Chartres, France

An American friend traveling in France sent this VFYT in from his lunch table in the town of Chartres, where he had gone to pray in the cathedral. “The good restaurants were no longer serving, so I was stuck with a salad with chicken and goat cheese, along with water and bread, for 7,50 Euros,” he writes. As anyone who has traveled in France well knows, that modest lunch was no doubt better than what you could possibly get in the US for the same cost.

Today is le 14 juillet, Bastille Day. As an ardent Francophile, I naturally want to celebrate. But the more I have learned about what the Revolution did, the more it seems to me obscene to celebrate this day. Well, I suppose you can celebrate France herself, if not la République, but I think of the ruins of the Cluny abbey, and I lose all heart for anything republicaine.

Still, vive la France! I love that country and its people, and wish them all the best.

Incidentally, the fleur de lis, the symbol of the French monarchy, is everywhere in south Louisiana, especially in New Orleans. Nobody associates it consciously with the monarchy. Down here, it is taken as a symbol of Louisiana, especially of New Orleans, which was founded under the monarchy.

Now, it has come under attack for being — you knew this was coming — racist. Excerpt:

The fleur de lis is a symbol that is deeply ingrained in Louisiana’s history. Seen in architecture, the state flag and on the helmets of the Saints, it’s everywhere. But while it is now seen as the mark of our great state, it was once used to mark slaves. “Code noir, those words are French and mean black code,” said slave historian Dr. Ibrahima Seck. The black code was a set of regulations adopted in Louisiana in 1724 from other French colonies around the world, meant to govern the state’s slave population. Seck said those rules included branding slaves with the fleur de lis as punishment for running away. “He would be taken before a court and the sentence would be being branded on one shoulder and with the fleur de lis, and then they would crop their ears,” Seck said.

Out, out, fleur de lis! But wait — what about the French tricolor? It is a symbol associated with the massacre of priests and others associated with the ancien régime. How can we in good conscience allow that to be flown, or referenced in any way? I suppose that those people might have died, but as Pope Francis has taught us about the hammer and sickle, the people who revered that symbol meant well, and isn’t that what counts?

It’ll be great when this puritanical purgation of historical memory ends. I don’t expect it to for a while. I say that as someone who agrees that the Confederate flag had to go.

Anyway, again and again I say unto you: Vive la France! I’ll be traveling to Charleston, SC, today for the CIRCE conference, and won’t be able to update the blog easily. Please be patient.