A huge sign announces that the last rail of the tramway has just been welded. This is the real hero of July 4, 2007, the day commemorating the birth of the world’s most honored man.
Music, followed by four riders dressed in red, bayonets gleaming, and another, a lookalike of Garibaldi on his horse sent from Italy, goes down Ségurane Street, leading personalities and the public, stopping in front of the bank at the corner with the port, in front of the Italian plaque indicating that the hero’s birthplace was located here. The plaque in French and Niçois could not be installed because apparently, it would upset the building’s co-owners.
The wind picks up, and the procession moves towards the war monument. The crowd is cleared to leave only the dignitaries on the vast esplanade. And they wait for the prefect’s car, which is late.
It is not the prefect who arrives, but his chief of staff, with the Republic probably unable to find another representative to honor this symbol of freedom.
And there, apart from the Mayor of Nice, Jacques Peyrat, and the President of the Bicentenary Committee Jean-Pierre Mangiapan, it is a series of support players (valuable men nonetheless), who lay wreaths at the base of the war monument, in front of Garibaldi’s descendants.
No Italian minister, no French minister, no president of the regional council, no president of the general council, but worse than all, not even a Niçois flag!
The Legion band plays the “Last Post” (odd for the commemoration of a birth!), then “Fratelli d’Italia,” the Italian national anthem sung along by the many Italians present, followed by “La Marseillaise,” before marching off to music towards the port, followed by the official party. At this point, some voices rise to sing “Nissa la Bella,” to remind everyone that Garibaldi was Niçois. But the legion does not care and resumes its program.
Passing under the statue of Carlo-Felice, some gaze at his broken finger, remembering unkept promises. A passerby, not without humor, seeing the fire truck declares, “Did you see? The firefighters made an effort; they painted the truck red!”
A platform set up on the port welcomes our dignitaries in the full wind and sun. The Italian consul speaks of Garibaldi’s attachment to Nice, and Jacques Peyrat, in a fine rhetorical flourish, speaks of the ties that bound the hero to liberty and the Republic.
The buildings of the French and Italian naval forces could not make the rendezvous, apparently due to the wind. An Italian choir takes the stage. We are on the first Wednesday of the month, the sirens sound, it is noon. The castle’s cannon fires and a small white cloud rises into the clear sky. Perhaps the soul of the hero noting that, two hundred years after his birth, his city remembered him, albeit sparingly, meagerly, meanly.
Indeed, the man of freedom still inspires fear today. All the more reason to be proud and dignified deep inside.
Christian Gallo
Photos: Zulaan
© Le Ficanas ®
