How Gaul-ing! Celebrating France's First Resistance Fighter
Every summer, a village in eastern France celebrates a Gallic chieftain who lost a major battle to Julius Caesar in 52 B.C. Despite that defeat, the mythic Vercingetorix, leader of the Gauls, is a French national hero today.
But Vercingetorix wasn't always remembered with such fanfare: For 2,000 years, he lay nearly forgotten.
On a recent day, actors posing as Gauls and Roman legionnaires engage in a mock battle at Alesia MuseoParc, a newly opened museum in Burgundy, where the real battle of Alesia, also known as the Battle for Gaul, is believed to have taken place.
In the verdant countryside not far from the museum, a giant statue of the sandal-footed Vercingetorix rises from a hilltop, with his sword by his side, long hair and mustache flowing. Olivia Surge says even though Vercingetorix lost to Caesar, it was a noble defeat.
"We might have lost, but we held on," the museum visitor says. "And Vercingetorix was the first leader in France to speak of liberty. And that's our motto today: liberty, equality, fraternity."
A Proxy For Napoleon III
Surge has brought her children to watch the jousting. Every French schoolchild learns about "our ancestors the Gauls." Although vanquished and Romanized, the Gauls are seen as the moral victors in the collective memory of France, and are now a national symbol. There are the iconic Gauloise cigarettes, and millions of readers around the world know the beloved comic book characters Asterix and Obelix, whose Gallic village is the last to resist Roman invaders thanks to a druid's magic potion that grants super strength.
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