Christmas Every Day

1823 Kindness is rewarded

This site often marks the great, the horrible, and the momentous, but today we pause to consider the actions of six kind people, five of them poor, and undistinguished except by virtue, and the rich man who posthumously recompensed them.

On the 25^th of August 1823, took place one of those distributions of the Montyon prizes which form so pleasant a feature in the social condition of France. The Baron de Montyon, or Monthyon, was a wealthy man, who, during the second half of the last century, occupied a distinguished place in the estimation of his countrymen; chiefly in various judicial capacities, in which his probity and honour were universally admitted. He established, at various periods of his life, no less than eight prizes, to be awarded to worthy recipients by the Académie des Sciences, the Académie Française, and the Faculté de Medicine. They were briefly as follows: In 1780, he invested 12,000 francs, the interest to be spent as an annual prize for inventions and discoveries useful in the arts. In 1782, he invested an equal sum, for an annual prize for any literary work likely to be most useful to society; and a similar one for lessening the unhealthiness of trades and manufactures. In 1783, another of equal amount for the benefit of the poor of Poitou and Berri; one for assisting poor men of letters; one for simplifying certain special mechanical arts; and one for rewarding acts of virtue among the poor. In 1787, and subsequent years, he established other prizes—all for good and worthy objects. The revolution drove him to Switzerland, and then to England, whence he did not return to France till 1815. His prize for virtue had been suppressed by the revolutionists; but he took care, by his will, to remodel it on a permanent and enlarged basis. This good man died in 1820, at the advanced age of eighty-seven.

The distribution in 1823 will serve as well as any other, to show the mode in which the Montyon prize for virtue is awarded. Five prizes were given to five persons—four women and one man. One of the women, although her husband earned but sixteenpence a day, had taken into her house and supported a poor destitute female neighbour. Another, a milliner, had for twelve years supported the mistress under whom she had served as an apprentice, and who was afflicted with an incurable malady. A third had, in a similar way, supported for seventeen years a mistress under whom she had acted as a servant, and who had fallen into abject poverty. A fourth, who was a portress, had shewn her charity in a somewhat similar way. These four persons received one thousand francs each. But the chief prize was awarded to an old clothesman, Joseph Bécard.

During the French Revolution, one M. Chaviffiac, of Arras, had first been imprisoned, and then put to death. Many years afterwards, in 1812, his widow came to Paris, to obtain, if possible, some property which had belonged to her husband. In this she failed, and she was reduced to the lowest pitch of want. Bécard, when a servant to the Marquis de Steinfort, at Arras, had known the Chavilliacs as persons of some consideration in the place; and happening now to meet the poor lady in her adversity, he resolved to struggle for her as well as for himself, for grief had made her blind and helpless. He begged coarse food for himself, in order that he might buy better food for her out of his small incomings as an old clothesman. She became ill, and occupied the only bed he possessed; and he slept on a chair for three months—or rather kept resolutely awake during the greater part of the night, in order that he might attend upon the sick lady. Pain and suffering made her peevish and sour of temper; but he bore it all patiently, never once departing from his custom of treating her as a lady—higher in birth and natural condition than himself. This life continued for eleven years, she being the whole of the time entirely dependent on that noble-spirited but humble man. The lady died in May 1823. Bécard gave a small sum to a curé, to offer up prayers for her soul; he carved with his own hands a small wooden cross; and he placed it, together with an inscription, on her grave. Such was the man to whom the Académie Française, acting under the provisions of the Montyon bequest, awarded a prize of fifteen hundred francs, a gold medal, and honourable commendation in presence of the assembled academicians.

These prizes, often considered the forerunners of the Nobel Prizes, continue to be offered. One of them was awarded in 1879 to the French-Canadian writer Louis Fréchette.

410  Visigoths sack Rome

After decades of wandering through the Roman empire looking for a place to settle, battling other barbarians at times, at other times fighting Roman armies, the Visigothic horde under its king Alaric trudged down the Italian peninsula in the summer of 410. The bribes, diplomacy and military force that had kept Alaric at bay were now absent; he had besieged Rome twice before and now that his extortionate demands were being rebuffed by the Emperor Honorius (safe in Ravenna) he meant to take and loot Rome.

By  this time, Rome was no longer a politically important city; the capital of the West was in Ravenna, the East was governed from Constantinople. It had been bled dry of its wealth by earlier barbarian threats, but it was still a large and prosperous town that Alaric was intent on plundering. On August 24 his troops entered the city and subjected it to a thorough but not atrocious sack. The Visigoths were by this time Christians (though of the Arian variety, now out of fashion in Rome) and they allowed some churches to be used as sanctuary. Nevertheless, there was the usual murder, rape, pillaging and slave-taking before Alaric called a halt and his forces withdrew.

Rome, in physical terms, would undergo worse treatment by invaders. In 455, the Vandals would launch a much more harmful attack; in 846, 11,000 Arab raiders looted St Peter’s Basilica;  in 1527, German troops, many of them Lutherans, sacked Rome in what was probably the most destructive attack the city ever endured. But the psychological effect of the 410 Fall of Rome was enormous. It was, said St Jerome, as if “the whole world had died in one city.” It appalled the ancient world and led many to blame the adoption of Christianity for the destruction. This charge summoned forth St Augustine’s epic The City of God which not only rebutted such accusations but laid forth a Christian scheme for understanding all of history.

In the long run the 410 attack would be overshadowed by the fall of the entire Roman empire in the West. In 476, a barbarian general took the imperial crown from the last emperor and sent the boy home.

Firsts and Lasts

1485 Last of the Plantagenet kings

At the Battle of Bosworth usurper Henry Tudor defeats Richard III who is killed, ending the Plantagenet dynasty whose branches of York and Lancaster had been fighting the Wars of the Roses. Tudor becomes Henry VII.

1642 First day of the English Civil War

Charles I, involved in years of quarrelling with Parliament, raises his royal standard at Nottingham signifying that he was at war with his opponents. Seven years later he will be beheaded by his Parliamentary captors.

1831 Nat Turner’s first victim

Slave Nat Turner began his rebellion with an order to “kill the white people”. His rebels in Virgina murdered 60 whites before they were quelled after two days, leading to murderous reprisals against southern blacks. Turner was executed in November.

1953 Devil’s Island closes

The French government had operated a penal colony in their Guiana colony since 1852. Devil’s Island was known for its harsh conditions and tropical diseases; its most famous prisoner was the falsely-accused Captain Alfred Dreyfus. Few convicts ever returned to France; fewer escaped. The last prison was closed after severe public criticism. The island now houses part of the French space program.

1989 First pitcher to 5,000 K

Nolan Ryan, who played for the New York Mets, California Angels, Houston Astros and Texas Rangers, holds a number of baseball records: the only pitcher with 7 no-hitters, the only player to last 27 seasons, the fewest hits allowed per inning, and the leader in strikeouts. On this date in 1989 he struck out Ricky Henderson of the Oakland A’s to become the first pitcher to strike out 5,000 batters. He would go on to strike out another 714 before retiring in 1993.

1561 Mary, Queen of Scots returns to Scotland

“It cam wi’ a lass and it will gang wi’ a lass!” Such was the prophecy supposedly made by King James V of Scotland at the birth of his only child, Mary, in 1542. The Stuart dynasty had originated in the marriage of a Bruce daughter to a Stuart male and the king seemed to fear that his line would end with his daughter. It was not an accurate prophecy but his daughter did live a tumultuous and, in the end, tragic life.

Mary was half-French; her mother was Marie de Guise, a member of an ultra-Catholic royal clique. To keep Mary safe from the clutches of Henry VIII who wished to force a marriage with his son Edward, the child was whisked away to France where she was raised as a Renaissance princess. She was married to Prince Francis, heir to the throne, and in 1559 when he became French king she became Queen of both France and Scotland. Perhaps, just as important was her claim to be the true Queen of England — she was the grand-daughter of Henry VIII’s sister and after 1558 the ruler, Elizabeth, was a Protestant.

Her reign in France was short-lived because Francis, always sickly, died in late 1560 of a brain infection. The French packed her off the next year to Scotland where she could be useful to them as an anti-English ally. Mary was, however, politically maladroit and totally unprepared for the backwardness and political violence she discovered in her home country. Much of the ruling class had become Protestant and would not submit to a woman who was more French than Scottish and a Catholic to boot. Intrigue, murder, religious strife and sexual hijinks would mark her years in power.

 

A good date for things blowing up

1863 Union forces bombard Fort Sumter

The Confederate attack on Fort Sumter in 1861 marked the beginning of the American Civil War. In 1863 Union forces returned to Charleston harbour but failed in numerous attempts to destroy or capture the fort which remained in Southern hands until 1865.

1943 The Schweinfurt Raid

In an attempt to disable the German aircraft industry, the Royal Air Force and the United States Army Air Force launched massive attacks on Schweinfurt and Magdeburg. The simultaneous raid was designed to disperse Luftwaffe fighter attacks but bad timing and lack of fighter protection made the  raid a disaster. 60 bombers and their crews were lost plus several of their escorts. The folly of long-range penetration without fighter coverage persisted until another raid on Schweinfurt later in the year proved even more catastrophic.

1958 Failure of Pioneer 0

The Space Race between the USA and the USSR was just getting started and rocket technology was still unreliable when an ambitious unmanned lunar expedition was launched. The Pioneer craft was to go into orbit around the moon with a camera and various instruments but less than four minutes into the flight the Thor rocket carrying the payload exploded.

2005 Terror bombing in Bangladesh

Inspired by the success of the Islamic jihad in Afghanistan, the Jagrata Muslim Janata Bangladesh (the Awakened Muslim Masses of Bangladesh) and the Jamaat-ul-Mujahideen (the Assembly of Holy Warriors) combined forces in 2005 to set off 500 bombs all across Bangladesh. The groups wish to replace the secular state with a sharia-ruled government and force stricter observance of Islam. Though leaders of the groups were tried and executed, fundamentalist violence continues to plague the country.