FrenchKate

April 6: Resources

Before I go further, I want to record the resources that I have been using to plan a walk on the GR65, I'll find more, I am sure, but here is the very useful set that I have used so far.

I love walking in France	Australian Melinda Lusmore's website is full of photos and useful tips. She promises that "...if you’ll provide the boots, I’ll provide the inspiration and all the practical tips you need to set out safely and confidently on the walk of your dreams!"
Les randos de Fred & Paul	Les randos de Fred & Paul is in French, and I don't have any other information about them. But they are clearly very knowledgable walkers, and their websites provides useful photos of the trail, history and the challenges faced by experienced walkers.
Mount Adventure Club	Mark McCondach and Alissa Aubertin, I infer, live in New Zealand, and love to adventure hike with their three children (~11 years, 8 years and 2 years old.) The family spent three months walking the Sentier de Saint-Jacques in 2019, camping along the way. She's a professional photographer. He is an aspiring writer. The quality of the photos and writing is very high.  They describe their website, Mount Adventure Club, as the ultimate "travel-with-kids" blog. Mark aims to record the highs and lows of their journey and provide "tips, tricks & inspiration" for others who may wish to do adventure holidays with kids.
FF randonnées haute loire	The French love hiking, and this website is one of those phenomenal resources that make it worthwhile to learn French. Maps, topoguides, accommodations...it has all the practical information.
Visorando	Club visorando (again in French) has provided the topographic maps that I have used so far. Lots to explore on this site. I've barely scratched the surface.  Update: I learned there is an visorando app which was downloaded 200,000 times and earned $60,000 in February, 2021! The things the internet provides!
Dans la bulle de Manou	Dans la bulle de Manou is an individual blog  (in French) by someone who shares her love of hiking (among other interests) and knows her flora and fauna.
le Puy-en-Velay	The office of tourism for Le Puy en Velay has practical information for the pilgrimage walker.
Harve Lenain	Photographer Herve Lenain has done some beautiful photos.
Le Monde de Belissor	Le Monde de Belissor (in French) is a wonderful resource for the via podiensis, the GR 65 from LePuy to Cahors. I know nothing about the writer/s--him/her/them?--but they document their walk  with photos that provide a clear understanding of what walkers will experience.
Google maps	Google is invaluable, especially google maps.

October 20: Belle-Île experience during the pandemic

Belle-Île has a year round population of around 5,500 people, but in the summer months, the population swells to 25,000 - 35,000 people.

Since tourism is obviously the driver of the local economy, I wondered how the Belliois have fared in the pandemic. A google search suggests that the last six months have been fraught...but not for lack of visitors. At the start, the island was covid-free while the rest of France was experiencing uncontrolled spread. Then, in March, Parisians fleeing the pandemic--swamped island resources.

"Their arrival led to pushing and scuffles in supermarkets with several locals complaining that they were inconsiderate."

“As soon as they got off the boats they poured in," the manager of one of the island’s few supermarkets told Le Figaro newspaper. “They didn’t stay at a distance from people and they emptied the supermarket shelves. We were completely unprepared and overwhelmed. We had no police or security presence whatsoever because we had never needed it. Before everything was very orderly....Lockdown does not mean going to the beach, yet we have seen Parisians racing about on surf boards and bikes. I bet they won’t follow any of the rules,” said one resident."

In response, the government restricted travel to the island, and that seemed to have helped in the short term. In July and August, tourism was flourishing; Hotels were at 80% capacity. In July, four cases were discovered, in one family, but seemed to have been contained.

Recently, covid-19 cases have surged in France since the end of August, 104% increase in cases over the past two weeks. The Moribhan--the departement in which Belle-Île is located--is currently experiencing a case load of 70 per 100,000 people. Recognizing the threat, the mayors of Belle-Île's four villages--Le Palais, Sauzon, Bangor and Locmaria--have strengthened guidelines: masks are mandatory, social distancing, no parties, beaches and paths closed overnight, no more than six people in restaurants. 

The first and second images are maps of Belle-Île, a tourist map and an administrative map that provides the topography. The third picture is pretty Sauzon. 

Background images of Saint-Malo (actual date, April 25)

Learning more about the history of Saint-Malo, I stumbled on these early representations from around 1600 - 1650. In the first one, you can clearly see the strip of sand, Le Sillon, that attaches Saint-Malo to the mainland. In both you can see the strategic importance of the château that guards the road from the mainland.

In the second, note the land bridge that has been added, creating a moat around the château. Today, the moat is gone, and the whole area has been reclaimed from the sea, creating the busy esplanade Saint Vincent.  In the second one, also, note the windmills. Windmills like these determined the shape of the Bastion de la Hollande (about which I wrote yesterday.)

I love these old illustrations. And I also found images of the naval engagements that took in the 1690s.You can spot the cannons of the Bastion de la Hollande on the first one.

Finally, I have a partial answer to my question of several days ago--why was the name of the Bastion of St Francis changed to the Bastion of St Louis? The Bastion of Saint-Louis was built partly in 1414 and partly in 1721. At first, it was named Bastion Saint-François because it was close to the convent of St Francis, but during the Revolution--in 1794, to be precise--it was renamed the "Bastion of Vigilance and Equality."

I still don't know why "Saint-Louis" was chosen when they dumped the Revolutionary propaganda. But Saint-Louis was a French king, not some order-inspiring religioso like St Francis, so I wonder if the city fathers were honoring the restored Bourbon King Louis XVIII?

 

 

April 18: How we spent our first day in Saint Malo, fantasy trip, day 1

We got to our hotel, Hotel de la Cité, around 10:00 AM to drop off our luggage. The young woman behind the desk helped us cheerfully, always an encouraging sign--the hotel staff can make or break your stay. She gave us a map of old town and recommended a spot, Creperie des Lutins, for lunch. We had two hours to fill before it opened; an awkward interval, too short for a museum, too long for cup of coffee--though, again, I am not complaining.

We decided to walk Saint-Malo's ramparts. These are fantastic. I am posting the map that we got in the hotel here to show you how complete the ramparts are. Our hotel is in the upper right corner near Place Vauban. The orange band circling the town are the ramparts, a good urban walk two kilometers long.

The original ramparts were built in 1144 by the bishop who then governed Saint-Malo, but in the 17th century, Saint Malo played a strategic role in the defense of Brittany against Louis XIV's enemies. Louis XIV's sent his military engineer, Sebastien le Prestre de Vauban to Saint Malo, to strengthen its defenses (hence Place Vauban where our hotel is located.) Under Vauban's direction the medieval wall was preserved and reinforced with earthworks and embankments, and additional fortifications and forts were built on rocky outcroppings in the bay. 

After the bombardment of 1944 (see picture 2), 80% of Saint Malo had been destroyed, but Vauban's defensive rampart had miraculously survived. 

We started our walk where ,we were told, the locals always start: the twin gates of Porte Saint Vincent.

More on our ramparts walk tomorrow. 

May 1: The Angevin empire

When Eleanor of Aquitaine married Henry II, King of England, in 1152, her lands--Aquitaine and Poitou--were joined to those of her new husband, who, in addition to being King of England, was also Duke of Normandy and Count d'Anjou. Theoretically, Henry, while King of England, was also a vassal of the King of France. This dual relationship produced no end of complication in the years to come.

On the map on the left, the English lands--the Angevin empire--are in red. The royal French domains are in dark blue. The light blue lands surrounding the dark blue--Champagne, Flanders, the Duchy of Burgundy--are counties that were more or less loyal to the French crown. It is striking that the English controlled more territory in France than in England.

This particular map is from c1154, three-hundred and some after the last one I posted. The eastern border still more or less follows the lands of West Francia that were granted to Charles the Bald by the Treaty of Verdun in 843 though the political landscape had changed greatly. 

During those three-hundred and some years, Charlemagne's empire fragmented.  With the Treaty of Verdun, his grandsons divvied the empire into three parts. The grandson who got the Kingdoms of Western Francia and Aquitania, Charles the Bold, signed an executive order ("the Capitulaire of Quierzy") a few weeks before his death in 877 that made the offices and honors of "count" heritable property (rather than a civil service appointment.) Although the passing of offices and honors was already accepted practice, the capitulaire gave his major vassals permission to become even more independent. 

By the time Eleanor of Aquitaine was born in 1122, nine generations of Guillaume had inherited the office and title of Duke of Aquitaine. These lands passed to the royal family of England upon Eleanor's marriage to Henry II. The territory would remain under English control until the end of the Hundred Years War in 1453.

 

 

 

2 May: Where was the Porte St Honore? Old maps can give us a clue

Here's a marvelous resource to locate Porte St Honore--the Georg Braun map of Paris from 1572,143 years after Jeanne d'Arc's futile assault.I've circled the location of Notre Dame and Porte St Honore.

In fact, many, many wonderful maps of Paris are available online.

The Porte St Honore was located near the Louvre--you can see details on the second map, the Merian map from 1615.

Today, the porte st Honore has completely disappeared. A plaque of Jeanne d'Arc at 161 rue St Honore marks the spot where the gate stood.

A beautiful, golden equestrian statue of Jeanne d'Arc is found nearby. I've circled the location of both demolished gate and golden statue in the satellite view from google.

I've walked right past these many times without seeing. Modern Paris hides its history in plain sight.

 

Aug 13: What makes a nation?

Although my last official day of work at the University was July 7, I have had family visiting until yesterday--sister from Massachusetts, brother, niece and nephew from Idaho, son from Pittsburgh--and we've been engaged with various family projects--cleaning our lake place on an island, my mother's house (preparing it for painting and new carpeting), helping my niece complete her kitchen and bathroom, helping our daughter with her move to a new house. So it hasn't felt like retirement at all. The 40+ hours a week that I have gained have been consumed by the blessings and responsibilities of family.

But, today, all family has departed, so I picked up Mack Holt's Renaissance and Reformation France (2002) and continued to try to make sense of the turbulent French 16th century. 

Holt starts by trying to define the French state in 1500--a tough task because the very concept of a "nation-state" didn't emerge for another 300 years. The modern markers of shared language communities and territorial boundaries didn't apply. Only 33% of Frenchmen spoke French (others spoke Breton, Occitan, Flemish and Basque) and 25% of the territory known as France had been acquired in the previous fifty years as follows:

--Guyenne, Gascony and northern France rejoined the French Kingdom in 1453 at the end of the Hundred Years War

--the Duchy of Burgundy was seized by the French King in 1477 when Charles the Bold, Duke of Burgundy, was killed at the battle of Nancy

--The counties of Provence, Anjou and Maine were inherited by Louis XI in 1481 upon the death of Charles IV d'Anjou

--the duchy of Brittany came into the Kingdom when Anne of Burgundy married King Charles VIII in 1491

Holt proposes that the "state" was based on the King's authority over his subjects and their acceptance of the King as their sovereign rather than on fixed territorial boundaries. It was a community of people, not bounded by political boundaries.

Holt also proposes that the French nation was an "imagined community"--a term coined by political historian Benedict Anderson in 1983 to explain nationalism. An imagined community, according to Anderson, arises when a social group is too large for its members to personally know all members of the group. Membership in such a group, then, is abstract, an imagined social reality based on shared culture and social structures. In France in 1500, French was defined by accepting the French King as sovereign, and through shared rituals and ceremonies, language, law, religion and common enemies. 

This concept, "imagined community," seems to me to be relevant to the political battles occurring in the contemporary USA. I am writing the night after a Neo-Nazi demonstration in Charlottesville, Virginia, tacitly condoned by Pres Donald Trump, resulted in three deaths. The Neo-Nazi's are an "imagined community." 

And the day before this violent demonstration, the journal, Foreign Policy, published the full text of a memo written by an NSA staffer and circulated in the White House. The memo argued that President Trump is suffering under “withering information campaigns designed to first undermine, then delegitimize and ultimately remove the president." These campaigns are led by the forces of “cultural Marxism” who benefit from the prevailing cultural narrative (aka, diversity): establishment Republicans, establishment Democrats, the mainstream media, the "deep state," Universities, "Global corporatists and bankers (aka Jews), and Islamists. Their goal is to destroy the USA from within. Though the author was fired for writing this memo, the memo itself reveals the mind-set of the neo-Nazi "imagined community" that remains firmly planted in the WH.

Frightening times.

 

 

 

 

 

March 26: the Italian Wars

A couple of background factoids help me understand the religious wars in France.

First, French nobles were a warrior caste. Their primary function was to fight. So any Renaissance king worth his salt had to fight a war regardless of the strategic importance. 

Second, between 1494 and 1550, France was fighting a war against the Habsburg emperors and the Holy Roman Empire in the Italian pennisula. 

Here's the list of engagements from wikipedia:

1st: First Italian War, 1494 - 1498

2nd: Second Italian War, 1499 - 1504

3rd: The War against the League of Cambrai, 1506 - 1516

4th: The Italian War of 1521 - 1526

5th: The war of the League of Cognac,  1526 - 1530

6th: Italian War of 1536 - 1538

7th: Italian War of 1542 - 1546

8th: Italian War of 1551 - 1559

If you look at the first map of Europe, you'll notice the violet-pink of France is surrounded on the north and northeast by the green domains of the Habsburg. These lands had been the Duchy of Burgundy. After her father's death at the Battle of Nancy in 1477, his sole heir, Mary of Burgundy, opted to marry Maximilian of Habsburg and thus the lands of Burgundy become part of the Holy Roman Empire. In 1494, the border with Spain faced the Kingdoms of Aragon and Navarre, but in 1516, Mary and Maximilian's grandson, Charles V, who was also the grandson of Isabelle of Castile and Ferdinand of Aragon, had added Spain and Portugal to the Holy Roman Empire so France was surrounded by the Habsburgs.

April 2: Europe is trashed for 124 years...

Martin Luther ignited the Protestant Reformation in 1517 by objecting both to specific actions of the Roman Catholic church (the selling of indulgences and church offices, nepotism) and to doctrines such as the authority of the pope, a celibate priesthood and the intercession of saints. Although these objections had been around for several hundred years, this time princes and entire nations embraced the reforms. As an unintended consequence, between 1524 and 1648, Europe was devastated by a series of conflicts that are described as religious wars between Catholic and Protestant believers.

However, it is easiest to understand these battles as power struggles between groups identified by their religious affiliation. People were not fighting over doctrine, per se. The answer is the same whether you ask  "Who chose to become a Protestant?," or "Whose political and economic interests were exploited by monarchs supported by the Roman Catholic church?" The English famously become Anglicans after the Pope--influenced by Catherine's powerful nephew, Charles V (about whom I wrote yesterday)--said "no to Henry VIII's petition to divorce Queen Catherine.  The French "Wars of Religion"--fought between 1562 -1598--was a struggle among noble factions over the throne of France. The Netherlands fought for their independence from the Spanish Habsburgs in the Eighty Years War (1568 - 1648.) In England, Scotland and Ireland, Catholics, Anglicans and Protestants battled over the relationship between monarch and parliament.

The Thirty Years War (1618 - 1648), the most devastating conflict of all and the last major religious conflict, saw the Swedish empire, Bohemia and the German Palatinate rebelling against the Habsburg's Holy Roman Empire. France's interest, surrounded by Habsburg domains, lay in weakening Spain and the Holy Roman Empire, thus Catholic France supported the Protestants. At first the support was just financial--from 1631, Cardinal Richelieu gave the Swedes 1,000,000 livres a year to keep an army in Germany to fight the Habsburgs. But, in 1635, after a series of defeats, the Protestant German princes sued for peace. Sweden would be unable to continue the war by herself, so Richelieu declared war on Spain (1635) and the Holy Roman Empire (1636).  

In the end, everyone (except the Dutch) were bankrupt. Entire regions were devastated; some estimate that the population of the German states was reduced by 25-40% through famine, disease and the predations of mercenary armies who preyed on villages.  The Swedish army (supported by France) may have destroyed as many as one-third of German towns. The period was also marked by witch-hunts, as residents of devastated lands attributed their misfortunes to supernatural causes. Thousands, of men, women and children were burned at the stake.

The Peace of Westphalia, established by several peace treaties negotiated in 1648, laid the legal foundation of the modern nation-state. Under these treaties, states were sovereign and equal, and messing in the domestic affairs of a sovereign state was forbidden. Residents of a given state were understood to be subject to the laws and edicts of that state. Their primary allegiance was political, not religious.  Protestants and Catholics were declared to be equal, and each sovereign prince had the authority to decide the religion of his state. The horrors resulting from the use of mercenary soldiers and the establishment of state authority led to the establishment of better disciplined national armies.

A further consequence of the Thirty Years War was the realignment of the power structure of Europe. France came out of the struggle stronger (not surprisingly because Cardinal Mazarin, representing the interests of ten-year old Louis XIV, was the main brain behind the terms of the treaties).  Sweden was also stronger. Habsburg Spain was weaker; the Dutch had their independence from Spain. The second half of the 17th century would be the the golden age of the Dutch Republic. The treaty limited the power of the Holy Roman Emperor; the German-speaking states in the Holy Roman Empire had more autonomy. However, Austria itself succeeded in suppressing Protestantism within its borders, and its army was stronger, still capable of facing the threat of the Ottoman empire on its Eastern border. England and Prussia were finally on the European map. 

I summarize these events because this was the turbulent and changing world in which Louis XIV became King. His mother, Anne of Austria, was a Spanish princess, the child of Phillip III. Her primary advisor (and, possibly, secret husband) was the Cardinal Mazarin, born in the Kingdom of Naples, a part of Italy which was part of the Kingdom of Aragon. Some of the formative events of Louis's early life play out against this background of shifting alliances.

Other than the map, the paintings illustrate the horrors of the 80 Years Dutch War of Independence (the four paintings by Vranx, a Flemish painter) and two battles. In the first, the French, led by Louis de Bourbon, Prince Condé, won a fabulous victory at Rocroi in 1643. In the second, the Holy Roman Empire decisively defeated the Bohemians at the Battle of White Mountain in 1620.

March 31: Hapsburgs everywhere

It is worth pondering this map of Europe around 1550 because it clearly delineates the strategic challenge facing France in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries. France was hemmed in by territories ruled by members of the Hapsburg dynasty.

The map shows the territories united in the person of Emperor Charles V, grandson of Mary of Burgundy and Emperor Maximilian I of Austria AND  grandson of Isabella of Castile and Ferdinand of Aragon.

From Mary of Burgundy Charles V inherited the traces of the Duchy of Burgundy--Spanish Netherlands (today's Belgium) and Burgundy.

From Maximilian he inherited Austria and the crown of the Holy Roman Empire.

From his Castilian grandmother, Isabella, he inherited the Castilian territories of central Spain.

From his grandfather, Ferdinand, he inherited the territories of the sea-faring kingdom of Aragon--Catalonia in northern Spain, Sicily, Majorca, Corsica, Naples and the southern half of Italy.

Louis XIV's mother, Anne of Austria, was a Spanish princess, daughter of Philip III of Spain, but she was called Anne of Austria because she was a Hapburg.