COVER N. 471 - FRANCE

Postmark: Théodore Géricault 1791-1824 Premier Jour 76 Rouen 30.05.2024

Posted on 30th May; received on the 12 June 2024

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Un gros Merci Eric, for this cover embellished with such a great stamp.

When I was a kid, one of the stories that made headlines all across the world was that of the members of an Uruguayan Rugby team that got stranded in the Andes, after an airplane crash... an horrific story, and an awful accident (come to think of it, there was a recent remake of the movie that was made at the time, IIRC).

We all are familiar with the sordid details of the story  and with what the survivors had to resort to in order to keep themselves alive until they were finally rescued.

In the early 19th century, there were no aircraft, so a flying accident was not to be expected, although the Montgolfier brothers had already proved the feasibility of hot air balloons as a means of transportation.

But en route accidents also happened with other means of transportation and the consequences could be just as terrible if the survivors had no easy or prompt access to a safe rescue to bring them back to their point of origin.

La Méduse, a French 40-gun Pallas-class frigate, launched in 1810, ran aground on the coast of Mauritania in 1816,  due to the ineptitude of her Captain,  Hugues Duroy de Chaumarey, history claims.

The vessel was carrying 400 passengers, who were forced to be distributed by the ship’s lifeboats but there was no place for everybody, so 147 of them were put on a raft to be towed by one of the lifeboats, something which proved unfeasible in the open seas, so the raft was abandoned adrift in the ocean,  its occupants left to their luck (or lack of it).

Of course things went horribly wrong and when the raft was finally found by rescuers, only 15 people were still alive on it, and it is here that the connection between the two accidents can be established, since the survivors had to resort to the same sort of expedients to keep themselves alive as the Uruguayan Rugby players, roughly one and a half century after them.

The sinister raft episode is at the centre of a famous painting by Théodore Géricault (1791- 1824), which is considered to be one of the most emblematic paintings of French Romanticism. The masterwork, produced in 1818-1819, can today be seen at the Louvre Museum, in Paris.

Honouring Géricault on the 200th anniversary of his passing, La Poste issued the very beautiful stamp which Eric used on this cover, with an exquisite two-colour in-taglio printing reproduction of this masterwork, created by designer and engraver Pierre Albuisson.

The 2,58 € (Lettre Verte 100g) was issued on 03JUN2024, although the first day postmark is dated of 30.05.2024, which I presume was the advanced sale date.