The October March of Women, 1789

" In the wee hours of October 6, 1789, a mob of peasant women broke into the Palace of Versailles. They had been encamped outside the chateau since the previous evening, awaiting an audience with my King, Louis XVI (16^th), and his Queen, Marie Antoinette.

The women had come from Paris and they were starving. Their children and their aged, as well, were starving. A terrible storm had wiped out France’s wheat crop that summer. Now the common folk had no bread, their main – and sometimes only – source of food. I followed them from Paris as they struggled to make the 20 kilometer journey on foot, afraid for my King, afraid of the power of the mob. As the women marched, their numbers grew. All along the route, I observed as more women dropped their washing and their brooms and left their children to join the fray. They arrived at Versailles in the thousands, demanding that King Louis and Marie Antoinette save them from their misery. Their hunger had driven them to madness. Waiting through the night for a response from the King had transformed their desperation to fury.

Before dawn, they stormed the Palace through a servants’ entrance. I pushed in amongst them, hoping to reach the King first, to warn him or hide him, I knew not what. But the scene was one of total mayhem. Frantic women rushed in all directions. They ran down gilded corridors, flew up marble staircases, burst through passageways reserved for servants. 'If they refuse to come out', was heard the mob’s collective cry, 'we’ll drag them out!' They searched for the King and Queen, their rage now whipped to a savage frenzy. They killed anyone who got in their way.
Before dawn, the King and Queen were found with their two children and the King’s sister, Madame Elizabeth, huddled like mice before a gang of hungry cats, still in their bedclothes in the King’s private apartments. They were forced to dress quickly and pressed into waiting carriages bound for Paris, driven there by the mob so that they might bear witness to the misery of their subjects.
They would never see Versailles again.

Some among the women accompanied the king and queen with the severed heads of royal guards held high upon pikes, like tattered, bloody flags. Others stayed behind and shouting, Down with the Monarchy! Down with the King!, they hurried about the chateau, smashing statuary and precious antiques, pilfering what could be carried, seizing foodstuffs from the immense Versailles kitchen: fresh pheasant and duck, salted pork, baskets of vegetables, and bread still baking in the ovens for that morning’s royal meal.

I do not recall the moment I became conscious that I was powerless to save my King. But I do remember being gripped with the urgent imperative to save the King’s Garden. In a flash I knew, without thinking, that I, Antoine Laurent de Jussieu – the fourth member of my family to bear the title, Botanist-in-Chief to the King – was obliged to confront the mob to save the legacy of two centuries of adventurers and natural scientists, even if it meant my death.
The mob’s force was not diminished by its destruction of the chateau interior. The women’s anger only expanded with their ferocity, like a volcano whose vigor has been pent up for too long. And indeed, it did not take long for them to spill out into the Royal Gardens, intent on further rampage.
I was waiting for them. The botanists, master-gardeners, and under-gardeners of the Palace of Versailles were all waiting for them. We faced the mob armed only with the tools of our labors: shovels, spades, sickles and shears meant for pruning dead or dying leaves and branches from flowers and trees. We assembled to defend with our lives our life’s work: the plants and trees which for two hundred years had travelled to us from the far corners of the earth, and which we had so tenderly coaxed to adapt and thrive in the French soil and climate.
A woman with wrath in her eyes stepped out of the crowd. 'Move aside,' she bellowed. 'These gardens belong to the people, now.'
'Madam,' I said, taking a step forward as well. 'These gardens have always belonged to the people. They provide beauty for our pleasure as well as nourishment and medicine for our health. For 120 years, the products of the Versailles gardens have graced the King’s table and cured his ills. Destroy them and you destroy the means by which we may now help you to feed and care for your hungry children.'
An eerie hush fell upon the crowd. All that could be heard was the whisper of the pre-dawn winds through the trees and bushes of the vast gardens of Versailles. I gripped my ax; my heart raced as blood rushed to my pounding temples. It was the longest moment of my life. Finally, I heard hope rise from deep within the crowd. I heard the words that I knew would save the gardens, the words that would allow me to breathe again. I heard the words that would mean salvation for the botanical wonders of the Versailles Palace.
'Long Live the King’s Garden!' someone shouted. 'Long Live the Garden of Plants!' cried another, changing the name of the garden to make it acceptable to the people. And then it grew, little by little until it was a resounding chorus: 'Vive le Jardin des Plantes! Long Live the Garden of Plants!'

And all at once, the chant shifted again. 'To Paris!' the women cried. And as they retreated, the gardens were flooded with the first light of a new dawn. The inheritance of two centuries of the blood and sweat of French plant hunters, botanists, and gardeners was saved, and it glowed in gratitude to those of us who had defended it."

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Excerpted from the Time Traveler Paris Tours: Long Live the King's Garden, by Sarah B. Towle (copyright 2009), expected launch date: March 2010.

Images:
Versailles, the Chateau, exterior facade, views from southwest, Google Earth, courtesy of Wikimedia Commons.

Triumph of the Parisian Army and the People, from http://chnm.gmu.edu/revolution/d/230/.

Portrait of Antoine-Laurent de Jussieu, nephew of the de Jussieu brothers, Galerie des naturalistes de J. Pizzetta, Ed. Hennuyer, 1893, courtesy of Wikimedia Commons.

1735 French Expedition to Measure Earth - Part III

…Dessert at Christophe's was pineapple, carmelized with cinnamon – deee-licious! – topped off with a finger of Armagnac. Between sips, I told the Uber-Mensch everything he wanted to know about what happened to the ten members of the greatest scientic expedition the world has ever known.

Charles-Marie de La Condamine, adventurer, geographer, and mathematician, made it back to France in 1745 a hero. After ten years spent proving the earth's shape, he then set off to chart the 3000-mile course of the Amazon River from the Andes to the Atlantic, something no European had ever done before.

Pierre Bouguer, who signed on as the mission’s astronomer (he had been a child prodigy in math, famous for making celestial observations at sea) returned to France at the expedition’s end. He remained a productive scientist until his death at the age of 60, in 1758. Among his achievements were the invention of the heliometer, used for measuring the diameters of planets, as well as his studies of the properties of light, which earned him posthumous recognition as “the father of photometry”.

Jean Verguin, a naval engineer and draftsman whose job was to draw the expedition’s maps, enjoyed a prosperous career upon his return to France and lived a long, healthy life.

But not all their stories had happy endings.

Three of the expedition's members died in South America: Couplet, one of two assistants charged with advanced mapping and identification of the best geographical locations for each new research point, died from fever. Surprisingly, he was the only one to succumb as fever constantly preyed on the French scientists. Morainville, an engineer who built the observatories needed for the team’s celestial measurements, suffered a fatal injury after falling from a scaffold. The expedition surgeon, Senièrgues, whose job was to tend to the medical needs of the expedition members, was attacked and killed by a mob, angry at the way the Frenchman openly flirted with their women.

Hugo, the watchmaker responsible for the care and maintenance of the scientific instruments, simply disappeared.

Joseph de Jussieu, the expedition’s botanist whose story is recounted here, would take 36 years to return to France, and not by choice. At times his skills were considered so valuable that he was forbidden to depart by the local authorities, such as when he was made to care for the sick during a 1745 outbreak of smallpox. At other times he was ready to leave, but prevented in other ways, like when a 1746 tidal wave destroyed the port from which he was set to sail. Eventually, in 1771, he returned to Paris, a frail and broken man. His mind was shattered, his body would soon follow. Eight years later, he died, at the age of 74, eulogized as a “martyr to science”.

Louis Godin, mathematician, astronomer, and nominal leader of the expedition, was forced, like de Jussieu, to stay in Peru. He remained for 16 years under orders of the government, returning to his wife and two children only in 1751. He was never the same. In 1760, at the age of 56, he died from an attack of apoplexy.

And then there is the story of Louis' nephew, Jean Godin, who joined the expedition as an ambitious youth with a desire for adventure. His twenty-year separation from his Peruvian wife is one of the most tragic and romantic tales the world has ever known.

You can read about the story of the assistant mapmaker and his devoted bride in The Mapmaker's Wife, by Robert Whitaker.

Images:

Map of La Condamine's travels found at www.enchantedlearning.com.

Portraits of Pierre Bouguer and Louis Godin, courtesy of Wikimedia Commons.

What's in a Name? - The de Jussieu Brothers

Once upon a time there were three French brothers: Antoine, Bernard, and Joseph de Jussieu. Sons of a reputable apothecary, they all studied to be doctors at a time when medical science was based on curing physical ailments and disease with the use of herbs and plants. Indeed, the brothers’ interest in the discovery and cultivation of healing plants led them each, in turn, to the study of natural science. Today, they are celebrated in France as among Europe’s earliest botanists. Their legacy still abounds on a springtime visit to the Versailles gardens or to Paris' Jardin de Plantes.

Antoine, the eldest, became director of the King’s Garden in Paris in 1708, a few years before the death of King Louis XIV. Louis XV, who succeeded his grandfather to the throne at the tender age of five, cared little for the garden for many years. It fell on hard times then, with Antoine keeping it going out of his own pocket. Once, he even carried two small cedars back from England in his hat, unable to afford proper transport. These hardy trees continue to survive today and are among the tallest, if not the oldest, trees in the garden now known as the Jardin de Plantes.

Bernard came to Paris in 1722 at the invitation of his brother. Antoine needed competent and trustworthy help and Bernard, after taking his medical degree at Montpellier University, found he could not stand the sight of blood. Working with plants was much more to his liking.

As he came of age, so did King Louis XV, and so, too, did the age of Enlightenment and the development of scienctific inquiry. Louis XV hired Bernard away to Versailles to create a botanical garden at the Grand Trianon. Bernard filled the garden with exotic flowers and plants, such as the heliotrope, which his brother, Joseph, sent to him from Peru.

Joseph was the most adventuresome of the three brothers. In 1735, when King Louis XV extended him an invitation to join “the greatest scientific expedition the world has ever known”, Joseph jumped on it. The expedition, led by Charles Marie de la Condamine, sailed to Peru to measure the arc of the earth’s meridian in an attempt to prove the greatest question of the day: What was the true size and shape of the planet earth? The team of eight astrologers, engineers, mathematicians, and map-makers that Joseph accompanied spent 10 arduous years substantiating the theories of young Isaac Newton.

Perhaps Joseph would have made a different choice had he known he’d be gone from France for 36 years. He returned to Paris in 1771, at the age of 74, physically broken and having lost his mind. But during his time in Peru he made many important discoveries for France, all of which found their place in the King’s Garden:

In addition to the heliotrope, he confirmed that the bark of the cinchona tree furnished a tonic called quinine, capable of reducing high fever. This would become an important substance in curing malaria.

He also discovered that the coca shrub, whose leaves he observed the Indians chewing with obvious enjoyment, created a strong analgesic able to cure pain. He called this substance, cocaine.

Finally, he sent back notes on a plant found in the Amazon jungle by La Condamine that he was certain would be of commercial importance. The plant produced a remarkably elastic resin that was impervious to moisture. When fresh, it could be molded to any shape – bottle, bowl, or boot – that, when dry, did not break. Once back in French hands, the plant, called “rubber”, helped to spark the Industrial Revolution.

Meanwhile, back at Versailles, Bernard was arranging all the plants in the garden of the Grand Trianon according to his own scheme of plant classification. His 1759 improvements on the existing system, developed by Swedish botanist and contemporary Carl Linneaus, sorted natural organisms by both “genus” (generic name) and “family” (specific member within a genus) using universal Latinate names. Even today, Bernard's system of binomial nomenclature remains in international use much as he conceived it. Though a breakthrough for the field of natural science at the time, Bernard was a retiring, humble man not inclined to publish his ideas. He would leave it to his nephew, Antoine-Laurent, another celebrated de Jussieu botanist, to make his classification system known to the world.

Today, the de Jussieu brothers are remembered in a few quiet ways: They are the namesake of both a Sorbonne University campus as well as its neighboring Paris Metro station. Also, on July 26, 1998, the main-belt Asteroid 9470 Jussieu was named in honor of the three French brothers.

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For more on the Versailles and Paris gardens, the "greatest scientific expedition the world has ever known", and the de Jussieu brothers, stay tuned for the Time Traveler Paris Tours: Love Live the King's Garden! Coming out soon...

Sources:

Duval, Marguerite. The King’s Garden. Charlottesville: University of VA: 1982. Translated from the original, La planete des fluers, 1977, by Annette Tomarken & Claudine Cowen.

http://httpyavww.knight.org/cathen/08569a.htm

www.wikipedia.com

Images:
Image of Bernard de Jussieu courtesy of Wikimedia Commons.

Photograph of the Jardins de Plants in Paris by Benh, courtesy of Wikimedia Commons.

Painting of a young Issac Newton by Godfrey Kneller, courtesy of Wikimedia Commons.

Photograph of Cinchona plant courtesy of the United States Geological Survey and Wikimedia Commons.

Photograph of tapped Rubber tree courtesty of Wikimedia Commons.

Photograph of Heliotrope by http://www.nga.gov/feature/sculpturegarden/plantings/summer/images/heliotrope-fs.jpg