Bordeaux
Most people visit the Bordeaux region for its fine wines but with a remarkable program of city restoration nearing completion the city fathers hope that visitors will also be attracted to the town from the surrounding countryside by its architecture. For Bordeaux is a unique example of eighteenth century townscape that has already attracted Unesco World Heritage Site status. Our moorings in the heart of the city on the Garonne river beside the Bourse, the most impressive building of a remarkable riverside façade that demonstrates the grace and unity of an eighteenth century urban style that achieved its finest expression in France.
Of course, the money for all these fine buildings had to come from somewhere. As Wilberforce observed of another Atlantic port that developed from the Atlantic slave trade, Liverpool in England: "Every brick in this city is cemented by a negro's blood". The Atlantic slave trade of the eighteenth century linked Britain, France and America commercially and, in consequence, ideologically. Our modern western world is built on the twin foundations of industrial capitalism, first developed in Britain, and democracy flowering in America and France, toward the end of the eighteenth century. That democracy, on both sides of the Atlantic, owed much to the French ideas of the Enlightenment, notably those of Montesquieu, the powerful magistrate of Bordeaux in the years leading up to the French Revolution. It was Montesquieu, misunderstanding the British constitution he purported to admire, who advocated the separation of powers that France and America have held to ever since. When the French Revolution broke out, the local politicians of Bordeaux formed a party in favor of constitutional monarchy; they were known as the Girondins, after the Gironde River. Events overtook them: the Revolution, as that phenomenon is wont to do, devoured its children and many Girondins met their fate at the guillotine during the Terror. A short walk from our ship, the magnificent Monument to the Girondins (photographed) now honors them.
Most people visit the Bordeaux region for its fine wines but with a remarkable program of city restoration nearing completion the city fathers hope that visitors will also be attracted to the town from the surrounding countryside by its architecture. For Bordeaux is a unique example of eighteenth century townscape that has already attracted Unesco World Heritage Site status. Our moorings in the heart of the city on the Garonne river beside the Bourse, the most impressive building of a remarkable riverside façade that demonstrates the grace and unity of an eighteenth century urban style that achieved its finest expression in France.
Of course, the money for all these fine buildings had to come from somewhere. As Wilberforce observed of another Atlantic port that developed from the Atlantic slave trade, Liverpool in England: "Every brick in this city is cemented by a negro's blood". The Atlantic slave trade of the eighteenth century linked Britain, France and America commercially and, in consequence, ideologically. Our modern western world is built on the twin foundations of industrial capitalism, first developed in Britain, and democracy flowering in America and France, toward the end of the eighteenth century. That democracy, on both sides of the Atlantic, owed much to the French ideas of the Enlightenment, notably those of Montesquieu, the powerful magistrate of Bordeaux in the years leading up to the French Revolution. It was Montesquieu, misunderstanding the British constitution he purported to admire, who advocated the separation of powers that France and America have held to ever since. When the French Revolution broke out, the local politicians of Bordeaux formed a party in favor of constitutional monarchy; they were known as the Girondins, after the Gironde River. Events overtook them: the Revolution, as that phenomenon is wont to do, devoured its children and many Girondins met their fate at the guillotine during the Terror. A short walk from our ship, the magnificent Monument to the Girondins (photographed) now honors them.
