Western Front Tour ~ Versailles to home

DAY ELEVEN ~ Tuesday: 14th April 2009.
Today we went our separate ways. Because of the full day on Monday, the Revolutions group decided to leave Versailles until Wednesday. Some others decided to stay with the itinerary and go to the Sun King’s palace. Still others went to Musee D’Orsay or the Louvre.
The Revolutions group began at the Musee Carnavalet, a museum devoted to French history. Most of the second floor focuses upon the French Revolution. It is a virtual treasure trove of historical memorabilia. The keys to the Bastille can be found there, as can Lafayette’s sword and a document satchel for a member of the National Assembly. The paintings are fabulous. The collection includes such iconic works as David’s Tennis Court Oath and the famous portraits of Robespierre, Danton and Louis XVI. The lesser known ones are also fascinating, especially those celebrating the first anniversary of the storming of the Bastille, the imprisonment of the royal family and the desecration of churches, including the exhumation of former monarchs from St. Denis. Another painting depicted the Jacobins in hell. The collection was not sympathetic to the Jacobin cause. There were plates, clocks and numerous other artefacts commemorating key events. There was a mini bust of Louis XVI, complete with horse hair to mark the occasion of his beheading.
From there, we proceeded to Hotel de Ville and noted the doorway from which Louis, for the last time attempted to assuage the crowds and convince them of his commitment to the Revolution. There was a present day protest of sorts there too; a university group was walking in circles and demanding changes to recent government decisions regarding universities. Gendarmes looked on, with as much indifference as they could muster.
After lunch, we marched to the Conciergerie, which originally served as a residence of the kings of France, then became the seat of the Parlement of Paris and then, during the Revolution, prison and seat of the Revolutionary Tribunal. It was a chilling place. For all suspects and prisoners, the Conciergerie would have been a brutal, abhorrent and menacing venue. The cell in which Marie Antoinette spent her last days before her execution was forbidding and friendless. The site where she had prayed and received her last rites had become a chapel. In another chapel, the condemned Girondins had feasted and comforted one another on the night prior to their executions on 30th October 1793. A small courtyard afforded the prisoners some occasional opportunities for exercise. They could wash their clothes in the small fountain. It was also called the corner of last goodbyes; here condemned prisoners waited for the cart which would carry them to the scaffold.
The Pantheon was our final destination. This structure was conceived as a cathedral to rival St. Peter’s in Rome. In 1791, however, the monument was turned into the national Pantheon to honour Revolutionary luminaries such as Mirabeau, Voltaire, Rousseau and Marat. The history of the Pantheon offers a lucid insight into the impact of the Civil Constitution of the Clergy and the determination of leaders of the Revolution to efface the influence of Christianity. According to Robespierre, the Jacobins and others, this action was necessary because of the manner in which the Church had supported despotism for centuries. Much of the artwork associated with the cult of the Supreme Being was “removed” after Robespierre’s demise and the basilica again became a place of Christian worship. In 1885, Victor Hugo’s funeral saw the Pantheon revert to being a secular monument. Alexander Dumas, Emile Zola, scientists such as the Curies, political figures and resistance fighters are buried in the crypt. In 1851, Leon Foucault installed his pendulum, which dramatically demonstrated the rotation of the earth.
This day offered us a window onto the world of the Revolution. Often it was disturbing, but the view was always intriguing. Our piece de resistance was to dine together at La Procope Restaurant, a Jacobin and Enlightenment haunt which had been operating since 1686. The food was delicious and the company, delightful.


DAY TWELVE ~ Wednesday: 14th April 2009.
Our little group of fourteen toddled off to Versailles via Metro and RER. Without any drama, we joined the queue, which seemed much shorter than the mighty anaconda I recalled from three years ago. Using some advice from a providentially good English speaking attendant and proof of our identity as teachers, we managed to get all the students in for free and the adults in for 10 euros each. We also jumped the queue.
Versailles is magnificent.
The palace corridors seem vast and endless. I remembered my dapper little French guide from three years ago saying that less than 40% of the treasures from Versailles had been recovered; they had been plundered and sold off by “those vile Revolutionaries.” The chambers nonetheless seem crammed with glossy ornate cabinets, glass polished tables and gilded chairs, each the work of a master craftsman. The timepieces, globes, books, and other artefacts were exquisite. The beds were monumental. And the mirrors were everywhere. Appearance at the French Court, it would seem, was everything.
Louis XIV, The Sun King seemed to want all who visited to be awed by his radiance. Versailles is a testament to his ego. There are constant references to Roman art, Roman theology. Louis wanted his wealth and power to rival that of Caesar’s. From that perspective, there is something obscene about Versailles. Beautiful as so many of the murals and paintings are, I found myself being reminded of Shelley’s poem, Ozymandias: “Look upon my works ye mighty and despair.”
There were two places of particular interest for me in the palace. The first was the stunning Hall of Mirrors. Because the hall was being renovated when I last visited, this was my first viewing. The mirrors made the corridor seem infinite. Light, glass and wealth seemed to glitter and walk with you as you floated along the shimmering space. The second was Marie Antoinette’s boudoir. The massive bed of crimson and creams topped with white ostrich feathers was memorable enough, but the doors on either side of her bed recalled the drama of events which pervaded the room. The queen had fled for her life through one of these doors in October 1789 when a revolutionary mob invaded the palace.
The Petit Trianon was like a child’s dolls house at the bottom of the most expansive garden imaginable. Beautiful as the village and its rural landscape was, it was nonetheless a form of prison for the Queen of France. It was also a measure of her childishness. Marie Antionette lived in such a rarefied, fantastic world, and she paid most dearly for it.
Versailles absorbed our day. Despite the mini train ride which had jostled and jolted us from the palace to the Grand Trianon and back, we were leg weary by day’s end.
At 7.30 we gathered for our last meal together. The hostess was effusive. The food and wine were delectable. Best of all, the restaurant was within five minutes walking distance from our hotel.

DAY THIRTEEN to SIXTEEN: 15th to 18th April 2009.

After packing and relishing our last petit dejeuner in the cellar of the Hotel Alesia, Jacqui and I set off for St. Denis while most of the others made their way to the catacombs.
St. Denis was a 20 minute Metro journey away. For centuries, the cathedral had been the final resting place of French monarchs. We were surprised that the building was not more grand or clean. Much of the facia was black with city grime. Be that as it may, St. Denis was an impressive historical site.
Legend has it that St. Denis was beheaded at Monmartre, then miraculously tucked his head under his arm and trotted off to the site of the basilica. Some 1000 years later, Saint Louis of France decided to add legitimacy to his dynasty by attempting to link it to both St. Denis and Charlemagne. He ordered sixteen recumbent statues of his ancestors constructed and established a necropolis for the kings of France in 1263. The tradition continued until the Revolution. Louis XVI and Marie Antoinette were interred at the Chapel of the Atonement after being executed at the Place de la Revolution in 1793. Because St. Denis had become a symbol of the monarchy, from 12th August to 26th October 1792, the monarchs in the cathedral were disinterred and their remains placed in two common pits in vacant land adjacent to the north of the cathedral. While there may well have been a pragmatic motive of using the lead in the coffins for the war effort, the whole exercise, seem motivated by hatred, vengeance and fear rather than anything else. During the remainder of the Revolutionary period, the cathedral was used as a hospital. At one stage Napoleon fancied the notion of being buried at St. Denis and this served to protect the site to some extent at least. Upon the restoration of the monarchy, Louis XVII ordered that St. Denis become the necropolis of French kings and that his brother’s remains and those of his wife, Marie Antoinette be recovered and reburied at the cathedral.
Perhaps the most macabre story, however, relates to Louis XVI’s son, who died at the age of ten on 28th June 1795. There was considerable speculation about the dauphin’s death. The doctor who performed the autopsy, Pelletan, cited tuberculosis as the cause of death was cautious about identifying corpse as that of the dauphin. Nonetheless, Pelletan stole the heart of the boy. The mystery surrounding the dauphin’s identity was only solved in April 2000 when DNA testing on the recovered heart confirmed its genetic link to Marie Antoinette. A memorial to Louis XVII contains a crystal urn in which the shrivelled remains of his heart are on display. It seemed to me to be the crowning indignity for a little boy who had been so badly mistreated.
Internally, much of the basilica was beautiful. The rose window was particularly so, as were many of the recumbent marble tombs. They were also a history lesson. The marble monarchs, their queens and their princes and princesses had open eyes and were facing east, awaiting the dawn of resurrection. At the feet of many of the figures were hounds, which, it was believed would guide them in the darkness of the underworld. Others had lions at their feet. This too had links to the concept of resurrection: it was believed that lion cubs open their eyes and see their world for the first time three days after birth.
While Jacqui and I were exploring the crypt at St. Denis, many of the others were making gristly discoveries of their own in the catacombs where the skulls and the bones of Parisians lined the walls. There was a debriefing with Jo Prestia at La Procope; one last espresso before gathering our luggage from the not so secure room at Hotel Alesia and heading out to Charles De Gaulle airport.
The trip home was arduously long, but the company was excellent and the homecoming was wonderful.
Thank you to Bruce for his able organisation and to the group as a whole. The Western Front Tour was a superb educational experience.