"Small is good" and "grandeur is better" (I) : la grandiose splendeur

France is one of the rare countries in the world that are appreciated by both its grandeurs and its small pleasures.

The French word grandeur is a tough concept to translate, as writes the authors of "Sixty million Frenchmen can't be wrong." Its closest equivalent, ''greatness'' brings to mind ''eminence'', ''distinction'', and ''excellence'' so that it has both natural and social meanings.

The United States of America reminds me of the Great Lakes, the Grand Canyon in Arizona, the Yosemite Valley, the immense forest of skyscrapers in New York, the big sports leagues like NBA and NFL, the huge business empires of new technology like Microsoft, Google and Apple. All these bring to the concept of ''grandeur''. But when I think of the concept of ''small pleasures'', the States hardly come up into my mind before some other countries, such as Japan, Switzerland and of course, France.

Japan is an attractive country across the world for many of its natural and cultural elements representing ''small pleasures'': the activities during the Cherry blossom season, the fine Sushi cuisine, the Japanese tea ceremony, cute household products from Muji, etc. But when I think of the concept of ''grandeur'', Japan hardly comes up into my mind before some other countries, such as the two big countries in North America, China and again, France.

So we are talking about two things: first, images of a country and its impression in the eyes of the others; and second, characteristics and tastes of a country. In this sense, ''grandeur'' and ''small pleasures'' stand for two different dimensions in which we understand our own country; at the same time, they provide two dimensions in which we appreciate another country.
Very often, some elements represented by ''grandeur'' and ''small pleasures'' represent two opposite scales as we understand a country: a country is either a fan of ''grandeur'' or ''small pleasures''; it is mostly appreciated or known as a country of either ''grandeur'' or ''small pleasures.'' There is no middle ground. This is very often the case such that for the examples listed in the above two paragraphs, I mean that Japan attracts me mostly for its ''small pleasures'' and north America for their ''grandeurs''. And I believe many people in the world share the same ''unbalanced'' impressions as I have.

The interesting thing about France and the French people is that they are remarkable at both ends. They attract our attention for both their grandeur and small pleasures.

Grandeur

The French people are fans of grandeur, without doubt. And they have plenty to say about grandeur : they have the Mont Blanc and enjoy it as one of the most popular regions for skiing, for their love of nature, extreme sports and the grandiose mountains; they would do everything to add to the splendor of its capital, from the Louvre Palace to the shining Hall of Mirrors in Versailles and to the Eiffel Tower; they have the grandes ecoles, in which the nation’s élites are formed to contribute to the country’s progress; they commemorate some of their greatest minds in the grandiose Pantheon in the 5th arrondissement of Paris.

Very specially, as we look deeper into the context of French society, the social ideal of grandeur has a remarkable representative, the French élite, and is thus specially related to the existence of the French élite and grandes écoles. The authors of « Sixty million Frenchmen can't be wrong » made interesting remarks about it, quoted as the following

 ''' ....Foreigners often criticize the grandes écoles system for being elitist, but creating an élite is the school's very purpose. The grandes écoles supply the élite to run virtually every human activity in France: engineering. chemistry, teaching, business administration, law, history, the penal system, and more. In France, no university degree can match the lustre of a diploma from Ecole Polytechnique (for engineers), les Hautes Ecoles Commerciales (business administration), or Ecole Normale Supérieure (for professors).
The real question, perhaps, is why the French feel they need to deliberately "create" an élite at all. The idea makes most North Americans shudder, probably because it sounds like a caste system. North Americans have their own systems for selecting an élite (lvy Leagues schools), but they don't openly affirm their élite quite the way the French do. One reason is that the word doesn't quite mean the same thing to the French. In France and most of Europe as well the term "élite" connotes not just privileges, but also duties. Becoming an élite civil servant in France means that one accepts the vocation of public service. An ENA graduate who leaves the public service to work in the private sector is referred to as a pantouflard (a slipper wearer).

People in all democracies accept the idea that armies need officers of higher rank who can lead battles. The French just believe the same thing about civilians. They consider their élite the officer class of society. lt sounds anti-democratic, but that's the way French democracy functions. The whole system is set up to find and cultivate an élite. To be admitted to grandes écoles, students have to go through a severe selection process of written and oral examinations. It's not a pure meritocracy, since those admitted tend to come from the middle class and higher But it's far from an aristocracy.

The fact that the French embrace their élite has never prevented them from being ferociously critical when their élite fails them -but that doesn't mean they want to get rid of them. Historically, when the French élite has broken down or failed, the French have either replaced it with another or invented institutions to renew it. Twelve years after the French Revolution, which nearly wiped out the French aristocracy, Napoleon replaced the old aristocracy with a noblesse d'empire, a brand-new nobility made out of high-ranking commoners. In 1871, when France suffered a severe beating at the hands of the Prussians, it created the Fondation des Sciences Politiques to renew the government's managerial class. In 1945, after four years of Nazi occupation, General de Gaulle created ENA to train high-level civil servants.
One reason the French are so open about affirming their élite is that they love power. Power is something you use and show in France. This realization really sunk in when we watched the fourteenth of July parade down the Champs Elysées in Paris. The parade started at ten o'clock with the horse guard, followed by the soldiers, air force troops, police officers, and firemen carrying guns and bayonets (in France, they are part of the military). After that, Mirage fighters, helicopters, and cargo planes flew over head. Then the machinery rolled out: rocket launchers and heavy tanks, camouflage bulldozers and portable bridges. The Bastille Day Parade is really a great Republican mass, an orchestrated demonstration of France's power for the pleasure of citizens and presidents alike.....'''