Foundation of the Covenant
Miyamoto Musashi (1584-1645), Japan's most famous samurai, lived by the art of the sword, and following his last fight with Sasaki Kojiro, who he defeated using a wooden oar carved into a sword, he transcended the Way of the sword to the sword of Life.
Ô Senseï Moriheï Ueshiba (1883-1969) lived through the full transformation of feudal Japan into modern Japan. Trained in the ancestral techniques of Budô by Senseï Takeda Sokaku (1859-1943), he understood the impasse of victory for victory's sake.
Initiated in the Divine by Deguchi Onisaburo (1871-1948) and seeking to transmit this ancestral heritage to future generations, he transcended these techniques through Aikido (Way of Peace) and gained access to the Divine part in each of us.
Heiho Niten Ichi Ryu (Miyamoto Musashi's sword school) in turn transmitted the heritage of Budô as the foundation of peace for future generations.
The two steles alone sum up the way of the ancient and modern spiritual warrior.
The sculpture of the moon and the sun is the authenticity of the history of Humanity, with this strong symbol reminding us of the souls who recognise themselves there. The Foundation of the Covenant is the contracting party of our regions. It is the signature of the hearts of the new Reiwa Era in 2020.
The flags of Ōhara, Liergues and Mimasaka, the national flag of Japan and that of the Auvergne-Rhône-Alpes-Dauphiné-Savoie region are reunified as a force to consolidate this new bridge between east and west.
It reminds us that modernism cannot escape tradition. The soul of the warrior code (bushido) is still relevant today and cannot be forgotten. Nature is forged from the four elements (earth, fire, water, air) and its established order gives birth to the harmony we find in different areas when thought reserves the right of the heart.
Auguste Guinon, Lucien Picard and Léon Roches
Auguste Guinon was born in Liergues in 1817. In 1869 he transformed Jarnioux, a rural village, into a commune, endowing it with communal buildings: the wash house, the Town Hall-School and then the Church.
He made his fortune by establishing a chemical factory in Saint-Fons, near Lyon. There he developed picric acid, used in the silk industry, but also as a powerful explosive known as Melinite, discovered thanks to Louis Pasteur's studies (dextrorotatory and levorotatory).
These products sold in considerable quantities in Japan, which notably used them in the Russo-Japanese War of 1904, while simultaneously promoting the industry of the City of Silk, built up through the continuous efforts of the Canuts (silk workers) of the Croix-Rousse hill.
Following the pébrine, a disease which devastated and weakened the silkworms and the whole of Lyon's industry, Shogun Tokugawa offered France silkworms through the French Emperor Napoleon III, thereby relaunching the economy and strengthening the deep and lasting bond between Yokohama and the Lyon region.
Much later on, Louis Pasteur had a practical process adopted that overcame the pébrine. This link was also supported by the contributions of Consul General Léon Roches from Isère and the privileged support he received from Shogun Yoshinobu Tokugawa.
This contributed to the development of the port city of Yokohama, whose opening up to foreign trade was first forced by one of the "unequal treaties" demanded by the United States, notably the Harris treaty of 1858.
All this business contributed to the Lyon region's expansion and formed the genesis of Beaujolais' winemaking history.
These 150 years of exchange between Lyon and Japan are therefore presented in the Lyon-Japan-Japan-France Heiho Niten Ichi Ryu Memorial (Heihō kadensho), inaugurated in Gleizé on 8 December 2014.
Auguste Guinon was also closely linked to Lucien Picard, another chemical industrialist and Mayor of Cogny. His story is recounted by a commemorative plaque at the foot of the Niten Ichi Ryu Memorial's flagpoles.
The Foundation of the Covenant is an opportunity to celebrate the anniversary of four events:
The 150th anniversary of peaceful relations between Japan and France 1858-2018, which began when Mr Duchesne brought the Shôgun the Franco-Japanese treaty ratified on 4 February 1860.
The 20th anniversary of Miyamoto Musashi's Budokan, jointly inaugurated by France in Japan.
The birthday of Miyamoto Musashi, born in Ōhara-Chō on the 12th day of the 3rd month of the 12th year of the Tenshō Era.
And the story of Kikou Yamata (famous Franco-Japanese writer), recalling the first exchanges between his father Mr Tadazumi Yamata, 1st Chancellor of Japan and Mr Louis Émile Michallet, 1st Consul General in France and founder of the Lyon-Japan Club, who subsequently certified the establishment and completion of the Heiho Niten Ichi Ryu Memorial (Heihō kadensho).
The Alliance’s foundation is dedicated to the memory of the victims of the Tōhoku (Fukushima) tsunami tragedy of 11 March 2011, a major turning point in a new awareness of humanity of a collective memory dear to our hearts.
