Ever since the French Revolution there is an appalling strain in the French psyche that celebrates terrorizing the weak and unpopular. We saw some of that in our Revolution, but most of the Loyalists ultimately blended in with the rest of the population with the excesses against peaceful loyalists being looked back upon with shame by many of the victorious Patriots.
France currently does one thing very well: nuclear power. That’s it. Whatever greatness France had from Medieval times and the Renaissance is now squandered and gone with perhaps a brief but violent respite under Napoleon Bonaparte.
Of all the countries in western Europe, France and Italy are the ones where there is now a critical mass of resistance to the Davos project of fostering colonization by hostile populations from the Near East and the Maghreb. It is very possible that France will have a patriotic government in about 16 months time. We will see what they do then.
Napoleon’s project of conquering Europe was not a manifestation of ‘greatness’. It was madcap. It’s doubtful that sorting out France’s internal disorders such as they were in 1786 could be accomplished without coming to blows with the Hapsburgs, &c. It is regrettable that French ground troops in Europe got any farther away than the adjacent territories held by the House of Hapsburg and the House of Savoy. There was so much to do in France at the time (and in overseas possessions like St. Domingue).
“France currently does one thing very well: nuclear power. “
Absolutely true.. core engineering culture unfortunately does not a country make-
Maybe you’re right, Art Deco. But Napoleon was nothing like Oedipal Macron who gets hit in the face by a wife 24 years his senior. Is that right? Brigitte is 24 years older than him?
David WS is also right: good engineering culture does not automatically make a good national culture.
Sidenote: both the French and the Koreans are supplying components for our reactor design at Neutrons ‘R Us. I like dealing with the Koreans better. They happily embrace NRC regulations. But the French always balk because they think they’re better. Arrogant!
Mea sententia peculiaris sicut civis liber.
My personal opinion as a free citizen.
I would argue that the bravest of France died by the train-load in 1914-18. What was emerged 20 years later was a shell of itself.
Good point, Bill R.
@ Bill R: Beat me to the point. France lost 1.33 million soldiers in WW1. 600,000 civilians.
Anyone who has ever had the opportunity to visit the cemeteries at Verdun, or Tyne Cot, or Flanders —or become completely stunned into silence by Ablain-Saint-Nazaire cemetery (40,000 French military and Zoauve dead), seeing the vast, seemingly endless rows of white crosses and experiencing the overwhelming stillness, cannot help being moved at all these young lives erased by the war.
France never has recovered. Religio Depopulata, the alleged prophecies of S. Malachy stated.
Not sure what you mean by ‘never recovered’
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I’m not seeing that France is more dispirited than the rest of western Europe. Quite the contrary.
Tar and Feather. Light-Horse Harry Lee (Henry Lee III) was a hero of the Revolutionary War and of the War of 1812.. A favorite of George Washington he served in the Continental and American armies leading dragoon and cavalry units. At Washington’s funeral Lee delivered the Oration proclaiming “first in war, first in peace and first in the hearts of his countrymen”.
Later in life he had “an encounter with an anti-Federalist mob in Baltimore which left him disfigured and ailing”, i.e. tarred and feathered. A visit to the West Indies did not heal him . On his way back to Virginia he stopped in Georgia where he died. Light Horse Harry Lee was buried with full military honors provided by the American Fleet near St. Mary’s Georgia.
Robert E. Lee was one of his eight children.