by Thierry Saint-Joanis
(president of the Société Sherlock Holmes de France "Les Quincailliers de la Franco-Midland", BSI as Monsieur Bertillon)
The work of the French Sherlock Holmes Society is to find some connections between Holmes and France. There are many. Let me give you three reasons to think that Sherlock Holmes was French.
1 – Sherlock was French and well know in France one century before he was in England! During the French revolution, a man named Sherlock was very famous as a member of the Conseil des Cinq-cents, the national assembly. We have the electoral shit where Monsieur Sherlock thanks the people of the département of Vaucluse after he was elected at the assembly (see illustration A).
Few years after, our Sherlock wrote a letter to the general Bonaparte in which he told the story of his family. The Sherlock’s family was from Ireland. It had three parts: the first stayed in Ireland, the second went to Spain where one member was Don Juan Sherlock, colonel of the Hibernia Regiment with the title of Grand d’Espagne. And the third part of the family went to France and our general Sherlock was the most famous one. Today, in our society, we have, as member, three people who are the actual heirs of the general.
2 – Now, let’s look at the character of the detective. In 1871, a best-seller novel in France, by Henry Cauvain (Annecy tax inspector), was titled Maximilien Heller. Its eponymous hero, who turns out to be an amateur detective, lives in an indescribably untidy apartment. He is tall, thin and pale, uses opium, is given to sitting in an armchair from morning to night staring at the ceiling, writes innumerable monologues on complicated and obscure subjects, is an expert at disguise and an extraordinarily fine shot. Oh, and his adventure is recounted by his good and loyal friend, who happens to be a doctor. Is it possible that Holmes and Heller were one and the same, that Cauvain was in fact Holmes's French literary agent, and that the 1871 novel was Holmes's first case which, of course, took place in France?
3 – Last, the "coup de grace"! Sherlock Holmes was a wine connoisseur, spoke fluent, accentless French and was awarded the Legion d'Honneur. Then there's his marked resemblance to the French painter Horace Vernet. Could it be? Sherlock Holmes a Frenchman! Well, maybe not completely. But the world's most famous detective was certainly not English. He wasn't even Anglo-French. Maybe Franco-British, at a pinch. In The Three Garridebs, he refuses a knighthood. And in The Golden Pince-Nez, he accepts the Legion d'Honneur. I ask you, would a true Englishman ever do that? As in any good whodunnit, the clues are all there. As the master himself was fond of saying: 'When you have eliminated the impossible, whatever remains, however improbable, must be the truth.' Observation and deduction, mon cher Watson, observation and deduction. The most obvious clue to the detective's Gallic origins - which of course explain his Gallic brains and Gallic flair - crops up in The Greek Interpreter, when Holmes himself explains to the ever faithful Watson that 'my grandmother was the sister of Vernet, the French painter'. So far, so good. Born Paris 1789, died idem 1863, Horace Vernet was best known for his battle scenes; lots of French museums own examples of his work. And the family resemblance is indeed striking. But Watson's 60 cases also show the legendary sleuth spoke fluent and accentless French. In Montpellier in 1902, during the Disappearance of Lady Frances Carfax, he bounds from a cafe disguised as a French labourer and saves Watson from a beating. Could Holmes do a convincing impression of a French labourer if he wasn't at least partly French? And why, come to that, would he in all his adventures positively pepper his conversation with French phrases even when he's speaking English?
The great detective clearly bore a deep attachment to his mother country. To Paris, for example, where he left his luggage at the Gare du Nord (The Final Problem) and arrested the anarchist Huret (The Golden Pince-Nez); but also to Lyon, where Holmes stayed at the Hotel Dulong in 1887 (The Reigate Squire); and to Grenoble, where he had his bust sculpted by one Oscar Meunier in 1894 (The Empty House). And Holmes was strangely familiar with French art, culture and science. He drank, at various stages, Bordeaux, Beaune, Montrachet. He particularly enjoyed Offenbach, and in The Red-Headed League he once quoted Flaubert.
It's as plain as the nose on your face. Look at the two men's characters: Holmes is bohemian, temperamental, up in the air, full of faults, but for us French his reasoning is clearly Cartesian. Watson is bluff, jolly, straightforward, a little slow at times but terribly decent - British through and through. Most tellingly, Holmes admired French police work: twice, in The Hound of the Baskervilles and The Naval Treaty, he mentions the famous detective Alphonse Bertillon, a pioneer of scientific policing. The compliment was returned. In The Sign of Four, the detective François le Villard reveals that he has translated Holmes's scientific essays. This means that from 1877 onwards, French police had access to such indispensable pieces of Holmesiana as Sur la discrimination entre les differents tabacs, Sur la datation des documents, and La détection des traces de pas, avec quelques remarques concernant l'utilisation du plâtre de Paris pour préserver les empreintes. The fact that they have not exactly covered themselves in glory since is not, of course, Holmes's fault.
But there is more. Moving beyond what one might term the canonical or textual evidence for Holmes's Frenchness, we have discovered what can only be called empirical evidence. And some of it, to employ a rather unHolmesian turn of phrase, is pretty spooky. Take The Adventure of the Legion d'Honneur. This happened to me a couple of years ago, and he still hasn't quite recovered. Challenged by a couple of French journalists to come up with an objective for our newly founded society, I impetuously declared that I aimed to recover for Sherlock Holmes the Legion d'Honneur that the detective had accepted but never actually received. Dressed in my best deerstalker and macfarlane overcoat, I turned up at the Paris museum dedicated to the best known of France's multitudinous decorations. The doorman didn't want to let us in. He thought we were taking the mick. But we showed him the book, and eventually he allowed us to meet the curator. The curator, it so happened, was something of a fan of Holmes and willing to play along. She even thought the story rang a bell. So the party trooped along to the archives, where the ledger covering the Legion d'Honneur awarded between 1894 and 1900 was duly extracted. At the back were the lists of the awards made to foreigners. And there was a list of the awards made to Englishmen. And there, in a hand indistinguishable from the rest, were the words Holmes, S. Understandably unsettled, I later persuaded the French authorities to present the honour to Holmes posthumously. Yes, because, unfortunately, Sherlock Holmes dead. But it is natural, he was born in 1854. He finished his Iife in Sussex by raising bees but his grave is not in England. It is in France. Making a detour in an alley in the Pere-Lachaise cemetery in Paris, you can actually run across several Quincailliers, the hat is doffed, bowing before a grave marked with the monogram SH. Who is buried here? The Master? For those who are in doubt, a request for an exhumation order can be made. A study of the bones and the teeth will stop the unbelievers. Sherlock Holmes is back for ever in his sweet home: France!
Ma no! Sherlock Holmes was italian!
By Titi San Giovanni
(Florentine Holmesian)
I am afraid that my distinguished friend from France was wrong. Sherlock Holmes was not French. He was Italian! And his grand-father was Nicolo Paganini. I will call this revelation, the Adventure of Paganini's Pianist's Daughter. My friend Jean Schifrine has uncovered the historical fact that Paganini was quite well known to the family of Horace Vernet. Digging further, he established that when the celebrated violinist embarked on a concert tour of London, he chose as his accompanist a man named John Watson, who had a daughter, by all accounts very attractive, named Charlotte. So Sherlock Holmes was quite possibly the illegitimate product of a backstage liaison between Paganini and Watson's daughter.
At the end of February 1832, Paganini was in London where he met a musician of King’s Theatre, John Watson. This one which occupied the load of temporary head, offered his services to Paganini like guide and presented to him his daughter, Charlotte, on whom the violonist stopped his glance quickly; it was the prelude to a relation quite unhappy and dedicated to failure, not without negative bounces denounced by the press. Meanwhile, Paganini had engaged John Watson as collaborator for a long round envisaged between August and October 1832. After short and disastrous round in other English towns, Paganini turned over to London and he learned that John Watson, cover of debts and incompetent to discharge, was imprisoned. Paganini was constrained to give up concert, but, by liberality unsuspected, perhaps caused by the insistence of the girl of the pianist, he paid a guarantee of 45 pounds sterling, obtaining the release of Watson; moreover, to help him to be drawn from the claws of the creditors, it gave a concert entirely for the benefit of Charlotte, June 17, 1834 at the Victoria theatre. In 1835, by the fault of the press, which gave it in grazing ground to the public, the connection between Paganini and Charlotte was tragically broken. After this dramatic episode, Charlotte Watson found refuge like lady's companion at people of confidence, small landowners in Yorkshire named Holmes. It is on their premises, that in this same year 1835, of the union of Nicolo Paganini and Charlotte Watson, could be born a girl. Holmes family raised the girl, with the assistance of the former nurse of their Siger son. This one, which had a score of years with the birth of the young girl, married Violet Sherrinford a few years after the departure and the marriage of Charlotte with an American in 1837. Thereafter, Charlotte did not claim her daughter. On their side, the Siger-Violet couple which had just lived an unhappy experiment, believed not to be able to have children. They, so adopted the young girl who had precisely the age to be their true daughter. The destiny rewarded because, in 1847, Holmes had the joy of seeing the birth of a son whom they named Mycroft. Seven years later, consecutively at an adventure towards the 19 years age, their adoptive daughter (Miss Holmes) had a baby in 1854, a boy to whom them Holmes family gave the first name of Sherlock and who quite naturally preserved the surname of his young mom. For reasons which we could not still restore, Miss Holmes left Holmes family little time after having entrusted her child. Sherlock, high with Mycroft, always regarded this one as his big brother and Holmes family like his parents. And when Sherlock Holmes was living in London, it is with his cousin John H. Watson he choose to rent a flat in Baker street.
The gift of his ancestor would explain Sherlock Holmes’s oft-cited virtuosity on the fiddle. To be convinced of his Italian origins, just have a look at Paganini portraits and you will see many resemblances with Holmes. As Watson wrote in the Cardboard Box adventure, Holmes told "anecdote after anecdote of that extraordinary man": Paganini! Why except if he was his relative?
We can find some other funny but surprising clues: In many Paganini’s biographies, we read that the room of the artist was the kingdom of disorder and he was wearing during his private work time and repetitions a singular cap with ear-flaps and he was accustomed to tying them above his head, which was enough surprising. The favorite Paganini’s violin was named "Il Canone"! Paganini was titled by Elisa, grande duchesse de Toscane (Napoléon’s sister) "Capitaine des gendarmes". Etc.
But who needs some more clues? Italian origins are elementary!