Sunday, July 1, 2018

Uchronic history II : the greatest shams of History !

by Jean-Jacques COURTEY, Doctor in Geographic Economy, Ph. D
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Get ready for something you probably ignore !
Get ready for your certainties to be shaken !
Let's start with the greatest shams of History about Louis XVI and Marie-Antoinette !
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Today, we are going to talk about an extraordinary man, who was both a kind of banker and a skilled secretary of  the King's secret cabinet in Tuileries till August 10th 1792.
After that date of the Tuileries' assault, he operated by himself in solo, and what he achieved for Louis XVI (1754 - 1793 ?) and Marie-Antoinette (1755 - 1793 ?) looks incredible.
His name was Jean de Batz (but often you can find on documents relating to him "Jean-Pierre de Batz", 1754 - 1822). He was a Baron, and as it seems from the same family as Charles de Batz - more commonly known under the name of D'Artagnan (1611~ 1615- 1673) !
He was born in the castle of Gouts, near Tartas (Landes, Aquitaine).
As a MP and a liquidator of the Constituant Assembly during the French Revolution, he pointed out that the cancellation of the only claim of the Parisian Water Company - which was as gigantic as doubtful - could have saved the Royal Treasure !
As a matter of fact, the Baron de Batz was a financial expert and a new type of banker, in link with other famous bankers of Europe.
He made a tremendous fortune with the Compagnie des Indes, and he was a specialist of Financial Magic.
In this regard, he remains famous in French history for two audacious and ultra-dangerous attempts of rescue concerning both Louis XVI and his wife, Marie-Antoinette.


The first rescue operation happened in the morning of January 21st, 1793 in the district "Bonne Nouvelle" ("Good News") in Paris. Normally 2000 of his men should have been positioned in the accesses of boulevard Bonne Nouvelle and the "rue de la Lune" ("the Moon street"). But most of them were absent, because of the impressive number of guards that Robespierre (1758 - 1794) had set on the King's itinerary from the Temple jail to the "Place de Grève" (now Concord Square). His spies informed him of an imminent attempt of saving from de Batz. The latter decided yet to launch the operation in the nearby "rue de Beauregard", in front of n°52 (a plate of the municipality of Paris commemorates that event). He was accompanied by several men, among whom one was very corpulent and tall (a double of Louis XVI). And they managed to open a breach in the security cordon, and to approach and open the door of the sedan transporting the King to the scaffold. They were shouting "To us French people ! To us those who want to save the King !" After that, they quickly withdrew and vanished in the crowd, while the sedan was tearing it up onboard in direction of the "Place de Grève". Years after, under the Restoration, a Belgian monk claimed to be the King Louis XVI and was denying "his brother" Louis XVIII (1755 - 1824) to reign on France, instead of him ! This monk was echoing the monk-king in gray of Varennes (1791 - Century of Nostradamus, IX-20).
It seems people didn't realize on January 21st, 1793, the man who was guillotined at 10:22 had arrived with his hair uncut, as it appears clearly on the engravings of the time !


About the second attempt of saving, it appears to be astonishing too.
The Queen was emprisoned in the Conciergerie jail after the official execution of her husband, Louis XVI, and separated from her children who remained in the Temple jail.
Everybody has certainly heard about the novel of Alexandre Dumas, "Le Chevalier de Maison-Rouge" ("The Knight of Maison Rouge", 1846) who wanted to save the Queen.
This book is inspired of two different attempts of saving, the one of the Chevalier de Rougeville (in the Temple jail, which didn't happen) and the one of the Baron de Batz (in the Conciergerie jail).
If we concentrate on de Batz, a woman who looked very much like Marie-Antoinette (a double then), asked him to advance her one million to bribe accomplices in the Conciergerie jail.
Her name was Cornélia de Galéan, Marchioness of Janson, and she wanted to take the room of the Queen in the Conciergerie jail !
Nobody knows exactly neither the way it happened, nor when it happened in 1793.
It is generally considered "Cornélia de Galéan", Marchioness of Janson wasn't the escaped Marie-Antoinette.
She said it herself to people who tried to check her identity during the Restoration, by explaining the latter refused finally her help, in the enactment of the Baron Jean de Batz. They believed her...or didn't want to make things complicated.
As an epilog however, it is known "Cornélia de Galéan" liked very much staying in her "Petit Trianon de Provence" (castle of Sauvan) : it recalled her so much the "Petit Trianon" of Versailles, dear to her heart !
Whoever she was in reality, Marie-Antoinette, Cornélia, or the "Baroness de Korff" of the Varennes escapade, she died of natural death - and not guillotined then - in 1834, in Paris !
It is said that the unlucky Robespierre postponed the execution of the Queen, at 12:15 on October 16th, 1793, to avoid the mishap of January 21st - most likely in vain !






The use of doubles by the Baron de Batz, is clearly echoing the one which entrapped the unhappy Marie-Antoinette, in spite of herself, in the notorious and so damaging intrigue for French Monarchy of the Diamond Necklace (1785).


We hope you enjoyed this article of uchronic history, even it has obliged you to think and rethink about what you took until now for certain. What you learnt will help you to think thoroughly, and to make freely your own opinion without the usual mythological pressure.


The Baron de Batz with his Financial Magic was able to remodel reality according to his royalist wishes. Yet, strangely he always denied any participation to those two rescues - probably to protect the safety of the royal characters he saved.

He also denied having any connection with the Orval abbey in Belgium, which was yet quickly ravaged and burnt down by French forces in 1793, as reprisals for the rescue of January 21st, 1793 (a so foggy morning in Paris). This abbey noticeably granted hospitality for Austrian troops !


And from his luxurious and opulent retreat of Chadieu castle (Puy-de-Dôme), till his death in 1822 under Restoration, he asserted with delight having nothing to do with the extraordinary operations, that revolutionaries had attributed to his modest person !


He died too of natural death (from apoplexia) and not guillotined, even he was once wanted under the dictatorship of Robespierre - who finished badly injured in the jaw and guillotined in Thermidor 1794.
History will retain the Baron de Batz succeeded well, in making brushes with humor and smartness to Robespierre during his "reign of Terror" !