Chapter 11 France has it all

It is often heard that although the French live on the mainland and the British live on the rainy and lonely islands, the French, who have always been detached, are more isolated and conservative than the British.In short, the French, through their obstinate indifference to international affairs, have become a most selfish and egotistical people, and are the scourge of most troubles at present. We must go back to the source to have a thorough understanding of all this.Geographical environment and psychological characteristics are deeply rooted in any nation.Geography and mentality are inseparable. Geography shapes mentality, and mentality is also transforming geography.Abandoning one of them and discussing the other in isolation is a one-sided approach.We can understand the peculiarities of most peoples if we go deep into the nature of geography and mentality.

It is precisely because of this fact that the French were constantly blamed, and during the World Wars they were praised without reserve.For the geography of this country is the direct cause of their virtues and vices.Their superior geographical position between the Atlantic Ocean and the Mediterranean Sea allows them to be completely self-sufficient, so their self-righteousness and arrogance arise.If you can enjoy the pleasant climate and beautiful scenery in your own backyard, why go to other countries to seek changes? If you go from a pleasant and verdant old castle to a mysterious town full of sand dunes and pines, or from 20 From the 12th century back to the 12th century, it only takes a few hours by train, so why travel to a foreign country, learn a strange language, and get acquainted with different habits and customs? If spinach can be fried into a dish that everyone likes to eat Why put up with bad food and sour wine and the dull, stiff, vulgar faces of northern farmers, if their food and family and friends are not bad compared with any other country, then why bother To bother about passports and cheques?

Of course, the poor Swiss sees nothing but mountains all his life, and the poor Dutchman sees nothing but a few black-and-white cows and a little flat green meadow.If they do not often travel abroad, they will die of boredom and boredom.Sooner or later, Germans will tire of the extravagant dining habits of munching on bland sausage sandwiches while playing good music.It is also impossible for Italians to eat spaghetti all their lives.Surely the Russians also want to be able to comfortably eat an occasional meal without standing in a six-hour line for half a pound of margarine. Compared with these people, the French are so lucky that they live a life in paradise on earth.In France, what you want is easy to get, so the French ask themselves: "Is it necessary to leave home?"

You can call the French stubborn, paranoid, and say the French are wrong.I wish I could agree with you.However, the French are indeed unique in many respects. They have the gift of God and the blessing of geography. First of all, temperate climates, tropical climates and temperate climates in between, the French have all kinds of climate conditions.France has the highest peak in Europe, and a network of canals extending in all directions spreads over its flat land, connecting various industrial centers in France.A Frenchman can go to a small village in Savoy on the west side of the Alps, and he can pass the winter by skiing on the slopes.If he prefers swimming to skiing, he can just buy a ticket and ride to Biarritz on the Atlantic coast or Cannes on the Mediterranean coast.If he is interested in characters, he just needs to sit in the Peace Cafe in Paris, order a cup of coffee with milk, and wait quietly.Sooner or later, the men and women, young and old, who have made the front pages of the world's newspapers pass by.These were the princes who were exiles and the exiles who would become princes, or the violinists and pianists, or the promising actors and actresses, and those who made the stars under the mercury lamp Princes and common people fascinated by dancers, approached their voices, looked at their appearance, and their presence never attracted any special attention, because it happened every day for 1500 years. A king, an emperor, not even the pope himself, is more conspicuous than a freshman on campus.

It is here that we encounter a geopolitical riddle. 2,000 years ago, this area was flying the tricolor flag of the Republic (this flag was flying day and night, once the French took up a tricolor flag, they would never let it go down, unless the years and wind and rain had worn it out. I have identified it), most of it is on the Western European plain between the Atlantic Ocean and the Mediterranean Sea. Why did it develop into the most centralized country in the world one day? The reason obviously does not have any geography aspect factors. A geographical point of view believes that climate and geographical conditions play a decisive role in the fate of human beings.These two factors undoubtedly play this role, but definitely not forever.Sometimes the opposite is true.The Moors and the Spaniards once lived in the same land. Over the Guadalquivir Valley, the 1200-year sun was no different from the 1600-year sun. Blessing, but in 1600, the light of curse was shot on the abandoned water canal, the weeds all over the sky, and the scorched wilderness here.

There are four nationalities in Switzerland who speak four languages, but they all feel the warmth of a big family.Although there are only two ethnic groups in Belgium, they hate each other, and even desecrate the graves of each other's soldiers as a weekend pastime.The Icelanders guard a small island the size of a tiny pellet, and their independence and self-government have been maintained for more than a thousand years.Both are islanders, and the Irish still don't know what it means to be "independent".Things are often like this.No matter how far machinery, science and all kinds of standardization develop, the most unstable and unreliable factor in all things is still human nature, and many incredible and unpredictable changes are created by human nature , the world map is a living example, and the objective situation in France can just prove this point.

Politically, France is a whole country.However, if you look closely at the map, you will notice that France is actually made up of two parts, back to back and relatively independent of each other, the southeast is the Rhône basin towards the Mediterranean Sea, and the northwest is towards the Atlantic Ocean vast plains. Start with this oldest part of the Rhône Valley.The Rhone River is an inconspicuous river. It originated from Switzerland and did not play its important role until it left Geneva and headed towards Lyon, the center of the French textile industry.The Rhone joins the Saône at Lyon.The source of the Saône is not far from the source of the Meuse, and just as the Saône (along with the Rhone) played an important role in the rise and fall of southern Europe, so the Meuse is inseparable from the history of northern Europe.When the Rhone flows from its source into the Bay of Lion, its drop has reached 6,000 feet, thus creating a lot of turbulence, which is not conducive to navigation, and the modern steamer has never been able to completely conquer this great river.

Even so, because ancient labor—the slave resource—was very cheap, it provided the ancient Phoenicians and ancient Greeks with a convenient passage into the heart of Europe.If the boat goes downstream, it only takes a few days, while the upstream boat must be pulled by those "ancient Volga" trackers (whose fate is not at all bad compared with their Russian counterparts).Through the Rhone Valley, the ancient Mediterranean civilization knocked on the door of the European interior for the first time.Oddly enough, Marseilles, the earliest commercial stronghold in that region (and still France's most important Mediterranean port) was situated a few miles east of the mouth of the river (which is now connected to the Rhone by a canal), rather than directly Built at the mouth of the Rhone River.But Marseille did not choose the wrong location.As early as the 3rd century BC, Marseilles had become an important commercial center, and coins from Marseilles had flowed into the surrounding areas of Paris and the Austrian Tyrol.Moreover, Marseille quickly became the capital of this region and its northern regions.

The city of Marseille later suffered misfortune.Threatened by barbarians in the Alps, the citizens of Marseilles invited the Romans to come to their aid.Of course the Romans came over, but according to their usual style, they stayed in Marseilles.Rome turned the Rhone estuary into a "provincia" of its own, namely Provence.The region of Marseilles has played an important role in history, silently attesting to the fact that it was not the Phoenicians and Greeks, but the Romans, who recognized the importance of this fertile delta. Thus, one of the most confusing historical and geographical mysteries appeared again: Provence, which combines Greek civilization and Roman civilization, has an open Mediterranean Sea in front, and a vast central plain in northern Europe, with fertile land and an ideal climate. Conditions, with all the natural advantages, destined to become the natural successor of Rome, and it seems to be able to win, but it has become the loser in this competition.In the battle between Caesar and Pompey, Provence was a supporter of Pompey, and finally, Caesar destroyed the city (Pompeii, statesman and general in the late Roman Republic, 106-48 BC. 48 BC He was defeated by Caesar in 1999 and fled to ancient Egypt, but was attacked by the ancient Egyptians and killed——Translator's Note).However, this is just a small episode in the history of Marseille.Soon, the Maasai started business again in this place, as well as science, art, literature and etiquette, and since they had no place to stay in Rome, they fled across the Ligurian Sea to Provence, where it became a An isolated island of civilization surrounded by barbarians.

When the rich and powerful Pope could not stand in the city on the Tiber (in the Middle Ages, the Roman mob was not much better than wolves and as murderous as American robbers), they moved the papacy to Argentina. Vignon.The reason why Avignon is famous in history is because the giant bridge built by humans for the first time is here (this bridge was a wonder of the world in the 12th century, but now most of it is submerged in the bottom of the river).The popes also owned a castle in Avignon that could withstand hundreds of sieges and was as strong as an iron barrel. In the following 100 years, Provence became the residence of Christian leaders, and the Holy See knights played a role in the Crusades. The status is very prominent, and one of the Provence hairpin families became the hereditary ruler of Constantinople.

But, for some reason, the Creator, when he created this lovely, fertile, romantic valley, bestowed upon Provence the divine power, but she did not use it.The valley of Provence gave birth to lyric poets, but although they are considered the founders of a genre of lyric literature (in novels, plays, and poems, the lyric literary genre they created still has a place today), the soft Provencal dialect has not. Can become the lingua franca throughout France.France was founded by the North (and its dialect), the French nation was created by the North, and it was the North that sent the colorful essence of French culture to the world. However, the North does not have the various natural advantages of the South.Before 1600, no one could have imagined that such a change would happen, because at that time it was believed that this great plain from the Pyrenees in the south to the Baltic Sea in the north would definitely be included in the territory of the Great Teutonic Empire.Yes, that was a geographical arrangement, and human beings had no interest in it, so the earth-shaking changes occurred. For the Romans in Caesar's time, this part of Europe was their far west.The Romans called this place Gaul because it was inhabited by the Gauls, a mysterious people with blond hair (the Greeks called them the Celts).At that time, there were two groups of Gauls living there. The earliest one lived in the Po River Valley between the Alps and the Apennines. ".This band of Gauls had been left behind when Caesar bravely crossed the Rubicon in a desperate attempt.The other group is called "Gauls beyond the mountains" or "Gauls on the other side of the mountains". After Caesar's expedition, this group of Gauls had a special relationship with today's France.It was the first choice of lean Roman colonial rulers, because it was a fertile land and the locals would not put up strong resistance to taxation. The mountain pass between the Vosges in the north and the Jura in the south is not dangerous, and the Roman army (the majority of infantry) can drive straight to this place.Soon, Roman castles, Roman villages, Roman markets, Roman churches, Roman prisons, Roman theaters and Roman factories were dotted all over the French plain.There is an island in the Seine River, this island is called Lutetia (the ancient name of Paris today), it is an ideal place to build the Temple of Jupiter.The place where Notre Dame de Paris stands today is where the temple used to be.The island is inhabited by Celts, who still live in log houses. This small island later developed into the stronghold of the Roman Empire in the west. This is because the small island can be directly navigated to Great Britain (the most profitable Roman colony in the 1st-4th centuries AD) A volatile region has a containment status. The ability of the ancient Romans to find their way across oceans and mountains at that time, as mentioned in the previous chapter "Map", we are sometimes puzzled by it, but it is not mysterious.In terms of location selection, the ancient Romans had a special instinct, no matter whether they built ports, castles, or commercial ports, and they never made mistakes.After six rainy weeks in the Paris Basin, a casual tourist asks himself, "Why did the ancient Romans choose such a wretched place as their stronghold for their western and northern colonies?" Open Map of northern France, geographers have given the answer to this question. Millions of years ago, frequent earthquakes messed up the region, and the peaks and valleys were pushed back and forth like chips on a gambling table.Four thick layers of rocks from different periods were constantly turned over, and finally layered one on top of the other, just like the saucers in a Chinese tea set, they were stacked together.Stretching from the Vosges to Brittany is the lowest and largest "saucer", whose western edge is hidden deep under the English Channel.From Lorraine to the coast of Normandy is the second layer of "saucer".The third tier, the "saucers", is the famous Champagne region, which surrounds the fourth tier, which was once known as the Ile-de-France, which is aptly called.The Seine, Marne, Tévey and Oise rivers surround the island, and in the center of the island is Paris.It can prevent the invasion of foreign enemies to the greatest extent, which means safety, absolute safety.Because the enemy must first attack the steep extension of these "saucers", and the defenders have already stood in the best defensive position at this time, in case they accidentally lose, they can calmly retreat to the next "saucers "The defensive line, they were able to fall back four times in a row before falling back to that little island in the Seine.Finally, they were able to burn the few outer bridges around the island, and the island became an impregnable fortress. Of course, it is still possible for Paris to be taken by a determined and well-armed enemy, but this is very difficult, as the world war not long ago proved the same.It was not only the brave British and French armies that kept the Germans out of Paris, but also geological changes millions of years ago that had erected numerous obstacles to stop the enemy's westward advance. In order to fight for the independence of the nation, the French launched a struggle for nearly a thousand years.However, the French can sit back and relax as long as they are optimistic about their west gate, while most countries have to guard the four-sided borders that are not related to each other.This is the reason why France can develop into a highly centralized modern country faster than other European countries. Low ridges naturally divide all of western France, between the Vosges, the Cévennes and the Atlantic Ocean, into separate basins and peninsulas.The valleys of the Seine and Oise are at the westernmost point, and a natural channel connects them with the Belgian plain, and the city of Saint-Quentin has been the throat of this channel since ancient times.The city of Saint-Quentin later developed into a railway transportation center. When the German army attacked Paris in 1914, the city was one of the main targets of the Germans. Through the Pass of Orleans, the Seine River Valley and the Loire River Valley are connected.In the history of France, the Orleans region has played a very important role.The French national hero, Joan of Arc is also known as the "Virgin of Orleans", and the largest railway station in Paris is also called Orleans Railway Station. The origin of these two names is closely related to the important geographical location of the city of Orleans, which is located in the north-south transportation fortress. of.The armored knights in the Middle Ages fought bloody battles for the Orleans Pass, and today's railway companies are also fighting for the Orleans Junction.The world is constantly advancing, but often the farther it advances, the more it repeats the past. Today, the Poitiers railway line connects the Loire Valley with the Garonne Valley.It was near this Poitiers that the advance of the Moors to Europe was stopped by Charles Martel in 732 AD.It was also in Poitiers that the French army was completely wiped out by the Black Prince in 1356 AD, and the British rule in France was extended for another 100 years . The famous Gascony region, located south of the vast Garonne River valley, is the birthplace of the fearless hero Captain Dartanin and the noble King Henry IV.The Gascony region is directly linked to the Provence region and the Rhône valley through the Toulouse-Narrbonne valley on the Garonne.Narbonne, located on the shore of the Mediterranean Sea, was once the oldest settlement of the ancient Romans in Gaul. Like all ancient trade routes of its kind (a route that has been used for thousands of years before recorded history began), the Pass of Orleans will always be a cash cow for someone.Its history of extortion and profiteering is as old as humanity.If you have doubts, please go to any mountain pass and look for the narrowest part of the road 1,000 years ago, where you will see ruins of old castles in twos and threes, or even dozens.If you have a little knowledge of ancient history, different stone walls will tell you: in 50 BC, in 600 AD, in 800 AD, in 1100 AD, in 1250 AD, in 1350 AD, in 1500 AD, Some bandits and gangsters built castles here and forcibly extorted tolls from merchants. Sometimes, you will be surprised to find that those places are not a pile of desolate ruins, but a prosperous city.But the bastions, towers, moat cliffs, and fortifications of Carcassonne will show you how strong a fortress of the pass must have been fortified against a murderous and hungry foe, and survived to this day. This concludes the geographical overview of France.A brief introduction is now made to the characteristics of these inhabitants who lived between the Atlantic Ocean and the Mediterranean Sea.A sense of coordination and balance is one thing they all have in common.It could almost be said that the French have always striven to be "organized", if that word doesn't conjure up your associations of "dry, rigid and pedantic". Yes, the French own the highest peak in Europe——Mont Blanc, but this is just a coincidence, just as the general public in the United States has no interest in the Painted Desert, the French people have no interest in the ice and snow of Mont Blanc at all. indifferent.The French know little more than villages (which are the greatest power in any country) and small towns (where people still obey their ancestors 5,000 or 500 years ago) lived, or endeavored to maintain, that life) and Paris—a city where the noblest life and the greatest ideas vanished more than a thousand years ago.What the French love is Meuse, Guienne, Normandy, and Picardy. The mountains are undulating and patchwork; , dense and hazy; all the beautiful scenery of the central moment are all included in the painting by Watteau (French painter, 1684-1721, created a lyrical style of painting, with a tendency of realism——translator's note). During the World Wars, there were some grotesque stories imposed on people, which were sentimental and unrealistic, but the French were not like that.On the contrary, the French are always able to keep their feet on the ground. They are the most rational and earnest realists.The French understand that a person has only one life and that 70 years is the life expectancy of a person.Therefore, he will never waste time to dream of higher dreams, but try his best to let himself enjoy the real life comfortably.Life is like this, we should fully enjoy life! Since food is the love of modern people, let the poorest people also learn cooking skills.Since fine wine was the proper drink of a true Christian as early as the time of Jesus Christ, make the best fine wine.Since the Almighty God thinks that the earth should be filled with all kinds of things that cater to the sense of sight, hearing and smell, then we should not disappoint the gift of God, but should fully enjoy all these things, because it is the Almighty God who does so the meaning of.Since the power of the collective is stronger than that of the individual, we should closely rely on the cell of this society—the family. The family will be responsible for everyone's joys, sorrows, sorrows, and joys. the power of.This is the ideal side of French life. But there is another side of French life that is less "ideal".This unideal aspect is also directly born out of the characteristics described above.Families can often turn life from romantic beauty to horrific nightmare.Numerous grandmas and grandpas hold the power of the family, and it is they who have become stumbling blocks blocking the progress of history.For posterity, the virtue of frugality degenerates into miserliness, plundering, stealing, deceit, and extortion, and even degenerates into penny-pinching for every necessities of life, and even charity has become stingy.If the generosity and friendliness of men ceased to exist, the existence of civilization must also be dimmed. In short, no matter how poor and humble his origin is, any Frenchman has a pragmatic philosophy of life, which allows him to exchange the least effort for the greatest satisfaction.For example, because the French know that people are inherently unequal, he will never aim too high.If you tell the French that every young American has the potential to become the president of the bank where he works, the French will say: "So what?" They don't want to work hard for it! What's the point of spending three hours on lunch? It's good to spend these three hours making money, but it's not worth giving up comfort and happiness.Of course, the Frenchman is working hard to make money, his wife and children are making money, the whole country is making money, but they are making money and living in the way they like, and they never care what other people think .Such is the French cleverness, which, though it does not make the French rich, secures the greatest happiness even more than the creed of "success" professed in other countries. When it comes to the sea, I don't even need to say that the inhabitants of the sea live by fishing.Of course they live by fishing.What else could they do? Milking cows or digging coal mines? However, linking this topic to local agriculture reveals an interesting phenomenon: while most of the country's population has been absorbed into cities over the past 100 years, 60% of the French population has remained countryside.France is the only country in Europe which can withstand a long siege without importing grain from other countries.Modern advanced science and technology gradually replaced the ancient farming methods, and French farmers no longer farmed like their ancestors in the era of Charlemagne and Clovis, and the French were completely self-sufficient. French peasants are all landowners, so they can continue to stay in the countryside.His farm might not even be called a real farm, but it was his own.In England and East Prussia, the two great European countries of the Old World, those big landowners who did not know who they were and where they were located owned a lot of land, and the French Revolution completely wiped out the big landowners, whether he was aristocrat or The priest, whose fields were allotted to small farmers.It was not easy for the big landowners to accept this form of distribution, but it was by the same coercion that their ancestors seized the land, so what difference does it make? Moreover, the agrarian revolution It has created huge benefits for the whole of France, and it makes more than half of France's population closely related to the lifeline of the country.Everything has advantages and disadvantages.However, it also overinflated nationalist sentiment in France.Why are the French only willing to communicate with people in their own village even if they move to Paris?Why are the streets of Paris filled with countless small hotels that serve people from a certain area?This localism is the best footnote.Why are the French so reluctant to emigrate?He is satisfied with his own country, why should he go to other countries! Let's talk about French agriculture.Because of winemaking, a large part of France is firmly tied to the land.The entire Garonne valley is a server of wine culture.Bordeaux near the mouth of the Garonne River is the export center of wine, and the famous wine export port in the Rhone River Basin is Sète on the shore of the Mediterranean Sea.Just south of Bordeaux lies the vast Landes plain, a land of mud, shepherds on stilts and flocks of sheep that live outdoors all year round.All the wines produced in the Burgundy region gather in Dijon, while Reims, the ancient crowned city of France, is the center of champagne. Industry became a new pillar industry when food production and wine brewing were no longer able to sustain the lifeline of the nation.The emperors of ancient France were nothing but a bunch of arrogant morons who only knew how to brutally squeeze the people and spend a lot of money on the beautiful ladies of the Palace of Versailles.The French court was turned into the world center of fashion and civilized life by them. People from all over the world flocked to learn their elegant etiquette and understand the difference between eating and eating.What is the world supposed to be wearing today, 150 years after France's last old-fashioned ruler was decapitated and thrown into quicklime in a Parisian cemetery?How should I wear it?Still led by Paris.The industries that provided Europe and America with the essential luxuries (although most people preferred the simple necessities) were centered in or dependent on France, providing employment for millions of women.Those $6 or $10 bottles (the bottles are so small, the result of our wise taxation of products we can't make in America) have their source in the endless flower gardens of the Riviera. Later, coal and iron were discovered on French soil.Picardy and Artois were also ugly and dark because of those great heaps of soot and slag.But the mountains of rubbish played an important role in the Battle of Mons, where the British tried to stop the German advance on Paris.Lorraine became the steel center, and the Central Plateau became the steel base of France.Because Alsace could provide France with more steel, the French rushed to take it back as soon as the world war was over.During the past 50 years of being run by the Germans, Alsace turned to the development of the textile industry.Due to recent developments, 25% of the French are now engaged in industrial production. Now they can proudly claim that their industrial cities are not much different from the appearance of British and American industrial cities, just as boring and boring, with the same appearance Ferocious, also inhumane.