French Language Blog

The most famous fountain in the city of Lyon was made by a Frenchman whose name is not likely to tell you much:

Auguste Bartholdi, originally from the Alsace region.

Doesn’t really ring a bell, non?

His other work, however, is one of the best known monuments in the world.

Ever heard of New York‘s Statue of Liberty, par exemple?

Well, the story behind the Bartholdi Fountain in Lyon is not less “mouvementée” (a French way to say “action-packed”, or just “eventful” if you prefer) than that of the Statue of Liberty “illuminant le monde” (“Enlightening the World.”)

But make that on a much more “compact” scale, so to speak.

Initially, the fountain, which has an “older sister” still standing in Washington D.C., was meant to be constructed in another French city, much to the west of Lyon.

In 1857, when he was barely 23 years old, Bartholdi struck a deal with the city of Bordeaux to build a fountain in its well-known Place des Quinconces, one of the largest city squares in all of Europe.  

A rather bonne affaire for a debuting artist.

However, for various tedious reasons better not to mention here, the project n’a pas vu le jour (did not see the light.)

More than thirty years later, Bartholdi finally brought his work to completion.

He exhibited it during the 1889 Exposition Universelle in Paris. And what a franc succès it was.

La Fontaine Bartholdi

By then, the reputation of Bartholdi was not to be made anymore. Only three years earlier, he had finished the Statue of Liberty.

The Mayor of Lyon, a fine opportunist, to put it nicely, immediately seized upon the occasion to ask the French sculptor to install the fountain in his city.

Though a bit disappointed at first by the modest price the city of Lyon was willing to disburse for his œuvre, Bartholdi ended up accepting the less than generous offer.

He personally selected la Place des Terreaux, right between l’hôtel de ville (the City Hall) and the Museum of Fine Arts of Lyon, to be the site of his fontaine.

The choice of the location was probably not purely random.

The adjacent Lyon Museum houses works of Charles Le Brun, namely the Sun King’s favorite artist, and maybe more significantly to Bartholdi, the teacher of Jean-Baptiste Tuby.

Indeed, Lyon’s Bartholdi Fountain found its direct inspiration in Tuby’s Basin d’apollon in Versailles.

But instead of the Greek Sun-god which Louis XIV, “le Roi Soleil“, enjoyed comparing himself to so modestly, Bartholdi chose to feature a woman.

The lady topping the fountain is said to represent the Garonne river, which crosses the city of Bordeaux, leading quatre chevaux (four horses) who stand for the river’s four main affluents.

The Bartholdi Fountain by night

Famous French Lady singer Mylène Farmer, aka “Madame X”, wishes you “Merry X-Mas” in her very own special way:

Alors,

J O Y E U X

N O Ë L

to all of you, mes amis!

Mylène Farmer - L’Instant X

Bloody lundi

Bloody Monday

Mais qu’est-ce qui 

What is it that

Nous englue la planète

Sticks us this planet

Et embrume ma comète

And mists my comet

C’est la loi des séries

It’s the law of series

Le Styx, les ennuis s’amoncellent

The Styx, troubles pile up

J’ai un teint de poubelle

I’ve got a trash tan

Mais, c’est l’instant X

But, it’s the X Instant

Qu’on attend comme le messie

That wait for like the messiah

Comme l’instant magique

Like the magical instant

C’est l’équation

It’s the equation

L’ax + b qui fait tilt

The ax+b which rings a bell

Mais pour l’heure, dis

But for now, say

Papa Noël, quand tu descendras du ciel

Santa, when you come down from the sky

Du fun, du zoprack et des ailes

Some fun, some Zoprack [verlan for Prozac!] and wings

L’an 2000 sera spirituel

The year 2000 shall be spiritual

C’est écrit dans “ELLE”

It is written in “ELLE” magazine

Du fun pour une fin de siècle

Some fun for an end of a century

Humeur Killer 

Killer mood

C’est l’heure pour

It’s time for

Moi de prendre la pose

Me to take a break

De penser à aut’chose

To think of something else

C’est le cycle infernal

It’s the infernal cycle

Fatal, un rien devient l’Everest

Fatal, a little thing turns into Mount Everest

Mon chat qui s’défenestre

My cat that defenestrates 

Ah, à quand l’instant X 

Ah, when is the X instant gonna come

Qu’on attend comme le messie

Which we wait for like the messiah

Comme l’instant magique

Like the magical instant

C’est l’hécatombe, vernis qui craque

It’s a bloodbath, varnish cracking 

Asphyxie, pied dans la tombe

Asphyxia, a foot in the grave

Papa Noël, quand tu descendras du ciel

Santa, when you come down from the sky

Du fun, du zoprack et des ailes

Some fun, Zoprack, and wings

L’an 2000 sera spirituel 

The Year 2000 shall be spiritual

C’est écrit dans “ELLE”

It is written in “ELLE”

Du fun pour une fin de siècle

Some fun for an end of the century

* * *

Notice that Mylène Farmer’s album cover for “l’Instant X” is strikingly reminiscent of the classic movie poster of “Madame X”, the earliest adaptation of which goes back to at least 1910. The movie is itself an allusion to the widely famous and quite controversial “fin de siècle” painting “Portrait de Madame X” (1884), by the renown American painter John Singer Sargent, who was living in Paris at that time

Madame X Soundtrack (1967) – “Final Hour and End Title”

Those who were under the impression that the French can’t really fight, and are best at “surrendering” by “waving white flags”, would better read today’s French Blog post about the martial art of “French Boxing”, also known as “la Savate“!

This form of French sport is far from being a new invention.

In fact, it belongs to les Arts martiaux historiques européens (Historical European martial arts), such as the 15th century “jeu de la hache (“game of the axe”), the English jujitsu-inspired “Bartitsu“, or the much older Greek pancrace (in English “Pankration.”)

A scene from the 1995 movie “Savate”, starring world kickboxing champion and French commando marine (naval commando)-turned-actor, Olivier Gruner. The movie, in which Van Damme‘s shadow lingers not too far behind, is set in the Texas of the American Civil War, when the French “Second Empire”, under the disastrous rulership of “Napoléon le petit” (as famously nicknamed by Victor Hugo), committed troops to an ill-fated invasion attempt of Mexico

The word savate in French designates an “old shoe“, or even an “old slipper“, in colloquial terms.

Mais qu’en est-il de ses origines (But how about its origins)?

The earliest record goes back to shortly before l’époque napoléonienne (the Napoleonic era), towards the end of the 18th century.

Some specialists trace a northern France origin of la savate, mainly around the capital Paris, as opposed to a south France form of martial art known as le chausson (meaning “the slipper”), which came out from the city of Marseille.

Eventually, both la savate and le chausson techniques would merge into what is today la boxe française.

The 2010 Savate French Championship held in Alès (not too far from Coco Chanel’s family hometown)

The 2008 Savate World Championship 

One of the chief differences between English boxing and its French counterpart is that, in the latter version, the use of les jambes et les pieds (the legs and the feet) is fully authorized.

French Boxing Vs. English Boxing:

On the eve of the so-called “Entente cordiale“, cleverly put forth by Britain’s Edward VII, and duly executed by a rather subservient and “outclassed” Delcassé, mainly in order to isolate the newly unified Germany while furthering the British hegemonic agenda, efforts were made on both sides of la Manche (the English channel), between English Francophiles and French Anglophiles, to increase all forms of cultural exchange between France and Britain.

In this context of European geopolitical intensity, a special match dubbed “le combat du siècle” (“the fight of the century”) was organized in 1899 to determine which of the two types of boxing, the French or the English, would be le meilleur (is the best.)

The match opposed Charles Chaumont, a Frenchman, against Jerry Driscoll, a boxing champion listed in Her Majesty’s Victorian Navy.

In the first round, Driscoll complained that Charlemont l’avait mordu (had bit him), which caused the match to halt for a few minutes.
Then, shortly after it resumed, the fighting stopped again for an unknown reason!
When the referee expressed his intention to have the match canceled, both fighters convinced him that he should au contraire allow it to continue.

Chaumont (FRA)

Driscoll (GB)

Finally, the confrontation came to an end in the eighth round, when Driscoll was awarded un coup de genou (a knee blow) to the stomach by Chaumont—a move considered by the English standard of boxing as a no-no, since it was en dessous de la ceinture (below the belt.)

Years later, Bernard John Angle, an English referee who witnessed the historical clash in Paris, lambasted his compatriot’s performance, stressing that Driscoll didn’t really know what he was getting into when he decided to confront the Frenchman “dans son propre jeu“ (“in his own game.”)

A rather ironic comment, since France didn’t know either “what it was getting into”, when, five years after the Chaumont-Driscoll clash, it would join King Edward VII‘s perfidious game, an episode of the “Great Game” called “l’Entente cordiale“, in which les coups bas (the low blows) of “Dirty Bertie” (the British monarch’s well-deserved nickname) were much more vile than anything ever experienced in la savate!