La Marseillaise
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Full Text
Nestling in a quiet corner of Paris, the Archives nationales constitute one of the best repositories of source material for the French historian. At present, they also house an exhibition of French history.1 One of the avowed aims of this exhibition is to present 71 major documents in such a way as to communicate the process of French history from the earliest times to the present day. All communication is tendentious, though. Whenever people communicate, they do so from a certain standpoint, an ideology, in fact, and this is as true for the historian as for anyone else. What picture of French history is painted, then, by our exhibition at the Archives nationales? Is there any discernible ideology behind it?
The Salle des Gardes, which accommodates the Museum of French History, is a spacious room inviting the visitor to walk round the exhibition. The visitor's path is guided by the fact that each document is presented on a board chronologically numbered in a sequence from 1 to 71. Each document is also accompanied by maps, photographs, tables, and other material to explain its significance and situate it in its historical context. The overall impression is of a highly attractive visual presentation. Indeed, as the present curator of the museum informed me, one of the motivations behind selecting the various pieces was that of æsthetics: the exhibition should be interesting 'à la fois pour sa qualité artistique et son importance historique'.2 This exhibition, though, is not intended solely to be pleasing to the eye. It also constitutes 'une présentation didactique' the aim of which is to inform the visitor about thirteen centuries of French history. This is achieved by offering him or her 'les pièces les plus prestigieuses et qui soient capables d'illustrer les événements fameux, les grandes figures et les institutions majeures de notre passé'.3 As we must all appreciate, any informative process is conditioned by two factors: what we wish to say and how we wish to say it. So a detailed examination of the presentation and content of this exhibition should help us discern what vision of French history is being portrayed by it.
First and foremost, French history is here depicted as a strict chronological sequence of events. The very numbering of the tableaux contributes to this effect which is further reinforced by the all-important dates of main events. History in general, then, is clearly and conventionally presented as a linear progression of events operating in a time-based narrative. Secondly, this history follows the traditional pattern of being a history of grands hommes: kings, emperors, generals, and politicians. The life and times of the powerful people who, apparently, shaped history are here reproduced and this biographical code is heavily reinforced by the large number of portraits. paintings, and photographs of 'great men' - and the occasional grande femme, e.g. Joan of Arc. Furthermore, as we might expect, there is an overriding focus on royal edicts, imperial decrees, and acts of Parliament. The history is a standard history from above: one which considers matters of state and high politics as of prime importance. The picture is rounded out by the almost inevitable catalogue of wars involving France down the ages. Our exhibition of French history, then, presents us with a familiar picture; one which Traian Stoianovich has termed 'the boom, bang, flash, gnash, news and noise'4 of short-term, heterogeneous, political, and diplomatic events.
It is clear that a certain selectivity is at work here. The Musée de l'Histoire de France has selected documents primarily from one aspect of the French experience: national politics as conducted by grands hommes, and this is by implication seen as the important backbone of French history. The visitor to the museum is, therefore, being told - in a subtle if conventional way - what is important.
Our exhibition's content and presentation naturally reinforce part of the dominant ideology of modern France. First, the vital concept of nationhood, Frenchness, is clearly exalted. The creation of France as a self-conscious national entity is accorded great weight by our museum. We have, therefore, maps on the stage-by-stage unification of the country, entire boards on the process (no. 30 Le Rattachement de La Bretagne à la France, no. 40 Le Traité de Westphalie 1648) and one whole board on the essential stage in the development of French national consciousness, the replacement of Latin by French as the language of state (no. 33 Les Ordonnances de Villers-Cotterêts). That this process was also achieved by war is not shirked by our history as we have board no. 20 on La Guerre de Cent Ans, no. 23 Les Bourguignons contre les Armagnacs. We are not surprised, however, that more recent painful experiences of the French nation's integrity being threatened are absent from the exhibition. The French victory of 1918 is recorded but the defeat of 1940 is, of course, not touched upon: the only document from that period being a letter written by the Resistance hero, Jean Moulin (no. 71).
Finally, the notion of Republicanism is accentuated by this exhibition. The modern French Republic traces its ancestry to the Revolution which is, therefore, treated here as the key event in history. Accordingly, our museum communicates this very idea by one simple device: the Revolution is given two separate side-rooms of exhibition space all to itself. Not only does the Revolution receive more attention than the rest of French history put together, then, it is also clearly singled out as distinct. The physical separation of the Revolution from the rest of the narrative acts as a symbol of its importance: the Revolution is so different, so important, so vital to the subsequent development of France that it has to stand on its own, in its own separate setting.
The presentation and content of the latter stages of the exhibition duly focus further on the Republican ideal. For instance, the Restoration is given only two boards, Louis-Philippe none,5 and the Second Empire only one, on its economy. In contrast, the Third Republic is granted seven boards examining the birth of the Parliamentary regime, its education and social policies, and, of course, the separation of Church and State;6 in short, the key elements of French Republicanism.
We have seen, then, that the highly attractive exhibition of French history at the Archives nationales, in fulfilling its own aim of illustrating 'treize siècles de notre histoire par les documents prestigieux qui ont permis de l'écrire'7 operates from a distinct ideological base which is grounded in the traditional dual conception of French history. First, the documents and pictures in the exhibition portray history as a linear, chronological sequence in which the most important events are national and political. Second, operating within this standard contextual framework, the familiar concepts of French nationhood and Republicanism are firmly restated, emphasized, and upheld. Pictures do, indeed, paint a thousand words.
1 Le Musée de I'Histoire de France, L'Hôtel de Soubise, Archives nationales, 60, rue des Francs-Bourgeois, 75003 Paris.
2 Personal communication, 1986.
3 Compte-rendu, M. Dalas-Garrigues, first curator of the museum in its present incarnation.
4 T. Stoianovich, French Historical Method (London, Cornell UP., 1976), p. 109.
5 His reign is covered in terms of the colonization of Algeria.
6 As we noted with the Revolution, this has nothing to do with chronology: the number of boards attributed to a regime is dependent not upon how long it lasted but upon how important it is perceived to be. Also, we note, one of the boards on the Bourbons emphasizes their fall from power.
7 From the press release on the opening of the museum in 1979.
© Society for French Studies 1988
L'histoire repasse
toujours les plats