Knights and Napoleon's Horse

The French are arrogant.  Everyone “knows” that.  The French think they are in all ways superior to everyone else, especially Americans.  In the Les Invalides I saw exhibits from Medieval days to World War II that demonstrated that arrogance. 

If I had been alone in Paris (as I was five years later) I would not have gone to the miliary museums at Les Invalides, but when I went with David, we spent a day there.

Les Invalides is a complex of buildings built by King Louis XIV for men who were wounded in his wars, “the invalids.”   For the next two centuries it provided retirement homes for French veterans.  Into the 1950's a few old men, pensioners from World War I, still occupied apartments there.

The buildings are arranged in  “U” shape. From a domed chapel at the top of the “U”, two long three-story buildings face each other across a wide green lawn.  Beyond the buildings the grassy area opens out into a park which stretches down for half a mile or so to the Eiffel Tower   A perfect “photo op” and I did not take out my camera.

(Ten years later John and I ate dinner in a restaurant on a side street near Les Invalides. Afterwards we walked down the park to the Eiffel Tower.  It was a gentle, balmy evening and we strolled slowly towards the Tower, brilliantly lighted against the dark sky.  As David and I had done ten years before, John and I took the crazy, 45-degree angled elevator to the upper deck, where we ate ice cream.  A magical evening, my “We’ll always have Paris.”)     

David and I entered one of the long buildings where we found ourselves facing an army of Medieval knights, enough suits of armor to outfit a regiment.  A row of stuffed horses, also sheathed in metal, carried knights on their backs, lances ready for a tournament.  Most of it was “dress” armor, beautifully engraved with coats of arms and heraldry, more suitable for wearing at court and on parades than for battle.  The French were always better at dressing up than fighting.  History tells us that cumbersome metal armor contributed to the French being defeated by the English at Agincourt and Crecy. 

David and I crossed the grassy lawn to the opposite building.  The first floor was devoted to Napoleon.  We saw his big tent, which he took with him on his various military campaigns – although I suspect that, rather than sleep on that narrow cot, he often appropriated a nearby palace.  I know Josephine joined him during the Italian campaign, staying in a beautiful marble villa on an island in Lake Maggiore.

I was fascinated by his traveling dressing case.  The size of a trunk, it was fitted with a silver basin, holders for toothbrush and razors, scissors, and whole variety of glass bottles and jars.  Did the Emperor perfume his face after shaving? 

Napoleon’s saddle was displayed on the back of his favorite horse, stuffed and looking very lifelike.  Maybe he was on the back of that horse when he fled back to Paris after his defeat at Waterloo.

Upstairs the second floor was devoted to showing how the French won World War I without any assistance from the British or the U.S. or anyone else.  Even more ridiculous was World War II exhibit on the third floor, where a photograph showed the Japanese surrendering to a French admiral on the deck of the U.S.S. Missouri.   I had never heard about any French fighting in the Pacific, but there was that photo to prove to the French that their admiral managed to be there after it was all over. 

C’est les Francaise.  I stammer when I try to speak French.  I can’t spell French words either.  I was trying to say, “That’s the French.”