The first "unknown" corpse exhumed at Verdun turned out to be Senegalese, so he was reburied and replaced by a white body.
—From a review by Neal Ascherson of Jean-Yves Le Naour's book The Living Unknown Soldier: A Story of Grief and the Great War, translated by Penny Allen, Times Literary Supplement, 10 March 2006
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In Paris, what used to be called middle age is disappearing. You stay young a long time, then go gaga.
–Alfred Capus
A Paris, ce qu'on appelait autrefois l'âge mur tend a disparaître. On reste très jeune très longtemps, puis on devient gâteux.
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The French Nation distinguishes itself among Nations by the characteristic of Excitability; with the good, but also with the perilous evil, which belongs to that. Rebellion, explosion, of unknown extent is to be calculated on.
--Thomas Carlyle (1795-1881) in The French Revolution: A History (1837), ch. 1.2.VIII
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Analyze a book! What would you say about a guest who, after eating a ripe peach, took the morsels out of his mouth to look at them?
--French writer Jules Renard (1864-1910) in his diary, 15 March 1892
Analyser un livre! Que dirait-on d'un convive qui, mangeant une pêche mûre, en retirerait les morceaux de sa bouche pour voir?
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[French singer Edith] Piaf came to see me sing every evening. I was flattered and uncomfortable. I didn't talk much while eating my pasta, and people must have thought I was putting up with her compliments. I was sitting next to her, and in the middle of the meal, I felt her hand going up my thigh. I asked Bruno where the bathrooms were. They were near the front door. I hesitated, then I went out and took off running. I fled from Piaf. I was practically a virgin at the time. I couldn't see myself in her bed. For me, she was an old lady.
--Popular French singer Johnny Hallyday (1943- ) in an interview with Le Parisien to promote his new autobiography Dans mes yeux
Piaf était venue me voir chanter tous les soirs. J’étais flatté, mal à l’aise. Je ne parlais pas trop en mangeant mes pâtes et on devait avoir l’impression que je subissais les compliments. Je m’assieds à côté d’elle et, au milieu du repas, je sens sa main qui monte sur ma cuisse. Je demande les toilettes à Bruno. Elles étaient proches de la porte d’entrée. J’ai hésité, puis je suis sorti et je me suis barré en courant. J’ai fui Piaf. J’étais presque puceau, à l’époque. Je ne me voyais pas dans son lit. Pour moi, c’était une vieille dame.
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Within about a twelvemonth [of the Roman legions being called home to defend Rome] the barbarians had swept across France: they were in the vineyards of Bordeaux: they were encamped beneath the Pyrenees. All France, said St. Orientius, "smoked like a funeral pyre." This was in 406: four years later, Alaric was in Rome, and she was taken that had taken all the world.
--Helen Waddell (1889-1965) in "Poetry in the Dark Ages," a lecture she gave on 28th October 1947.
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In diplomacy it often happens that the candidates who, because of their wealth or accidental knowledge of foreign languages-- especially French--, already think that that is a reason for their preferment, and therefore behave to their superiors in an even more demanding and critical way than other candidates. Their knowledge of foreign languages, like that possessed by a headwaiter, easily created for us [Germans] a foundation for their own belief in their vocation to diplomacy, especially so long as our envoys' reports, particularly those to the sovereign, had to be written in French, as had not always been the case, but which was the official policy in force before I became Minister. I have known many of our older envoys who, with no understanding of politics, were promoted to the highest positions solely because of their excellent French; and they also said nothing in their reports that was not available to them in French. In 1862 in Saint Petersburg I still had to write my reports in French, and the envoys who wrote even their private letters to the Minister in French were seen as especially called to diplomacy because of this, even if they were known to be politically clueless.
--Otto von Bismarck (1815-1898), Chancellor of Germany, in his memoir Gedanken und Erinnerungen (1890) [Thoughts and Memories], first chapter.
In der Diplomatie kommt dazu, daß diejenigen unter den Aspiranten, welche Vermögen oder die zufällige Kenntniß fremder Sprachen, namentlich der französischen, besitzen, schon darin einen Grund zur Bevorzugung sehn und deshalb der obern Leitung noch anspruchsvoller und zur Kritik geneigter gegenübertreten als Andre. Sprachkenntnisse, wie auch Oberkellner sie besitzen, bildeten bei uns leicht die Unterlage des eignen Glaubens an den Beruf zur Diplomatie, namentlich so lange unsre gesandschaftlichen Berichte, besonders die ad Regem, französisch sein mußten, wie es die nicht immer befolgte, aber bis ich Minister wurde amtlich in Kraft stehende Vorschrift war. Ich habe manche unter unsern ältern Gesandten gekannt, die, ohne Verständniß für Politik, lediglich durch Sicherheit im Französischen in die höchsten Stellen aufrückten; und auch sie sagten in ihren Berichten doch nur das, was sie französisch geläufig zur Verfügung hatten. Ich habe noch 1862 von Petersburg französisch amtlich zu berichten gehabt, und die Gesandten, welche auch ihre Privatbriefe an den Minister französisch schrieben, empfahlen sich dadurch als besonders berufen zur Diplomatie, auch wenn sie politisch als urtheilslos bekannt waren.
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We dine with Flaubert at Charles Edmond's house.... One of his grandfathers married a woman in Canada, he tells us. Indeed there is redskin blood in his person, his character, even his taste, a violence, a healthiness, a coarseness....
--Edmond et Jules Goncourt in their joint diary, Friday 21 February 1862
Nous dînons avec Flaubert chez les Charles Edmond....Un de ses grand-pères a épousé, nous dit-il, une femme au Canada. Il y a effectivement du sang de Peau-Rouge dans sa personne, son caractère, son goût même, une violence, une santé, une grossièreté....
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How do you recognize someone from the provinces? From their constant wild fear of being ridiculed, a terror that does not exist for a Parisian.
À quoi reconnaît-on un provincial? À leur peur effarée et éternelle du ridicule, terreur qui n'existe pas pour le Parisien.
--Edmond et Jules Goncourt in their joint diary, 1 January 1865
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What Le Corbusier wanted to do to Paris
Barthelme, whose father was a modernist architect, spoke of Le Corbusier's "not insignificant totalitarian bent".... Le Corbusier had a hostility to the messy urban street so violent that, the architect Michael Sorkin suggests, it "can only be explained by psychoanalysis."
--Ned Beauman in article on Jane Jacobs in the U.K. Guardian
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