Thursday, September 25, 2008
Daum Frères Carafe with Lorraine crosses
From Musée d'Orsay collection
see more detail
here
http://www.musee-orsay.fr/en/collections/works-in-focus/decorative-arts/commentaire_id/carafe-with-lorraine-crosses-9003.html?tx_commentaire_pi1[pidLi]=846&tx_commentaire_pi1[from]=843&cHash=e81f78f391
cross lorraine article
Cross of Lorraine
In the last resort, everything depended on the Prime Minister. He, deep down, could not bring himself to admit the independence of Free France. What was more, Mr. Churchill, each time we came into collision on account of the interests for which we were respectively responsible, treated our disagreement as a personal thing. He was hurt by it and grieved . . . This attitude of mind and sentiment, added to the devices of his political tactics, plunged him into fits of anger which gave our relationship some rude shocks. —Charles de Gaulle: The Call to Honor
In these pages various severe statements, based on the events of the moment, are set down about General de Gaulle, and certainly I had continuous difficulties and many sharp antagonisms with him. There was however a dominant element in our relationship. I could not regard him as representing captive and prostrate France, nor indeed the France that had a right to decide freely the future for herself. I knew he was no friend of England. —Winston Churchill: The Hinge of Fate
These embittered opinions last week seemed long ago and far away. Mellowed by events, tall, uniformed General Charles de Gaulle, 67, and aging Sir Winston Churchill, 83, met for the first time in 14 years in the gardens of the Hotel Matignon, the Paris office-residence of the Premiers of France. The grey, windswept day, with leaves blowing across the garden, had an autumnal look, as did the two figures involved—one in topcoat and scarf, leaning heavily on a stick, and the other still erect but no longer trim. As some 60 top-ranking British and French officers and officials crowded around, De Gaulle pinned to Churchill's overcoat the two-barred Cross of Lorraine, symbol of the Order of Liberation, the highest decoration of the Free French forces.*
As if to mock Churchill's famed crack that the Cross of Lorraine was the heaviest he had to bear, he was presented with a cross carved out of pure crystal and weighing three pounds. No sly repayment of old wounds was intended (A great leader, De Gaulle once wrote, "only slightly tastes the savor of his revenge, because action absorbs him entirely"). Instead, removing his two-starred kepi, De Gaulle gave Churchill the standard French embrace of a peck on both cheeks.
Visibly moved, Churchill thanked his "old friend and comrade, General de Gaulle," and added that he is "the symbol of the soul of France and the unbreakable integrity of her spirit in adversity." Churchill said all this in English, recalling that in wartime he had often spoken to Frenchmen in their own language, but now did not "wish to subject you to the ordeal of darker and sterner days."
De Gaulle, in French, replied: "I want him to know this: he who has just had the honor of decorating him esteems him and admires him today more than ever." De Gaulle ended the brief ceremony by crying: "Vive Churchill! Vive I'Angleterre! Vive la France!"
* Awarded to 1,054 members, including two heads of state—President Eisenhower and King Mohammed V of Morocco as well as to seven listed only as "X," whose names are kept in sealed envelopes against the future day when their services to France can be revealed.
Monday, September 8, 2008
F. R. Nord the mysterious explorer, author
If you can tell me anything about this author please leave comments.
If you can read German and can translate into english or can tell anything about this pamphlet please do.
I found this in a volume of german weekly magazines from between the great wars.
I can not find anything much in english about this "explorer", although a german fellow told me this is a work of fiction based on explorations in Russian, Tibet, Mongolia, etc.
Who is this "F.R. Nord" ????
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