite catch on, and the assembly selected a socialist as provisional president. De Gaulle spent the next 13 years grousing about the Fourth Republic from his country estate.

Colonial insurgencies in Vietnam and Algeria sapped the Fourth Republic's strength. In 1958, a frustrated National Assembly, fearing a military coup, voted to give de Gaulle full powers for a six-month term, ending the Fourth Republic. De Gaulle quickly supervised the drafting of a new constitution, this time making sure it gave him a muscular presidency.

France elected de Gaulle to the strengthened presidential post in 1958, and the Fifth Republic began. De Gaulle got France out of the colony business, negotiating Algeria's independence in 1962 and making similar exits from other African countries. De Gaulle was re-elected in 1965, but ousted himself again in 1969 following the defeat of referendums he supported. Presidential power continued in Gaullist hands, however, until 1981, when socialist François Mitterand took command. Gaullist Jacques Chirac won election in 1995, ending 14 years of socialist power.

--Michael Himick and Laura Kane

The Separation of Church and France

Jesus said, "Render unto Caesar the things that are Caesar's, and unto God the things that are God's." Still, the actual separation of church and state is a more recent affair--especially in France, where arguments over "laïcité" still go straight to the nation's cultural heart.

Laïcité is a hard-to-translate French word that shares roots with "laity" (as opposed to clergy). It translates most directly as "secularism," though it carries a lot more cultural weight. Where Americans argue over "church and state," the French debate "laïcité."

Scholars trace the ideas behind laïcité back to the French Revolution, but the term itself didn't appear until the late 19th century. During France's Third Republic (1870-1940), the government worked hard to transform a Catholic state into a secular one--especially in building a secular education system. The concept of laïcité, which entailed a strict removal of the church from civic affairs, developed as a key part of the effort to make "peasants into Frenchmen."

Back then, republican liberalism in France was a fighting creed, not an accepted ideology. Even today, "laïcité!" remains a rallying cry in France in a way that "secularism!" never has been in the English-speaking world. Many see it as a hard-won, crucial-to-protect element of French political and cultural life. They say that given a history rife with religious bloodshed, laïcité makes space for civic life.

In the United States, the First Amendment guarantees citizens' freedom of conscience: "Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof." France's 1905 Law of Separation covers basically the same ground, preventing the state from "subsidizing" any religion or restricting "religious freedom."

But laïcité involves more. Where Americans see the First Amendment mainly as a protection against the state, which has no right to meddle in religious affairs, the French locate in laïcité an additional protection for the state, where citizens cannot impose their religious beliefs on others. As a result, the French tend to view public displays of religious belief as, at best, uncouth. In the words of French historian Claude Nicolet, "a republican can think what he wishes, provided he thinks by himself."

So laïcité isn't simply about the state staying out of the way of the church. It's about the church staying out of the way of the state--and the state preserving and promoting public spaces, where people set aside religious and other "private" differences for the sake of shared republican citizenship. In these spaces, the state unapologetically promotes the virtues of republican liberalism.

In a sense, laïcité establishes rules for entry into public spaces in France akin to the rules for entry into sacred spaces elsewhere. Most recently, the French banned "conspicuous religious symbols," like Muslim headscarves, from public schools. It sparked plenty of protests, but French minister Nicolas Sarkozy responded this way: "When I enter a mosque, I remove my shoes. When a Muslim girl enters school, she must remove her veil."

--Steve Sampson

Paris

Paris has long been known as the City of Light. But it didn't start out that way. Once upon a time, Paris was a muddy place.

The first Parisians--members of a Celtic tribe called the Parisii--settled on a small island on the river Seine. The island's advantages were obvious. The river was good for fishing, provided access to the sea, and protected against invaders--invaders like Julius Caesar.

When Caesar came to put down a rebellion in 52 BC, the city on the Seine sided with the rebels. So Caesar took it for himself. Back then, the city was called Lutetia Parisiorum: "muddy dwelling of the Parisii." It became known as Paris around the third century, about when it became Christian.

In 508, the Frankish king Clovis I made Paris his capital. The city quickly lost that distinction, though. For four centuries, Merovingian and Carolingian kings resided elsewhere, and Paris was assailed by Vikings--until 987, when a local count, Hugh Capet, became king and once again made Paris the capital. After that the city grew, and grew beautiful. Construction of the cathedral of Notre Dame began in 1163. One of its early patrons was King Louis IX--a.k.a. St. Louis.

As long as Paris was the center of France, it was also the focus of France's troubles. In 1420, civil war enabled the English to capture Paris and keep it for 16 years. In 1572, Catholic mobs slaughtered thousands of French Protestants in the streets. In the 17th century, more civil strife helped inspire Louis XIV--France's Sun King--to actually move the royal court away from Paris, to Versailles.

As the French monarchy grew more absolute, the French people grew more annoyed. In 1789, the mounting tensions exploded. A mob stormed the Bastille--once a castle, later a prison--and touched off the French Revolution.

Paris soon became a staging ground for political terror. King Louis XVI and his wife, Marie Antoinette, were guillotined there in 1793. Another 1,300 people were executed during six weeks in 1794. The chaos ended only with Napoleon, who crowned himself emperor inside Notre Dame in 1804.

Even after that, Paris saw enough upheavals to earn a reputation as a breeding ground for discontent. As the Austrian Prince Metternich put it, "when Paris sneezes, Europe catches cold." In 1871, after a brief occupation by German armies, Paris even broke away from France to form the Paris Commune. The government killed some 20,000 communards to put Paris back in France.

Today's Paris emerged from all the revolutionary strife. In 1853, Emperor Napoleon III commissioned Baron Haussmann to modernize the old city's heart. He demolished what was medieval, planted trees, and built parks, markets, and boulevards. Culture flourished. The Eiffel Tower went up in 1889, just as the city was becoming a haven for artists and intellectuals from around the world.

During World War II, German forces seized Paris, which stayed under fascist occupation for four years. Remarkably, it sustained little damage, and quickly reclaimed its place as the City of Light. Today, greater Paris has millions of inhabitants and an economy larger than most countries'. Popular uprisings still happen, but the energy of Paris has yet to be drained.

Mark Diller

Enter content here

To post your opinion regarding this page, please click on

A POINT OF VIEW, and post your opinion in my Forum.