Friday, December 21, 2007

Learning to Love the French

Charles A. Coulombe has an engaging article about his French ancestry.
The France whose language and religion I hold died in stages between 1789 and 1905. Just as Quebec is no longer the land of the voyageurs and Frontenac, Montcalm and Mgr. Laval, so too with la belle France et douce. She is not today the nation founded by the crowning and baptism of Clovis, the realm of Saints and Kings, the land where Ss. Mary Magdalene, Martha, and Lazarus arrived by boat; where Charlemagne and St. Louis ruled, and St. Joan of Arc fought; where the Knights of the Table Round prowled Breton forests, and the country was consecrated to Our Lady of the Assumption and the Sacred Heart of Jesus. She is not even the land of the Sun King or the heroes of the Vendee.

Were one to be honest, even that France made some real howlers, from which we all suffer today (in my humble opinion, though most, perhaps all, will differ). Certainly, the siding of Francis I with the Turks and Louis XIII with the Protestants against the Habsburgs was a huge error. Not backing a Stuart restoration wholeheartedly led to future woes. Backing the American Revolutionaries was a huge blunder, both in the immediate and later (the bankruptcy that victory cost the Crown directly led to the guillotine). Napoleon III’s reluctance to recognize the Confederacy and break the blockade led directly to the failure of Maximilian’s Mexico. Even so, until the breaking of the Concordat, it was still possible to speak, at least in some sense, of the gesta Dei per Francorum. One cannot now.

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2 comments:

Brantigny said...

What a sad commentary

There are those myself included who wait with patience for the Great Monarch, a reestablishment of the Faith and Monarchy in France. I never give up hope.

http://lefleurdelystoo.blogspot.com/2007/12/jeanne-mance.html

http://lefleurdelystoo.blogspot.com/2007/12/party-seeks-to-restore-monarchy.html

The motto of Quebec is still,
"Je Me Souviens", "I remember."

Une Foi, Une France, Une Roi.
de Brantigny

elena maria vidal said...

C'est triste, mais je me souviens.