Not My King

There is an alternate world where we would have King Edward on the throne of England: it is the world where any divorced member of the British royal family would be barred from taking the throne. It was the world that existed at the time of the Abdication.

Why is divorce now okay for Britain's monarchs? Is it because the Church of England decided to allow divorced people to remarry in church, even if their first husband or wife was still alive? No one mentioned at the time that this meant the monarchy was suddenly free of ancient obligations.

It seems so odd that Edward VIII had to abdicate to marry a divorced woman and yet now we have a monarch who has himself chosen to divorce and who has gone on to marry someone else who has also ended her marriage through divorce.

Who among the monarch's subjects was consulted about what is a very radical change in the way that things are done? 

At its best, a constitutional monarchy can create a rather lovely illusion, provided all those within the gilded cage stick to majestic rules, behaving well (including not divorcing) and never sharing their views (about anything). The goal is to set an example of serene dignity and relatively selfless fortitude, to create a dream of an ideal family. The current Danish Queen Mary is marvellous at sustaining the illusion - and Catherine Middleton, although sometimes a bit sugary, understands the basic principles.

The British monarchy is perpetuated only with the consent of the monarch’s subjects - and the change with regard to divorce was never requested nor consented to, merely imposed. Now we are saddled with a right Charlie, who will be followed by a tiresome climate zealot.

The only undivorced child of Queen Elizabeth II, meanwhile, seems ideally suited to be King - Edward appears to be very dutiful, entirely without opinions and unracy in the extreme. His older brothers probably think they are cleverer than he is - and his nephew William may think he is too. Perhaps it is Edward's apparent lack of arrogance that makes him the least likely to try the public's patience. His sister also seems to have learnt how a royal figure needs to behave in recent years, but she is divorced, and tends to seem impatient - and anyway, under the old rules of succession, Edward is ahead of her

POSTSCRIPT

Well - as if on cue, an article emerges revealing that Prince Edward was once mildly racy - but only in a rather sweet way, apparently.

What a world we live in, where people happily profit from publishing private letters entrusted to them long ago by those still living. Is the word ignoble right in this context? I must look it up. Adopting Humpty Dumpty's approach - he used words to mean whatever he chose - I think it is an ignoble (meaning contemptible, low, graceless, tasteless, treacherous) thing to do.

Recent Reading - Crime and the Academie Francaise by Patrick Marnham (Dispatches from Paris)

Why would anyone buy a 1993 collection of columns about France? Surely it would be completely outdated? Who cares. It's by Patrick Marnham, whose writing is worth reading at all times.

This volume contains pieces by Marnham from the 1980s on criminal proceedings in France; the French Communist Party; French politics more generally, (then, as now, prominently featuring a Le Pen); French attitudes to Britain; and much else besides, including a chapter on the fascinating "Black Museum", and accounts of various peculiar French criminals (notable among them, for someone like me who finds themselves suddenly in the category of "the elderly", one Simone Weber who, on discovering an elderly and wealthy man, marries him without his consent or knowledge, substituting him at the ceremony with "another old man who was on day release from a nearby asylum", forging his will and then, it appears, poisoning him and grabbing his wealth). Above all, the section devoted to the celebrations to mark the anniversary of the French Revolution is worth the price of the book on its own.

I cannot list every single one of the many amusing and interesting things the book includes, but here is what might be called a limited taster menu:

1. Jean Paul Sartre's mother kept his hair in ringlets, dressed him in frocks and called him Poulou. This explains a lot I think, although Marnham doesn't reveal exactly how old Sartre was when he took to trousers and a more severe approach to hairstyling.

2. Between March 1980 and November 1987 an anarchist group called Action Directe terrorised France. Its bomb-maker was a man called Maxime Frérot. Action Directe was a murderous organisation but it was also at times comically incompetent. Marnham describes one of its less successful operations, a bank robbery that took place in Lyon on 12 July, 1985:

"One member of the 'commando' came down on the TGV fast train from Paris already wearing the wig he was supposed to put on for the raid. Later he produced a notice reading 'Closed for Holdup', but hung it on the back door upside down. When he got to the safe it was empty, and his false nose fell off. Outside a passing fire-engine blocked the passage of the getaway car."

Marnham also tells of another Action Directe bank break, in which "Frérot misjudged the strength of the explosives at a savings bank and blew down so much rubble that the money was buried beneath it."

3. During the 1992 campaign on the Maastricht Treaty, Mitterand announced that he must have an urgent operation. When Jean-Marie Le Pen suggested in a debate on television that the operation was not urgent but a campaigning ploy, (an accusation that Mitterand's doctors much later revealed was accurate), "it provoked a walk-out by several leading partisans of the 'Yes' vote. Led by the Socialist prime minister Laurent Fabius, they formed a dignified procession and moved towards a side door. Unfortunately this proved to be a false door which did not open. As they searched around in some confusion for a door which would let them out of the studio the raucous voice of M. Le Pen continued to bellow his bar room insults through the microphone. It was a farcical climax to the national debate, the great and the good of France, attempting a principled gesture, in fact groping around for an exit while being showered with verbal abuse by the leader of the extreme-right." And there was me believing the accepted line that French television is boring.

4. In 1987, when Jean Marie Le Pen went to Lourdes while campaigning, he was abused by a priest for profaning the Grotto. "Typically", Marnham tells us, "Le Pen enjoyed the last word. 'I am here to talk to God, not to his intermediaries', he said." (The book has a great deal on Le Pen, all of it interesting and perceptive, including the assertion that Mitterrand 'invented' Le Pen in 1983 by introducing proportional representation - read the book to get the full argumentation.)

5. "One of those who escaped the guillotine [during the Terror] was an aristocrat called M.de St-Cyr, and it would be nice to think that the story of how he did so was true. Dragged before a Revolutionary tribunal he was asked his name. 'De Saint-Cyr,' he replied. 'Nobility has been abolished', said the president. 'Well then, Saint-Cyr', he said. 'The time of the saints is passed', said the president. 'All right then, Cyr', said the aristocrat. 'We no longer use the word "sire" since the execution of the king', said his tormentor. At this point, the aristocrat lost his temper. 'Since I have no name I must be an abstraction and since there is no law allowing you to try an abstraction I must be acquitted', he shouted. The judge then said, 'Citizen Abstraction, you are acquitted but you had better choose a good Republican name in the future if you wish to escape suspicion.'"

If these examples appeal, I recommend getting hold of the book. It is packed with so many more interesting passages and hilarious anecdotes. I loved it.

Why would anyone buy a 1993 collection of columns about France? Surely it would be completely outdated? Who cares. It's by Patrick Marnham, whose writing is worth reading at all times. This volume contains pieces by Marnham from the 1980s on criminal proceedings in France, the French Communist Party, French politics more generally (then, as now, prominently featuring a Le Pen), French attitudes to Britain, and much else besides, including a chapter on the fascinating "Black Museum" as Marnham calls it, and accounts of various peculiar French criminals (notable among them for an elderly woman like me one Simone Weber who, on discovering an elderly and wealthy man, marries him without his consent, substituting him at the ceremony with "another old man who was on day release from a nearby asylum", forging his will and then, it appears, poisoning him). The section devoted to the celebrations to mark the anniversary of the revolution is worth the price of the book on its own. 

I cannot list all the many, many amusing and interesting things the book includes, but here is what might be called a limited taster menu:

1. Jean Paul Sartre's mother kept his hair in ringlets, dressed him in frocks and called him Poulou. This explains a lot I think, although Marnham doesn't reveal exactly how old Sartre was when he took to trousers and a more severe approach to hairstyling. 

2. Between March 1980 and November 1987 an anarchist group called Action Directe terrorised France. Its bombmaker was a man called Maxime Frérot. As Marnham remarks, "One quickly forgets the fear that spreads through a city during a well-organised bombing campaign." Action Directe was a murderous organisation but it was also at times comically incompetent. Marnham describes one of its less successful operations, which took place in Lyon on 12 July, 1985:

"One member of the 'commando' came down on the TGV fast train from Paris already wering the wig he was supposed to put on for the raid. Later he produced a notice reading 'Closed for Holdup', but hung it onthe back door upside down. When he got to the safe it was empty, and his false nse fell off. Outside a passing fire-engine blocked the passage of the getaway car."

He also tells of another occasion upon which "Frérot misjudged the strength of the explosives at a savings bank and blew down so much rubble that the money was buried beneath it."

3. During the 1992 campaign on the Maastricht Treaty, Mitterand announced that he must have an urgent operation. When Jean-Marie Le Pen suggested in a debate on television that the operation was not urgent but a campaigning ploy, (an accusation that Mitterand's doctors much later revealed was accurate), "it provoked a walk-out by several leading partisans of the 'Yes' vote. Led by the Socialist prime minister Laurent Fabius, they formed a dignified procession and moved towards a side door. Unfortunately this proved to be a false door which did not open. As they searched around in some confusion for a door which would let them out of the studio the raucous voice of M. Le Pen continued to bellow his bar room insults through the microphone. It was a farcical climax to the national debate, the great and the good of France, attempting a principled gesture, in fact groping around for an exist while being showered with verbal abuse by the leader of the extreme-right." And there was me believing the accepted line that French television is boring.

4. In 1987, when Jean Marie Le Pen went to Lourdes while campaigning, he was abused by a priest for profaning the Grotto. "Typically", Marnham tells us, "Le Pen enjoyed the last word. 'I am here to talk to God, not to his intermediaries', he said." (The book has a great deal on Le Pen, all of it interesting and perceptive, including the assertion that Mitterrand 'invented' Le Pen in 1983 by introducing proportional representation - read the book to get the full argumentation.)

5. "One of those who escaped the guillotine was an aristocrat called M.de St-Cyr, and it would be nice to think that the story of how he did so was true. Dragged before a Revolutionary tribunal he was asked his name. 'De Saint-Cyr,' he replied. 'Nobility has been abolished', said the president. 'Well then, Saint-Cyr', he said. 'The time of the saints is passed', said the president. 'All right then, Cyr', said the aristocrat. 'We no longer use the word "sire" since the execution of the king', said his tormentor. At this point, the aristocrat lost his temper. 'Since I have no ame I must be an abstraction and since there is no law allowing you to try an abstraction I must be acquitted', he shouted. The judge then said, 'Citizen Abstraction, you are acquitted but you had better choose a good Republican name in the future if you wish to escape suspicion.'"

If these examples amused you, I recommend you get the book. It is packed with so many more interesting passages and hilarious anecdotes. I loved it.

Recent Reading - The Favourite by Meredith Daneman

My reading is largely dictated by what I find in a bin at a local secondhand shop where there is a four-books-for-a-pound offer, (what I find that I think might be interesting I suppose I should say, for strict accuracy). "A masterful portrayal of a woman trapped in a web of self-perpetuating emotional triangles, of suicide and, most courageously, of psychic incest" is the description Faber and Faber, in its wisdom, placed on the back cover of this novel, presumably on the assumption that this was bound to entice readers to buy. 

Ugh. Luckily, I didn't read that blurb before I handed over my money. Instead, I flicked through the book's pages and saw that it is partly set in Sydney. I used to live in Sydney and love descriptions of it in fiction. Therefore, that was enough for me. 

How fortunate. The book is exceptional, brief and beautifully written - and nothing like that back cover explanation. The main character is a person whose life is overshadowed by the wounds inflicted by emotionally irresponsible, thoughtless parents. Meredith Daneman evokes beautifully what it is like to try to construct a life on foundations that are fragile, where a memory of being unconditionally loved and cared for is missing. 

If this makes the book sound precious, I promise it isn't. It is psychologically perceptive, vivid and entertaining, and I was glued. I am going to search out any other writing Daneman may have produced. On the evidence of this book, she is a superb writer.