April 16 | Bernadette Soubirous

January 7, 1844 – April 16, 1879: Age 35

On February 11, 1858, three poor girls were gathering firewood near a cave in the south of France when one of them clearly say a small beautiful lady standing in a niche in a rock. Moreover, the lady spoke to her, telling her to come back to the cave every day for 15 days. The two other girls saw and heard nothing.

The girl obeyed the vision and returned again and again, having conversations with the lady that consisted mostly of sound common-sense advice on prayer and penance. Having also told her family about the visions, however, the future St. Bernadette soon had a crowd following her to the cave every day. On day nine, the lady told Bernadette to drink from the spring that flowed under the rock and eat the plants that grew freely there. There was no spring, but Bernadette tried digging a muddy patch and drinking the filthy droplets that collected, then eating some of the plants. When the audience saw that all she had to show for this was a muddy face, most concluded that she was either lying or insane, but when, within a few days, a little spring began to flow from the muddy patch, everything changed.

People began visiting the place and drinking and washing in the water, and reports of its healing properties began to circulate.

By visit number 13 the lady asked Bernadette to tell the local priest to build a chapel there. The local clergy was quite skeptical, asking Bernadette to find out the name of the apparition. After a few visits in which this request was met in silence, the lady finally replied, "I am the Immaculate Conception".

This statement changed everything. Had she simply said "I am Mary" or "I am the Virgin" things might have been different, but the doctrine of the Immaculate Conception had been officially defined as dogma by Pope Pius just four years earlier (this was a theological issue not well known to the public, and it is very unlikely that an illiterate country girl would have known anything about it). Suddenly Bernadette's visions were linked to a philosophical development in the official Catholic Church.

By the time she was 22 Bernadette had had enough of the attention her visions attracted. She was a genuinely devout woman who liked simple things and certainly did not aspire to fame or power. She entered a convent at Nevers, 700 kilometres from Lourdes, where she worked as an infirmary assistant and later as a sacristan. Although she did ask for water from the Lourdes spring once to help her asthma (it completely cured her), she didn't ask for it when she tuberculosis.

Tuberculosis commonly attacks the lungs, but can also attack other parts of the body, including the central nervous system, lymphatic system, bones, joints, and even the skin. In Bernadette's case, it affected her right knee. She eventually died of it at the age of 35.

Calls for her beatification immediately, and as part of the investigation her body was exhumed and placed in a new casket in September 1909. Those present, who included a Bishop and two doctors as well as several members of the religious community, found that although her crucifix and rosary showed signs of oxidation, her body was perfectly preserved and had no unpleasant smell. It was washed and reburied, but exhumed again in April 1919, when it was observed that there was some discoloration of the face: this was attributed to the washing after the first exhumation. It was exhumed a third time in 1925, and relics were taken and sent to Rome. The doctor who removed the relics (what they were is not stated in any of the sources I found) noted that the skeleton and muscles in the 46-year-old corpse were perfectly preserved, including the liver, and commented that "this did not seem to be a natural phenomenon."

The face and hands were covered with a light wax mask and, upon her official beatification in June of that year (full sainthood would follow eight years later), it was sealed in a reliquary made of crystal so that all could see the miraculous body. You can, too, below.


Sources: Wikipedia, Biography Online, Catholic Online

April 10 | Gabrielle d'Estrées

1571 - April 10, 1599: Age 28?

Gabrielle d'Estrées was certainly one of the most beautiful women in the world when she became the lover of the King of France in 1591. In those days it was perfectly normal for a king to have an acknowledged mistress, even when married to someone else, as Henri was. Gabrielle followed the King everywhere, even in war, pregnant, living in his tent near the battlefield and making sure his creature comforts were in place. They adored each other.

The big issue of the century, of course, was the Reformation: most of the rich and powerful of Europe circled the issue like wolves looking for ways to use religious disputes to strengthen their fortunes. Henri was an exception: born Protestant, he converted to Catholicism when he became King of France, and worked for his whole life to bring about peace and religious tolerance for his kingdom. For a time, he succeeded.

His first marriage was unhappy and, mindful of the need for an heir, he tried to obtain an annulment, planning to marry Gabrielle, who had already produced three children for him. The plan came to nothing in 1599. Gabrielle, pregnant with their fourth child, suddenly developed eclampsia, a serious complication in which the mother suddenly begins convulsing. Today good prenatal care means the danger signs can be caught and the situation controlled long before it becomes life-threatening. Obstetrics in the 16th century were different. Gabrielle fell into convulsions, gave birth to a stillborn son, and died the next day, before the King (who was elsewhere) could reach her side. He was devastated, and wore mourning (unheard of for a mistress) and gave her a royal funeral.

No mention of this amazing woman would be complete without taking the opportunity to show Gabrielle d'Estrées et une de ses soeurs, which now hangs in the Louvre. That's her on the right, holding Henry's coronation ring, which he gave her. I guess this was the 16th century equivalent of a shoot for Playboy.



Source: Wikipedia

April 6 | Richard I

September 8, 1157 – April 6, 1199: Age 41

Remember Thomas Becket? Richard I is the son of the guy who accidentally ordered him killed. He's also the same good King Richard who appears at the end of Robin Hood stories in his Crusader's outfit to save the day and restore order to England.

Although Richard the Lionheart, as he is known, enjoys great popularity in our imaginations today, the truth is he spent little time in England and could hardly speak English. He grew up in France and, a professional Crusader, used his English holdings to finance his very expensive armies in the Middle East.

He was indeed a great military leader and did wonderful things against Saladin. He also revolted against his own father on a regular basis, attempting on more than one occasion to seize his throne. When he was finally crowned King of England, after his father's death, he barred all Jews and women from the coronation ceremony. When some Jewish community leaders arrived with gifts, he had them stripped and flogged and then flung out into the street. A rumour then spread that Richard had ordered all Jews killed, and the people of London dutifully started a massacre. At this point Richard woke up to the fact that allowing leading Jewish citizens to be murdered and their property destroyed and stolen was a bad idea, had the perpetrators hung, and ordered that Jews be left alone.

He went on Crusade again a year later. When raising funds for this, he remarked "I would have sold London if I could find a buyer." He left the country in the hands of various family members and officials and divided his time over the next ten years between waging war in warmer, bloodier climes, and protecting his interests in France.

In March 1199 Richard was besieging a castle in the region of Limousin, suppressing a revolt in his holdings there. He was walking around the castle walls one evening, inspecting the progress of some sappers. Archers would shoot arrows from the castle from time to time but rarely hit anything important, and Richard felt confident enough to be making his inspection without armour. One archer in particular was standing on the walls holding a crossbow and a frying pan, which he had been using as a shield all day to ward off stones and other flying objects. When he aimed an arrow at Richard, the king laughed and applauded — until the arrow struck him on the left shoulder. Richard returned to his tent and tried to pull the arrow out, but could not, so he called a doctor. The doctor also had difficulty, removing the arrow but damaging Richard's arm.

The would became infected and it became clear he would die. Richard asked that the archer who shot him be found and brought before him. This was done, and the culprit turned out to be a mere boy, who announced that he had shot Richard in revenge as the king had killed his father and two brothers. With egotistic flair, Richard forgave the lad, giving him a sum of money and saying, "Live on, and by my bounty behold the light of day".

Richard made his will, leaving his throne to his brother John, and died on April 6 in the arms of his mother, Eleanor of Aquitaine. The young archer was recaptured, skinned alive, and hanged as soon as Richard died. So much for medieval chivalry.

Source: Wikipedia

March 29 | Charles-Valentin Alkan

November 30, 1813 - March 29, 1888: Age 74

Alkan was a French composer, teacher, and recluse. As a young man he played alongside such celebrated musicians as Liszt, Rubinstein, and Chopin. But in his 30s a couple of professional disappointments and his natural tendencies drew him out of the limelight, preferring to teach and compose in relative seclusion for the latter half of his life.

He also spent a lot of time studying the Bible and the Talmud, and himself translated both the Old and New Testament into French from the original Aramaic, Hebrew, and Greek.

One story goes that in 1888 he was reaching to get a copy of the Talmud from a high shelf, and the bookcase fell on him, killing him. A catchy story (it caught me!) but untrue. A more believable and no less bizarre version, attested in a personal letter written by one of his students, was that he died when trapped beneath a falling coatrack. Those coats can get heavy, even in late March. Another myth that went around was that his obituary read, "Alkan is dead. He had to die in order to prove his existence." However this is also probably untrue.

If, like me, you've never heard of him before, here is a link to a YouTube of a virtuoso performing one of his compositions: proof that his relative obscurity is a function of his lack of personal promotion and the difficulty of his compositions. Nobody is going to try to play this piece for their Grade 8 exam!

Source: Wikipedia

March 27 | Mary of Burgundy

February 13, 1457 – March 27, 1482: Age 25

When her father died suddenly in 1477, Mary of Burgundy became the Duchess of a huge and immensely rich slice of Europe. She was his only child.

Louis of France was beside himself with desire to acquire her estates, in particular the free county of Burgundy, which was not subject to direct French rule. He attempted to negotiate a marriage between her and his son, Charles. She declined, but since he was preparing to use an army to back up his wooing, she turned to her Netherlands subjects for help. They in turn extracted from her certain political rights, which she granted.

She decided to marry the Archduke Maximilian of Austria, a young man with enough power and money to help her oppose the French king's designs. They had three children, one of whom died the year he was born. The other two were still infants and Mary only 25 when she met her own end: she was falconing with her husband; her horse tripped and landed on top of her, breaking her back. She died several days later.

Source: Wikipedia

February 17 | Molière

January 15, 1622 – February 17, 1673: Age 51

Born Jean-Baptiste Poquelin, he took Molière as a stage name, possibly drawn from the name of a small village in southern France of the same name. He probably did so to spare his parents the shame of having an actor for a son; they were prosperous bourgeois merchants with ambitions for him that were never to be realized.

Molière was active during the time of Louis XIV. He had all the right stuff for his genius to flower: he was a brilliantly talented actor and dramaturge, and was also a competent administrator and quite capable of moving in society circles, charming people with his wit and warmth. Like Shakespeare, he liked to write tragedy, but was often constrained to churn out comedies to please the public. He targeted the highly affected social customs of the times with deadly accuracy, but he was equally good at conveying he absurdity of universal human qualities such as greed, vanity, and hypocrisy, which is why his plays are still enjoyed today.

Molière suffered from tuberculosis. His last performance was as the lead in Le Malade Imaginaire (The Hypochondriac), where he collapsed on stage in a fit of coughing. The King, who was present, urged him to rest, but Molière insisted on completing his performance. Once he had done so, he collapsed again, coughing up blood. He died a few hours later, unshriven, as two priests refused to visit him and the third arrived too late: they disapproved of the barbs he had directed toward the Church in his lifetime. He was wearing green, which led to the tradition that green brings bad luck to actors.

The laws of the time did not allow actors to be buried on sacred ground, so he was interred in a special corner of a cemetery reserved for unbaptized infants. Although the funeral was supposed to be secret and was held at night, over 800 people showed up. Later his remains were exhumed and transferred to Le Père Lachaise Cemetery.

Source: Wikipedia

February 16 | Félix Faure

January 30, 1841 - February 16, 1899: Age 58

Félix Faure was President of the French Republic at the time of the Dreyfus affair, but is today probably best known for the manner of his death. He was receiving oral sex at the time from his lover, Mme. Marguerite Steinheil. One day Faure telephoned her to ask her to the palace at the end of the afternoon. Shortly after her arrival the servants found the president lying, unconscious, on the couch, while Marguerite was adjusting her clothing. The president died several hours later; the cause of death was stroke.

The rumour was that "his stiff hands were entangled in her hair", and the jokes started immediately: he died of "trop sacrifié à Vénus". Steinheil acquired the nickname "Pompe Funèbre", and a famous journalist quipped that "Il voulait être César, il ne fut que Pompée". The puns work in French, trust me.

Her career as a woman of the world blossomed, and she became the mistress of many famous men. In 1908 she was the subject of a mysterious scandal when her stepmother and husband were found murdered in their apartment, Steinheil herself being gagged and tied to the bed. She claimed that they had been attacked by black-robed strangers, but the police were made very suspicious by many inconsistencies in the evidence and in her story. When she attempted to frame one of her servants, she herself was arrested and had a sensational trial. Many prominent admirers spoke in her favour, including even the King of Cambodia. In the end, she was acquitted, although the judge called her stories "tissues of lies".

She remarried, moved to England, and wrote her memoirs. She died in 1954, an old lady of 85.

Source: Wikipedia (English), Wikipedia (French)

February 5 | Violette Szabo

June 26, 1921 - c.February 5, 1945: Age 23

Violette Szabo was an Allied secret agent in France during the Second World War. She was born in Paris, her mother being French and her father English. When she was 19, she met and married a French soldier of Hungarian descent, who was killed in battle shortly after the birth of their daughter in 1942.

She offered her services to the British Special Operations Executive, based on her fluency in French and her knowledge of the country. After extensive training she was sent into France to research munitions factories in order to establish efficient targets for Allied bombs. After one successful mission, she returned to France in June 1944, but was wounded by a German patrol. She insisted that her companions escape while she provided covering fire, which they did. Once she ran out of ammunition, she was captured.

She was tortured and interrogated but revealed nothing. She was transferred to eight different prisons during her incarceration; when she was in one lightly guarded prison her comrades organized a rescue mission but arrived just two hours after she had been sent away to Ravensbruck, a notorious concentration camp for women, where nearly 100,000 women were killed. Violette, ultimately, was among them. After enduring hard labour and malnutrition there, and later in a labour camp on the Russian front, she was returned to Ravensbruck and executed by firing squad in February 1945.

Sources: Wikipedia, findagrave.com, The Violette Szabo Museum

January 9 | Anne de Bretagne

January 25, 1477 – January 9, 1514: Age 36

Anne de Bretagne was the only surviving daughter of the Duke of Brittany, at that time an independent kingdom, constantly threatened by the imperialist schemes of France. Although the legality of a woman inheriting the title was murky at best, her father recognized her as the official heir when she was nine. And not a moment too soon: he died two years later after a fall from his horse. In late 1490, when she was 13, she was married by proxy to Maximilan of Hapsburg, King of the Romans. The King of France, however, didn't take kindly to the ruler of Brittany marrying an enemy of France, and forced the Pope to annul the marriage so that he could marry Anne himself.

The marriage began badly, with Anne pointedly arriving at her new home with two beds. She was just turning 15. She became pregnant seven times by the King, but only four of the babies were born alive, and three of them died in infancy. Their son, Charles, survived longer than the others; but he died of measles at the age of three.

The King himself died in 1498, leaving Anne a widow at 21. Although there was an agreement that, should the King die before her, she would marry his heir, said heir was already married. Anne agreed that she would marry him provided he had his current marriage annulled, and returned to Brittany to rule as Duchess. It may be that she didn't think he would do it, but he did, and once again Anne became Queen of France in early 1499. This husband, however, was much less restrictive, allowing her to continue to live in Brittany and rule as Duchess, accepting for himself the title of Duke Consort.

She ruled well until 1514. When she died that year of a kidney stone attack, she was just 36, but had been pregnant 14 times, with seven children stillborn. Of the seven who were born alive, only three survived infancy, and only two survived childhood. Her funeral lasted 40 days.

She wished her heart to be encased in a reliquary, and so it was: a beautiful gold one, which was taken to her parents' tomb and then later moved to Saint-Pierre Cathedral. In 1792, during the First French Republic, it was exhumed, emptied, and seized to be melted down. Somehow it was saved, and in 1819 was returned to Nantes. It has remained in Brittany ever since.

Anne was very probably the person who commissioned the beautiful Hunt of the Unicorn tapestries, now on display at the Cloisters Museum in New York City. You can explore them here.

Sources: Wikipedia

January 1 | Charles the Bad

October 10, 1332 - January 1, 1387: Age 54

Full disclosure: this picture is not of Charles the Bad. It is of John the Good, ordering his arrest. Really.

Charles II of Navarre earned the title Charles the Bad mainly by being an inconvenience to his father-in-law and cousin, King John II of France ("John the Good"), whose throne he felt entitled to. He also felt entitled to a lot of other things: the fiefdoms of Champagne, Brie, and Angoulême, and the Duchy of Burgundy. He pursued all these claims in the usual way: double-dealing, intrigue, war, pillage, etc. He was unable to realize any of these claims.

In 1387 he became ill and consulted doctors (often a mistake in those days). The prescription resulted in a particularly horrific death. He was to be wrapped completely in a linen cloth impregnated with brandy. The remedy was administered at night, and the attendant charged with sewing up the cloth that enclosed him...

"...having come to the neck, the fixed point where she was to finish her seam, made a knot according to custom; but as there was still remaining an end of thread, instead of cutting it as usual with scissars, she had recourse to the candle, which immediately set fire to the whole cloth. Being terrified, she ran away, and abandoned the king, who was thus burnt alive in his own palace.

Source: Wikipedia

November 11 | Julien Offray de La Mettrie

December 25, 1709 - November 11, 1751: Age 41

Julien Offray de La Mettrie was one of the first influential scientists to notice the link between mind and body, and to interpret that link, not as evidence of the "power of spirit", but as evidence that physical phenomena were to be accounted for as the effects of organic changes in the brain and nervous system. Trained as a physician, he played out what were for him the logical conclusions to this reasoning: that the meaning of life can be found in sensory pleasure, and that virtue is a form of self-love. He also publicly stated his case for atheism.

His views were so controversial that he had to move to a new country several times to avoid the possible violent consequences of the public ill-feeling he aroused. He was welcome, however, in the court of Frederick the Great. There he cured the French ambassador of an illness and the ambassador, in gratitude, threw a great feast for him. At the feast, de La Mettrie consumed a large quantity of paté aux truffes and, as a result, developed a fever, became delirious, and died.

"When death comes, the farce is over, therefore let us take our pleasure while we can."

Source: Wikipedia

November 3 | Olympe de Gouge

December 31, 1745 - November 3, 1793: Age 47

In French law during the 17th century women had no legal right to declare the paternity of their children. So Olympe de Gouge, in a strange way, had the freedom to define herself: she was denied by her natural father, a marquis, and her washerwoman mother had no legal say in the matter.

We may not find it surprising that Olympe grew up to be a passionate defender of the rights of the oppressed, but in fact it occurred to very few people that anybody who wasn't a white male should have any rights at all. At the time that the whole country, indeed the whole of Europe and the New World, was in a intellectual ferment over the Declaration of the Rights of Man and the Citizen, the rights of women, slaves, and children were considered ridiculous (when considered at all).

During the events leading up to the French Revolution and the Revolution itself, Olympe de Gouge supported herself by finding male patrons willing to protect her while she wrote plays and essays proposing and defending universal human rights. She wrote a play attacking slavery in 1774 (L'Esclavage des Nègres) but it went unpublished until 1789, the year of the Revolution, and even then she could not get it staged because, among other obstacles, she couldn't find actors willing to play negro parts.

She became involved and tried to speak out about any injustice: "A woman has the right to mount the scaffold. She must possess equally the right to mount the speaker's platform." She opposed the execution of Louis XIV. The year that Déclaration des droits du Homme et du Citoyen was published, she published Déclaration des droits de la Femme et de la Citoyenne. She was combative, outspoken, difficult, and hated. Even a century after her death, the historian Jules Michelet commented, "She allowed herself to act and write about more than one affair that her weak head did not understand."

Eventually she paid for her views with her "weak head". In 1793 she was arrested for publishing an essay that demanded a plebiscite on a choice of three potential forms of government: an indivisible Republic, a federalist government, or a constitutional monarchy. On November 3 her "right to mount the scaffold" trumped her right to mount the speaker's platform, and she was guillotined.

Source: Wikipedia

October 12 | Audrey Mestre

August 11, 1974 - October 12, 2002: Age 28

Audrey Mestre was a French world record-setting free diver who died in an attempt to set a world record of 171 metres.

In the sport of freediving, the diver descends vertically under water as far as possible, then reascends to the surface, on just one breath. This is achieved using a weighted sled tethered to a strong line. Holding on to the sled, the diver shoots downward to a give depth. At the bottom the diver uses a small air tank to inflate a balloon and, holding the balloon, shoots back up to the surface. Safety divers in scuba equipment are positioned at regular intervals and at the bottom to assist in case of mishap.

Nitrogen narcosis, the condition that makes deep diving risky for scuba divers, is not a problem because descending and ascending on one breath leaves no time for nitrogen to build up in the bloodstream. However training for the sport is necessary to make it possible for go without air for three minutes, and to survive surviving high ambient pressure that would normally cause permanent damage to the lungs.

The first part of the dive went as expected, but at the bottom of the dive Mestre discovered that the small tank that was to be used to fill the balloon for the ascent was nearly empty. The safety diver used some of his own air to partially fill the balloon, allowing her to leave the bottom, but it wasn't enough to get her all the way back up, and she lost consciousness about 100 feet below the surface. Safety divers positioned part way up managed to get her the rest of the way, but not before she had been without oxygen for nearly nine minutes. She never regained consciousness. Her death was ruled an accident.

A year after her death one of her friends and team members came out publicly to accuse her husband, also a free diver and in charge of the team, of negligence at best and, at worst, deliberately planning his wife's death. Nobody seems be clear whose responsibility it was to fill the tank for the ascent balloon. Other safety measures that might have saved her life — a doctor at the surface, spare air tanks at stations on the way up — were not in place. The husband and the team member have published competing books, each with their own version of events. The dispute is emotional, rancorous, rather sad, and quite interesting.

Sources: Wikipedia, US News, The Last Attempt

September 1 | Louis XIV

September 5, 1638 - September 1, 1715: Age 66

Louis XIV of France, also known as The Sun King, began feeling unwell in early 1715. As King of France, a great superpower, at 66 he was arguably the most powerful man in the world. Various diagnoses and treatments didn't improve the situation and by early August he began to experience severe pain in his leg. By late August he was diagnosed with gangrene and ordered to bathe his leg in burgundy and ass's milk. Two days later the doctors were recommending incisions but, knowing he was going to die anyway, Louis refused. He asked how much time he had: it was a Monday, and the doctor replied "Sire, we may hope until Wednesday." In fact Louis lived until the following Sunday.

Needless to say his last days were not pleasant, but they were made worse by the intrigues that flowed around him. In the previous few years, Louis XIV lost nearly all of his legitimate heirs: his son, two grandsons, his brother, and two great-grandsons. He was succeeded by his youngest great-grandson, Louis XV, who was 5 when he died, and whoever served as Regent would have many years to mold the new young King and place his friends and relations in positions of importance. (His wife, Madame de Maintenon, bullied him into naming her favourite as Regent.)

He spent his last days saying goodbye and giving last minute advice. In response to the weeping and wailing going on around him, at one point he said, "Why do you weep — did you imagine that I was immortal?" At the end, he was left to the priests and his room was filled with religious music and prayers. On 1 September he died.

Source: Mitford, Nancy, The Sun King, 1966.