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| Image source: commons.wikimedia.org |
The French, with irony hardwired into their genes, applauds condemnations of the monument. Declaring it a monstrosity is a show of solidarity for French cultural icons who had voiced the same thing. Among them, French literature’s luminaries Guy de Maupassant, Alexandre Dumas, and Emile Zola had common hatred for engineer Gustave Eiffel’s 1889 creation. They attacked it from the pulpit of taste that France had claimed theirs, and used it as a figure of speech for France’s internal conflicts.
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| Image source: commons.wikimedia.org |
The Catholics hated it as a sponsored symbolism of the secular government that ran France. Among detractors were anti-Semitic partisans who saw in it evidence of Jewish bankers’ excess, even though its creator wasn’t Jewish. Artists and intellectuals hated it for its vain politics. It was built to impress the rest of the world --- France included --- during the Expositions Universelle of 1889 (World’s Fair of 1889), and it naturally had to bring a monumental novelty that will stand tall against the Sacred Heart and Notre Dame, which are attractions on their own. Finally, it was thought as a means for espionage, its height coddling traitors transmitting their codes at the summit.
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| Image source: commons.wikimedia.org |
Make no mistake: The French and tourists still love it, and covered in dancing lights, it dazzles as an unbeaten beacon of modernity. What it stood for, though, is an intellectual climb, perhaps best left out of vacations. But it pays to know.
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