Paris and its History: Anagrams and Logogriphs
In chapter CI of ~A Picture of Paris~ (sadly excluded from the new edition of
this important work by the house of Maspero in 1979), Louis-Sebastien Mercier
noted the prodigious passion of Parisians (or at least in their newspapers) for
riddles, puns, rhymes, enigmas, logogriphs and anagrams. This passion was not
reserved only for the Ancien Regime but persisted through the revolutionary
period. Thus, in 1793, while the guillotine worked nearly all hours, the
Mercure Francaise presented, to the wisdom of its readers, a logogriph which
began tranquilly with this verse:
Une tete de moins fait grande difference [A head less makes a big difference]
and of which the answer was the words boef [beef] and ouefs [eggs] (by
"cutting off the head" of the word boeuf you get the word oeuf).
Anagrams were often political but not overly strict. For example a famous
quatrain put Mirabeau and Abbot Maury (one leader of the "Aristocrat" party in
the Constituent Assembly) in the same bag:
L'on pourrait faire le pari [We could make a simple bet]
Qu'ils nés dans la même peau [That they are born in the same skin]
Car, retournez abe Mauri [If you turn over abot Mauri]
Vous trouverez Mirabeau [You will get Mirabeau].
Or we found Iscariot in Aristocrat, Belitre [rascal] in Liberte [liberty],
Votre Mal [your illness] in Malouet [one leader of the "Monarchist" and
"Anglomaniac" party, since he wanted to imitate the British Constitution) and
we derived from Revolution francaise [French revolution]: La France veut son
Roi [France wants its king].
Which individuals, parties or institutions result from the following
anagrams:
Deite fatale;
L'Asne d'Or
Punira le f. qui se cabre ;
Job Cain.
***
Forward March!
The commander of the Republican Guard is scratching his head: on the
occasion of the presidential election (and whatever the outcome - and still
uncertain today - of the election) all of his men have to march past the head
of State. If they march in double file, there is one left over; if they march
in triple file, there are two left over; in quadruple file, there's three; in
quintuple file, there's four; in sextuple file, there's five; in septuple file,
there's six; in octuple file, there's seven; in nonuple file, there's eight; in
decuple, there'll be nine left over!
- Let them march past in undecuples, says one aide.
- Are you serious? Demands the commander skeptically.
But, miraculously, it worked. How many men are there in the Republican Guard?
