VER(n)E(t)
Art Neuendorffer
http://www.internationalhero.co.uk/holmes.htm
<<Holmes revealed little about his origins, save that his ancestors were
country squires, and that his grandmother was the sister of the famous
French artist Vernet (though he doesn't say which Vernet). He has an older
brother Mycroft, possibly more brilliant than he, but lacking the drive to
pursue investigations. This vagueness has allowed a number of later authors
to speculate wildly about his background, and the numbers of adaptions of
his stories to stage and screen is staggering.>>
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http://soalinux.comune.firenze.it/holmes/inglese/ing_thierry.htm
by Thierry Saint-Joanis
(president of the Société Sherlock Holmes de France "Les Quincailliers de la
Franco-Midland", BSI as Monsieur Bertillon)
<<The work of the French Sherlock Holmes Society is to find some connections
between Holmes and France. There are many. Let me give you three reasons to
think that Sherlock Holmes was French.
1 - Sherlock was French and well know in France one century before he was in
England! During the French revolution, a man named Sherlock was very famous
as a member of the Conseil des Cinq-cents, the national assembly. We have
the electoral shit where Monsieur Sherlock thanks the people of the
département of Vaucluse after he was elected at the assembly (see
illustration A).
Few years after, our Sherlock wrote a letter to the general Bonaparte in
which he told the story of his family. The Sherlock's family was from
Ireland. It had three parts: the first stayed in Ireland, the second went to
Spain where one member was Don Juan Sherlock, colonel of the Hibernia
Regiment with the title of Grand d'Espagne. And the third part of the family
went to France and our general Sherlock was the most famous one. Today, in
our society, we have, as member, three people who are the actual heirs of
the general.
2 - Now, let's look at the character of the detective. In 1871, a
best-seller novel in France, by Henry Cauvain (Annecy tax inspector), was
titled Maximilien Heller. Its eponymous hero, who turns out to be an amateur
detective, lives in an indescribably untidy apartment. He is tall, thin and
pale, uses opium, is given to sitting in an armchair from morning to night
staring at the ceiling, writes innumerable monologues on complicated and
obscure subjects, is an expert at disguise and an extraordinarily fine shot.
Oh, and his adventure is recounted by his good and loyal friend, who happens
to be a doctor. Is it possible that Holmes and Heller were one and the same,
that Cauvain was in fact Holmes's French literary agent, and that the 1871
novel was Holmes's first case which, of course, took place in France?
3 - Last, the "coup de grace"! Sherlock Holmes was a wine connoisseur, spoke
fluent, accentless French and was awarded the Legion d'Honneur. Then there's
his marked resemblance to the French painter Horace Vernet. Could it be?
Sherlock Holmes a Frenchman! Well, maybe not completely. But the world's
most famous detective was certainly not English. He wasn't even
Anglo-French. Maybe Franco-British, at a pinch. In The Three Garridebs, he
refuses a knighthood. And in The Golden Pince-Nez, he accepts the Legion
d'Honneur. I ask you, would a true Englishman ever do that? As in any good
whodunnit, the clues are all there. As the master himself was fond of
saying: 'When you have eliminated the impossible, whatever remains, however
improbable, must be the truth.' Observation and deduction, mon cher Watson,
observation and deduction. The most obvious clue to the detective's Gallic
origins - which of course explain his Gallic brains and Gallic flair - crops
up in The Greek Interpreter, when Holmes himself explains to the ever
faithful Watson that 'my grandmother was the sister of Vernet, the French
painter'. So far, so good. Born Paris 1789, died idem 1863, Horace Vernet
was best known for his battle scenes; lots of French museums own examples of
his work. And the family resemblance is indeed striking. But Watson's 60
cases also show the legendary sleuth spoke fluent and accentless French. In
Montpellier in 1902, during the Disappearance of Lady Frances Carfax, he
bounds from a cafe disguised as a French labourer and saves Watson from a
beating. Could Holmes do a convincing impression of a French labourer if he
wasn't at least partly French? And why, come to that, would he in all his
adventures positively pepper his conversation with French phrases even when
he's speaking English?
The great detective clearly bore a deep attachment to his mother country. To
Paris, for example, where he left his luggage at the Gare du Nord (The Final
Problem) and arrested the anarchist Huret (The Golden Pince-Nez); but also
to Lyon, where Holmes stayed at the Hotel Dulong in 1887 (The Reigate
Squire); and to Grenoble, where he had his bust sculpted by one Oscar
Meunier in 1894 (The Empty House). And Holmes was strangely familiar with
French art, culture and science. He drank, at various stages, Bordeaux,
Beaune, Montrachet. He particularly enjoyed Offenbach, and in The Red-Headed
League he once quoted Flaubert.
It's as plain as the nose on your face. Look at the two men's characters:
Holmes is bohemian, temperamental, up in the air, full of faults, but for us
French his reasoning is clearly Cartesian. Watson is bluff, jolly,
straightforward, a little slow at times but terribly decent - British
through and through. Most tellingly, Holmes admired French police work:
twice, in The Hound of the Baskervilles and The Naval Treaty, he mentions
the famous detective Alphonse Bertillon, a pioneer of scientific policing.
The compliment was returned. In The Sign of Four, the detective François le
Villard reveals that he has translated Holmes's scientific essays. This
means that from 1877 onwards, French police had access to such indispensable
pieces of Holmesiana as Sur la discrimination entre les differents tabacs,
Sur la datation des documents, and La détection des traces de pas, avec quel
ques remarques concernant l'utilisation du plâtre de Paris pour préserver
les empreintes. The fact that they have not exactly covered themselves in
glory since is not, of course, Holmes's fault.
But there is more. Moving beyond what one might term the canonical or
textual evidence for Holmes's Frenchness, we have discovered what can only
be called empirical evidence. And some of it, to employ a rather unHolmesian
turn of phrase, is pretty spooky. Take The Adventure of the Legion
d'Honneur. This happened to me a couple of years ago, and he still hasn't
quite recovered. Challenged by a couple of French journalists to come up
with an objective for our newly founded society, I impetuously declared that
I aimed to recover for Sherlock Holmes the Legion d'Honneur that the
detective had accepted but never actually received. Dressed in my best
deerstalker and macfarlane overcoat, I turned up at the Paris museum
dedicated to the best known of France's multitudinous decorations. The
doorman didn't want to let us in. He thought we were taking the mick. But we
showed him the book, and eventually he allowed us to meet the curator. The
curator, it so happened, was something of a fan of Holmes and willing to
play along. She even thought the story rang a bell. So the party trooped
along to the archives, where the ledger covering the Legion d'Honneur
awarded between 1894 and 1900 was duly extracted. At the back were the lists
of the awards made to foreigners. And there was a list of the awards made to
Englishmen. And there, in a hand indistinguishable from the rest, were the
words Holmes, S. Understandably unsettled, I later persuaded the French
authorities to present the honour to Holmes posthumously. Yes, because,
unfortunately, Sherlock Holmes dead. But it is natural, he was born in 1854.
He finished his Iife in Sussex by raising bees but his grave is not in
England. It is in France. Making a detour in an alley in the Pere-Lachaise
cemetery in Paris, you can actually run across several Quincailliers, the
hat is doffed, bowing before a grave marked with the monogram SH. Who is
buried here? The Master? For those who are in doubt, a request for an
exhumation order can be made. A study of the bones and the teeth will stop
the unbelievers. Sherlock Holmes is back for ever in his sweet home:
France!>>
-----------------------------------------------
Art Neuendorffer
Art Neuendorffer
http://www.internationalhero.co.uk/holmes.htm
<<Holmes revealed little about his origins, save that his ancestors were
country squires, and that his grandmother was the sister of the famous
French artist VERNET (though he doesn't say which VERNET).
He has an older brother Mycroft, possibly more brilliant
than he, but lacking the drive to pursue investigations.
This vagueness has allowed a number of later authors to speculate
wildly about his background, and the numbers of adaptions
of his stories to stage and screen is staggering.>>
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<<did dissERVE the fain,
my goldrush gainst her silVERNETss, to say, biguidd,
for the love of goddess and perthanow as you rEVEREs your
one mothers, mitsch for matsch, and while I reveal thus my
deepseep daughter which was bourne up pridely out of meds-
dreams unclouthed when I was pillowing in my brime (of Satur-
nay Eve, how now, woren't we't?), to see, I say, whoahoa, in stay
of execution in re Milcho Melekmans, increaminated, what you
feel, oddrabbit, upon EVERy strong ground you have EVER taken
up, by bitterstiff work or battonstaff play, with assault of TURK
against a barrakraval of grakeshoots,>> -FW 366
-----------------------------------------------------------------
http://soalinux.comune.firenze.it/holmes/inglese/ing_thierry.htm
by Thierry Saint-Joanis
(president of the Société Sherlock Holmes de France
"Les Quincailliers de la Franco-Midland", BSI as Monsieur Bertillon)
<<The work of the French Sherlock Holmes Society is to find some
connections between Holmes and France. There are many.
Let me give you three reasons to think that Sherlock Holmes was French.
1 - Sherlock was French and well know in France one century before he was in
England! During the French revolution, a man named Sherlock was very famous
as a member of the Conseil des Cinq-cents, the national assembly. We have
the electoral shit where Monsieur Sherlock thanks the people of the
département of Vaucluse after he was elected at the assembly
Few years after, our Sherlock wrote a letter to the general Bonaparte in