Napoleon Is Bombed at Versailles

Breton nationalists wreck a symbol of French "imperialism "

The explosion sounded like a belated, booming finale to the fireworks display at the Palace of Versailles. Thus, when an agitated watchman telephoned the local police station one night last week, the flics at first assumed that his report of a bomb blast was just another complaint by an angry Versailles resident about the racket over at the chateau. Earlier that evening, 50,000 people had trekked out to the magnificent 17th century palace--home of France's royal court until the revolution of 1789--for a fireworks festival celebrating the arrival of summer. While Roman candles and rockets cannonaded across Versailles's famed formal gardens, one visitor secreted a time bomb in a cupboard in the chateau's south wing. The blast, which went off some time around 2 a.m., was verified by the police one half-hour later when a squad car made a routine check of the palace.

A spokesman for President Valery Giscard d'Estaing called the bombing "a deplorable injury to an essential part of the French heritage." Indeed, the chateau that was once the residence of the Bourbon kings is now one of France's major tourist attractions. Ten galleries displaying some of the country's greatest art treasures were damaged. A huge hole gaped in the floor of a hall devoted to art of the Napoleonic era. Chandeliers lay in a carpet of crystal shards. Rare Louis-Philippe furniture and exquisite ornamental paneling were reduced to matchsticks. Busts of the great men of France's past were broken. Seriously harmed were six paintings of Napoleon, including a 10-ft. by 20-ft.

oil by Jean-Baptiste Debret entitled The First Bestowal of the Legion of Honor in the Invalides. Probable cost of repairing the damage: $1 million.

Said the inconsolable chief curator of the Versailles Museum, Gerald Van der Kemp: "There has never been an attack on Versailles since the reign of Louis XIV." The palace, which is located about twelve miles west of Paris, had remained unscathed during the Franco-Prussian conflict of 1870, as well as during the first and second World Wars. Responsibility for the bombing was claimed by three extremist groups: Unemployment International, the Revolutionary Worker Group and a military wing of the Breton Liberation Front. French authorities took the Breton claim seriously. A telephone tip turned up a letter from the Breton Republican Army. Signed Youenn ar sorn (Little Salamander in the Breton language, which is related to Welsh), the letter said that the attack had been carried out because "the Breton people are oppressed; the land of Brittany is occupied by French military camps; the Breton language and culture are denied and destroyed by the imperialist French power."

At week's end two Breton separatists were arrested and confessed to the bombing.

Organized in 1966, the Breton Liberation Front is dedicated to achieving independence for the estimated 1 million Bretons in France who are ethnically and linguistically related to the Celts of ancient Britain. In the past twelve years, Breton militants have attacked 206 symbols of French "imperialism," including the city hall of Rennes in Brittany, state radio and TV centers, a nuclear power plant, and military and police barracks.

Presumably, the Bretons singled out the treasures of the Napoleonic era because of the Emperor's untrammeled imperialist ambitions. The Breton nationalists have attempted to stir up support for their cause among other regional independence movements in France, including those in Alsace, Reunion, Guadeloupe and Corsica. But last week's bombing of Versailles was bound to backfire on Corsica: there the island's most celebrated native son, Napoleon Bonaparte, is still a national hero. -

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