FRENCH REVOLUTION.

Western Star, 7 March 1939, Page 3

FRENCH REVOLUTION.

SESQUICENTENNIAL CELEBRA-

TIONS THIS YEAR. ARTHUR YOUNG TO BE COMMEMORATED. Preparations being made in France to celebrate the 150th anniversary .of the French. ■ Revolution have a double significance;- not only_will the fall °i the Bastille and the" beginning of a struggle which led "to the proclaiming of the. First Republic be commemorated, but peoples the world over will be reminded that France is a country where the State is for all, and not all for the State, which, as Mr Chamberlain recently tersely put it, is in reality a small clique of leaders. While details of programmes have not yet been made public, it is understood that July 14 will . be the occasion for ceremonies of great magnificence, with historical pageant procesi gions, h\ addition to the annual mili- | tary review and three days of danc- | ing in the streets. Celebrations will ! not be confined to Paris. In every part I of France there will be a series of commemorations. An Englishman, too, will be honoured in France this year, and in a number of places ceremonies will be hei<i commemorating the journeys through France of Arthur Young, as recorded iii-?:is 'Travels in France in 1787, 1787, " and 1789.' French historians consider that this English gentleman farmer, who visited France in order to study the of agriculture, left the completest and most accurate picture u conditions in France at the time just 'previous to the outbreak of the Revolution. ■When the translation of Young's "'Travels in France' appeared in 1793 the Convention ordered 20.000 copies to be specially printed and distributed gratuitously in -each commune of Ffancc The directory, in 1801, decreed that a selection from Arthur Young's other w«rks on agriculture, ahould ho translated into French, and 'ii edition was publ'shed in Paris in 18 volumes under the title of 'Le Cul'vateur Anglais.' Vestiges n' the heroic period of the j Revolution are to be found in great I numbers still in France. Even some of the "trees of liberty" planted in | the eally days of enthusiasm amidst scenes of great rejoicing. One of the most- famous of these "trees of liberty" is that at Bayeux, in Normandy, a magnificent oak standing beside the eatliedral and close to the museum where the famous Bayeux tapestry, on which William the Conqueror's qu<<en embroidered the story of 1C66. is j reserved. Tliis tapestry came near to destruction at the outbreak of the Revolution, for it was found by the mayor of Bayeux being used as covering for an ammunition wagon. He caused it to be removed and hidden.

English souvenirs are not confined lo Arthur Young, for there are still relics of the. English Revolutionary Club, founded in Paris, one of whose members was Thomas Paine. author of 'The Eights of Man,'—'News from France.'