I don't know why so many French people still regard de Gaulle so highly.
It's difficult to mix politicians, artists and athletes, so here is my ranking per category :
Top monarchs :
Napoleon Bonaparte
Louis XIV
Philip IV
Francis I
Henry IV
Top painters and sculptors:
Louis David
Auguste Rodin
Renoir
Toulouse-Lautrec
Cezanne
Gauguin
Monet
Manet
Matisse
Top architects:
Gustave Eiffel
Viollet-le-Duc
Vauban
Le Corbusier
Top composers:
Bizet
Hector Berlioz
Camille Saint-Saens
Jacques Offenbach
Claude Debussy
Jean Philippe Rameau
Jean-Michel Jarre
Top writers:
Victor Hugo
Jules Verne
Alexandre Dumas
Gustave Flaubert
Emile Zola
Moliere
Antoine de Saint-Exupery
Charles Baudelaire
Arthur Rimbaud
Francois Rabelais
Guy de Maupassant
Marcel Proust
Jean de La Fontaine
Marie Curie
Louis Pasteur
Auguste and Louis Lumière (inventors of the cinema)
Montgolfier brothers
Jacques Cousteau
Claude Levi-Strauss
Blaise Pascal
Jean-Francois Champollion
Antoine-Laurent de Lavoisier
Top actors/actresses & filmmakers:
Jean Reno
Christian Clavier
Luc Besson
Louis de Funese
Jean Gabin
Bourvil
Jean-Paul Belmondo
Catherine Deneuve
Alain Delon
Francois Truffaut
Jean-Luc Godard
Top designers:
Coco Chanel
Christian Dior
Yves Saint-Laurent
Jean-Paul Gaultier
Edouard de Givenchy
Pierre Cardin
Others
Pierre de Coubertin - initiator of the modern Olympic Games
Jean Monnet - one of the founding fathers of the EEC and EU
Jacques Delors - 3x President of the European Commission
i will have to had:
composer:
Maurice Ravel
Jean-Jacques Goldman
writer:
Honore (de) balzac
scientists and intellectuals:
Henri Becquerel
philosophers :
Lacan
actors/actresses & filmmakers:
Fernandel
Vincent Cassel
Sorry, but I couldn't help noticing Jean-Michel Jarre ranking along with great classical composers as Debussy, Bizet, Berlioz and Offenbach. Jean-Michel Jarre must be proud!!
A note: Pachelbel is not French.
He was born in Nurnberg, and worked in Erfurt and Stuttgart. As far as I know, he didn't have a base in Paris, or have studied at the conservatory in Paris. I think Offenbach studied in Paris, and Debussy, Berlioz and Bizet had bases in Paris.
Pachelbel is one of my favourite classical composers, I especially love his "Kanon Suite," which is of course played at many weddings nowadays.
I am a great classical music lover, but my faves are not from France, sorry.
I love Smetana (Czech), Sibelius (Finn), Lizst (Hungary/Austria). I also like Bach and Vivaldi.
Anyhow, the people listed in the other categories are truly great, and I can only agree that many painted, wrote and designed according to my taste..
I would just like to know according to which criteria the list of top monarchs is ranked. Adding Napoleon on top implies that it must be the number of people butchered in wars, countries invaded and the intensity of misery brought over Europe.
Napoleon spread the ideas of the 18th century Enlightenment throughout Europe, reform several of these countries legal and administrative system. He was the most charimastic leader France has ever had (making de Gaulle look like a clown in comparison), the greatest military strategist, the most beloved monarch, and ruled over the most powerful empire France has ever had (the the biggest because of later African colonies though). But Napoleon's reign also marked a sort of French golden age, a bit like Victoria's reign in the UK after that.
Lolol, you must have missed my sarcastic undertone. I'm aware of the impetus he had on scientific and legal development, and I am absolutely sure that he is still revered in France, but where I come from he is seen as a foreign invader and ego-centric maniac who wrought political havoc on most of Europe.
My favourite episode in his life: the expedition to Egypt in 1798.
I know. I was just mentioning what made him different from a king like Louis XIV or Louis XV, who also wrought havoc most of Europe, not least the War of Spanish Sucession and 7 Years' War. Henry IV's war of religions or (Saint !) Louis IX's crusade were hardly better. But I had to make a list of great monarchs, and the others have less positive aspects in the balance.
I don't think I could improve on the list at all ! Even the painters were in about the right order for me ... although, I might have shoved Renoir up a notch or two !
(Of course, you forgot pop-singer Francoise Hardy - I fell in love with her, around 1962 ............. )
Regards,
W
__________________ If you haven't been a Communist by the time you're 40 - then you don't have a heart.
If you're still a Communist after the age of forty - you don't have a head ....
(Denis Healey)
If you're still a communist after the age of sixty ... you're coming to your senses again ....
Good list, and I would like to add under Top scientists and intellectuals:
Ferdinand de Saussure (b.1856-d.1913) laid the founding principles of modern linguistics in his tripartite lectures from 1906 to 1911 at University of Geneva. He published only 600 pgs during his lifetime, and from the lecture notes were compiled Cours de linguistique general published posthumous 1915. He had studied the Proto-Indo-European vocalic system at Leipzig Univ., taught Germanic languages, comparative linguistics, and Sanskrit at Ecole pratique des Hautes Etudes 1881-1891, and Sanskrit at Univ. of Genev until 1907. He also seved as secretary of the Linguistic Society of Paris 1881-1891.
Wade baskin, in his Preface to the English translation, Course in General Linguistics, 1959, said;
"The nineteenth century had a fragmentary approach to reality which prevented scholars from getting around beyond the immediate facts in matters of speech...The atomistic conception of speech, reflected in the historical studies of the comparative philologists, had to give way to the functional and structural conception of language. Saussure was among the first to see that language is a self-contained system whose interdependent parts function and acquire value through their relationship to the whole."
__________________ Z: The fish in the water are happy.
H: How do you know ? You're not fish.
Z: How do you know I don't ? You're not me.
H: True I am not you, and I cannot know. Likewise, I know you're not, therefore I know you don't.
Z: You asked me how I knew implying you knew I knew. In fact I saw some fish, strolling down by the Hao River, all jolly and gay.
--Zhuangzi
Last edited by lexico; 20-03-05 at 01:40.
Reason: title
As an American my vote of course goes to Gilbert du Montier, The Marquis de Lafayette.
Did you know that he is one of only 6 people to ever be granted honorary American Citizenship? The other ones being Winston Churchill, Mother Theresa, Raul Wallenberg, William Penn and his wife Hannah.
When he died in 1834 there was a national day of mourning and both the House and Senate draped their chambers in black. Soil from the American Bunker Hill monument was buried with him in his casket.
In the House of Represenatives there is a full body portrait of Lafayette - it is directly to the left of the portrait of the founder of our nation, George Washington.
When General John J. Pershing arrived in France with the American Expeditionary Army during World War I, he exclaimed: "Lafayette, we are here."
The United States Flag has flown over his grave since World War I, repeatedly replaced when tattered. When Paris was occupied by the Germans during World War II, the flag over his grave was never disturbed.
Perhaps the most permanent effect that Lafayette has had in this country, beyond his heroism on the battlefield, is the number of places named for him in the United States. The name "Lafayette" or related names like "Fayette" are found almost 400 times in the United States.
So anyway, while there may be greater Frenchmen, I think it should suffice to say that no other child of France is more beloved and respected in the United States than General Lafayette.
Greatest French people ever ?
Linear Mode
