AGINCOURT, TRAFALGAR, WATERLOO AND NOW SINGAPORE
Jerry Harkins

Jacques “Iraq” Chirac has not been having an easy time this year what with the ignominious demise of the EU constitution, high unemployment, a bitter struggle with Tony Blair over France’s addiction to high agricultural supports and another with his young constituents who took to the barricades over their god-given right to employment security and six week vacations. The International Olympic Committee not only didn’t give the 2012 games to Paris, they added insult to injury by giving them to London. Think of it as the Battle of Singapore. Jock didn’t help his own cause by mouthing off about British cuisine and claiming that the only contribution the Brits have made to agriculture is mad cow disease. His own contribution, of course, is terminal foot in the mouth syndrome. I mean the man said that English food is the worst in the world except for Finland. The Finns had two votes on the IOC committee. I was not surprised by the Olympic Committee’s decision. The French play a little soccer and have produced a handful of good tennis players but generally they don’t win very much. The video of the good citizens of Paris expressing their disagreement may have been misleading. Their anger was directed less at the IOC and more at England and Tony Blair who, they announced, had cheated. Well, they said the same thing about Hank the Cinq, Wellington and Lord Nelson. The French have a lot of experience with the English, most of it embarrassing.

France, you see, is a state of mind making a sincere effort to be a nation. Since 1792, it has tried thirteen different forms of government: five republics, two empires, a Reign of Terror, a Directorate, a Consulate, a restored Monarchy, and, during World War II, two Nazi collaborationist regimes, that of Pierre Laval in Paris and Philippe Petain in Vichy. While all have been ineffective, they have produced a colorful cast of leaders beginning with Robespierre who ruled by the dictum, “Terror without virtue is powerless.” Virtuous terror is one of those uniquely French constructions that is logical only in a language with a very nuanced grammar. It is the same kind of logic that turns Napoleon into a “military genius” which, in any other language, would be an oxymoron.

In the real world, Napoleon was a military idiot. He did manage to defeat Austria, Italy and Egypt before running into major league pitching in such places as Haiti. And Russia. In less than six months in 1812, through sheer stupidity fortified by invincible arrogance, he managed to reduce an army—his own—of more than 400,000 soldiers to a mob of fewer than 10,000. In fact, military history provides the perfect capsule description of French history. Over the centuries, French soldiers have displayed courage, resolve and patriotism. French generals on the other hand have been mostly inept. The Arc de Triomphe is a monument to that ineptitude. On it are engraved the names of 801 French generals, 799 of whom you have never heard. On its sides are the names of 268 battles, 30 of which are regarded as definitive victories. The rest are ties. There was not enough space for definitive defeats.

Vive la France! When Marianne looks in her mirror, she sees a beacon to mankind, the fragile guardian of culture, art, ethics and cuisine in an undeserving world. She knows people think of her as something of a scold. The Americans especially accuse her of being haughty, arrogant and often frivolous. Well, what can one say about the Americans? Twice in the last century, the French had to rescue them from the jaws of defeat. Victory and defeat do not mean the same things in French as they do in other languages. For example, the terror alert system in Paris has five levels: take a vacation, run, hide, surrender and collaborate. Calvin and Hobbes capture this philosophy precisely. Calvin is stationed behind the wall of his snow fort proclaiming, “I’m ready for anything!” He is immediately bombarded by several dozen snowballs. Hobbes asks him, “Are you ready for unconditional surrender?” Buried in the remains of the fort, Calvin replies, “That above all else.”

The most important French hero of recent times was Charles de Gaulle who, as a young man, did everything he could to teach the British and Americans how to save his country’s butt. When this proved impossible, he single handedly invaded Normandy, liberated Paris, fought off the German counterattack in the Battle of the Bulge and reduced Berlin to ashes. He accomplished all this armed only with a butter knife while riding a white horse and wearing a bulletproof cape. Later, as President of the Republic, he put down the Algerian revolt and developed the force de frappe which is essentially an ice cream confection. He then withdrew France from military participation in NATO, confident that it could defend itself. Against the United States and Great Britain. Napoleon had already scared the hell out of the Russians so they wouldn’t dare attack France. Unfortunately, his nuclear adventure went awry when it came up against Greenpeace. He was undaunted. He once said, “When I want to know what France thinks, I ask myself.” He often said, “I am France.” Does that sound familiar? Charles XI’s answer to Louis XIV. L’etat c’est moi.

His distaste for the United States was total. Looking down that marvelous Gallic nose of his, he declaimed, “You may be sure that the Americans will commit all the stupidities they can think of, plus some that are beyond imagination.” The biggest damn fool thing the Americans did, however, was to try to bail France out of the mess it had created in its colonial satrapy, Viet Nam. Ike, who was President of the U.S. at the time, still had a soft spot for the French (remember, de Gaulle had saved Ike from ignominious defeat in Europe). He also had a weakness for the domino theory so he took over the fight against the Viet Cong thereby beginning America’s 20-year nightmare.

Chirac is a tinker’s version of de Gaulle, a tacky, plaster souvenir statue of the anointed one. How he rose to be the leader of a great nation is something of a mystery, one I don’t want to probe too deeply. I can hear my French friends asking me about how a great nation like America could elect an ignorant Yahoo like George W. Bush as its own supreme leader. Of course, the answer is we did it to restore French smugness in the wake of their defeat by Greenpeace. As it turned out we needn’t have bothered. The French merely declared the Battle of Greenpeace a great victory and engraved it on the Arc de Triomphe. Their smugness was never discommoded.

The fox knows many things. The hedgehog knows one big thing. The French know everything. For example, they know how to make the most disgusting things palatable. Do you want to eat snails? Go to Paris. Truffles anyone? Ditto. Horses? Well, you get the idea. They used to make the best wine in the world but now they’re second or third. That’s what happens when you spread culture to the heathens. That great civilizing mission often comes a-cropper which gives them a chance to bemoan the invincible barbarity of the non-French. Americans, for example, have never learned the proper use of a bidet because they have never let us observe one being used. There are instruction manuals but some things are hard to put into even French words.

Unlike any other nation in the world, France is necessary. If it didn’t exist we would have to invent it. We could call it Disneyland.