Death of Elizabeth II, the Queen. France is not part of the Commonwealth and England is no longer a member of the European Union. However, the flag of the United Kingdom was suspended at the Élysée Palace.
Emmanuel Macron paid a well-deserved tribute to Elizabeth II in English: “Her wisdom and empathy helped us to trace a path through the history of these last 70 years. Her death left a feeling of emptiness. The courage of a life marked by war defending against a to another century the values of freedom and tenacity. Rare but powerful speech and unshakable dignity have made her a permanent symbol of the United Kingdom”.
“No other country had the privilege of receiving her as often as France. A great head of state, a unique example of devotion to her people and an ally. Thanks to her, between France and the United Kingdom there was not only a ‘cordial understanding’, but a loyal, sincere and warm partnership. For the English she was their queen. For us, she was the queen. We celebrate and will perpetuate the values she never ceased to embody and promote: the moral strength of democracy and freedom. The Queen will be sorely missed.”
Who will she not be missed in today’s world, which is confronted with war and the rise of anti-democratic values? Macron spoke for the French and for others whose values Queen Elizabeth’s life celebrated.
But it wasn’t for a reason of state that her death touched me, and I wondered why. It first occurred to me that her name was what my mother chose for me — like many other mothers of the same generation. The queen was an icon for our mothers and for them too I grieve. Yes, for those who are gone, those who saw in her the symbol of a great woman.
There is a second reason why death touched me. The queen we said goodbye to was the second Elizabeth, and the first was solar. She avenged the beheading of her mother, Anne Boleyn, Henry VIII’s second wife, accused of adultery and beheaded — so that the king could remarry and have a son, that is, “a true successor”.
In order to avoid political instability, Elizabeth I refused to marry, which is why she was called the Virgin Queen. She married into her kingdom and addressed the common people, calling them husbands. In her own way, in her time, she was a feminist.
Elizabeth I’s reign became known as the Elizabethan era for her support of the theater, particularly that of Shakespeare, whose plays were more often performed at her court than any other. Because, as Harold Bloom, the English-speaking world’s best-known literary critic, says, “Shakespeare invented the human.” He invented expressing our subjective dramas like never before.
Also to Elizabeth I we owe the consecration of this playwright whose texts remain alive to this day. The “to be or not to be” uttered by Hamlet was happily devoured in Brazil by the modernists and became the “tupi or not tupi” in Oswald de Andrade’s “Manifesto Antropófago”.
In her first speech, Elizabeth I expressed a desire to leave a consolation for those who came later. This is what Elizabeth II, in the wake of her great 16th-century predecessor, wanted. Hence the sadness that her disappearance causes.
It is no longer among the living, and yet it is. I always imagined—perhaps because of her name—that Elizabeth II was immortal. Now, I have to admit that I was wrong. Like it or not, time passes for everyone.
With a wealth of experience honed over 4+ years in journalism, I bring a seasoned voice to the world of news. Currently, I work as a freelance writer and editor, always seeking new opportunities to tell compelling stories in the field of world news.
