Saturday, July 30, 2011

Leslie Kwan: 'look at what I found while in Paris this afternoon'



[Yesterday we received a Twitter message from Leslie Kwan, calling attention to a photo she had taken of a commemorative street sign on a Paris street]

Le Chevalier de Saint-Georges (1745-1799) is featured at AfriClassical.com in English and French. The biography explains the history of the street's name. Here are excerpts:

Rue du Chevalier Saint-George
For many years Paris had a street named for General Richepance. In 2001 the City Council changed its name to Rue du Chevalier de Saint-George, at the request of French citizens from the West Indies.

The original sign listed the date of birth as 1739, even though historians and most leading biographers have documented it as 1745. Gabriel Banat is author of the authoritative English language biography of Saint-Georges, The Chevalier de Saint-Georges: Virtuoso of the Sword and the Bow (2006). He engaged in a lengthy effort to obtain changes in the signs for the street. On 25 March 2010, the Office of the Mayor of Paris informed him of changes.

The new signs call the street “Rue du Chevalier Saint-George,” and give the dates “1745-1799.” They add that he was “Colonel de la légion des Américains et du Midi,” [“Colonel of the Legion of the Americans and of the South”] the Legion of mainly Black volunteers Saint-Georges commanded.

Comment by email:
Thanks to Monsieur Gabriel BANAT. Jean-Claude HALLEY

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