Portal:France/Featured Article Archive/2008

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 * January 2008


 * Strasbourg (Strasbourg, ; Alsatian: Strossburi, ; Straßburg; archaic: Strassburg) is the capital and principal city of the Alsace region in northeastern France, with 702,412 inhabitants in the metropolitan area in 2007. Located close to the border with Germany, it is the préfecture (capital) of the Bas-Rhin département.


 * Strasbourg is the seat of several European institutions such as the Council of Europe with its European Court of Human Rights, its European Directorate for the Quality of Medicines and its European Audiovisual Observatory, the Eurocorps as well as the European Parliament and the European Ombudsman of the European Union. Strasbourg is an important center of manufacturing and engineering, as well as of road, rail, and river communications. The port of Strasbourg is the second largest on the Rhine after Duisburg, Germany. The city is the seat of the Central Commission for Navigation on the Rhine.


 * Strasbourg's historic center, the Grande Île ("Grand Island"), was classified a World Heritage Site by UNESCO in 1988, the first time such an honor was placed on an entire city center. Strasbourg is beautifully fused into the Franco-German culture (Alemannic), and is regarded as the bridge of unity between modern France and Germany.


 * At the site of Strasbourg, the Romans established a military outpost and named it Argentoratum. (Hence the town is commonly called Argentina in medieval Latin. The town was occupied successively in the 5th century by Alemanni, Huns, and Franks. In the 9th century it was commonly known as Strazburg in the local language, as documented in 842 by the Oaths of Strasbourg. This trilingual text is considered to contain, besides Latin and Old High German, also the oldest written variety of Gallo-Romance clearly distinct from Latin, the ancestor of Old French.  A major commercial center, the town came under control of the Holy Roman Empire in 923, through the homage paid by the Duke of Lorraine to German King Henry I. Read more...

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 * February 2008


 * The Morea expedition (Expédition de Morée) is the name given in France to the land intervention of the French Army in the Peloponnese, between 1828 and 1833, at the time of the Greek War of Independence.


 * After the fall of Messolonghi, Western Europe decided to intervene in favour of revolutionary Greece. Their attitude toward the Ottoman Empire's Egyptian ally, Ibrahim Pasha, was especially critical; their principal objective was to obtain the evacuation of the occupied regions, the Peloponnese in the first place. The intervention began when a Franco-Russo-British fleet was sent to the region, winning the Battle of Navarino in October 1827. In August 1828, a French expeditionary corps disembarked at Koroni in the southern Peloponnese. The soldiers were stationed on the peninsula until the evacuation of Egyptian troops in October, then taking control of the principal strongholds still held by Turkish troops. Although the bulk of the troops returned to France from the end of 1828, the French presence remained until 1833.


 * As during Napoleon's Egyptian Campaign, when a Commission of Sciences and Arts had accompanied the military campaign, a Morea scientific mission (Mission scientifique de Morée) accompanied the troops. Seventeen learned men represented different specialties (natural history and antiquities – archaeology, architecture and sculpture) made the voyage. Their work was of major importance in augmenting knowledge about the country. The topographic maps produced were of a very high quality and the measurements, drawings, profiles, plans and proposals for the restoration of Peloponnesian monuments, of Attica and of the Cyclades were, after James Stuart and Nicholas Revett, a new attempt to systematically and exhaustively catalogue Ancient Greek ruins. The Morea expedition and its publications offered a near-complete description of the regions visited. They formed a scientific, aesthetic and human inventory that for a long time remained one of the best means, other than visiting them in person, to get to know those regions. Read more...

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 * March 2008


 * The trobairitz were Occitan female troubadours of the 12th century and the 13th century. The word trobairitz was first used in the 13th-century romance Flamenca. It comes from the Provençal word trobar, the literal meaning of which is "to find", and the technical meaning of which is "to compose". Trobairitz composed, wrote verses, and performed for the Occitan noble courts. They are exceptional in musical history as the first known female composers of Western secular music; all earlier known female composers wrote sacred music. The trobairitz were part of courtly society, as opposed to their lower class counterparts the joglaresse. Although troubadours frequently came from humble origins&mdash; Bernart de Ventadorn may have been the son of a castle's baker&mdash; the trobairitz were nobly born. The most important trobairitz are Alamanda de Castelnau, Azalais de Porcairagues, Maria de Ventadorn, Tibors, Castelloza, Garsenda de Proença, Gormonda de Monpeslier, and the Comtessa de Diá.


 * There are very few extant sources of information on the individual trobairitz. Almost all information which exists about them come from their vidas (biographies) and razós (contextual explanations of the songs), the brief descriptions that were assembled in song collections called chansonniers. The vidas are notoriously unreliable, since they frequently consisted of little more than romanticized extrapolations from the poems of the trobairitz themselves. The names of about twenty female poets from the 12th and 13th centuries survive, among whom between 23 and 46 works are attributed. Only one survives with musical notation intact, "A chantar" by Comtessa de Diá. Some works which are anonymous in the sources are ascribed by certain modern editors to women, as are some works which are attributed to men in the manuscripts. For comparison, of the 460 male troubadours, about 2600 of their poems survive. Of these, about one in 10 survive with musical notation intact.  Read more...

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 * April 2008


 * Le Père Goriot (English: Father Goriot or Old Goriot) is an 1835 novel by French novelist and playwright Honoré de Balzac (1799–1850), included in the Scènes de la vie privée section of his novel sequence La Comédie humaine. Set in Paris in 1819, it follows the intertwined lives of three characters: the elderly doting Goriot; a mysterious criminal-in-hiding named Vautrin; and a naive law student named Eugène de Rastignac.


 * Originally published in serial form during the winter of 1834–35, Le Père Goriot is widely considered as Balzac's most important novel. It marks the first serious use by the author of characters who had appeared in other books, a technique that distinguishes Balzac's fiction and makes La Comédie humaine unique among bodies of work. The novel is also noted as an example of his realist style, using minute details to create character and subtext.


 * The novel takes place during the Bourbon Restoration, which brought about profound changes in French society; the struggle of individuals to secure upper-class status is ubiquitous in the book. The city of Paris also impresses itself on the characters – especially young Rastignac, who grew up in the provinces of southern France. Balzac analyzes, through Goriot and others, the nature of family and marriage, providing a pessimistic view of these institutions.


 * The novel was released to mixed reviews. Some critics praised the author for his complex characters and attention to detail; others condemned him for his many depictions of corruption and greed. A favorite of Balzac's, the book quickly won widespread popularity and has often been adapted for film and the stage. It gave rise to the French-language expression "Rastignac", a social climber willing to use any means to better his situation. Read more...

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 * May 2008


 * A Trip to the Moon (French: Le Voyage dans la lune) is a 1902 French black and white silent science fiction film. It is loosely based on two popular novels of the time: From the Earth to the Moon by Jules Verne and The First Men in the Moon by H. G. Wells.


 * The film was written and directed by Georges Méliès, assisted by his brother Gaston. The film runs 14 minutes if projected at 16 frames per second, which was the standard frame rate at the time the film was produced. It was extremely popular at the time of its release and is the best-known of the hundreds of fantasy films made by Méliès. A Trip to the Moon is the first science fiction film, and utilizes innovative animation and special effects.


 * When originally screened, the film featured a final scene depicting a celebratory parade in honor of the travelers' return. Until recently, this scene was considered lost, and did not appear on any commercially available editions. However, a complete cut of the film was discovered in a French barn in 2002. Not only is it the most complete cut of the movie, but it is also entirely hand-colored. It was restored and premiered in 2003 at the Pordenone Silent Film Festival. Read more...

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 * June 2008


 * A profiterole or cream puff is a popular choux pastry. Choux paste is baked into small round puffs that are served cold with a sweet filling and sometimes a topping.  The usual fillings are whipped cream and pastry cream.  The  puffs may be left plain or cut to resemble swans or decorated with chocolate sauce, caramel, or a dusting of powdered sugar.  This dessert is not to be confused with puff pastry.


 * The origin of both the pastry and its name profiterole are obscure. The word profiterole (also spelled prophitrole, profitrolle, profiterolle) has existed in English since the 16th century, borrowed from French.  The original meaning in both English and French is unclear, but later it came to mean a kind of roll 'baked under the ashes'. A 17th-century French recipe for a Potage de profiteolles or profiterolles describes a soup of dried small breads (presumably the profiteroles) simmered in almond broth and garnished with cockscombs, truffles, and so on.  Read more...

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 * July 2008


 * Pied-Noir ("Black-Foot"), plural Pieds-Noirs, pronounced, is a term used to refer to colonists of Algeria until the end of the Algerian War in 1962. Specifically, Pieds-Noirs were French nationals, including those of European descent, Sephardic Jews, and settlers from other European countries such as Spain, Italy, and Malta, who were born in Algeria. From the French invasion in June 18, 1830, until attaining independence, Algeria formed three départements (Algiers, Oran and Constantine) and was considered a part of France. By independence, the Pieds-Noirs accounted for 1,025,000 people, or roughly 10 percent of the total population.


 * The Pied-Noir are known in reference to the Algerian War, which saw the deaths of 54,000 French Nationals and between more that one million and half;Algerians, with estimates varying due to differing statistical analyses. The Algerian War was fought by nationalist groups such as the Front de Libération Nationale (FLN) against the colonial French government in response to political and economic inequalities as well as their perceived "alienation" from the French settlers. The conflict contributed to the fall of the French Fourth Republic and the repatriation of French Nationals to France.


 * After Algeria became independent in 1962, more than one million Pied-Noir settlers of French nationality returned to mainland France. Upon arriving, many felt ostracized by the public perception that they had caused the war and the political turmoil surrounding the collapse of the French Fourth Republic. Complicating the situation, the Pieds-Noirs felt that they could not return to Algeria because of the violence and resentment of the settlers and the native Algerians. In popular culture, the community is often represented as feeling removed from French culture while longing for Algeria. Thus, the recent history of the pieds-noirs has been imprinted with a theme of double alienation from both their native homeland and their adopted land.  Read more...

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 * August 2008


 * Parkour (sometimes abbreviated to PK) or l'art du déplacement (English: the art of displacement) is an activity with the aim of moving from one point to another as efficiently and quickly as possible, using principally the abilities of the human body. It is meant to help one overcome obstacles, which can be anything in the surrounding environment—from branches and rocks to rails and concrete walls—and can be practised in both rural and urban areas. Parkour practitioners are referred to as traceurs, or traceuses for females.  Founded by David Belle in France, parkour focuses on practising efficient movements to develop one's body and mind to be able to overcome obstacles in an emergency.


 * Parkour is a physical activity that is difficult to categorize. Often miscategorized as a sport or an extreme sport, parkour has no set of rules, team work, formal hierarchy, or competitiveness.  On the contrary it is more like an art or discipline that resembles self-defense in the ancient martial arts.  According to David Belle, "the physical aspect of parkour is getting over all the obstacles in your path as you would in an emergency.  You want to move in such a way, with any movement, as to help you gain the most ground on someone or something, whether escaping from it or chasing toward it."  Thus, when faced with a hostile confrontation with a person, one will be able to speak, fight, or flee. As martial arts are a form of training for the fight, parkour is a form of training for the flight.


 * An important characteristic of parkour is efficiency. Practitioners move not only as fast as they can, but also in the most direct and efficient way possible; a characteristic that distinguishes it from the similar practice of free running, which places more emphasis on freedom of movement, such as acrobatics. Efficiency also involves avoiding injuries, short and long-term, part of why parkour's unofficial motto is être et durer (to be and to last). Those who are skilled at this activity normally have an extremely keen spatial awareness. Traceurs claim that parkour also influences one's thought process by enhancing self-confidence and critical-thinking skills that allow one to overcome everyday physical and mental obstacles. Read more...

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 * September 2008


 * The Great French Wine Blight was a severe blight of the mid-19th century that destroyed many of the vineyards in France and laid to waste the wine industry. It was caused by an aphid (the actual genus of the aphid is still debated, although it is largely considered to have been a species of Daktulosphaira vitifoliae, commonly known as grape phylloxera) that originated in North America and was carried across the Atlantic sometime around the late 1850s. While France is considered to have been worst affected, the blight also did a great deal of damage to vineyards in other European countries.


 * How the Phylloxera aphid was introduced to Europe remains debated: American vines had been taken to Europe many times before, for reasons including experimentation and trials in grafting, without consideration of the possibility of the introduction of pestilence. While the Phylloxera was thought to have arrived sometime around 1858, it was first recorded in France in 1863, near the former province of Languedoc. It is argued by some that the introduction of such pests as phylloxera was only a problem after the invention of steamships, which allowed a faster journey across the ocean, and consequently allowed durable pests, such as the Phylloxera, to survive.


 * Eventually, following Jules-Emile Planchon's discovery of the Phylloxera as the cause of the blight, and Charles Valentine Riley's confirmation of Planchon's theory, Leo Laliman and Gaston Bazille, two French wine growers, proposed that the European vines be grafted to the resistant American rootstock that were not susceptible to the Phylloxera. While many of the French wine growers disliked this idea, many found themselves with no other option. The method proved to be an effective remedy. The following "Reconstitution" (as it was termed) of the many vineyards that had been lost was a slow process, but eventually the wine industry in France was able to return to relative normality. Read more...

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 * October 2008


 * Candide, ou l'Optimisme (1759) is a French satire by the Enlightenment philosopher Voltaire, English translations of which have been titled Candide: Or, All for the Best (1759); Candide: Or, The Optimist (1762); and Candide: Or, Optimism (1947). The novella begins with a young man, Candide, who is living a sheltered life in an Edenic paradise and being indoctrinated with Leibnizian optimism (or simply optimism) by his tutor, Pangloss. The work describes the abrupt cessation of this existence, followed by Candide's slow, painful disillusionment as he witnesses and experiences great hardships in the world. Voltaire concludes with Candide, if not outright rejecting optimism, advocating an enigmatic precept, "we must cultivate our garden", in lieu of the Leibnizian mantra of Pangloss, "all is for the best in the best of all possible worlds".


 * Candide is known for its sarcastic tone and its erratic, fantastical, and fast-moving plot. With a story similar to that of a more serious bildungsroman or picaresque novel, it parodies many adventure and romance clichés, the struggles of which are caricatured in a tone that is mordantly matter-of-fact. Still, the events discussed are often based on historical happenings, such as the Seven Years' War and the 1755 Lisbon earthquake. As philosophers of Voltaire's day contended with the problem of evil, so too does Candide in this short novel, albeit more directly and humorously. Voltaire ridicules religion, theologians, governments, armies, philosophies, and philosophers through allegory; most conspicuously, he assaults Leibniz and his optimism.


 * As expected by Voltaire, Candide has enjoyed both great success and great scandal. Immediately after its secretive publication, the book was widely banned because it contained religious blasphemy, political sedition and intellectual hostility hidden under a thin veil of naïveté. However, with its sharp wit and insightful portrayal of the human condition, the novel has since inspired many later authors and artists to mimic and adapt it; most notably, Leonard Bernstein produced a 1956 comic operetta whose libretto is closely based on the novella.  Today, Candide is recognised as  Voltaire's magnum opus and is often listed as part of the Western canon; it is likely taught more than any other work of French literature.  Read more...

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 * November 2008


 * Catherine de' Medici's building projects included the Valois chapel at Saint-Denis, the Tuileries Palace, and the Hôtel de la Reine in Paris, and extensions to the  château of Chenonceau, near Blois. Born in 1519 in Florence to an Italian father and a French mother, Catherine de' Medici was a daughter of both the  Italian and the French Renaissance. She grew up in Florence and Rome under the wing of the Medici popes,  Leo X and  Clement VII. In 1533, at the age of fourteen, she left Italy and married  Henry, the second son of  Francis I and Queen Claude of France. On doing so, she entered the greatest Renaissance court in northern Europe.


 * King Francis set his daughter-in-law an example of kingship and artistic patronage that she never forgot. She witnessed his huge architectural schemes at  Chambord and  Fontainebleau. She saw Italian and French craftsmen at work together, forging the style that became known as the first School of Fontainebleau. Francis died in 1547, and Catherine became queen consort of France. But it wasn't until her husband King Henry's death in 1559, when she found herself at forty the effective ruler of France, that Catherine came into her own as a patron of architecture. Over the next three decades, she launched a series of costly building projects aimed at enhancing the grandeur of the monarchy. During the same period, however, religious civil war gripped the country and brought the prestige of the monarchy to a dangerously low ebb.


 * Catherine loved to supervise each project personally. The architects of the day dedicated books to her, knowing that she would read them.  Though she spent colossal sums on the building and embellishment of monuments and palaces, little remains of Catherine's investment today: one  Doric column, a few fragments in the corner of the Tuileries gardens, an empty tomb at Saint Denis. The sculptures she commissioned for the Valois chapel are lost, or scattered, often damaged or incomplete, in museums and churches. Catherine de' Medici's reputation as a sponsor of buildings rests instead on the designs and treatises of her architects. These testify to the vitality of French architecture under her patronage.  Read more...

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 * December 2008


 * The Grande Armée (French for "the Great Army" or "the Grand Army") first entered the annals of history when, in 1805, Napoleon I renamed the army that he had assembled on the French coast of the English Channel for the proposed invasion of Britain and re-deployed it East to commence the Campaign of 1805 against Austria and Russia.


 * Thereafter, the name was used for the principal French army deployed in the Campaigns of 1806-07, 1812, and 1813-14. In practice, however, the term "Grande Armée" is used in English to refer to all of the multinational forces gathered by Napoleon I in his campaigns of the early nineteenth century (see Napoleonic Wars).


 * The first Grande Armée consisted of six corps under the command of Napoleon's marshals and senior generals. When Napoleon discovered that Russian and Austrian armies were preparing to invade France in late 1805, the Grande Armée was quickly ordered across the Rhine into Southern Germany, leading to Napoleon's victories at Ulm and Austerlitz.


 * The army grew in size as Napoleon's might spread across Europe. It reached its maximum size of 600,000 men at the start of the invasion of Russia against the Sixth Coalition in 1812. All contingents were commanded by French generals, except for a Polish and an Austrian corps.  The huge multinational army marched slowly eastwards, with the Russians falling back before it. After the capture of Smolensk and victory in the Battle of Borodino, Napoleon and a large part of the Grande Armée reached Moscow on 14 September 1812; however, the army was already drastically reduced in numbers due to bloody battles with Russians, disease (principally typhus) and long communication lines.  The army spent a month in Moscow, but was ultimately forced to march back westwards. Assailed by cold, starvation and disease, and constantly harassed by Cossacks and Russian irregulars, the retreat utterly destroyed the Grande Armée as a fighting force. As many as 400,000 died in the adventure and only a few tens of thousands of ravaged troops returned.


 * Napoleon led a new army to the Battle of Nations at Leipzig in 1813, in the furious defence of France in 1814, and in the Waterloo campaign in 1815, but the Napoleonic French army would never regain the heights of the Grande Armée in June 1812. Read more...