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 Surely it would be completely outdated?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.
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