Greatest French person of all time...

[ghostwriter]

Re: Djangology

remember that one next time somebody pops the other question...name me 10 famous B***gians. /forums/images/graemlins/wink.gif

and in reality, Django Reinhardt was born in Belgium , but he came out of a group of rambling gypsies so it was just accidental and nationality does not mean much to gypsies.

/forums/images/graemlins/laugh.gif try Johhny Halliday for a change /forums/images/graemlins/laugh.gif

 

[ghostwriter]

wadda mistaka da maka

http://www.chronique.com/Library/MedHistory/charlemagne.htm

make sure they don't read your answer or you might be responsible for a next worldwar /forums/images/graemlins/laugh.gif

 

[Evadne]

Listen vairy cairfooly, Ah weel say thees ounly wunce....

1. Asterix
2 Bernard Moitessier
3. Jean Charcot (sailed to the antarctic in a ship called the "Porquoi Pas?", captained a British Q-boat during WW1 and died with his boots on when the Porquoi Pas was wrecked on the Rekjanes peninsula.)
4. Alain Bombard (completely bonkers, he sailed across the atlantic in a rubber duck with no food or water).

 

[Lakesailor]

[ QUOTE ]
While playing trivial pursuit in France, I found that if I didn't know the answer to the question, the best thing was to say "Charles de Gaulle". It was the right answer a surprising number of times, even to questions that seemed improbable. But the last time I tried it, I failed. The correct answer was - his wife...

Can't win all of them.

[/ QUOTE ]
Reminds me of a quiz we had at our motor club. We realised that the rules didn't allow for penalties for a wrong answer and once someone had answered incorrectly the next answerer got less points if they were right.
So we jumped in with "Morris 1000" as the answer for everything we didn't know.
Caused a bit of a fuss.

 

[Nickel]

Can't believe no-one's mentioned Jeanne D'Arc.

 

[Gunfleet]

How about Murat, Ney, Marmont, Hoche, Kellerman, Kleber, Gouvion St Cyr, come on, who can remember the others?
added later
Berthier, Bernadotte.... memory's failing

Soult, Macdonald, Poniatowski, Mortier, Davout

 

[Gunfleet]

Now I'm not sure Hoche was one. But he made a better attempt at invading Britain than the Germans did a hundred years later

 

[Guest]

What did Stanislaw Poniatowski have to do with France (except having visited the place a couple of times, but he wasn't much of a fan of the country)? I agree he was an interesting chap, and much maligned by historians, mainly because his reign as the last king of Poland was in the end a spectacular failure. Tried hard though, and was an intelligent chap.

 

[Roberto]

[ QUOTE ]
How about Murat, Ney, Marmont, Hoche, Kellerman, Kleber, Gouvion St Cyr, come on, who can remember the others?
added later
Berthier, Bernadotte.... memory's failing

Soult, Macdonald, Poniatowski, Mortier, Davout

[/ QUOTE ]

looks like you are reading a map of paris John /forums/images/graemlins/smile.gif

 

[Gunfleet]

Doesn't it? The metro esp. And the other chap is right of course, Poniatowski wasn't French. But he was a Marshal of the French Army. I remember he drowned crossing the Vistula... but was he ever King of Poland? I thought he was a prince.

 

[Gunfleet]

Aha! I have googled and discovered we are talking different Poniatowskis.

 

[Guest]

Perhaps you are thinking of a different Poniatowski. The only one I know was Stanislaw. He certainly wasn't a Marshal in the French army, and definitely didn't die crossing the Vistula. He was assistant to the British ambassador in Moscow, and became Catherine the Great's lover (one of them), and after that became King of Poland. Poland had a rather unusual elective monarchy at the time. He did his best to unify Poland, but in the end was betrayed by his ex-lover Catherine, and Russia invaded Poland and split up with Germany and Autrian - the partition of Poland. He was therefore the last King that Poland had. The partition has echoes of 1939 about it.

Poniatowski was a very enlightened man, and did lots of good (developing education, culture etc.) before he was overtaken by events. No doubt he is popular with the French because he was one of the heros of the Enlightenment.

 

[Guest]

Ah! I didn't know about the Marshal one. No doubt a relative.

I saw a demonstration in St Petersburg - an old woman (babushka) was holding up a placard entitled "Great Russians". On it were inter alia Stalin (Georgian), Lermontov (of Scottish stock, Lermontov = Learmont), Barclay de Tolley (Scottish again), and Pushkin (part Arab)...

She didn't appreciate it when I told her.

 

[claymore]

Skrela, Jean-Pierre Rives and Benoit Dauga.

 

[Gunfleet]

Very good. Barclay de Tolley... bloody Aberdonians get everywhere.

 

[Das_Boot]

Papa Doc Du Valier

 

[Sgeir]

Jings. Learmont, had no idea. And of course, JohnM's Marshal Etienne Macdonald was born into an exiled Scots Jacobite family.

 

[beancounter]

surprised no-one has mentioned Racine, Moliere, Proust, Sartre, Camus or any of the other french literati...

 

[Gunfleet]

Roots, boring, a potted historian of loukhums, navel gazing and an Algerian goalkeeper! Is that the best they can offer?

 

[Das_Boot]

What about the Count of Monte Christo.

The pink panther was french no!