The Ashes of Limoges And The Collapse Of France

The town hall in Limoges, France, was built to persuade the French that their Republic was permanent. It opened on Bastille Day 1883, crowned with a 43-meter bell tower and decorated with coats of arms in the city’s own Haviland porcelain.

On Saturday evening, after a march that the mainstream media reported was a protest against the cost of living and educational standards, masked men broke in and set it alight. As a metaphor, it was so on the nose that, if it had appeared in a novel, an editor would have blocked its publication as too obvious a symbol of tragic civilizational decay.