Prosperity
From
disaster and civil war, the Wheel of Fortune
turned ...
On 6 May 1889 France opened its fourth French Universal Exhibition. Ostensibly a celebration of economic progress achieved through the technological advances of the Industrial Revolution, it was actually the 100th birthday party of the French Revolution.
A monument was required so a competition was organised. Over 700 entries were received, including a 'watering tower' designed to cool the city in summer or the 'guillotine tower', a stark memorial to the Terror. The competition was won by Gustave Eiffel, for a tower greater in height than the world's current tallest construction, the Washington obelisk (169.25m). It would symbolise French power and industry and make Germany blanch with envy.
Construction began in January 1887, the metal struts painted reddish bronze. Huysmans called it a 'lonely suppository' and Maupassant a 'disgraceful skeleton'. While the 7500 tonnes of steel and cast iron were being assembled, France teetered on the brink of a new revolution.
The previous year a popular song had celebrated the brave général Boulanger, war minister from 1886-7. Boulanger was an orator and a fine horseman. He cleverly used the newspapers to exploit the desire for revenge over Germany, especially the return of Alsace and Lorraine, in German hands since the defeat of 1870. A group of conservative Catholic supporters around Boulanger opposed the anticlerical French government, bringing with them all kinds of random opposition factions, including the League of French patriots.
A committee of 'national protest' was formed to encourage Boulanger to stand for the Assemblée Nationale. He was elected both in Dordogne and the North. He demanded the dissolution of parliament and a revision of the constitution. On 27 January 1889, the representatives of the département of the Seine elected him deputy in a landslide vote. But the French upper chamber, the Senate, was assembled in high judicial sitting and arraigned him for crimes against the state. He fled to Belgium and, on 14 April 1889, was condemned in absentia to deportation to a closed fortress. The Boulangiste movement collapsed.
Perhaps, at last, the century of Revolutions was over.
By this time, the Eiffel Tower was also complete. It was inaugurated on 31 March 1889 at a height of 300.01m. The Figaro set up a livre d'or – golden book – that visitors could sign and see their names appear in the journal of the following day. The factory owners and the politicians made common cause with bankers and the Universal Exhibition brought in 22 million France through the sale of shares in its success.
There was also an exhibition of exotic pavilions, a way of bringing to the attention of ordinary French men and women the territories conquered by colonial expansion. Tunisia became a French protectorate in 1881, Annam in 1883, Cambodia in 1884. Bamako in Mali was occupied in 1882. Madagascar and the Congo were next on the list. The cutting of the Panama Canal was hot news, China a distant but tangible dream. On 28 June 1889, a law was passed confirming French nationality on coming of age for all those born on French soil to foreign parents. The inventor of the waste bin, E R Poubelle, proclaimed:
'There is a race underway between the peoples of Europe to grasp and hold unclaimed territories. We have too long tarried in claiming our share and must now fight to make up for lost time.'
It cost 5 francs to visit the Universal Exhibition, compared to an average wage of 4.80 francs per 14 hour day. Under sixteens worked 10 hours, women 11 at half the rate paid to men. Many worked seven days a week.
Paris at this time was a succession of semi-independent villages, divided by Haussmann's boulevards and avenues. There were no motor vehicles yet. On some streets, the horse-drawn carriages and buses rattled over wooden cobbles. Street traders called up to the windows and into the courtyards, offering wares and services. Well-to-do men wore top hats and gloves; ladies were pinioned in vicious, wasp-waisted corsets and cumbersome long dresses, concealing ludicrously complex undergarments.
Here and there on the walls of the houses, a woman's body was partly revealed in advertisements for washing powder or beauty creams. Some women began to demand the right to wear clothes more suitable to everyday life, freedom of choice in love and marriage, equality of rights and salaries with men, the right to vote and to pursue a career of their choice. The word feminism was heard.
Despite the cosmopolitan appearance of the Exhibition and increasing knowledge of the world, xenophobia and anti-Semitism remained rife and there were 30,000 unemployed men in the capital. The Eiffel Tower was intended as a symbol of France's aspiration for peace. But the iron foundries of the Creusot company were already at work on the artillery for the next – apparently inevitable – war. In the Revue Illustrée, a journalist considered French prosperity and remarked:
'When walking with pockets jingling with gold through the forests of contemporary Europe, it's probably a good idea to have the butt of a revolver visible in your waistband.'
