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1. The controversy now brewing in France about statues has been interesting to follow. https://news.yahoo.com/top-french-historian-slams-macrons-hardline-stance-statues-103852588.html?soc_src=hl-viewer&soc_trk=tw via @YahooNews
2. As @AC_Lipman points out, it is not as if iconoclasm were new. https://twitter.com/AC_Lipman/status/1275783089868996611?s=20
3. I have a few thoughts about how not new this is for France, in particular. Let's just take one monument, the Vendôme Column. Today it looks like this:
4. If you look closely, it has Napoleon I on top.
5. Makes sense, you might say, the column was originally named the Austerlitz Column, and was intended to celebrate Napoleon's victory at Austerlitz. Here is an engraving of it in 1810.
6. But after Napoleon I was defeated by Britain, having him on top of it was a little inconvenient, particularly for the restored Bourbon Monarchs, who wanted to emphasize the continuity of their rule. So he was removed. This engraving by E.I. Roberts is from 1821.
7. The Bourbons were defeated in the July 1830 Revolution, replaced by an Orleanist, King Louis Philippe, who was himself overthrown by the 1848 Revolution, leading to the election of Louis Napoleon Bonaparte, the nephew of Nap I. Like his uncle, he didn't care for democracy.
8. So Louis Napoleon Bonaparte staged a coup and, like his uncle, proclaimed himself "Emperor." He took the name Napoleon III, to honor Napoleon I's son and to give the impression of an imperial line. Surprise surprise, he also replaced his uncle atop the column.
9. Napoleon III started the Franco-Prussian War, leading to his capture & the declaration of a Third French Republic. Paris rejected the 3rd Rep's negotiated armistice & launched a radical experiment in self-rule, the Paris Commune. Communards dismantled the column in May 1871.
10. Leftist satirical publications had indeed called for this. "So, you low-life bugger, we'll take you down like we did your scoundrel nephew!” Note that the magazine uses the defunct dating system of the revolutionary calendar (1 Floreal Year 79) {20 April 1871}.
11. In fact, almost immediately after Nap III's capture, the artist Gustave Courbet had called for the statue to be toppled, as this satirical magazine depicts.
12. The Père Duchêne, channeling Courbet: “Inasmuch as the Vendôme column is a monument devoid of all artistic value, tending to perpetuate by its expression the ideas of war and conquest of the past imperial dynasty, which are reproved by a republican nation's sentiment ..."
13. "... citizen Courbet expresses the wish that the National Defense government will authorize him to disassemble this column.” 24 Floreal Year 79 (May 1871). “Le citoyen Courbet,” anonymous artist. © Saint-Denis, musée d'art et d'histoire.
14. The Commune voted to take down the column on 12 April 1871, and it was dismantled on 8 May in a safe and orderly way. In 1873, Courbet was found civilly responsible for its destruction and charged w/ paying for its reconstruction. Unable to do so, he exiled himself instead.
15. As the Third Republic sought to placate its opposition, and quiet Bonapartists, the column was restored with Napoleon I on top again. This is the Place Vendome in the 1890s.
16. So, as this one example illustrates, France has seen statues toppled before and survived. Moreover, this iconoclasm didn't reject history, it was part of history: The history of new regimes legitimating themselves over others.
17. The changing fate of Napoleon I atop the Vendôme Column is not about negating his place in French history; to the contrary, it was a recognition of the larger-than-life role he played. So much so that even the 3rd Republic, born of his defeat, replaced the column & his statue
18. Why all the controversy now over figures like Colbert for their role in promulgating the Code Noir (the "Black Code" or slave code)?
19. One can't help but feel that, as @MariannesNoires & @juliensuaudeau argue, French "universalism" isn't really universal at all, but instead, a majority identity disguised as a universal value. https://twitter.com/chelseastieber/status/1275810285702578176?s=20
20. Viewed this way, the problem with iconoclasm only exists when the iconoclasm is demanded by a minority, which is asked to excuse Colbert for the Code Noir because dominant culture has deemed him admirable & important.
21. In the strange landscape of French politics and civic life, even one of the founders of SOS racisme has called the 1685 Code Noir "progress"! https://twitter.com/Paul_E_Cohen/status/1275952236120682496?s=20
22. But let's be clear. No one is trying to deny who Colbert was or what he did, anymore than the Bourbons could deny the importance of Napoleon I. They removed him b/c they didn't want to revere him. This isn't a denial of history; it's politics. And it's not new. /fin.
