V
Imperial Institute of Caledonia (Fine Arts Section)
Account of the Session of 17 March 4786, M. Duparc Presiding
The President. The floor is given to the reporter of the committee charged with examining the equestrian statue found in the ruins of Paris.
M. Legendre, reporter. Before making known to you the conclusions that the committee has reached, I think I ought to summarize briefly for you the three hypotheses that remained standing at the time the closure of the debate was declared.
According to some of our colleagues, the statue that you have before your eyes represents one of those warrior women known in antiquity by the name of Amazons. The adversaries of that opinion, however, respond that the statue is armored in iron, while the costume of the Amazons consisted solely of a short breastplate. In another respect too, the statue is too complete, for everyone knows that the Amazons had their right breast excised because it hampered the use of a bow. Finally, none of the words inscribed inside the monument are able to lend any support to it.
That inscription, they add, ought to be our principal guide, and, in fact, includes everything that we seek. If one brings together three passages contained in the fragments of Thiers, Michelet and L. Blanc,39 one cannot doubt that the French were governed for some years by a woman named République. Is it not quite natural that a statue of her was erected, and that she should be represented on horseback, clad in armor and crowned with laurels?
That second opinion rallied more partisans than the first—without, however, yet being able to satisfy the majority.
Even admitting the reality of the historical fact, it was objected, perhaps the first part of the inscription only indicates that the statue was erected under the reign of that République, in which case it is the second part that ought to furnish the solution o the problem.
Minerva, the goddess of war, is more often represented fully armored, with a shield on one arm and a spear in the other. The helmet is undoubtedly lacking, but let us not forget that Minerva disputed the golden apple with Juno and Venus on Mount Ida; the French, whose gallantry became proverbial, did not want to hide that charming face under a helmet; they left uncovered the only beauty that was ever shown to humans by the chaste goddess who punished the indiscreet gaze of Tiresias by depriving him of sight, and who always conserved her virginity.
This third hypothesis, based on a literal translation of the two lines doubtless traced by the artist himself, is also in accordance with the most incontestable scientific, historical and artistic data; it is the one that has prevailed in the bosom of the committee.
The committee thinks, therefore, that the statue sent from Paris represents Minerva, and that it was founded in the city of Orléans under the government of Queen République. In consequence, it expresses the desire that a request be addressed to His Excellency the Minister of Public Education, soliciting the gift of this ancient Minerva, to replace the modern bust that ornaments our meeting hall.
These conclusions were adopted unanimously.
VII
To His Excellency the Minister of Public Education in
Religion and the Fine Arts in Noumea (Caledonia)
Paris, 2 March 4876
Monsieur le Ministre,
We began the year rather sadly, awaiting the arrival of the Scrutatrix, which did not dock until 8 January, but the day after, our venerable senior member told us in solemn session about the distinctions accorded to us. It is, therefore, with the expression of our very sincere thanks that our report will commence on this occasion, and we beg Your Excellency to transmit to the Emperor the homage of our respectful gratitude.
The decorations accorded to the army have been distributed to it by Admiral Quésitor, after a grand review during which the name of His Majesty was cheered enthusiastically several times. The tribe established on the banks of the Seine made haste to enjoy the spectacle, and those last representatives of the Old World mingled their cries loudly with those of our soldiers.
The intelligence of these still-half-savage people cannot be praised too much. Incessantly in contact with us, they are trying to discover the secrets of our civilization, and are appropriating them, one by one, with a prodigious rapidity. Several of our methods have already been improved by them, and our country is in their debt for numerous inventions that we have hastened to adopt.
They now know about our political institutions in the smallest detail, and criticize them loudly. Strangely enough, as soon as they broach the subject, passion carries them away and reason seems to abandon them. These barbarians, totally unfamiliar a few months ago with our social organization, gladly propose improvements to us in this matter too. They have already offered us two or three complete systems, each more unreasonable than the last, which overturn all received ideas on the subjects of taxation, public education, religion, municipal elections, etc., etc. They would be particularly delighted to see us adopt the fundamental principal of their government, which consists of changing their leader as often as possible.
In spite of these aberrations and the scant success they obtain with our soldiers, the little tribe still manifests a very real sympathy toward us, and seems to be following the progress of our endeavors with keen interest.
The latter are continuing actively, and we have discovered the imposing necropolis in which, since the origin of the monarchy, the mortal remains of French sovereigns were deposited. It is an immense palace situated at the extremity of the cemetery described in our last report. The upper floors have collapsed, but the ground floor had supported their weight almost everywhere without weakening, and its vas halls have conserved incomparable historical treasures for us.
Two of them enclose stone coffins, large, massive and charged with inscriptions in hieratic characters. We observe there that the sacerdotal language of the French varied through the centuries, for several inscriptions differ from the kind employed on the monolith in the Place de la Navigation. The script is heavy regular, literal rather than symbolic, but just as indecipherable.
The connecting rooms are full of statues and busts representing the kings and queens of France, whose bodies doubtless rest in the subterranean pats of the edifice. There are also groups representing the principal events of their reigns.
Some of these sovereigns wear the costume of Roman emperors, but it is not necessary to conclude therefrom that the French sometimes adopted it. Only four or five kings, H. Martin40 tells us, had the innocent mania of having themselves represented thus. Others are almost nude; the latter preferred to imitate certain gods of primitive religions. Even the queens did no escape this defect. We already knew by way of Jehan de Sismondi41 that one of them, named Diana, had posed more than once for status of that goddess, and we have discovered here the marbles to which the veridical history makes allusion.
Venuses are equally numerous, and there is one among them that surpasses all the rest by the boldness and delicacy of its execution. She is nude to the waist, and her left knee, slightly raised, seems to be retaining unaided the thousand pleats of a garment ready to fall. The torso is supple and lively. The breast recalls those pretty lines from the Anthologie:
Do you see those azure veins,
Light, delicate and polished
Running over those rounded breasts,
In the whiteness of pure marble?42
The head, noble and proud, expresses a power conscious of itself and always sure of victory. The two arms are missing, unfortunately, and we have searched for them in vain. Monsieur Chevalier thinks that the masterpiece in question ought to be attributed to the sculptor Karpeau,43 who flourished toward the end of the sixteenth century.
While our photographers took possession of the necropolis, we pursued the course of our research, and we found ourselves in the presence of two churches constructed in the same plan and inked together by an octagonal tower. We have only cleared the façades, which are very elegant, and we have learned therefrom that one of these temples was consecra
ted to Saint Marie du Louvre. Indeed, an inscription engraved in the stone, and doubtless incomplete, includes the words MAIRIE DU LOUVRE and all philologists are aware that in old French, the etymologic A that bore an accent was reinforced and became the diphthong AL; thus Bretagne was written Bretaigne, Champagne Champaigne and Marie Mairie, etc., etc. Your Excellency is not unaware that philology has become, in our day, an exact science of the same kind as algebra.
The combination of all the data, the text of this inscription having confirmed the data furnished by architectural examination, has demonstrated with mathematical rigor that the monument in question was built before the sixteenth century of the Christian Era.
While digging in the ground in front of this church, an engineer discovered two bottles of white glass, taller than they are broad, cut at right angles, whose purpose we do not know. Nearby was found a small lead medallion, which seems to us to merit profound study.
Approximately twelve millimeters across, it has the form of a regular hexagon and is traversed in the direction of its thickness by a fairly strong wire. On one of its faces three interlinked capital letters are depicted, which we believe to be a J, a V and a B. The other face presents the mutilated inscription:
VIN ???
??
B LL
The two letters making up the second line are illegible and there is only room for a single letter at the end of the third line.
I can make a firm declaration on this issue. In the discussions held to search for the meaning of this numismatic enigma, Monsieur Pinson made the initial suggestion that perhaps we had in our hands a specimen of the military medal instituted by one of the last Poleons of France.44 I recalled in my turn that Latin was frequently employed at that time in inscriptions. That was a flash of enlightenment, and Monsieur de Lonpont immediately proclaimed that it must have read: VINCIT IN BELLO. No more doubt was permissible.45
This medal must therefore have shone on the breast of a soldier, a French warrior to whom the fatherland rendered this solemn testimony: Brave in War!
I am gripped by emotion as I write these lines, and it is with them that I wish to terminate. Our next report will tell you about the new direction we adopted several days ago, and all the hopes that it promises us for the future.
I have the honor of being, with respect to Your Excellency, Monsieur le Ministre, your most humble, most devoted and most obedient servant,
L. Valfleury
Membre de l’Institut,
Académie des Inscriptions et Belles-Lettres.
VIII
To His Excellency the Minister of the Navy and Colonies, at Noumea (Caledonia)
Paris, 6 April 4876
Monsieur le Ministre,
It is with despair in my heart that I take up my pen to write this report, doubtless the last that Your Excellency will receive from Paris. I do not wish, however, to attempt any justification of my conduct here, and I do not wish to devote myself to any recrimination against the men you have given me as auxiliaries and have betrayed the Caledonian flag in such a cowardly fashion; I owe Your Excellency a sincere and impartial account of the facts, and here it is.
Since the beginning of the month of April, I had noticed certain mutinous tendencies among our soldiers; the repression was prompt and energetic, but ineffective. Soon, murmurs, and even threats, reached my ears. I interrogated the officers but their embarrassed, evasive replies told me nothing. Resolved to put an end to it, I announced that I would review the troops the following day.
I slept on board, and toward midday I arrived in the Avenue des Chefs-Illustres, where all the troops were in battle formation.
A sickening spectacle met my eyes. Most of the men had refused to put on their dress uniforms and were wearing their working clothes. Mingling with the indigenes, they were laughing, sinking, smoking their pipes and passing bottles from hand to hand, which, once emptied, they threw away. When I arrived, the officers took up their positions but they remained mute and impassive. As soon as I set foot in the avenue I was greeted by hurrahs, acclamations and confused cries whose meaning I could not make out. It seemed that the wretches had been suddenly afflicted with vertigo. I tried to speak, but the cries redoubled, and I was able to make out the following phrases: Long live the Republic! Freedom of the Press! Right of Association! Down with Capital! Organized labor! No more exploitation of human by humans!
I understood everything.
I understood the error I had made I allowing my troops to associate with the indigenes—but the political fantasies of those barbarians were so irrational that the contagion of such follies seemed impossible. Alas, I am now convinced that the scholars who affirm that Noumea was once a French colony are not mistaken; the voice of the blood has made itself heard; it only required a spark to awaken instincts dormant for nearly thirty centuries!
I did not know what decision to make, when a man emerged from the ranks and came straight toward me.
By his insignia and the nacreous seashell resplendent in his head-dress, I recognized the present leader of the indigenes.
“Monsieur l’Amiral,” he said to me cheerfully, “you can see that all resistance is futile. We have eight thousand well-armed men, and no foreigner can any longer set foot on this territory, which belongs to us; bow down to the inevitable and join us. The reign of tyranny is over; you can read on our flag the three words: Liberty, Equality, Fraternity; they will go with us around the world.” He smiled, and added: “For that, one admiral is not too many; accept my offer, therefore, and you can retain your title, your functions and your brilliant uniform.”
Indignant at this proposition, I turned to the venerable scholars that Your Excellency gave me as advisers, and interrogated them with my gaze.
They all bowed their heads.
The chief went over to them. “Monsieur Syssel,” he said to one of them, extending his hand to him, the position you have solicited in the new government is granted to you. By a decree signed ten minute ago, you are appointed the curator of the monolith of the Place de la Navigation...”
7 April.
Yesterday’s dispatch was interrupted by a visit from our new leader. He explained to me the political ideas that will serve as a basis for his government, and the social reforms he is considering. Some of them seem to me, in reality, very sensible, even urgent, for in many respects, the foundations on which modern society rests are barbaric, unjust and fortunately decrepit. I therefore decided that I ought not to refuse him my collaboration and the support of my long experience.
At any rate, unless I can swim all the way back to Noumea, I am compelled to remain here, since all my mariners have abandoned me and my fleet has been confiscated. I shall, in consequence, enclose this dispatch in a securely-sealed bottle, and will then throw it into the sea, and hazard will deliver it to you, Citizen Minister, when it wishes.
Farewell and Fraternity,
Admiral Quésitor.
Vanitas vanitatum, vanitas vanitarum et omnia vanitas. Non est priorum memoria; sed nec eorum quidam quae postea future sunt erit recorrdinato apud eos qui future sunt in novissimo. Vidi cuncta quae fiunt sub sole, and ece unversa vanitas.
(Ecclesiastes)46
Maurice Spronck: Year 330 of the Republic
(1894)
Future Time! Vision Sublime!
Victor Hugo47
The Celebrations in Orléans
On the sixteenth of Messidor in the year 313 of the Republic (2105 of the Christian Era) the Commune of Orléans was to celebrate the centenary of its liberation.
Great public celebrations were authorized and organized by the municipal council; invitations were sent by telephone to the four corners of the civilized world, summoning the representatives of other communes to the peaceful solemnity. Many cities, having accepted, sent deputations; others, more lukewarm, simply sent phonographs loaded in advance with sympathetic speeches. Yet others, either indifferent or enclosed in their local egotism, or even driven by paltry jealousies, inve
nted vague excuses of found means to stay away. The feast was, nevertheless, everything that could be expected, and left a durable impression on everyone.
The Orléanais had attached an extreme importance to it. For them, the date of 16 Messidor 313 was not only the anniversary of their liberation; it also marked the end of a political conflict that went back for some forty years, whose bitterness time did not seem to have soothed. The existence of a simple equestrian statue, a statue of Jeanne d’Arc, had sufficed to foment and maintain that long internal dissent.
The Progressivist party demanded imperiously that Jeanne d’Arc and her mount should be taken down and returned to the foundry; the Conservative party, weakened from day to day by the diffusion of liberal ideas, pleaded extenuating circumstances, and demanded that the monument of vanished barbaric epochs be kept as a curiosity. The adversaries were always slandering one another over the affair, with the venomous acrimony appropriate to free men, and as it is in the nature of certain individuals never to shut up, it was rare for two weeks48 to pass without a polemic reopening the issue, always sustained by an incessantly renewed interest.
The Progressivists wanted to make the most of everything that was outdated, and even immoral and dangerous, in honoring a bronze image of a woman in whom the majority of the oldest and most stupid abolished superstitions were incarnate. Jeanne symbolized respect for governmental authority, belief in God and the immortality of the soul, patriotic idolatry, the cult of military legend and the exaltation of virginity. Was she not one of the most complete type-specimens of ignorance and ancient savagery in History?
The Conservatives did not deny these undeniable arguments, but, imperfectly emancipated from the religion of their ancestors, they could not shake off all attachment to the things of the past. They alleged, with specious logic, that the protectress of Orléans could scarcely be declared responsible for a philosophical and moral faith which was that of her era, and that her visions could, in any case, be explained by hysterical disturbances. To which the radical faction replied that it was quite disposed to grant plenary indulgence to an irresponsible individual, but that, on the other hand, hysteria had never constituted an entitlement to any kind of commemorative monument.
Investigations of the Future Page 7
