Word: ajaccio
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Dates: during 1960-1969
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...seemed to want nothing so much as a descent from the Gaullist heights. But the idea that Frenchmen would settle for such a passive role plainly grated on Pompidou. Perhaps France could have happiness and honor, gratification and glory? Nowhere did Pompidou express that view more trenchantly than at Ajaccio, Corsica, birthplace of Napoleon. Marking the bicentennial of Napoleon's birth last month, Pompidou pointed out: "In fact, he did not find happiness and, let me add, never bestowed it on France. However, despite the lack of happiness, he attained the pinnacles of grandeur, and endowed France with...
Protesting his final exile to St. Helena, Napoleon declared: "I appeal to history." Last week a guide in Napoleon's birthplace in Ajaccio, taking some liberties with that history, described a movable plank in the floor as "the trap door through which Napoleon had to escape from his admirers when he returned from Egypt." One visitor pointed out that on an earlier visit he had been told Napoleon had used the trap door to escape his enemies, who burned down the house. The guide agreed. "Yes, that's what we used to say, but they've changed...
...heroes. Paris hairdressers decreed the N line: a lock dangling over the forehead. For three dollars, one may acquire a replica of the Emperor's will on pseudo parchment with an imitation red seal. Says an official of the Bonapartist political party that has ruled Ajaccio for over a century: "When we Corsicans put our right hand inside our coat like the Emperor, it's on our heart. Others are feeling for their wallet...
...stays. "Imagine being able to wash your hands with Napoleon," exults Xavier Moreschi, the chief Corsican commercializer of the bicentennial in Paris, who is already actively preparing the celebration of the 150th anniversary of Napoleon's death in 1971. "Sure, they get indignant about that back home in Ajaccio, but a guy who can sell soap when he has been dead almost 150 years must be somebody...
...more widely held view was expressed by an Ajaccio lycée history teacher, André Fazi: "All things considered, Napoleon's balance sheet seems positive. I'll admit, though, that Bonaparte the revolutionary Consul was more admirable than Napoleon the Emperor. As somebody said, they should have killed Napoleon at the foot of a statue of Bonaparte...