For French History Buffs

I saw that my article on Vendée was linked at a website called Le Fleur de Lys too. I checked to see what it was about, and found a most interesting site administered by a committed monarchist and Catholic, named Brantigny. He has a home page full of interesting topics, including the story of the key to the Bastille and an update on the Roman Polanski case.

In the left margin of his site is this "prayer of the Franks", an "official prayer of the Scouts of France":

Here is a rather hastily done translation:

God, almighty and eternal,
Who established the empire of the Franks to be in this world
The instrument of your divine will,
The sword and the shield of your Holy Church,
We pray that you protect, forever and everywhere, with your celestial light
The supplicant sons of the Franks,
So that that may see what must be done to fulfill your reign in this world,
And in order to accomplish what they have seen,
That they may be filled with charity, strength and perseverance.

Through Jesus Christ Our Lord, Amen.

Brantigny also links to historical novelist Catherine Delors' website, where she has posted two articles about the storming of the Bastille. The first entitled What Really Happened on Bastille Day contains this description:

The situation becomes very confused after the fall of the fortress. Over 100 insurgents have been killed, scores wounded. The crowd is turning into a howling mob. Launay, once on the street, is massacred along with the garrison. So is soon afterwards the Jacques de Flesselles, Provost of the Merchants. Accused of collusion with the foreign troops, he is shot dead. His head, and that of Launay are cut off and paraded at the end of pikes.

Paris would never again have a Provost of the Merchants. The next day, the first Mayor of the city is chosen, a National Guard is formed, headed by the Marquis de Lafayette, and tricolor flags and cockades make their first appearances in the history of France.

This was not a riot as Paris had known so many times before. The fall of the Bastille signaled the beginning of radical change.

Her second article deals with the aftermath of July 14, 1789 and contains this passage:

Within days, the now harmless Bastille became a tourist attraction. Parisians flocked to the former prison, turned into an improvised museum of horrors. They saw dungeons, below river level, that were permanently flooded, rusted torture instruments, human bones strewn upon rotting straw. Madame Tussaud, in her Memoirs, recounts her own harrowing visit there. Perhaps she got there ideas she would reuse later with great acumen…

But the demolition of the fortress had been decided. Outside its once formidable walls, little temporary cafés, sheltered under striped tents, sprang up in the summer heat. The old stones were being sold for construction or turned into all sorts of souvenirs.

History buffs, and those especially interested in France, the Royal Family, the Revolution, Napoleon, and the 18th century, should check out her website. I was struck by the description of the execution of Marie-Antoinette (illustration at top), of which this is an excerpt:

7:00 AM: Rosalie Lamorlière, a young servant who has been attending to the former Queen, offers to bring her some food. “I do not need anything anymore,” responds Marie-Antoinette. “All is over for me.” Upon Rosalie’s insistence, Marie-Antoinette accepts a bowl of bouillon, but she can only swallow a few spoonfulls.

She is informed that she is not to wear her black dress to her execution. She puts on her only other remaining garment: a white cotton dress, with a black petticoat, and a white cap adorned with black ribbon. She has been bleeding profusely (she is apparently suffering from a uterine fibroma, or possibly some more serious condition) and wishes to change her shirt. She must do so, only shielded by Rosalie, in the presence of the gendarme officer who has replaced Lieutenant de Busne (the latter has been briefly arrested for showing her too much respect.) Rosalie also cuts Marie-Antoinette’s hair short on the neck. In this fashion the executioner does not have to do it himself to facilitate the operation of the guillotine.

Those interested in French history should find much to enjoy at these two sites.