France

This is one of John Oliver's best -- and most terrifying -- episodes. Personally, I am convinced that Marine Le Pen will win in the final round. Although I know nothing about the mechanics of French elections, my inner cynic understands that, if there is a way to game the system, the system will be gamed.

In an interview contained in this segment, Marine Le Pen declares her willingness to ban all head coverings, including yarmulkes and the turbans worn by Sikhs. In response, I present a rewritten version of  a piece first published in 2011, which was prompted by some outrageous statements made by French actress Juliette Binoche and American Congressman Peter King. Le Pen is, of course, far more dangerous than those two.

I've always been a Francophile. I've even concocted a singable English translation of La Marsellaise. (Go here and scroll down.) There is no beauty like a French beauty: Claudine Auger, Isabelle Adjani, Laetitia Casta...yow. Ye gods. (Ye goddesses?) If Marine Le Pen attains her goal, there would be no room in her nation's heart for the very first French girl to capture my heart. And here she is.



For the most part, this video reworks a collection of images taken from another video which you can find on YouTube. In this version, the soundtrack features Joseph Cantaloube's "Baïlèro," from his Songs of the Auvergne. I chose that lovely piece because it's sung in Occitan, the language of the Troubadors, the language of the Cathars, the language of King Richard the Lionheart (betcha didn't know that!) -- and of Bernadette Soubirous.

Long-time readers know of my embarrassing, inexplicable, life-long crush on Bernadette. Please understand: I'm not religious. I've almost never set foot inside a church except to look at the architecture.

I first learned about Bernadette's story during a childhood viewing of the film Song of Bernadette. In the film, Vincent Price plays the embodiment of 19th century anti-clerical rationalistic bah-humbug-ness. Although he's supposed to be the heavy, the movie cleverly leaves open the possibility that he's right about everything.

Then, around the age of 13, I stumbled across a photo of the real Bernadette. That round face...those piercing eyes...the flawless skin (never touched by cosmetics). Bernadette was, in my instant decision, the most beautiful girl in all of human history.

At that age, of course, puberty had kicked in, which meant that every few days there was a new "most beautiful girl in all human history." Bernadette held the office for a full month. Eventually, she was dethroned by Ann-Margaret in Kitten With a Whip.

Since then, I've read tons of stuff about Bernadette, and even had a glance (back when my French was much better) at Father Cros' magisterial study. That Jesuit scholar met her once and instantly developed a lifelong crush on her. Many in France felt similarly. She had something.

The apparitions? I don't know what caused them. Don't much care. That's the least interesting aspect of her life. She wasn't crazy -- in fact, she may have been closest thing to a rational well-known person the Second Empire had on offer. This peasant girl's indifference to sudden international fame is rather astonishing. (Consider the sad examples of such modern celebrities as Lindsey Lohan and Britney Spears.)

What tickles me is the stuff left out of hagiographies: Her life-long tobacco habit, her fondness for wine (she never drank to excess, but she did sneak bottles into the convent), her stint as a 13 year-old barmaid (her aunt fired her for dipping into the stocks), her Garbo-like aloofness, her flares of temper, the time she was tempted to run off with a handsome young priest, the postulants who formed "girl crushes" on her. There is also the possibility that something very troubling happened to her while working as a servant in Barthes -- a job she deserted just two weeks before you-know-what happened. (Zola once obliquely referred to this episode as the key to her story.)

She wasn't stupid. The Jennifer Jones movie got that part all wrong. She became a respected nurse, more or less running what we would now call a M.A.S.H. unit during the war with Bismarck.

So what does all of this have to do with the Marine Le Pen interview seen in the John Oliver episode embedded above?

Simply this: Bernadette never appeared in a single photograph with her head uncovered. The proof is in the video.

She was, by some accounts, the most photographed person of the 19th century -- despite the fact that she came to hate having her picture taken. (Note that she smiles only in the very earliest photos.) She was forced to adopt poses which she considered ridiculous. The whole business reeked of commercialization, which she detested.

Part of her commercial appeal was her costume -- specifically, the head covering.

This factor is probably invisible to modern Americans. She always wore traditional Pyrenean costume, which made her the most prominent representative of a culture considered quaint and charming -- a vanishing culture. A culture under attack.

Paradoxically, even as those photos spread throughout the nation, the French government was doing everything it could to wipe out the language and customs of her region. Occitan was forbidden in schools; the schools told children to speak only in French.

Today, a small but loud segment of the population of Occitania remains infuriated by the cultural imperialism imposed by Parisian dictates. If you know where to look, you'll find websites where Occitan nationalists express their fury at the French, whom they regard as foreigners.

That resentment may explain why Bernadette -- or Sister Marie-Bernard, as she was known in the convent of St. Gildard -- had only one thing to say when she heard that the Communists had burnt down the Tuileries (the royal palace): Good. That was one of the few political statements she ever uttered -- and it would have shocked the French right, had they known about it. (The monarchists had made her their poster girl.)

What she said in 1871 was the equivalent of a modern celebrity voicing approval for the burning of the White House. Or the fall of the Twin Towers.

Suppose Bernadette were alive today. (The corpse certainly looks like it could sit up and say bonjour.) Would she be welcome in a nation led by Marine Le Pen?

If she were alive today, I have no doubt that she would keep her head covered in defiance of the French law. If someone from Paris told Bernadette Soubirous that she could no longer wear the traditional costume of her people, her response probably would be -- well, rather unholy.

(Did I mention that Bernadette had a temper? She and her sister got into a fight that lasted for years.)

So, Mme. Le Pen: Would you have forced Bernadette to accept liberty, equality, fraternity -- and conformity?

Isn't there room in France -- and in America -- for those who do not speak, dress or believe as the majority does?

Added note: Although the song is in Occitan -- Bernadette's language -- she spoke the Gascon dialect; the song is in Auvergnat. She would have understood most of the lyrics, and may even have known the tune. (Cantaloube orchestrated a traditional folk song.) In her late teens, she learned to speak, read and write in French; her calligraphy was exquisite.