Here’s a rewritten and expanded version of the provided text, formatted in Markdown and exceeding 600 words.
Get a bi-weekly dose of history with the Figaro Histoire and Figaro Hors-Série newsletter. We deliver compelling narratives, insightful reports, and thought-provoking perspectives, exploring how history illuminates the present.
[SUBSCRIBE TO THE NEWSLETTER]
Dear Readers,
Rome bids farewell to a Pope. Within the labyrinthine corridors of the Vatican, alliances are forged, suspicions simmer, and rumors swirl. The Church, in all its human complexity, is undeniably theatrical. Now, as in the past, matters of conscience clash with the delicate balance of power. What roles do individuals play in this grand drama? Almost two centuries ago, Stendhal, though not always present as he claimed, captured this atmosphere with unparalleled insight. In a captivating narrative, Michel De Jaeghere recounts Stendhal’s "Promenades dans Rome," possessing the clarity of a diary and the paradoxical truth of a novel.
We witness the death of Leo XII and observe the clandestine maneuvers surrounding the election of Pius VIII. It evokes the intrigue of imagining the succession after Pope Francis: the whispered pronouncements in worldly conversations, the sincere devotion interwoven with strategic calculations. The stage may have changed, but the mechanics of power remain remarkably consistent.
Everything feels fabricated, yet rings true. What might seem like mere imitation in the hands of lesser authors transforms into a remarkably believable "imaginary reportage" in Stendhal’s work. He masterfully blends uncertain memories, plundered journals, imagined scenes, and invented quotations, all with the grace of a gentleman thief and the flair of a grand stylist. Cardinals engage in intricate schemes, and even culinary dishes are scrutinized for hidden messages. Behind the delightful anecdotes, valuable lessons gradually emerge. Stendhal reveals less about the secrets of conclaves themselves, but more about what these conclaves reveal about Rome, politics, and the fragile nature of humankind, particularly when placed amidst opulent settings.
Written from Paris, the narrative creates the illusion of complete immersion, culminating in the torrential rain that accompanied the "habemus papam" on March 31, 1829. We close the text amused by our own willing deception, recognizing how little things truly change. As we await the next pontiff, rereading this masterpiece of documented imagination allows us to understand that, in the Church as elsewhere, the living continue to be governed by the dead. What will the coming days hold?
Luc-Antoine Lenoir
[READ MICHEL DE JAEGHERE’S STORY]
Who truly won World War II? This question resurfaces as Europe grapples with the controversial presence of certain heads of state at the May 9th commemorations in Moscow. This diplomatic friction reignites an even older debate. In 1945, many French citizens viewed the USSR as the primary victor over Nazism. By 2015, the United States held that position in the public consciousness. This shift, between the actual sacrifices made and the remembered victors, is precisely the territory explored by Éric Branca in a brilliant narrative for Le Figaro Histoire. He reminds us of what was once known and then forgotten: it was the Red Army that ultimately destroyed the Wehrmacht.
Of the 34 million Allied deaths in the European theater, 73% were Russian, while only 0.4% were American. From the hellish battles in the suburbs of Stalingrad, to the fields of Belarus and Ukraine, the Red Army and the Soviet people (who, to bolster their spirit, were permitted by Stalin to return to their churches) gained the upper hand against the German divisions, crushing them at a rate of 10,000 men per day.
However, an exclusively quantitative analysis would be horribly cynical and incomplete. Éric Branca goes beyond simple numerical evaluation. There are the vanquishers of Nazism and the ultimate winners of the World War. There are divisions, statistics, but also the sheer terror that preceded the Red Army’s advance, the mass civilian exoduses westward, and the almost relieved surrender of German cities to the Americans, British, Canadians, and French. The fear of the Soviet communist system facilitated the Western Allies’ military progress, while Zhukov and Konev "finished the job" in the ruins of Berlin. Between Operation Bagration and Torgau, between Soviet machine guns and "US Welcome!" signs, the war experience was distinctly different, for very real reasons.
It is important to remember this. The USSR conquered, massively and methodically, at the cost of immense sacrifice. Yet, the ideology that accompanied this victory inspired more flight than allegiance. And between the Soviet military triumph and the American memorial dominance, there is no contradiction, but rather a continuity: the liberated peoples preferred those who promised democracy to those who imposed dictatorship. Justice does not solely dictate history. But here, it is what certain vanquished, witnesses, and survivors choose to remember.
Luc-Antoine Lenoir
[READ ÉRIC BRANCA’S STORY]
How was victory achieved? What sacrifices marked the path to peace? Who were the key figures in this turning point of history? The Figaro Hors-Série recounts the major battles that hastened the end of the conflict, the immense reconstruction effort that followed, and the tensions that shaped a new world. Featuring poignant testimonies, previously unseen archives, and an atlas of the German campaign, this issue offers a unique perspective on 1945, its hopes, and its challenges.
[PURCHASE THE SPECIAL EDITION: 1945, THE FALL]
On Wednesday, April 30th, Jean-Christophe Buisson, deputy editor of Figaro Magazine, hosted Jean Tulard, member of the Institut and president of the scientific council of Figaro Histoire, Louis Sarkozy, essayist, and Geoffroy Caillet, editor-in-chief of Figaro Histoire, for a special "Club Culture" dedicated to history on Le Figaro TV. Napoleon, always Napoleon! was at the heart of the discussions. This is due in part to Jean Tulard’s recent publication, "Napoleon, Truths and Legends" (Perrin), and Louis Sarkozy’s "The Empire of Books" (Passés Composés), each of which shed light on, or corrects, entire aspects of this monumental figure.
In "Napoleon, Truths and Legends," Jean Tulard definitively dispels certain misconceptions about Napoleon. Some originate from long ago, while others are products of the current climate. Some are wrongly laudatory, others portray a darkness that does not align with reality. Some can be easily resolved, while others can only be addressed through hypotheses. Consider these points: no, the Napoleonic centralization was not as effective as often claimed, as the prefects were overburdened and communication remained limited; yes, Napoleon was indeed the son of his father, Carlo, and not of Count de Marbeuf, governor of Corsica; no, he was not a vile racist, as his partial re-establishment of slavery was motivated by political and economic reasons, followed in 1815 by the abolition of the slave trade.
Louis Sarkozy, in "The Empire of Books," reveals another dimension of Napoleon: that of a compulsive reader who was accompanied by books from his childhood to his death on Saint Helena. Tracing the thread of his life, Sarkozy demonstrates the role that books and authors (especially Rousseau and Plutarch) played at each stage. The Emperor found material to refine his genius of men and war, nourish his conception of history, escape, or draw solace. In doing so, a unique Napoleon emerges, surprisingly intimate and close to us, as we discover him engaged in a universal experience, which leads the author to say: "From dawn to dusk, books were his most loyal companions."
[WATCH THE CULTURE CLUB]
Every Monday at 3:20 PM, "Le Figaro Histoire raconte…" can be found on the "Bienvenue en Île-de-France" program on Figaro TV, broadcast on TNT and accessible on lefigaro.fr. Figures, places, or events related to Paris or its region come to life and are analyzed. On April 28th, Geoffroy Caillet revisited a largely forgotten day, preceding both the storming of the Bastille and the Tennis Court Oath. On April 28, 1789, in the Saint-Antoine district of Paris, workers, artisans, and the unemployed invaded and pillaged the Réveillon wallpaper factory. The troops intervened and suppressed the demonstration, resulting in over a hundred deaths. Unbeknownst to anyone, the Revolution had already begun.
At the origin of this riot was the proposal by the wallpaper manufacturer Réveillon to abolish the octrois, a tax on goods, which would mechanically lower the price of bread and allow workers to bear the wage reductions forced upon him by British competition. Misunderstood, this measure was spread throughout the Saint-Antoine district and grew as a rumor, to the point that Réveillon was considered a "hoarder" and his factory was subjected to pillage, while he himself barely had time to take refuge… in the Bastille.
While we know the sequel, it remains to analyze this affair. No Réveillon employees were among the victims of the repression, indicating that this riot was not a clash between employers and workers as some would like to believe, but rather the concern of the common people for the high cost of living, against a backdrop of political ferment. The Réveillon affair thus stands between the last subsistence riot, classic under the Ancien Régime, and the first "revolutionary day." It should also be noted that, in the Réveillon affair, the political power played its role in restoring order, including in a brutal manner. In contrast, in the episode of the Bastille, there was no intervention by royal troops, hence a feeling of victory for the rioters. The real novelty of the Revolution would be the birth of state terrorism. It truly began on September 2, 1792, when the Convention and the Commune of Paris allowed the murder of over 1,300 prisoners during the infamous September Massacres. At that moment, social violence had mutated into political violence.
[WATCH "LE FIGARO HISTOIRE RACONTE"]
"Let us not tear it. Let us draw lots to see who gets it." This is the most famous tunic in history. The one mentioned in the Gospel of John in the account of the Passion of Christ, when the soldiers cast lots for the garment of the crucified, fulfilling the prophecy of Psalm 22: "They divide my garments among them, and for my clothing they cast lots." Could it be that this cloth, worn by Christ on his way of the Cross, has traversed the centuries to reach Argenteuil, where it has been preserved since the 9th century? The historian Jean-Christian Petitfils, to whom we owe a masterful biography of Jesus, has taken a historical interest in the three linens of the Passion mentioned in the Gospel of John: the Shroud of Turin, the Sudarium of Oviedo (which would have enveloped the face of Jesus from the Descent from the Cross to his burial) and the "Holy Tunic." He investigated this famous tunic and concludes, based on scientific evidence and historical documents, that this dark fabric, preserved in a golden reliquary at the Saint-Denys Basilica in Argenteuil, is very likely authentic.
"It was discovered in Jaffa (now a suburb of Tel Aviv) in 591. We know that it arrived in Argenteuil around 813, a gift from Empress Irene to Charlemagne, who donated it to his daughter Théodrade, a nun at the monastery in this village. From there, the historical continuity is re-established. But only science provides us with certainties," he explains in the interview he gave to Jean-Marie Guénois on the occasion of the ostension of the relic, which attracts crowds to the Saint-Denys Basilica since Good Friday.
Petitfils has devoted an entire book to the adventurous journey of this tunic through the centuries and the turmoil of history, where we learn, among other things, that in 1983, the communist municipality of Argenteuil strongly encouraged the ostension when the then rector of the basilica considered it outdated… And to the meticulous examination of the scientific analyzes to which it has been subjected. "In view of the file, the authenticity is, for me, beyond doubt," he concludes. Until May 11th, the Saint-Denys Basilica in Argenteuil offers the relic to the veneration of the faithful. Next ostension scheduled in fifty years…
[WATCH THE CHRONICLE]
Can an artistic revelation change the course of a life? Those who doubt it can discover, at the Marmottan Museum, this fruitful passion contracted eighteen years ago before a Plage de Deauville, which is at the origin of the splendid Eugène Boudin retrospective proposed by the museum this spring. Franco-Swiss entrepreneur Yann Guyonvarc’h stopped in his tracks, at the age of thirty-two, at Tefaf, the art fair in Maastricht, before a painting that literally hypnotized him. "The theme, the color, the style, the finesse of this brush fascinated me. Some have perfect pitch. For me, Boudin had perfect sight." It was his first purchase, and the beginning of an incredible story, which would make this painting enthusiast the world’s greatest collector of Boudin’s works.
In the Figaro Hors-Série devoted to the "father of Impressionism," Isabelle Schmitz paints the portrait of this astonishing man, a fan of the Rolling Stones and Boudin, who dedicates his existence to making him known and giving him his rightful place in art history. "Yann Guyonvarc’h refutes the idea that a crush is necessarily fleeting, blind and short-lived. His is constant, lasting and enlightened." To the point of having reconstituted at home a veritable retrospective of the painter, with several hundred works. This uncommon collector granted Figaro TV the honor of a private tour of the exhibition. Attention, masterpieces!
[VISIT THE EXHIBITION WITH Y. GUYONVARCH]
On the morning of April 30, 1975, helicopter blades beat the sky above Saigon. On the roofs of an annex of the American embassy, hundreds of silhouettes huddled, clung, sometimes rose, in the ballet of helicopters. Below, the city swayed. The radio broadcast the last coded instruction, an evacuation signal for Western troops and civilians or compromised Vietnamese: "The weather is fine, the temperature is 105 degrees [Fahrenheit]." The Republic of Vietnam is collapsing before the troops of Pham Van Dong, president of the council of ministers of North Vietnam. Before the gates, those who will not be taken press their faces against the metal. An endless war ends in a scramble for those who flee, and the terrified silence for those who will remain on the spot.
In the late morning, North Vietnamese tanks crossed the gates of the presidential palace. A T-54 tank climbed the steps, the machine gun pointed towards the colonnades. Duong Van Minh, president for two days, declared on the radio: "I await you to hand over power." Response from an officer of the North Vietnamese army: "You have nothing to hand over to us." No shots, no ceremony, only the calm stupor of surrender remained. The city was taken without confrontation, two years after the Paris Accords which ratified the American disengagement. But behind this final non-battle, twenty years of war came to an end, thirty if one includes the Indochina War. Napalm, guerrilla warfare, the Tet Offensive, My Lai… so many terrible scars.
That day, America lost more than an ally, more than a client state: it lost face. The victory of the communists of all countries (and the hippies of Washington) against the new "world policeman" was a profound moral defeat. In Saigon, the signs would soon be repainted, the city renamed Ho Chi Minh. And the flag of South Vietnam, yellow with three red stripes, which was only an illusion, now lost, would very quickly be lowered. Luc-Antoine Lenoir
Each year, Le Figaro Histoire offers six issues of 132 pages. Around a central dossier composed of stories, analyses and portraits signed by the best historians, it reveals all the news of history in books and exhibitions, on television and in the cinema, as archaeological discoveries, anniversaries and controversies unfold. It also gives dreams through reports on the places of memory where big and small history were made.
Le Figaro Histoire: 6 issues per year for only €45.
[SUBSCRIBE TO FIGARO HISTOIRE]
