Skip to content →

Tag: Besse

Le Guide Bourbaki : Murol(s)

The preparations for the unique Bourbaki-congress in Murols, start already in La Tribu 32 (fall 1953). On page 3:

“Summer 54: To suit Phileas Chevalley, Sammy Fogg and eventual Mexicans and Colombians, this Congress will be held from August 17 to 30. Samuel will look for a hotel in Auvergne, but everyone is asked to also prospect the hotels in his region.”

One should recall that the ICM 1954 was held in Amsterdam from September 2nd-9th. It was convenient for Chevalley and Eilenberg (who were in the US) and for possible more foreigners to have Bourbaki’s summer congress just before the ICM.

(Of course, Phileas Fogg is the main character in Jules Verne’s Around the World in 80 days.)

A lot of people attended the Murols-meeting (La Tribu 34, ‘Congres super-oecumenique du frigidaire et des revetements troues’).

Apart from the regular crowd (Cartan, Chevalley, Delsarte, Dieudonne, Dixmier, Godement, Koszul, Sammy (=Eilenberg), Samuel, Schwartz, Serre and Weil), there was a guinea-pig (Serge Lang), an ‘efficiency expert’ (Saunders MacLane), two ‘foreign visitors’ (Hochschild and John Tate) and two ‘honorable foreign visitors’ (Iyanaga and Kosaku Yosida).

Probably because of this, extremely detailed travel instructions were given in La Tribu 33 (page 2):

“Next congress: will be held at the Hotel des Pins, in Murols (Puy-de-Dome) from August 17 to 30.
There is at least one night train departing from Paris, going to Clermont or Issoire, followed by a bus-ride to Murols; details will be given as soon as we know the summer schedules.
For motorized people not coming from the South by the N.9, nor from the West by the N.89: go to Clermont-Ferrand, leave it by the N.9 (route d’Issoire), turn right about 17 kms further (after the village of Veyre) to take the N.678 towards Champeix; in Champeix take (on the right) the N.496 (direction of St-Nectaire, Murols and Mont-Dore).
For those coming from the South by the N.9: turn left at Issoire to take the N.496 towards Campais, St-Nectaire, Murols. For those coming from the West by the N.89: leave it a little before Lequeille to take (on the right) the N.122, turn left 2 km further to take the N.496 towards Mont-Dore, the Chambon lake and Murols (road continuing towards Champeix and Issoire).”

If you follow this route on the map, you’ll know that the congress was not held in Murols (departement de l’Aveyron), but in Murol (departement du Puy-de-Dome).

This time we do not have to search long for the place of venue as Hotel des Pins a Murol is still in operation.

Note the terras on the first floor, and the impressive line of trees in front of the hotel.

At first I felt frustrated as I couldn’t figure out where this well-known photograph of the Murol-meeting was taken.

From left to right, Godement, Dieudonne, Weil, MacLane, and a smug looking Serre (he knew he would be awarded a Fields medal in a few days time).

Today it is impossible to have this view from the hotel-terras because of the trees in front. Still, the picture was taken from the terras, and the imposing building in the background is the late Turing Hotel in Murol.

Here’s a picture of it with the Hotel des Pins in the background.

We’ve encountered the Murol-congress before on this blog when trying to piece together the history of the Yoneda lemma (Iyanaga was Yoneda’s Ph.D. advisor, and probably on his advice MacLane met with Yoneda in the Gare du Nord to hear about his lemma).

On MacLane’s role as ‘efficiency expert’ we have this in La Tribu 34:

“Frightened by the disorder of the discussions, some members had brought a world-renowned efficiency expert from Chicago. This one, armed with a hammer, tried hard and with good humor, but without much result. He quickly realized that it was useless, and turned, successfully this time, to photography.”

As we’ve seen in Amboise and Pelvoux, Bourbaki likes to have His summer venues close to places of great sentimental value.

Murol is very close to Besse-et-Saint Anastaise, the place of the very first Bourbaki-meeting in 1935.

As always, this asks for a little pilgrimage. From La Tribu 34 (page 2):

“Despite the incessant rain, Bourbaki was attracted by the waters, and went to explore lots of Auvergnian lakes. Besse and its Lac Pavin were naturally entitled to a pilgrimage. Courageous founding-fathers and lower-members, braving the rain and fog, rushed across to the lake of Guery where their dripping pants aroused the suspicions of a bar maid, and beat the motorized elements there by several lengths. Others swam and rowed. Even the Japanese were entitled to their lake.”

Comments closed

Where is the Royal Poldavian Academy?

Among the items found on Andre Weil at the time of his arrest was “a packet of calling cards belonging
to Nicolas Bourbaki, member of the Royal Academy of Poldavia”.

But then, where is the Royal Poldavian Academy situated? Well, surely in the Kingdom of Poldavia, which is a very strange country indeed, its currency unit being the bourbaki and there exist only two types of coins: gold ones (worth n bourbakis) and silver ones (worth m bourbakis). Using gold and silver coins, it is possible to obtain sums such as 10000 bourbakis, 1875 bourbakis, 3072 bourbakis, and so on. Prove that any payment above mn-2 bourbakis can be made without the need to receive change.

However, the Kingdom of Poldavia isn’t another Bourbaki concoction. The name goes back at least to a joke pulled by the right-wingers of the Action Francaise in may 1929. Here’s the TIME article of May 20th 1929 :

“When 28 French Republican deputies sat down to their breakfast coffee and croissants early last week, each found a large crinkly letter from Geneva in his morning’s mail. Innocent and refreshed after a sound night’s sleep, not one Republican deputy saw anything untoward in the fact that the large crinkly letters were embossed on the stationery of “Foreign Minister Lamidaeff, of the Kingdom of Poldavia.” They saw nothing strange in the fact that Poldavians were in financial difficulties, and they found Minister Lamidaeff most thoughtful in not asking for money, but merely for an expression of “moral support” from the Deputies in his campaign to aid Poldavian sufferers. “We believe that our interests were betrayed at the Peace Conference,” wrote Poldavian Lamidaeff. “and we appeal to you as a member of the French Parliament to do your utmost to help us in this our hour of need. The whole nation of Poldavia and its noble monarch who disregarded personal safety in 1916, and joined France in her War for justice and righteousness, pray you to remember our sacrifices.”

What could be fairer than that? Legislators all over the world are always ready to write enthusiastic platitudes in favor of anything that sounds like a good cause. The wronged Poldavians seemed a very good cause. Each of the 28 deputies sat down at his desk and pledged his moral support to “Foreign Minister Lamidaeff of Poldavia.”

None of the 28 deputies noticed that the old Poldavian name of Lamidaeff might read “I’Ami d’A. F.”—”the friend of A. F.,” “the friend of L’Action Française” famed royalist newspaper of which the editor is Leon Daudet, bon vivant, practical jokester, son of famed Author Alphonse Daudet (Tartarin de Tarascon), exile from the republic he has so consistently lampooned (TIME, June 13, 1927, et seq.). Three days after the 28 gullible deputies replied to the “Poldavian Minister,” a special edition of L’Action Française appeared.

“People of France,” wrote exiled Editor Daudet, who once escaped from La Sante prison through a hoaxed release order telephoned from the office of the Minister of the Interior, “—People of France, how much longer will you permit such ignorant deputies to represent you before the world? Here are 28 of your elected representatives, and they actually believe there is a Kingdom of Poldavia, and that Lamidaeff is its Foreign Minister. Lamidaeff, c’est moi!””

The consul of Poldavia also appears in the 1936 Tintin-story The Blue Lotus by Hergé. In view of the above AF-connection, it should’t come as a surprise that Hergé is often accused of extreme-right sympathies and racism.

To some, Poldavia is a small country in the Balkans, to others it lies in the Caucasus, but has disappeared from the map of Europe. All accounts do agree on one point, namely that Poldavia is a mountainous region.

Today we are pleased to disclose the exact location of the Royal Poldavian Academy, and, thanks to the wonders of Google Earth you can explore the Kingdom of Poldavia at your leisure if you give it the coordinates 45.521082N,2.935495E. Or, you can use the Google-map below :

View Larger Map

The evidence is based on a letter sent by Andre Weil to Elie Cartan when the Bourbakis wanted to submit a note for the Comptes Rendus des Séances Hebdomadaires de l’Académie des Sciences under the pseudonyme Nicolas Bourbaki. As the academy requires a biographical note on the author, Weil provided the following information about Bourbaki’s life :

“Cher Monsieur,
Je vous envoie ci-joint, pour les C.R., une note que M.Bourbaki m’a chargé de vous transmettre. Vous n’ignorez pas que M.Bourbaki est cet ancien professeur à l’Université Royale de Besse-en-Poldévie, dont j’ai fait la connaissance il y a quelque temps dans un café de Clichy où il passe la plus grande partie de la journée et même de la nuit ; ayant perdu, non seulement sa situation, mais presque toute sa fortune dans les troubles qui firent disparaître de la carte d’Europe la malheureuse nation poldève, il gagne maintenant sa vie en donnant, dans ce café, des leçons de belote, jeu où il est de première force.
Il fait profession de ne plus s’occuper de mathématiques, mais il a bien voulu cependant s’entretenir avec moi de quelques questions importantes et même [ajout manuscrit : me laisser] jeter un coup d’œil sur une partie de ses papiers ; et j’ai réussi à le persuader de publier, pour commencer, la note ci-jointe, qui contient un résultat fort utile pour la théorie moderne de l’intégration, je pense que vous ne verrez pas de difficulté à l’accueillir pour les Comptes-Rendus ; si même les renseignements que je vous donne au sujet de M.Bourbaki ne paraissaient pas suffisamment clairs, j’imagine qu’il n’appartient à l’Académie, et en particulier à celui qui présente la note, que de s’assurer de la valeur scientifique de celle-ci, et non de faire une enquête au sujet de l’auteur. Or j’ai examiné soigneusement le résultat de M.Bourbaki, et son exactitude est hors de doute.
Veuillez recevoir, je vous prie, les remerciements de M.Bourbaki et les miens, et croyez toujours à mes sentiments bien affectueusement et respectueusement dévoués.
A.Weil”

That is, ‘Besse-en-Poldevie’, or simply ‘Besse’ as in this line from the wedding announcement “Mademoiselle Betti Bourbaki, a former student of the Well-Ordereds of Besse” must be the capital of Poldavia where the Academy is housed.

You may have never heard of Poldavia, but if you are a skiing or cycling enthusiast, the name of its capital sure does ring a bell, or rather so does the name of its sub-part Super Besse. The winter sports resort of Super Besse is located in the commune of Besse-et-Saint-Anastaise in the Parc naturel régional des volcans d’Auvergne in the department of Puy de Dôme, in Auvergne. Situated approximately 50 km from Clermont-Ferrand, it is located at an altitude of 1350 m on the slopes of Puy de Sancy, Puy de la Perdrix and Puy Ferrand. Surely a mountainous region …

Besse-et-Saint-Anastaise, or rather Besse-en-Chandesse as it was formerly called, was the venue of the very first Bourbaki Congres 1935. Surely, they used the ‘Royal Poldavian Academy’ as their meeting place. But, where is it?




At the Besse meeting were present : Claude Chevalley, Jean Dieudonné, René de Possel, Henri Cartan, Szolem Mandelbrojt, Jean Delsarte, André Weil, the physicist Jean Coulomb, Charles Ehresmann and a ‘cobaye’ called Mirles.

Of these men three held a position at the University Blaise Pascal of Clermont-Ferrand : Mandelbrojt, de Possel and Coulomb and they arranged that the Bourbaki-group could use the universities’ biology-outpost in Besse-en-Chandesse. Photographic evidence for this is provided by the man standing apart in the right hand-picture above : the biologist Luc Olivier.

Concluding : the Royal Poldavian Academy is located at the ‘Station Biologique de l’Université Blaise Pascal’, Rue du Lavoir, Besse-et-Saint-Anastaise.

On July 12th 2003 a ceremony was held at the Biology-station commemorating the birth of Nicolas Bourbaki (the group), supposedly born July 12th 1935. A plate at an exterior wall of the Biology-station was unveiled.

More information about the mysterious country of Poldavia can be found in the article La verité sur la Poldévie by Michele Audin.

Comments closed