June 20, 2015
The Battle of Waterloo is going on as I write this (for tomorrow's post).
Tonight, BFMTV, the French 24-hour news station, is carrying live the first part of the battle, the French attack.
The actual battle was fought two days earlier one hundred years ago, on June 18 2015. However, the organizers of this spectacle held anniversary celebrations on Wednesday, as the public began to arrive and the re-enactors prepared to go through their drills. Fifty thousand people were involved in putting on this spectacle (which will last four days) together. Five thousand men, dressed in costumes designed as exact replicas of those the combatants wore, form the armies. There are horses and flags, rifles, cannons, smoke and funny hats. French newspapers and magazines have been full of stories about the re-enactment, which will not be repeated until 2025. Tickets have sold well, at 15.75 Euros each.
Needless to say, you have to be obsessed with Napoleon to spend what it costs of participate, let alone participate as a combatant. And what of the man who is Napoleon for the length of the four days? That would be Frank Samson, who will be retiring as Napoleon (a distinction he has held for six years) after this tour. At 47 years of age, Samson is the same age the Emperor of the French was when he was definitively defeated by the armies of the Grand Alliance.
His wife Delphine is his Josephine. Their two sons are participating, too: one is a page, the other a customs official. (The family that re-enacts together, stays together.) French television carried a clip of Frank and Delphine visiting a master costumer putting the finishing touches on their outfits. "People are bigger now", the costumer tells the reporter, "an average man was much smaller than the average man today." Which means more silks and ribbons to sew, happy news for a master costumer, when a historically accurate, complete costume can cost over $25,000.
It is now 10:00 p.m., and the battle is still raging on the plain of Waterloo. The sun has set, but darkness will not descend for another half hour. Re-enactors are feigning battle wounds, complete with evacuation on litters and treatment of injuries as would have been done at the time. Within limits of course: no gangrenous legs will be sawed off.
The re-enactment of the Battle of Waterloo is the largest re-enactment in Europe. And a passionate interest in the event whose consequences changed the face of Europe is not limited to the French. There are 1400 Brittaniques, and as many Canadians and Australians participating alongside the French, Belgians and other nationalities. The "bravest of the brave", as Napoleon called him, Marechal Ney, is incarnated by Franky Simon, a Brussels bookseller.
And what of Frank Samson, why has he devoted so much of his life to pretending to be Napoleon, mastering the general's smallest gestures, moues and attitudes? It takes his mind off his work, he says.
And what does Frank Samson do when he's not incarnating Napoleon?
--He's a attorney specializing in traffic regulations.
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