paris

A car race is most often run on a track, with lots of fans cheering everyone on, but in 1908, there was a very strange car race that actually used a track that took the drivers around the world!! How…you might ask?? Well, the car race started in New York City. From there the route took the racers to San Francisco. Normally, San Francisco would be the end of the trail…or the route. You would have reached the Pacific Ocean, and as we all know, cars can’t drive on the ocean…especially cars manufactured in 1908. So, the racers turned to the north and headed for Valdez, Alaska. They would arrive in Valdez in the height of winter…at a time when the Bering Strait was frozen over…theoretically. At that point there was supposed to be an ice bridge across the Bering Strait, making it possible for the cars to drive right over it and into Russia. Once across, the racers would continue on from Russia to Europe and the finish line awaiting them in Paris. It’s amazing to me to think about cars being driven around the world, but of course the Bering Strait in the Winter, supposedly changed everything. In 1908, cars were relatively new, so road infrastructure was limited to only metropolitan areas, and even then, a lot of it was cobbled stone. So, I suppose cross country car travel on dirt trails was not that uncommon.

The Great Race of 1908 began on February 3rd of that year and immediately ran into challenges. Just to list a few…cars breaking down multiple times, lack of usable roads, car-hating people giving wrong directions, and, oh yeah, SNOW!!! Nevertheless, the teams persevered, and the first team reached San Francisco in 41 days. The came the obstacle of the fact that the proposed route from San Francisco to Alaska did not exist. I guess that they didn’t think it would be feasible to create the route, so the race organizers allowed teams to ship their cars to Valdez, Alaska, then continue on the Ice Bridge. Some might have called that a bit of a cheat, but I guess if all the racers id it, it wasn’t really cheating. Once in Valdez, the teams found out that there is, in fact, no ice bridge across the Bering Strait anymore, because it melted about 20,000 YEARS AGO. Oops…small oversight. So, the racers were allowed to ship their cars across the Pacific to Japan, then Russia, to carry on. Ok, if you’re like me, at this point, you are starting to see that this race had a lot of flaws in the planning. And honestly, while I knew there was no ice bridge on the Bering Strait today, I was unaware that it melted that long ago…meaning there was not an ice bridge since the “Ice Age!!”

So, was this really a car race around the world or a whole lot of non-sense. To be sure, the six teams did end up in Paris after the race, and they drove all of the route that could be driven, but the reality is that much of the race was simply cars being transported by ships across the ocean. Nevertheless, the “official” race was documented as just that…a car race that went around the world. The cars had to fight mud, snow, and mechanical problems. It was “officially” won by The Thomas Flyer, built by the Thomas Motor Company, was a 1907 Model 35 with a 4-cylinder, 60-horsepower engine capable of reaching 60 mph. It was fully loaded with two shovels, two picks, two lanterns, eight searchlights, two extra gas tanks (with a capacity of ten gallons), five hundred feet of rope, a rifle and revolvers. It was also equipped with an attachable top…much like those used on covered wagons…that could wrap the entire car and offer an enclosed place to sleep. On July 30, after 169 days of travel, the Thomas car entered Paris. Even in Paris, they almost didn’t finish, because a police officer stopped the vehicle, saying it had no working headlight, and couldn’t proceed. A passing bicyclist witnessed the scene and offered to load his bike into the car. Since the bicycle had a working headlight, the officer allowed them to pass. The Thomas Flyer finally finished at 6:00pm. The race was the only “official” car race around the world.

These days, we often see hot-air balloons flying over our cities in the summer. In fact, there are annual balloon festivals in many cities, and people turn out in droves to watch the colorful spectacle go up or fly over their houses. People will pay good money for a chance to take a ride in them…a chance to enjoy the freedom of floating on air for a little while and leaving all their cares far below on the ground.

French physician Jean-François Pilatre de Rozier and François Laurent, the marquis d’ Arlandes, knew well, that desire. They made their dream of “floating on air” come true when, on November 21, 1783, they lifted of and almost silently floated over the city of Paris, France. Theirs was the first untethered hot-air balloon flight in history. They flew 5.5 miles over Paris in about 25 minutes. Their cloth balloon was crafted by French paper-making brothers Jacques-Étienne and Joseph-Michel Montgolfier, inventors of the world’s first successful hot-air balloons.

“Many inventors had tried to make a way to fly, building elaborate kins of wings and such, but nothing succeeded until the 1780s, that human flight became a reality. The first successful flying device may not have been a Montgolfier balloon but an “ornithopter,” a glider-like aircraft with flapping wings. According to a hazy record, the German architect Karl Friedrich Meerwein succeeded in lifting off the ground in an ornithopter in 1781. Whatever the veracity of this record, Meerwein’s flying machine never became a viable means of flight, and it was the Montgolfier brothers who first took men into the sky.”

The Montgolfier brothers ran a prosperous paper business in the town of Vidalon in southern France. Because they were so successful, they had the money to finance their interest in scientific experimentation. They dabbled in several areas of experimentation, and in 1782, they discovered that combustible materials burned under a lightweight paper or fabric bag would cause the bag to rise into the air. The brothers thought it was the smoke that causes balloons to rise, when actually, it is hot air that causes balloons to rise. Nevertheless, the error in the mechanics of flight didn’t hamper their further achievements.

They gave their first public demonstration on June 4, 1783, in Annonay, sending an unmanned balloon heated by burning straw and wool, 3,000 feet into the air before it settled to the ground nearly two miles away. The brothers didn’t know that the first successful hot air balloon test had preceded theirs in 1709 and was carried out by Bartolomeu Lourenço de Gusmão, a Brazilian priest who launched a small hot-air balloon in the palace of the king of Portugal. Nevertheless, the brothers quickly outdid anything de Gusmão did.

The Montgolfiers sent a sheep, a rooster, and a duck aloft on September 19, in one of their balloons in a trial run, prior to the first manned flight. The balloon, painted azure blue and decorated with golden fleurs-de-lis, lifted up from the courtyard of the palace of Versailles in the presence of King Louis XVI. The experiment was successful, and the animals stayed afloat for eight minutes. Then, they landed safely two miles away. Finally, it was time to try humans, so on October 15, Jean-François Pilátre de Rozier made a tethered test flight of a Montgolfier balloon. The balloon rose briefly before returning to earth. Then, finally, in a much-anticipated flight, the first untethered hot-air balloon flight occurred before a large, expectant crowd in Paris on November 21, 1783. Pilátre and d’Arlandes, an aristocrat, rose up from the grounds of royal Cháteau La Muette in the Bois de Boulogne and flew approximately five miles. Humanity had at last conquered the sky. For their achievement, the Montgolfier brothers were honored by the French Acadámie des Sciences. They went on to published books on aeronautics, and they also pursued important work in other scientific fields.

You’ve heard of con artists selling things like the London Bridge or some ocean front property in Arizona. Well, Victor Lustig was one of the best con artists ever. Lustig was born in Hostinné, Bohemia, Austria-Hungary on January 4, 1890. He was a smart young man, who learned new things easily, but that could be said to have also contributed to his. When a student doesn’t have to spend a lot of time studying, they can become bored and look for entertainment outside of their studies. When Lustig was 19, while taking a break from his studies in Paris, Lustig took to gambling and womanizing, It was during this time he received a defining scar on the left side of his face from the jealous boyfriend of a woman was having an affair with. When he left school, Lustig decided that he could make his best living, using his quick wit and ability to size up of a situation, as well as his fluency in several languages to embark on a life of crime. Like all criminals, the idea of easy money, along with a big helping of excitement, drew Lustig in. He focused on a variety of scams and cons that provided him with property and money, and before long he was a professional con man.

Lustig decided that he might like to try traveling along with his scams, and many of his initial cons were committed on ocean liners sailing between the Atlantic ports of France and New York City. He deduced that rich travelers didn’t need their money as badly as he did, so they became a prime target. One of his favorite schemes was one in which he posed as a musical producer who sought investment in a non-existent Broadway production. The scheme worked well in that the victim wouldn’t expect an immediate return on the investment, and by the time they realized that it had been a con, Lustig was long gone. Lustig’s travel schemes came to an end when trips on trans-Atlantic liners were suspended in the wake of World War I, Lustig had to find a new territory in which to run his schemes. So, Lustig opted for a trip to the United States. It seemed like the best option, because he was becoming a little too well known amongst various law enforcement agencies for the scams he committed, including one he conducted in 1922 in which he conned a bank into giving him money for a portion of bonds he was offering for a repossessed property, only to use sleight of hand to escape with both the money and the bonds.

By 1925, Lustig had traveled back to France. While reading the local newspaper in Paris, he came across an article discussing the problems faced with maintaining the Eiffel Tower. Instantly, he knew that he has his next con. At the time, the monument had begun to fall into disrepair, and the city was finding it increasingly expensive to maintain and repaint it. Incredibly, the article speculated that the public opinion might be to simply remove it. It was this part of the article that really inspired Lustig to use the Eiffel Tower as part of his next con. He quickly researched the information he would need to make his scam believable and set to work preparing the scam, which included hiring a forger to produce fake government stationery for him.

The scam was carried out on a small group of scrap metal dealers, who were invited to a confidential meeting at an expensive hotel. Lustig identified himself to them as the Deputy Director-General of the Ministère de Postes et Télégraphes (Ministry of Posts and Telegraphs). During the meeting, Lustig convinced the men that the upkeep of the Eiffel Tower was becoming too much for Paris and that the French government wished to sell it for scrap, but that because such a deal would be controversial and likely spark public outcry, nothing could be disclosed until all the details were thought out. Lustig Told the men that he had been charged with the task of selecting the dealer who would receive ownership of the structure. The men were told that they had “made the final cut” of possible contract winners, because of their reputations as “honest businessmen” and that he was going to make a final selection after the meeting. His speech included genuine insight about the monument’s place in the city and how it did not fit in with the city’s other great monuments like the Gothic cathedrals or the Arc de Triomphe. The men were convinced that Lustig was legitimate.

Because of his long history of reading people, Lustig knew how a perfect mark would look and act, and before long, he had his choice…André Poisson, who was an insecure man who wished to rise up amongst the inner circles of the Parisian business community. As Poisson showed the keenest interest in purchasing the monument, Lustig decided to focus on him once the dealers sent their bids to him. He then arranged a private meeting with Poisson, at which Lustig convinced him that he was a corrupt official, claiming that his government position did not give him a generous salary for the lifestyle he wished to enjoy. Poisson became concerned that he would not win the bid, so he agreed to pay a large bribe to secure ownership of the Eiffel Tower. His lust for the position of “top businessman” would be his downfall. Once Lustig received his bribe and the funds for the monument’s “sale” (around 70,000 francs, which is about $78,757), he soon fled to Austria. Lustig correctly suspected that when Poisson found out he had been conned, he would be too ashamed and embarrassed to inform the French police of what he had been caught up in. Still, he bided his time, checking the newspapers just to be sure. When his suspicions proved correct…when he could find no reference of his con within their pages, he returned to Paris later that year to pull off the same scheme one more time. The second attempt didn’t go over so well. Someone informed the police about the scam and Lustig had no choice but to flee to United States to evade arrest. Lustig is widely regarded as one of the most notorious con artists of his time, and he is infamous for being “the man who sold the Eiffel Tower twice.”

Lustig was finally arrested on May 10, 1935, in New York. He was charged with counterfeiting. He managed to escape from the Federal House of Detention in New York City by faking illness and using a specially made rope to climb out of the building on the day before his trial, but he was recaptured 27 days later in Pittsburgh. Lustig pleaded guilty at his trial and was sentenced to fifteen years in prison on Alcatraz Island, California for his original charge, with a further five years for his prison escape. On March 9, 1947, Lustig contracted pneumonia and died two days later at the Medical Center for Federal Prisoners in Springfield, Missouri. On his death certificate his occupation was listed as apprentice salesman…and I guess he was at that.

I think most people have heard of Charles Lindbergh, who was born on February 4, 1902, in Detroit, Michigan, was an American aviator celebrated for conducting the first solo, non-stop flight across the Atlantic Ocean. We all like to think about the amazing accomplishments that have marked our history books. When airplanes were invented, there was little chance that records wouldn’t be set and advances made. Man has always tried to improve on things.

Lindbergh’s famous flight took place in 1927, when he flew the Spirit of Saint Louis from New York to Paris. The flight took 33.5 hours and made Lindbergh an international hero, but I can only imagine how he felt as he was flying along. He was doing something no one had ever done before!! I suppose there is always that first time for everything new, but Lindbergh had 33.5 hours to think about that.

Fame has a way of giving a person a lot of pull in whatever area they might try to use that influence, and Lindbergh was interested in promoting commercial aviation and air mail services. He was especially instrumental in the development of transatlantic flights, pushing for the establishment of routes and infrastructure that would enable commercial aviation to thrive.

Unfortunately, fame also makes people into targets. For Lindbergh, being a target came in the form of his son, Charles Lindbergh Jr being kidnapped and, while Lindbergh paid the $50,000 ransom, his son was found murdered in 1932, which resulted in what was known as the “Crime of the Century.” Lindbergh’s influence now took a different turn, in the form pushing for the Lindbergh Law or Federal Kidnapping Act, making kidnapping a federal crime in the United States.

While debated by the loss of his son, Lindbergh knew that he must go on…life must go on. He went on to make contributions to various fields, including conservation and literature. He also developed a keen interest in environmental issues and worked with various institutions to advocate for the protection of wildlife and habitats. In addition to those things, he authored several books, including “The Spirit of Saint Louis,” which recounts his historic flight. That book won the Pulitzer Prize in 1954. Charles Lindbergh passed away on August 26, 1974, of Lymphoma at the age of 72.

Antoine-Joseph Sax was born on November 6, 1814, in Dinant, which is now part of Belgium, to Charles-Joseph Sax and his wife Marie-Joseph née Masson Sax. As a child, Antoine, nicknamed Adolphe was quite accident prone, and some say that it is a wonder he made it to his teenaged years, much less to adulthood.

As a boy, Sax faced many brushes with death. As a child, he once fell out a window from a height of three floors, hit his head on a stone and was believed dead. At the age of three, he drank a bowl full of acidic water, because it looked like milk to the boy. Later, he swallowed a pin. He received serious burns from a gunpowder explosion, and once fell onto a hot cast-iron frying pan, burning his side. Several times he avoided accidental poisoning and asphyxiation from sleeping in a room where varnished furniture was drying. Another time young Sax was struck on the head by a cobblestone and fell into a river, almost dying. His mother once said that “he’s a child condemned to misfortune; he won’t live.” His neighbors called him “little Sax, the ghost.”

Sax came from a musical family. His father and mother were instrument designers, who made several changes to the design of the French horn. At an early age, Adolphe began to make his own instruments. At the age of 15 years, he entered two of his flutes and a clarinet into a competition. He went on to study performance on those two instruments, as well as voice at the Royal Conservatory of Brussels. Adolphe relocated permanently to Paris in 1842 and began working on a new set of valved bugles. As with the rest of his childhood, even the invention of the saxophone was an accident of sorts…being the result of a modified saxhorn he’d created with his father, Charles Joseph Sax, in 1845.

While he did not invent what became known as saxhorns, his examples were much more successful than those of his rivals. Hector Berlioz, French Romantic composer and conductor was so enamored of Adolphe’s saxhorn examples, that he arranged in February 1844 for one of his pieces to be played entirely on saxhorns. The composition called for seven different sizes of saxhorns, and it was this composition that paved the way for the creation of the flugelhorn.

In 1845, Adolphe Sax also developed the saxotromba family, which were valved brass instruments bearing a narrower bore than the saxhorns. These were not as successful, and soon became a thing of the past. Sax went on to become an instructor at the Paris Conservatory. True to his earlier live of catastrophic events, Sax developed lip cancer in his later life, and true to his past, he survived that as well. Nevertheless, the catastrophic events continued, and Sax died of pneumonia in Paris, in relative poverty in 1894.

We were watching the Denver Broncos in their huge (19-3) defeat of the Kansas City Chiefs. The game had really just gotten started (it had a 4:00pm start time) when the crash, that took the life of Diana, Princess of Wales, occurred in Paris at 12:23am (4:23pm Mountain Time). The news of the tragedy was aired shortly thereafter, and by 3:00am, Paris time, she was dead. That news was announced at 6:00am Paris time.

Diana was a distant cousin of mine…(specifically my 12th cousin 2 times removed), so the news held some significance to my family. There have been many questions concerning the crash that took Diana’s life, and while the powers that be say that they have all been answered, there are many people, including me, who still have questions. I’m sure that we will never have our questions fully answered, and I’m sure that is partly due to the fact that when it comes to Diana, we aren’t sure that the British Crown is telling us everything they know. The mere fact that Prince Charles and Princess Diana were divorced, and at that time, and to many people, his claim to the throne was in question, we naturally doubted the validity of the answers we were given. Nevertheless, no further answers will likely be forthcoming, so we will have to accept the answers we were given…or not accept them, as you please. After the divorce, Princess Diana became known as Diana, Princess of Wales, as a supposed concession by the crown.

Diana, affectionately known as “the People’s Princess,” was 36 years old at the time of her death. Her boyfriend, the Egyptian-born socialite Dodi Fayed, and the driver of the car, Henri Paul, died as well. The lone survivor of the crash was Diana’s bodyguard Trevor Rees-Jones, who was seriously injured. The car left the Ritz Paris just after midnight, intending to go to Dodi’s apartment on the Rue Arsène Houssaye. As soon as they departed the hotel, a swarm of paparazzi on motorcycles began aggressively tailing their car. About three minutes later, the driver lost control and crashed into a pillar at the entrance of the Pont de l’Alma tunnel. It was later decided that because the driver had alcohol and prescription drugs in his system, the paparazzi held no fault in the matter. That is where I disagree. While the driver had alcohol and prescription drugs in his system, he would not have felt the need to speed through the streets if the paparazzi had left them alone. As a retired insurance agent, I know contributory negligence when I see it. Nevertheless, a “formal investigation” concluded the paparazzi did not cause the collision. Dodi Fayed and Henri Paul, the driver, were pronounced dead at the scene. Diana was taken to the Pitié-Salpêtrière hospital and officially declared dead at 6:00am. Diana’s former husband Prince Charles, as well as her sisters and other members of the Royal Family, arrived in Paris that morning. Diana’s body was then taken back to London.

Because Diana was one of the most popular public figures in the world, her death brought a massive outpouring of grief. Mourners began leaving bouquets of flowers at Kensington Palace immediately. The piles of flowers reached about 30 feet from the palace gate. As in her life, her death demanded the attention of the world. She was so loved, and many felt, so mistreated during her marriage. Following her funeral on September 6, 1997, an event that was watched by 2.5 billion people, she was laid to rest on an island at Althorp Estate, which is her childhood home, and is which is where her brother, Earl Charles Spencer lives to this day. The island is off limits, but the estate is open to the public during July and August each year.

Diana was survived by her two sons, Prince William, who was 15 at the time, and Prince Harry, who was 12. Today she has two daughters-in-law, Duchess Catherine and Duchess Meaghan, as well as five grandchildren, Prince George, Princess Charlotte, Prince Louis; as well as; Archie and Lillibet. Today marks 25 years since the passing of Princess Diana. Gone but not forgotten.

When you have a landmark city…a City of Lights, you want to protect it from the ravages of war. Paris was just that…the City of Lights, and during World War I, in an effort to protect the city from enemy bombs, the French built a “fake Paris” to the city’s immediate north. Complete with a duplicate Champs-Elysées and Gard Du Nord, this “dummy version” of Paris was built by the French towards the end of the war as a means of throwing off German bomber and fighter pilots flying over French skies. Wily military strategists, understandably tired of the enemy dropping bombs on their beautiful hometown, had decided that the best way to keep the city safe was to bring in a stunt double…a life-sized mock up situated to act as a decoy to draw fire from Paris proper.

London’s Daily Telegraph explains that the fake city wasn’t just “a bunch of cardboard cutouts.” No, far from it, in fact. There were “electric lights, replica buildings, and even a copy of the Gare du Nord—the station from which high-speed trains now travel to and from London.” The painters went so far as to use paint to create “the impression of dirty glass roofs of factories.” Fake trains and railroad tracks were lit up as well. There was a phony Champs-Elysées. Many of us today would say, “How could that work? The Germans must have known where they were dropping their bombs!” Nevertheless, it stands to reason that in the early 20th century, the plan could have worked. “Radar was in its infancy in 1918, and the long-range Gotha heavy bombers being used by the German Imperial Air Force were similarly primitive,” the Telegraph notes. “Their crew would hold bombs by the fins and then drop them on any target they could see during quick sorties over major cities like Paris and London.”

No one really knows how well the plan might have worked, because it was never put to the test. World War I ended before the fake city was finished. Both the real Paris and the fake one escaped significant damage. The fake version has long since been dismantled, though photos of it still remain. I suppose it was a ghost town of it’s own, and had it remained, it would have been interesting to visit and very likely a tourist attraction. Seriously…the idea of a to-scale decoy city made of wood and canvas dumped out in the leafy suburbs just a few miles from Paris’ instantly recognizable landscape may seem a little far fetched, if not completely crazy. Nevertheless, as the war progressed and French anti-aircraft technology improved, the daylight airship bombings which had previously caused such havoc were eventually rendered too risky for the planes. As such, any bombing raids were forced to take place under cover of darkness and it was at this point that an illuminated sham Paris began to…shall we say…shine!!

To further validate the idea, French fighter pilots reported that during night flights they looked for familiar features of the landscape below when attempting to locate Paris. According to their research, railways, lakes, rivers, roads and woodland were the most useful indicators that they were in the neighborhood. Using this information, the mastermind behind the replica project, Fernand Jacopozzi, along with his team of highly capable engineers worked to make life even harder for the German pilots who were already struggling to find their bearings in an era before radar or precision targeting. Intending to confuse an enemy pilot sufficiently that he would start to doubt his own bearings, the construction of Paris’ mirror image began in earnest at Villepinte to the northeast where a working model of the Gare de l’Est gradually began to take form.

The “fake Paris” was exquisite. No detail was overlooked: “complex, sprawling networks of lights arranged skillfully creating the impression of railway tracks and avenues, as well as storm lamps clustered together on ingenious moving platforms designed to simulate vast steam trains in motion. Immense empty sheds masquerading as factories had translucent sheets of painted canvas stretched tightly across their wooden frames which were illuminated from underneath, an arrangement that to anyone passing overhead would look remarkably like the dirty glass roofs characteristic of industrial buildings. Working furnaces were also installed to add an extra dimension of reality and the factory’s lights were even configured to dim noticeably during an air raid, fooling enemy pilots into believing that the facsimile buildings were, in fact, occupied.”

Because World War I ended, it was only this small part of Zone A that was built. The German bombing campaign came to an end in September 1918 and the armistice was signed at Compiègne two months later. The mock factories and railway network at Villepinte were dismantled shortly after the hostilities ceased. By the beginning of the 1920s little remained of the project. Though his fascinating idea never really got much further than the drawing board, the designs of Fernand Jacopozzi inspired similarly ambitious plans in the United States during World War II.

When we think of Paris, the first thing that comes to mind is the Eiffel Tower. If history had been different, those of us alive today would most likely be completely unaware of the historical icon. The Eiffel Tower was built in 1889, and since that time, over 200,000,000 people have visited it, which makes the Eiffel Tower the most visited monument in the world. The Eiffel Tower was erected for the Paris Exposition, and was inaugurated by the Prince of Wales, who went on to become King Edward VII. The tower was the entrance arch to exposition, and was the most visited site during the Exposition. As they were preparing for the Exposition, seven hundred proposals were submitted in a design competition. In the end, it was the radical design of French engineer Alexandre Gustave Eiffel that was unanimously chosen. Eiffel was assisted in the design by two engineers, Maurice Koechlin and Emile Nougier, and architect Stephen Sauvestre.

Believe it or not, there was some controversy over the winning design. The Paris city government actually received a petition, signed by about 300 people in a effort to prevent the city government from constructing the tower. Some famous personalities like Guy de Maupassant, Emile Zola, and Charles Garnier also signed the petition. They felt that the Eiffel Tower would be useless and monstrous, and it endangered French art and history. Wow!! Today, they would be stunned at the beauty it posses, especially when it is lit up at night.

Of course, the tower was ultimately built and it was given out for a 20-year lease. When the lease expired in 1909, it was planned to tear down the iconic tower. In the end, it was its antenna that saved the tower, as it was used for telegraphy. The tower also played an important role in capturing the infamous spy Mata Hari during World War I. Following these events, the tower gained acceptance among the French. As 1910 arrived, the Eiffel Tower became a part of the International Time Service and the French Radio has been using the tower since 1918. The French Television started using the height of the tower from 1957. I don’t really know if most of us knew about all the other uses for the Eiffel Tower, other than the tourist attraction most of us connect with it.

Today this fantastic structure of iron and rivets is iconic symbol of Paris and people from all over the world come to Paris just to marvel at this man-made wonder. The stunning photographs that have been taken from all angles, and the romantic appeal for so many couples of all ages and nationalities have worked together to make the Eiffel Tower famous.

When Hitler took power in Germany, the first goal was to take away the guns from the people. He then dismantled the police, and set up his own police force…loyal only to him. This was the beginning of Hitler’s planned takeover…first of Germany, and then the world. That was his goal, but thankfully, the world fought back, and evil did not prevail.

World War II had gone on for almost five years…long years. Hitler’s forces were reeling from the devastating effects of D-Day, and Paris was next in line for liberation, The Allied machine was marching in to Paris to remove the Nazi Regime. Hitler was furious, and decided that if his army was to be forced out, they would take the best of the memories and landmarks of Paris with them. He planned to leave the city in smoldering ruins. Hitler issued the first of several orders to the German commander of Paris, General Dietrich von Choltitz, to destroy the city. What Hitler had not anticipated, was that von Choltitz would not blindly do his bidding. The last last commander of Nazi-occupied Paris in 1944, von Choltitz disobeyed Adolf Hitler’s orders to destroy the city, and instead surrendered it to Free French forces when they entered the city on August 25th. Choltitz later asserted that his defiance of Hitler’s direct order stemmed from its obvious military futility, his affection for the French capital’s history and culture, and his belief that Hitler had by then become insane, while other sources point to the fact that he had little control of the city thanks to the operations of the resistance, and could not have carried out such orders. Nevertheless, von Choltitz has since been referred to as “The Saviour of Paris.”

As I look at the current circumstances in the United States, I am reminded of the days of Hitler’s reign of terror. The riots in the streets, the calls for gun control and defunding the police, and the removal of the statues marking our past…good and bad, are all reminiscent of the days of early World War II. Just as in the days of Hitler’s National Socialist Party, Socialism would not be good for America either. While the Democratic Party voters should understand that their values are like Hitler’s and yet, often blame the Republican party for being like Hitler, they are wrong. If they would look at history, instead of trying to remove our memory of the past, they would see just how alike Socialism is to Nazism and Hitler’s ways. Truly, the people of the United States need to wake up…and quickly. The decision to try to change our country to Socialism, is a slippery slope to communism, and the removal of the freedoms we hold so dear. We need to approach our future with our eyes wide open about the past of other nations, as well as the greatness that the American system of Capitalism has provided our nation with in the past. We like our freedom to let our voice be heard…a right that is found only in Capitalism. Don’t let the rights and privileges we so enjoy, be stolen from us by a handful of radical Socialists and Communists. The time to stand against Socialism and Communism is now!! Wake up America!!

In a time when so much in our world is chaotic and serious, today seems like a good time to explore the lighter side of life. We have all seen the different feats performed for the Guinness Book of World Records. There are many people who attempt and fail to break the world record, and that is sad, because they have worked so hard to set it up, and it would probably take a long time to set it up again. Still, if a world record was easy to obtain, it wouldn’t really be so special.

In the latter part of the nineteenth century, and long before the August 27, 1955 first publication of the Guinness Book of World Records, a local baker named Sylvain Dornon decided that he was going to make his mark on history. He decided that he was going to a bygone Landaise tradition of walking on stilts. Dornon was a baker in Arcachon, and I’m not sure what made him decide to take on such a feat, when he already had a decent business that needed his attention. Nevertheless, Dornon, who was born in 1858 in Salles, to the east of Arcachon and at the northern tip of the Landes, was fascinated with stilts. Normally, the use of stilts, or “échasses” as they were called, were primarily used by shepherds, because they were an easy way of maneuvering through marshy land and as a means of extending their field of vision when watching over their flock of sheep. Messengers and postmen, keen on time-saving and maintaining a steady step used stilts too, but as the wetlands became drier, the use of stilts began to die out. Dornon hated to see that period end, and decided to do something about it.

In the beginning of his quest, Dornon organized demonstrations and performances. In true street entertainment style, spectators were invited to make generous donations at the end of the show. The concept proved successful, but Dornon felt he and his stilts deserved greater exposure. So, he kicked things into high gear, in September of 1889, he travelled to Paris for the Exposition Universelle, and there, he walked up the steps to the second level of the Eiffel Tower. The stunt made Dornon almost a household word, for a while.

Dornon was inspired by the publicity he received, and by the tales of eccentric Russians travelling on foot from the western frontier of their country to France. He set himself a goal to stilt-walk all the way from Paris to Moscow, planning his arrival to coincide with a Franco-Russian exhibition being held there in May 1891. The trip would not be a free way to travel, so he set about securing financial backing from the magazine L’Illustration, began making two new pairs of stilts: one set measured 44 inches long and weighed about 7 pounds. The second, longer pair was 70 inches long, and was sent to Moscow, along with trunks of clothes.

Dornon was dressed in full Landais shepherd clothing…including goat-skin coat and beret, carrying a bag containing maps, a few spare clothes and a loaded gun…for safety. He was dressed in the authentic attire for the period he was portraying. Dornon set out from Place de la Concorde in Paris on March 12th 1891, surrounded by a 2,000-strong crowd of enthusiastic supporters! He walked an average of 37 miles a day, which I find amazing, considering that I walk an average of 15 miles a day, and I think that is an accomplishment. Even harsh weather conditions and poor road surfaces, didn’t slow him down. Dornon cruised through Reims, Sedan, Luxembourg, Koblenz, Berlin, Wilna and on to Moscow. He was joined periodically by walkers and cyclists for stretches of the route. Progress was also sometimes hindered by uncooperative policemen or children who would throw stones at him, not to mention downright hostile observers, notably in Germany where the sight of a Frenchman on stilts did not systematically prove popular. There always has to be someone to ruin things. Still, Dornon never failed to find a local who had heard of his venture or a hotel bed to sleep in.

After 58 days and 1786 miles, Dornon arrived in Moscow preceded by a police cortege. He was hailed by a crowd chanting “Vive la France!” and treated to a champagne reception, although the staff at the French exhibition weren’t too impressed. Dornon wasn’t allowed to stilt-walk at the event and wasn’t even given a courtesy ticket…nice, he had to pay to get into his own reception. When the festivities were over, he boarded a train for the much-shorter trip home, where he went back to his job as a baker.

He still liked to take part in races and dance performances throughout the region up until his death in 1900 aged just 42. Dornon did leave a legacy…that of reviving a Landaise tradition which had already died out, and the concept he developed lives on to this day, with many échassier folk dance troupes continuing to entertain the masses.

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