History Vichy tries to forget
QUESTION Do the buildings that housed the Vichy government still exist?
VICHY France was a French collaborationist regime in World War II that formed in July 1940 after the German defeat of France. It was named after its seat of government, the lovely spa town of Vichy in the Rhone-Alps, a favourite holiday spot for Napoleon III and a playground of the rich and famous.
Vichy’s Grand Casino was one of the city’s prime attractions. Opened on July 2, 1865, by Napoleon III and expanded at the turn of the century, the casino had a theatre, great ballroom, billiards and various salons. It was in the theatre that the representative assembly of the French Third Republic voted itself out of existence, granting full powers to Marshal Philippe Petain.
While the Nazis did not have direct control over Vichy France, a rump state that controlled central and southeast France, the Vichy regime was beholden to the Nazis. Petain’s government was protofascist, having near-total government control of the economy. They implemented a number of racist policies and willingly assisted in the deportation of French Jews to concentration camps. Conspicuous now, when visiting Vichy, is the attempt to erase this sorry history. With the arrival of the new government, by the autumn of 1940, 120,000 people lived in and around the town, more than five times as many people as had resided there before the summer. Petain established his residence and government at the Hotel du Parc. His ministers resided in the surrounding hotels and villas.
The Hotel du Parc building still exists, but there are no outward signs to indicate its former incarnation. It is now a block of offices, apartments, shops and a tourist office. There is a plaque inside as a small reminder of its past.
A right-wing group, the Association for the Defence of the Memory of Marshal Petain, bought Petain’s old rooms, hoping to transform them into a Petain museum, but local objections prevented that.
The Pavillon Sevigne, a 17thcentury mansion, was used as the site of Petain’s cabinet meetings during World War II. This is now Vichy’s premier hotel but there is no plaque in any of its ornate public rooms to record its history.
QUESTION Which was the first Native American tribe to settle in North America?
THE Clovis people are considered to be the ancestors of most of the indigenous cultures of the Americas. The tribes we recognise today did not appear until between AD1100 and 1250.
The first human beings to arrive in North America crossed a land bridge from Siberia approximately 13,000 to 13,500 years ago. These people, the first North Americans, were known collectively as Clovis people, after the town of Clovis in New Mexico, the site of several important archaeological finds.
Their journey south was made possible by a corridor that had opened up between giant ice sheets covering what is now Alaska and Alberta. Thus did the Clovis people move down through the North American continent, carrying their distinctive tools to various sites in the Plains States and beyond. What is known about the Clovis people comes from what they left behind: scrapers, drills, blades, and distinctive leafshaped, fluted spear points called Clovis points. More than 10,000 Clovis points have now been found from southern Canada to Central America. The end of the Clovis age came about 12,900 years ago, but the Clovis people didn’t disappear. It appears that post-glacial climate changes, including a 1,500year cold period, forced native peoples to adapt and move and a long hunter-gatherer period ensued. From 10,000 years ago to AD1100, the Americas were occupied by these nomadic groups.
Some distinct cultures did emerge such as the so-called giant Mound Builders who lived around the Great Lakes. It wasn’t until AD1100 these nomadic peoples began to coalesce into distinct tribes and nations.
This was the Indian Village Period; in the Great Plains, residents were living in substantial villages along the Missouri River and its tributaries, from north to south, and early tribes such as Hidatsa, Mandan, Arikara, Ponca, Omaha, Pawnee, Kansa, Osage, and Wichita were formed.
Louise McDonald, Edinburgh.
QUESTION After James Last died in 2015, what became of his orchestra?
IN FEBRUARY 2015, after almost 50 years on tour, James Last announced his farewell. The last concert of his Non Stop Music tour took place in the Lanxess Arena in Cologne on April 26, 2015. The James Last Orchestra was disbanded and sadly Last himself passed away on June 9, 2015.
James Last was born Hans Last in Bremen, Germany, in 1929 and went on to become ‘king of the non-stop party’ thanks to his upbeat arrangements of tunes by everyone from The Beatles to Lady Gaga. There were countless orchestra members and many still play. Chuck Findley, a former member of the Buddy Rich band, who has played with everyone from Tom Waits to Pat Boone to Miles Davis, is still in demand. His brother Bob is a well-known Hollywood session musician.
Another trumpet player, Jan Oosthof, is a teacher at the Amsterdam University of Arts and a member of the Dutch Jazz Orchestra. Stefan Pintev has his own band, G-Strings. There are many more.
■ Is there a question to which you have always wanted to know the answer? Or do you know the answer to a question raised here? Send your questions and answers to: Charles Legge, Answers To Correspondents, Irish Daily Mail, DMG Media, Two Haddington Buildings, 20-38 Haddington Road, Dublin 4, D04 HE94. You can also fax them to 0044 1952 510906 or you can email them to charles. legge@dailymail.ie. A selection will be published but we are not able to enter into individual correspondence.