Nothing in his life became him like the leaving it

Image may be NSFW.
Clik here to view.According to tradition (or an old charter or something) the suicide method of choice for protesting against a colonial war or a foreign occupation is self-immolation. Partly this expresses the Buddhist concept that the cycle of reincarnation is a burning building from which one strives to escape; partly it recognises the importance of petroleum resources in motivating the wars and occupations; and partly it's an excuse to huff some fumes.

Image may be NSFW.
Clik here to view.So far no convention has evolved about the appropriate exit method if, like Dominique Venner, the purpose is to complain about the legality of same-sex marriage. Given Venner's admiration for the Japanese fascist Mishima, seppuku would have been one option. But shooting yourself in the head at the altar in Notre-Dame Cathedral is just wrong. Quite apart from inconveniencing 1500 tourists and hunchback cos-players, people will not see it as a symbolic wedding between man and fire-arm. They will think that it's a Network homage, or is part of a sponsorship deal with the NRA.

Venner was a member of the OAS in his youth, a terrorist organisation sufficiently murderous as to be viewed by Al Qaeda with a mixture of admiration and awe. He moved on to writing tendentious far-right histories intended to rescue the reputations of WW-2 collaborators such as his father. What exercised him most -- before gay marriage became the final straw in the needle-stack that broke the camel's back when clutched after -- was the presence of too many French persons with North African ancestry. Apparently he had forgotten that the whole rationale of the OAS was to keep Algeria as part of the French state, i.e. to maximise the number of French persons with North African ancestry. In other words, Venner wasn't using his brains for anything constructive, and I can't dispute his decision to redecorate the Notre-Dame interior with them instead.

"Not many people know it," Chapman observed, "but special punishments are reserved for those who sully the sacred precincts of Notre-Dame with the vile crime of felo-de-se. To begin with, they forfeit their identities..."

"Becoming anonymous in death?" said Keats. "Fair enough."

Chapman continued despite the interruption. "For added ignominy, their bodies are hoisted up into the bell-tower, to swing head-down within the bells as human clappers."

"Ah," said Keats. "So you don’t know the name but the face rings a bell."
BONUS John Sladek: