About a year ago I adopted the French Republican Calendar for my personal journalling. Why? Really for no other reason than to be different. It offered me the opportunity to learn the Republican Calendar through practise (a word-a-day sort of arrangement). The upheaval of the switch to a new system in France in 1795, caused confusion, was not widely adopted and in the end was discontinued by Napoleon during the Empire. This was not before such references such as the Coup of 18 Brumaire and lobster Thermidor forever embedded the poeticisme of the calendaring system in our historical memory.

The calendar is divided in to 12 months of 30 days, with three weeks of 10 days each. The ‘extra’ days of the solar year were celebrated as special festival days (virtue, talent, convictions,labour, honours and the Revolution) — intended to solidly cement the triumph of the Revolution into the French psyche. Months are topically named after environmental characteristics of the months themselves and each day of the calendar is associated with a plant, mineral, tool, or animal. During the winter months, we have the months of snow, rain and wind. On a daily basis, today we celebrate Bette (Chard). When one considers the system it’s actually rather cool, if not practical. It emphasizes the individual or human’s position with in a larger natural world. Needless to say it is a humanist device and was considered integral to the secularization of the Republic. But after using it for nearly a full cycle now I quite like the way in which I am reminded of a single natural bounty, which one cannot help but reflect upon that day. It’s a wonderful reminder of one’s place as well as the fruits of the environment. It might be considered the ‘green calendar’.

If you are interested in more info about the calendar, the wikipedia entry is a great start, and has a number of additional references. Additionally, and I have really appreciated this, there is a Republican Calendar widget for the OSX dashboard available which reminds you of the date and its associated element.

On a personal note, a few days ago, the cycle changed and we entered the season of Germinal. I was personally struck by the change and felt quite positive — all the more Spring-like, but somehow more than the term spring brought to my mind. Even with the news reminders, and media attention to the advent of the Spring season, the turn to Germinal somehow was more profoundly striking. Germinal set me off picturing new growth, germination, the colour green and of re-awakening following the whiteness and bleakness of the the past season. In the Republican Calendar the past month was Ventôse and I honestly cannot remember a month when this seemed all the more appropriately descriptive. The winds howled this winter and this republican association with characteristics seemed both close and . With the change in cycle we are reminded that even without human intervention, the season do change and that we are part of an infinitely larger system. One nowe moving into a rich, vitalizing rebirth.

a

From the realm of ‘too far fetched’ to be believed comes word that members of the UX, a shadowy underground organisation, have been cleared of charges in their daring, but clandestine operation to restore an antique clock at the Patheon in Paris. According to UrbanResources, the UnterGunther is “Swiss-French urban explorers team whose activity is to restore the invisible parts of the heritage in total clandestinity.” This latest caper involved a year long process to secretly repair a huge clock in the Pantheon which had fallen into disrepair. Not only did they carry out this task undetected over the space of a year, they built a lounge within the dome of the Pantheon, wired into electrical circuits and even installed a networked computer, all under the unsuspecting nose of Pantheon staff. When the UnterGunther cell finished their restoration, they made the decision to reveal their work to ensure the clock received ongoing care. The Guardian has a story in English on their acquittal.
The group were charged with tampering with a lock (their sometime means of ingress and egress) and the head of security for the Pantheon took retirement. Despite the fact that the group has demonstrated the clock to have been fully restored, the staff at the Pantheon have, for undisclosed reasons, chosen not to wind or cause the clock to operate. Apparently the group is already at work on their next operation. Encroyable!

a

Speaking with Matt Leighninger this morning I was reminded of one of my best tips for those looking for offbeat sights in Paris — the military models at the Musée de l’Armée. The museum is a treasure. A grande promenade stretching from the Seine leads up to the building. The courtyards are filled with captured and antique canons…hundreds of them. The canons are often works of the craftsmen’s art. Inside the museum are amazing collections of all things military stretching from earliest times to the present. There are guided tours, expositions and of course Napoleon’s Tomb adjoins the museum proper in L’Eglise du dôme. The museum is enormous and can easily occupy the better part of a day for the day.
The treat for the offbeat traveler though is in the attic. An enormous salon stretches along the right wing of the museum on the fourth level. Although the salon is often not always accessible to the public, when it is, it is well worth the trek up a few flights of stairs. In a dimly lit, attic space you will find scale models of French military fortifications and eighteenth and nineteenth century frontier towns crafted to minute detail. The feeling of the space itself is rather special, but these works of art under glass are something you will not find in such profusion elsewhere.
The model are crafted right down to pedestrians and tiny little canon emplacements on fortifications. They are lit with to appreciate a particular time of day. You will find places such as Le Rochelle, or Mayence (Mainz today). There are exquisitely artistic renditions of Vauban’s cutting edge fortifications utilizing bombardment deflecting glacis or redoubts that capitalise of being able to lend covering fields of fire. Even if you are not fascinated by military engineering, what you will find are true works of art in a stunning third dimension.
Although hardly a side journey, and you are probably in the locale for this in the first place, Napoleon’s tomb is awe inspiring. Resting underneath the soaring dome of the church, in a sunken arena, the red granite catafalque is only at least ten times the normal sarcophagus! The surround includes friezes representing the many civil and social accomplishments attributed to the Empire and to Napoleon. The remains of the King of Rome are also contained here, returned by Hitler during the German occupation of Paris. You will find Jerome and Joseph’s tombs in adjoining spaces along with other notable military heroes and the aforementioned Vauban. The soaring spaces and the very striking lighting make a visit to the Hotel d’Invalides a memorable experience, but you’ll find a special treat waiting in the attic of the museum if your timing is right.

a

It’s always amusing and often telling to compare where we are now to where we thought we’d be. Whether through sci-fi novels, advertisements for the house of the future, or in this case prints from an exhibition at the Bibliothèque nationale de France (bnf), facets of the futurethink can provide a particularly prismatic view of past preoccupations. Paleo-Future Blog has a nice collection of images of life in the year 2000 from the BnF. Natalie has weighed in on how prescient these illustrations actually are.
One thing that springs to my attention is the sense that the future was going to free us from contact with the ground. Flight seems to make so much more possible. In a positive way, with long-distance cruise air-ships, our own personal flying vehicles, or apparatus enabling firemen to fight fires from the air and rescue those in distress. Realistically, the artist also recognizes the need for aerial police to maintain order in the newly crowded sky.
The complex is simplified through magical machines, whether the tailor who has a fully automated measuring machine that feeds dimensions to a second machine that takes fabric and turns out fully finished customized garments, or the barber who simply provides commentary as he manipulates a mechanical variant that cuts several patrons hair simultaneously.
The view of school is very interesting, raw materials (books) are committed to a sausage grinder, where they are transformed into impulses and transmitted directly to learning caps on the heads of the students. (The unfortunate child who has to power the machine raises the question of who he is representing, being denied this pablumized knowledge). Are the books consumed by the process…they don’t seem to be emerging.
Is the architect directly carrying out the construction process a telling comment on the efficiency (and contribution) of the French labourer? Yet, the architect works from a plan, simply punching instructions into console, not merely crafting directly from inspiration.
In all these images, the middle layer of intermediaries seem to be removed. Trades are eliminated through mechanization, but servitude is not. Professionals are empowered by progress, but are those eliminated raised up or cast down, or simply allowed a life of leisure able to indulge in endless frivolity such as the festival of the roses?
Questions aside, these visions suggest some of the problems that the artist perhaps saw as significant enough to warrant rectification.
The firemen with wings seem to speak to a fear of building heights and conflagration.
I am not sure of why, but strolling is expected, but otherwise having to walk is not acceptable. Thus, innovation such as powered skates if one has to mingle in the groundbound milieu. However, optimally streets have become a pedestrian only zone, as mechanized transport has moves to the air. Is this a comment on the initial results of the commingling of the mechanized and the pedestrian. The horse is missing from all pictures, except where it is seen purely as a curiosity.
War has become very automated, and especially mobile, yet, the same French politicians of the time go on to construct the Mobile war…and yet the Maginot line springs from this same era.
There is clearly a sense that communication and transportation will enable and that the then current pace stands in society’s way. More, faster, farther all seem to be demonstrated, but then these are the common hopes and expectations of society’s from early times. Its the other comments that can tell us much about the zeitgeist of 1910.
Check out the full exhibition as I have only chosen a few choice images.

a

Having just returned from one of my favourite cities in the world, I was fascinated to find a Paris Metro Virtual Experience. This media-rich site offers wonderful history of the Paris Metro and the opportunity to take a virtual tour with static images and rel-time soundtrack along a number of lines. Additionally, the author of the site has completed station by station architectural mosaics of particular lines. If you have ever had the opportunity to travel on the metro (arguably one of the most efficiently run systems in the world) this site may bring back some memories.
The wonderfully rich combination of media is an example of virtual tourism, well-done, without having an live motion video. It would be quite fun to put a camera in the front of one of the fully automated lead cars on Line 14.
This project was submitted as final term project at the University of Kent by Richard Whittaker in 2005. Great job!
On a separate note, a tourist I spied taking advantage of the new rental bike system in Paris had actually taped his video camera into the front basket of the bike and was obviously going to create a great bike’s perspective tour of Paris.

a

I attended a great talk by Steven Bednarski of St. Jerome’s University today. His CV lists UQAM, York, Toronto as places of experience. His framing question today: How does a social historian make use of a research database?
Bednarski explains that he was trained in the French school and considers himself a storyteller by practise. The leads to a valuable reminder for me: the quantitative historian makes good use of his tools and may carry out exquisite analysis of datasets through many means (statistical, spatial, SNA, etc) but what this allows him to do is construct the model and then use narrative to illustrate it through anecdotal evidence.
His research has focussed on the south of France during the period 1300–1500.
His current work is looking towards the identification of masculinity in the 16th C.
As a good social historian he asks the question: How did ordinary people navigate society? and is thus less interested in elite cultures, politics or theology.
He cites the work of Pierre Bourgault? looking at the development of masculinities in Medieval times. Little has been done on fatherhood, more on motherhood…the Cult of Joseph is a start of this.
His MA thesis at U of T looked at hat is termed ‘low Magic’ aka: superstition, popular religion, low magic.
In his MA study he focussed on 4 women accused of sorcery…
The wonderful Provencal town of his study: Manosque.
In his on screen aerial of the town, one is struck that is fortified, but in a valley surrounded by hill. I queried Jacqueline Murray and she indicated that the walls were as much for demarking a boundary as for defense.

First Trial
A rumour that mother and daughter, seduced by diabolical instigation, poisoned the mind of a victim such that he couldn’t keep his hands off the daughter. The poor victim was son of a notary, thus a father trained in scientific law. The women actually reside at the household, but not as servants. The older brother of the ‘victim’ instigates the legal charges. The women are eventually found innocent a no laws have been broken. Interestingly, Stephen notes that there are no witch trials in the early 1300s. Five years later the same woman is before the court with a husband alleging that she is a bigamist. Apparently she did marry the notary’s son. The upchuck of this from a methodological standpoint: One is able to make these connections through a database of appearances before the court.

Second Trial
Manosque is located on a road coming from Avignon. In this case, a woman (married) traveling in the company of an uncle is arrested and accused of unseemly acts as she is not in the company of her husband. She is found innocent.

Third Trial
Two accused women, again inspired by diabolical instigation, enchanted a man and his wife and sowed discord between them. This was done by washing cat and dog in same water and then throwing the water between the husband and wife…causing them to be incompatible…like cats and dogs. One of the accused woman is probably a prostitute, and thus the possible cause for this case: the man laying the charge was trying to kick women out of his neighborhood and into red light district. The clever women each accuse each other, but a clear guilt can not be thus drawn. Thus Blacking real evidence the charges are unproven and the women acquitted.

Fourth Case
The defendant Mathilda is denounced by employer and lover. She was serving girl who had given him three children. He has since decided to marry in his own status and this is most easily accomplished through criminal court. He accussed her of putting a wax figurine of him into the mattress of his marital bed with adornments ;-)…thus frustrating his sexual life with his new wife. Doctor examined him and couldn’t find anything wrong with him…yet he claims he’s ill. Court takes a two weeks break, during which he dies …what has happened? Case is left unproven.

These were the bulk of his MA paper. But these could be handled without a database or sophisticated technology

For his PhD…decided to read all trials in the series.
Manosque is interesting as it was given more and more independence from its seigneur. Town gains control over its own municipal functions…during this period it shifts in ‘ownership from the Seigneur to the Knights Hospitaller…they inherited control of the town. The criminal court was a hangover from when the count/seigneur had owned the town, and thus the court is secular and is not controlled by the knights. The town of Monosque possesses a long proud history of independence. When the French Revolution seeks to eliminate the vestiges of the Ancien Regime, they command the destruction of records from this period. Although this throwing off of noble oppression is a triumph in the north, in the south in places such as Manosque…people carefully packed and kept all records. Proud of their past. So all records have been kept where in most other places was burned during this period. A find for a historian.

Stephen’s idea was to look at all the records as a whole. 1500 trials. Started to make notes and transcriptions in a word processor.

Stephen ran through the questions asks and the information he tracked.
How do I reference? Create unique call number,
Who is accused? Name, religion, status in the city (native, new arrival(up to 3 or 4 generations), foreigner), date, how did trial start (accused, or by court itself investigating on its own), what was the charge (these are great), Sometimes extra charge, a witness?, Jews place hand on Torah, deposition, Response of accused, accused statement and interrogation, interaction between judge and accused.
How long does it take a family to integrate into society?
What moved the court (personal enmity/vendetta played out in court or a case that there was a proactive judge (or behind the scenes player)?
Took extra steps to ascertain that the witness was not bribed, or forced to make testimony…unique..ensure that this is not antisemitism.
In the north women are generally not included in court proceedings…in the south, its much more common.
He throws himself on courts mercy…he is found guilty and forced to pay fine…almost never corporal punishment.

Why the database?
How many trials against pimps? 1/1643
Hoe many trials of child abuse 4/1643
How many against Jews? 81/1643 (5%

How are these found?
Innocent 10
Confessed Freely 42
Condemned on evidence 17
Unproven 4
Unknown 8 (105)

Can then do a stats analysis on Jews before state justice?
How does this compare to how Christians were treated?

Numbers…are the same, Jew or Christian…they are about the same…no harsher towards the Jews. Big proof.
Could only do with raw data.
If you want to get drawn into the anecdotal, frame it with the numbers
Wife Assault…10 or 12 of them…civil war in Provence in late 14th. Tries to incite rebels to rise against Queen in Manosque. Roman law.
21 trials during the civil war…tax evasion (36)

Uses FM 5.5 — and as all good FM users apologizes for using it as a tool.
1643 records…

Is the hope for outcome always successful prosecution…no…sometimes go to court just to air grievances.

Is there higher conviction rates for different crimes? Yes, some much more hard to find evidence of and this has impact on the outcome…obviously.

Judges came from all over South of France and had to possess a university education. They didn’t and although they were supposed only take one year term this too was often not the case — shortage of labour one explanation.

People were shopping around for justice and generally took it where they might get best treatment. Battle between Ecclesiastical and Civil courts. Often accused will tonsure themselves in their cell and demand ecclesiastical privileges…ie. can’t be charged.

a

The Gardens at the Palais Royal are distinctly different from those at the Luxembourg. A grand urban courtyard, the Palais Royal have been a public garden from immediately prior to the Revolution. The Palais Royal was owned by the Duc d’Orleans, an aristocrat who sought popular appeal. As today, the courtyard was surrounded by cloistered shops and atelier and served as a meeting spot for the ‘common folk’.
Today, the garden itself is green and large and a wonderful spot to sit and read and be amongst a milieu.

Entry to the garden is through the palais itself and the contrast from the bustling street to the south could not be more extreme. You emerge from the concrete jungle into a lush garden with a bordering walking paths and a fountain in the centre that creates two separate private areas. Chairs are provided and one can easily while away the hours engrossed in a fine book.
At the south end of the garden is a rather discordant sculpture featuring black and white cylinders that have risen to varying heights out of the patio itself. Impressive, artistic, tasteful?? hard to say. Definitely unique.
What is particularly nice about this garden is the oasis that it provides amongst the hustle and bustle of the surrounding streets. Its a defined area and you are very conscious of the surroundings. But the lushness of the gardens themselves allow you to easily escape in appropriate diversion.

a

There’s a neat spot, a little off the beaten track, in Paris that I have some fond memories of. It’s an oasis, small in scale and slow in pace. It’s not the sort of place that you find in the tourist directories and its not enveloped by the legend of Paris vacationeering. Bercy Village is a trendy upscale redevelopment project in the 12th which features little shops, a cinema, bars and restaurants, situated within and without of a old wine market. Metro 14 — Cour St-Emilion lands you right in the village.
The setting is one of calm, coolth and leisure. The Bercy area seems a step removed from Paris proper.
Tangent starts here: I stumbled across it one day when I wondered what the area to the east of Paris was like. I took the metro further in that direction than I had before, planning to walk back towards the centre of town. I got off at ‘Les Ardoines’ metro station in a suburban industrial area (why? i am always trusting in serendipity) that was not quite the pretty picture of the city of light that one might associate with Paris. It was gritty, foreign and certainly authentic. The area clearly was of mixed use with factories interspersed with residential areas and small corner snack bars where locals glanced with some incredulity at someone, clearly a tourist, traipsing through their neighbourhood. Now, such excursions in the past have gotten me within a hair’s width of trouble. But I wandered a bit. The factories were dingy and many seemed abandoned. Perhaps not all as dingy as I might suggest. I found this one quite impressive in fact. I walked for a while and eventually determined that the area was authentic, but not that much more exciting that wandering though a Canadian suburb and certainly not the tourist scene. I hopped back on the metro and backtracked getting off the metro, for whatever reason, at the Bibliotheque Francois Mitterrand (sorry for lack of appropriate accents, still working on this).
The bibliotheque itself is one of the most impressive research libraries I have ever used. I ended up working there more extensively later on, but at first blush, the four narrow modernistic towers emerging from sunken gardens were quite an impressive contrast to the industrial area I had been wandering in. I checked out the library and made plans to get accreditation and come back later. Then I cam across the pub next door. The Frog at the British Library is part of a <a href=http://www.frogpubs.com/” target=“_blank”>chain of english-style pubs in France that offer an assortment of microbrews. In time I became quite fond of the Inseine and the Dark de Triomphe. After being suitably waylaid for lunch at the Frog pub, I strayed across the river and came across Bercy Village. Tangent ends here.
As I mentioned earlier, the village was developed out of the various storage vaults and outbuildings of a wine market. The architecture is of original stone masonry tastefully mixed with new glass and black steel construction. Cobblestone yards ground the village and feature carefully retained signs of the past use such as iron tracks for transporting casks, crates and the such. The stores are definitely upscale, but make for serious browsing. There are restaurants and bars, and in particular a second Frog Pub. In this case, The Frog at Bercy has a lush green patio and the same collection of microbrews as its companion across the river. These fine establishments have most recently begun an innovative programme that allows one to log onto the Frog website and treat someone in Paris to a drink at on of the bars. Cool.
The cinema is one of those large megaplex types run by UCG, but it is carefully hidden at the one extreme of the village and not externally imposing. It allows it to fulfill its function and offer a wide selection of cinematic diversions without detracting from the ambiance of small village of boutiques and shops.
For me the luxury of being able to research at the Francois Mitterrand, and to intersperse this with a trip to the cinema or to the pub made makes for a wonderful existence. Now, if I could find a deal on a condo in the area and an appropriate research position to fund my lifestyle, life would be sweet indeed. Could Bercy Village be situated anywhere else in the world, absolutely. There are probably Bercy Villages all over the world, but that hardly detracts from a thoughtfully crafted urbanspace that offers a wonderful diversion on a fine afternoon.

a

I have long wanted to jot down some thoughts about some of my favourite places in Paris. Meaning to eventually present these as an appropriately georeferenced set with appropriate navigation, for now I thought I would add them as simply blog entries. When I thought about where to start, it took me all of a second to ecide to begin with one of my absolutely favourite spots: The Luxembourg Gardens.

There are a plethora of wonderful gardens in Paris, but the Luxembourg is a favourite for a variety of great reasons:

• Convenient
• Adjacent
• Sustantial
• Gorgeous
• Clean
• Safe

The gardens and the Palais de Luxembourg date the seventeenth century and the construction of the palace and surroundings for Marie de Medici. The garden is surrounded by a wall and the garden/park itself is intersected by pedestrian avenues or crushed stone. It is centred on a fountain/large grassy area (I can’t remember which guise it is in right now). There are polite city forests and wonderful statuary surrounding the main promenades.

What I like most particularly about the gardens are the wonderful seats. They can be dragged to any place one desires and come in three flavours. There are the standard upright, like a standard chair type (really great in combination with others for your feet), slightly reclined ones and the best: full reclined spacious metal lounges that are not unlike a Parisian version of an Adirondack deck chair. Getting to the garden early enough means you get your pick of both chair and spot and you can find a wonderfully sheltered spot close to the wall around the central water, and spend the day reading, writing and simply taking in the ambiance of this very special environment.
The central ‘plaza’ area always had this wonderful, huge wading pool in which children rented little sailing boats and pushed them about. Just a really nice ‘park’ kind of thing to do. However, if I am to believe Google Maps (after the Katrina thing I am ever so slightly skeptical), it looks as though this area has been filled in and is just a grassy area now. Maybe its a seasonal, annual thing…I sure hope that is the case.
The area around the Luxembourg also makes it superbly situated. In the Latin Quarter, near the Sorbonne and the Pantheon, it is also near the entrance to the Catacombs (about them in a further entry). There are all sort of wonderful eating opportunities in the area, many of which re great takeaway food that you can return to the park with. I really like this little Japanese yakatori place, a three minute walk from my seat in the park.
On a more somber note, the wall to the northeast is the site where Marshall Michel Ney (the Bravest of the Brave) was executed in 1815 for his part in Napoleon’s return to power. This tragedy is not without its controversy, both due to the circumstances of Ney’s court martial as well as the persistent rumours that he was able to escape to the United States following Napoleon’s second abdication and lived out his days as a rural school master.
The Luxembourg Gardens are easily accessed, both by foot walking south from the Seine having crossed the Pont Neuf, or via the Luxembourg Metro station which deposits you right at the northeast gate of the park.

a

French architect Jean-Pierre Houdin has unveiled a quite fascinating theory of pyramid construction. Apparently based on a decade of investigation, he is able to proposed a series of concepts proposing that internal construction ramps allowed for the efficient and remarkable construction of the Pyramid of Cheops. Additionally he demonstrates the most efficient means by which the pyramidium was raised along with the pyramid itself and the construction of the King’s chamber at the heart of the pyramid.

The architect uses a slick 3d visualization system to create an educational video that is quite impressive. Load times seem to be glacial, but the wait is worth it. An animated model of the architect himself appears on screen and wander about the pyramid itself explaining the findings and demonstrating through animation the construction processes.

I am not sure how much of this is actually that radical, but the presentation is very entertaining and the visualization of workers hauling the stones through the inner chambers or using the hoist to raise the pyramidium are very impressive.

I don’t want to spoil much of the discovery presented in the visualisation, but the concept of internal hallways is quite an intriguing one. Corners of the pyramid are left exposed to allow for rotation of building blocks as they travel along the construction ways, and this allows for hauling to take place in a shaded and stable environment. I gather this this also reduces the suggested number of people involved in the construction and also solves the huge issue of the bulk of the external ramp as previously proposed that actually would have dwarfed the achievement of the pyramid itself.

It would be interesting to see a full documentary on these findings. Houdin was involved in National Geographic’s 2002 I wonder about the corners of the pyramid and whether if they were built after the fact and possibly less tightly tied into the overall construction might have given way or showed the effects of weathering faster than other components. Moreover, I would have thought that finding/proving the existence of these internal hallways, even if filled in after the completion would have been a reasonably simple task, so am left wondering whether the proposed engineering principles have been investigated or are subject to ongoing debate. There are interesting sites dedicated to exploring such questions and theories, albeit by heightening the mystery and appearing rather conspiracy theory like.

Very cool animations and ideas.

a