Marianne

 

Marianne

Image courtesy Wikimedia Commons

Freewheeling along the twisting country lanes of France on a fine July day, Marianne welcomed the warm air caressing her naked breasts. Tossing her head back, her long blonde hair streaming behind her, she looked up and pointed at the sky. She felt that if she could only reach a little higher, she would be able to touch the brightest star in the heavens.

‘Sirius,’ she murmured, ‘the Dog Star, more ancient than time. I’ll look out for him tonight. What a wonderful way to spend a holiday, cycling by day and stargazing at night.’

The road surface was becoming rutted and Marianne realised that she must concentrate if she wanted to avoid an accident. Still caught in her reverie, she didn’t notice the crowds lining the track. Dimly, she heard roaring and gradually understood that there were people cheering and clapping.

A motorcycle passed her, the pillion passenger wielding a large video camera. Seconds later a cyclist in bright, skin-tight shorts and jersey sped past, followed at a short distance by several other young athletes on bikes. Cars carrying quantities of bicycles tracked them.

As Marianne absorbed this, she heard a whirring behind her that grew in intensity, but before she had an opportunity to risk looking over her shoulder, she found herself, to her alarm, being carried along in a mass of men and machines. None of them appeared to notice her nudity, so concentrated were they on maintaining their individual cadences. The assorted colours of the helmets and racing strip made an eye-catching kaleidoscope of high-speed motion.

At last, Marianne realised that somehow she had been caught up in the peloton in the penultimate stage of the Tour de France. When the racers crossed the finishing line, officials rushed forward to offer her a jersey. It wasn’t green, yellow, white, or polka-dotted, but black and knee-length. Blushing, she was led away to be interviewed by the race committee.

Image courtesy Wikimedia Commons

Marianne was a common name for French working-class women in the eighteenth century. She became the symbol of the French people during the French Revolution of 1789. She was not a real person but an idealisation representing all the desirable values a country espouses – liberty, decency, democracy, equality.