JACOBIN FICTION CONVENTION MEETING 37: CHÉVALIER (2022)

1. The Introduction

Well, hello there, Citizens! I’m back and I hope you missed me! Sorry for the multiple delays and all, but luckily I’m back at it now!!!

Okay, so this movie has been on my radar ever since it got announced. A story featuring a real Black man who lived during Frev? Sign me up! This has excellent potential and also, to my knowledge, at least a partially Black crew so we get more representation of marginalized groups in crews and on the screen!

At least, those were my thoughts before I actually watched the movie, but we’ll get to whether it was a good media piece later.

I found the movie on Russian language streaming websites, but it’s available on Amazon Prime and Disney Plus for those who would like to watch the original English version.

This review is dedicated to @idieonthishill , @vivelareine (who has a review that unpacks the movie from a historical pov and is welcome to add to the review 😊), @theravenclawrevolutionary , @sansculottides , @citizentaleo , @saintjustitude , @avergehistoryenjoyer , @lanterne and @jenxiez .

Okay, let the Jacobin Fiction Convention reopen!

2. The Summary

The movie tells a story of a real man, Joseph Bologne aka Chévalier de Saint-Georges. Recognized son of a white French nobleman and an enslaved black woman, Bologne must navigate the cutthroat world of the Parisian high society, dealing with racism and trying to reconcile his “white” upbringing with his African roots.

Sounds interesting, but let’s see how the premise was handled.

3. The Story

The Introduction scene - a musical duel between Mozart and Bologne, was actually quite good in my opinion. So were the other beginning scenes of kid Bologne growing up in France as an aristocrat and being bullied by his white peers, plus his father telling him not to let society break him.

These scenes establish quite well that Bologne has to carve out a place for himself among French nobility and make a lot of effort to get even a hint of acceptance. Sounds like a nice setup, right? Well, unfortunately at times Bologne in the movie doesn’t seem to have much agency at all.

For example, his title is granted to him by Marie-Antoinette basically on a whim, handed to him on a silver platter because the queen was impressed by his fencing skills, which in my opinion isn’t enough to show a character who has to work hard to be accepted. I think it would’ve been better if Bologne had at least several impressive fencing performances to prove himself and show more of his skills.

On the flip side, there are characters who have a bit too much agency. For example, in the story it’s Marie Antoinette who is calling all the shots and giving all the orders in France, even though Louis is alive and well. It’s definitely jarring to see how people say “by the order of the queen” when the king should be the one mentioned instead.

I didn’t care much for the love triangle storyline, but it’s my own personal preference and also the fact that it, like many parts of the story, isn’t all that nuanced. So yeah, very bland and boring.

Yes, Citizens, unfortunately nuance has officially left the chat, especially when it comes to the main character. See, at first Bologne doesn’t give a shit about poverty and famine plaguing France. He is enjoying his cushy life and his friendship with the queen of France instead. However, you know what makes him join the Jacobins? A fucking PERSONAL FALLING OUT WITH THE QUEEN. Not promises of abolishing slavery or granting rights to black people, not his own ideals… Just fucking pettiness!

It would have been much better if he didn’t have a falling out with Marie Antoinette and signed up for fighting with the Republicans because he genuinely wanted to do what was right, not due to personal beef. Especially since that was why he joined Frev in reality – the real Bologne made a choice to do the right thing simply because it seemed to be the right thing to him. Not out of petty desire to get back at the queen.

Also, the conflict between Bologne and his mother about how he is acting “too white”… eeeehh. To me it felt very anachronistic but maybe I’m wrong and there is more nuance missing because EVERYONE at court had to carry themselves in a certain way to make it. If you couldn’t do it, you were socially FUCKED. Besides, Nanon (the mother) and her friends crack really mean jokes about Bologne being “too white”, which is… well, an INTERESTING way to endear him to his mother’s culture…

The movie is juggling admittedly anachronistic theme about black culture, anti-slavery message, court drama and love triangles… and the juggling is done quite sloppily too, I’m afraid.

Also, just to illustrate how inaccurate this movie is, the events of 1789 are shown happening in 1776 for some reason, which shows just how much the creators didn’t give a shit about research.

Moving on.

4. The Characters

I really didn’t care for Bologne to be honest. He shows selfishness and pettiness, doesn’t have enough agency in the story and is also very inconsistent. After falling out with Marie Antoinette, he claims he defended her, which… he didn’t! At least it’s not shown in the movie! What the fuck happened to “show, don’t tell”?! Also, his incredible talents aren’t really shown in the way they could’ve been, more on that in the soundtrack section. A missed opportunity, really.

Nanon, Bologne’s mother, is a real embodiment of the themes of slavery and trauma present in the the movie. She merely exists to push him to embrace his African heritage and to remind him that he will never be truly accepted by other nobles. I honestly wish there was more to her character, because she ends up being little more than a walking theme embodiment.

Marie Antoinette here is a capricious, fair weather friend. She CLAIMS to support Bologne, but does it in indirect ways out of fear that nobles wouldn’t appreciate her openly backing a black man. Even though she is an absolute monarch so she can afford to show her support more openly. Actions speak louder than words, and she is clearly not a true ally of Bologne.

Marie Joséphe, Bologne’s love interest, is a woman trapped in a miserable marriage and yearning to act in Bologne’s operas. While I do sympathize with her, I believe that there really isn’t much depth to her either. We just don’t learn much about her. This is becoming a common theme…

Also, just as a side note while we’re talking about characters, many white characters in the movie are shown as mere flat caricatures. I can understand why, but, again, this doesn’t show nuance as in reality, while Bologne definitely had to deal with racism, he was not only accepted, but adored as a celebrity, but we don’t see that reflected in the attitudes of other people towards him. Because apparently the brains of the spectators will implode when they see nuance in a modern movie, it seems.

5. The Setting

Personally I wasn’t that impressed by the costumes or the settings. I’ve seen much better ones. Nothing bad, but nothing outstanding either.

6. The Soundtrack

Where the fuck is actual music from that time period?! Where is music by Bologne himself?! It’s a fucking missed opportunity and I don’t know what prevented the creators from including the music written by the MAIN DAMN CHARACTER into a biopic about him. A shame that they missed yet another opportunity.

7. The Conclusion

Honestly… I can’t say much when it comes to what this movie is fucking about. The story is bland, lacks nuance, doesn’t follow basic historical facts and is pulled in a million directions.

For a movie about an obscure figure, it doesn’t show much of the things Bologne was known for and at times even strips him of agency. We need to have better POC representation, because this is just not it.

The movie is mediocre, bland and forgettable. Don’t waste your time on it.

With that, I declare today’s meeting of the Jacobin Fiction Convention to be over. Thank you for your patience and support during this hiatus of mine.

Stay tuned and stay safe!

Love,

Citizen Green Pixel

who do you think was the most prominent yandere of the French Revolution?

finally, some real academic discussion.

Firstly, one would have to consider the definition of this term. Wiki has this to say:

Numerous personalities of the French Revolution have been shown to have used ‘violent and murderous’ means during some point in their career, however, the causes for this vary. In order to quality as a ‘yandere’, one would have to have to have used these tactics due to their obsession with a person they admire.

(Interestingly enough, these traits may be likened to the portrayal of Saint-Just in the film ‘La Révolution Française. During the film, he is portrayed as being incredibly antagonistic towards Robespierre’s childhood friend, Desmoulins. In order to maintain his own bond with Robespierre, he employs violent tactics against him - there is a scene in which he is implied to have hired people to beat him up, and he has a huge role in his eventual execution. However, this is a fictional depiction, and fiction cannot be said to represent reality.)

With that being said, Tallien brought a knife into the Convention and threatened to stab Robespierre with it on 9 Thermidor. Additionally, he supported the executions of Robespierre and his allies. He would subsequently become heavily involved in the Thermidorian Reaction, which saw, for example, the Jacobin Club being attacked (physically).

Why would he do this? Was it his fear of being executed himself? Was it the notion that allying himself with the Thermidorians would bring him political power? Of course not! Clearly, he was a character, usually a girl, who has an obsessive and possessive side in regards to their crush, ready to use violent and murderous means to maintain an exclusive bond.

Maybe I had to stretch the definition to reach that sort of conclusion, but it’s the best I have..?

The Stuff I Read in November 2023

Stuff I Extra Liked is Bold

Books

Three Body Problem, Cixin Liu

System Collapse, Martha Wells

Radical Islam: The Iranian Mojahedin, Ervand Abrahamian

How Europe Underdeveloped Africa, Walter Rodney

Volodya, Selected Works, Vladimir Mayakovsky (ed. Rosy Carrick)

Yuri/GL

Pulse, Ratana Satis

Sabishisugite Lesbian Fuzoku ni Ikimashita Report / My Lesbian Experience with Loneliness, Kabi Nagata

Serenade, Kyesoo Keum

Even Though We’re Adults / Otona ni Nattemo (Vols. 1-6), Takako Shimura

Heaven Will Be Mine [itch]

Short Fiction (SF/F)

Rabbit Test, Samantha Mills [uncanny]

Story of Your Life, Ted Chiang

Mr. Death, Alix E. Harrow [apex]

The Secret Lives of the Nine Negro Teeth of George Washington, Phenderson Djèlí Clark [fireside]

The Mermaid Astronaut, Yoon Ha Lee [bcs]

Paper Menagerie, Ken Liu [archive]

History & Contemporary

Stalin, Soviet Agriculture, And Collectivisation, Mark B. Tauger [DOI]

Natural Disaster and Human Actions in the Soviet Famine of 1931-1933, Mark B. Tauger

Armed Struggle: Strategy and Tactic, Masoud Ahmadzadeh [marxists dot org]

An Analysis of One Year of Urban and Mountain Guerrilla Warfare, Hamid Ashraf [marxists dot org]

Sartre, European Intellectuals and Zionism, Joseph Massad [link]

‘Selective Historians’: The Construction of Cisness in Byzantine and Byzantinist Texts, Ilya Maude [DOI]

Special Interview With Khaled Barakat: Gaza Demands End of Genocide, Not ‘Ceasefire’ [link]

Philosophy and Related

The Emergence of Classes in a Multi-Agent Bargaining Model, Robert Axtell, Joshua M. Epstein, H. Peyton Young

The Evolution of Conventions, H. Peyton Young [JSTOR]

Cognitive Psychology and Neo-Phrenology, Gibbonstrength [link]

The Runabout Inference-Ticket, A. N. Prior [JSTOR]

Monster Culture (Seven Theses), Jeffrey Jerome Cohen

Who Owns Frantz Fanon’s Legacy?, Bashir Abu-Manneh [jacobin]

Review: A Declaration of the Rights of Magicians

This book focuses a lot on history (with a magical twist) and it follows late 18th century France, Britain and Haiti. Since I don’t know much about British history of the time, and I feel it is not on me to talk about how representation of Haiti and slavery was done, I will be solely focusing on the French portion of the book, which focused on the Revolution. Impressions while reading: here. 

The book hinges on the magical twist, and it is an interesting setup (once you accept that the history unravels identically to our own). Yes, this choice could be questioned (especially in terms of oppression and power), but it allowed for discussions of historical details framed through magic, which I liked.

The review will mainly focus on this intersection of history and magic, or how history and historical personalities were represented in the light of the magical twist in the story.  

Warning: Spoilers! (And I mean the most spoilery spoilers, including the ending).

The Magical Twist

In this world, certain people are born with magical abilities, but only aristocrats are allowed to use magic. A lot of the motivation and one of the main reasons behind the French Revolution was that commoners were not allowed to use magic (so, for example, a weather mage could not prevent frost so his village had to suffer from famine). Ironically, Louis XVI is born without magic. 

There are different types of magical abilities, but the most important for the plot are mesmerism, vampirism, necromancy and shadowmancy. Mesmerism is easy to understand: influence people (mainly through talking). Robespierre has this, although weakly. Necromancy allows a person to bring someone back to life, but only for a very short time period. Robespierre is the only living necromancer in Europe (and he has to hide it, because this power is not allowed to anyone, including aristocrats; his own mother was killed for it - well, she covered up for child Max, but still). Shadowmancy allows a person to control “shadows”, which are ambiguously/evil entities (ghosts? demons?) that could be trapped in objects. Vampires are blood mages and the main villain (mostly “seen” as a voice in people’s head, typically Robespierre’s) is a vampire. 

Now, the most plot-relevant thing is that two magicians (a necromancer + shadowmancer) can make an undead army or warriors by bringing a person back from the dead and trapping a shadow inside of the body. Camille Desmoulins is a shadowmancer and so is Saint-Just. 

Characters

Robespierre (mesmerizer/necromancer): I felt Max’s characterization was fine; you can feel his wish to do good, and you feel his insecurities and frustrations. He is not villainized. He is presented as making harder and harder choices, which was a good development. The trouble is, there’s the main villain (who communicates with Max telepathically) and the whole thing is that Max strikes a deal with him to help him “save France”, and it goes just about as horribly as you can imagine. Basically, the evil dude helps Max and pushes him to do things (increasingly more evil). The whole plot is about the villain manipulating Max (and everyone else). This strips Max from some of his agency and responsibility. The book does a good effort in balancing this - Max still has his own free will to make choices and mistakes, so it’s not like he’s a puppet, but it kind of puts emphasis on being manipulated - what happens in the book is the result of the villain’s machinations. 

Camille (shadowmancer/fire magic): I liked this Camille a lot. I felt he was given a larger role (one of the revolutionaries who pushed for most changes and was hugely influential), but he was complex. He’s described as passionate, impulsive, zealous and sassy. I felt that this description was much more interesting than the usual uwu cinnamon roll naive infantilized Camille. He is all over the place, but at least he does something, and he makes mistakes, and is allowed not to be perfect. The fallout between Max and Camille is explained through the magical twist (in part, at least - Camille is warned about someone manipulating Max and he even felt it in Max’s head and wishes to stop what they are doing). 

Saint-Just (shadowmancer): There was not much SJ, but at least he was not demonized or portrayed as depraved, which is, frankly, more than what 90% representations typically give him. He is still cold (described as ice, to the opposite of Camille’s fire), and handsome, but it’s not presented as eeeevil! He felt dignified, so that was not bad. But he’s a prop to Max’s activities, mainly, and not a full character. He does get a good sendoff (see below).

Danton (no magic): There was not much Danton in the book; his role was in line with history (although often presented as being magically ~influenced by Robespierre, which was... ugh), but also not important for the main conflicts. He’s mainly there to take Camille away from Robespierre, which is an interesting narrative choice (because it’s typically framed as SJ taking Robespierre away from Camille). 

Others: Charlotte Robespierre was strict and a bit mean (and she’s also the most prominent female character in the French part of the book). The main villain was a secret mastermind behind all three narratives and I understand the narrative choice, but he was a bit stereotypical (which is not bad per se; it’s just that I feel I’d prefer if he wasn’t there at all). Marat was there for maybe two scenes, which was a shame - I wanted more. 

Plot

The plot follows our history almost identically. So, there are a lot of meetings and talks and Convention scenes, which were exciting to me. Robespierre (with the help of his “benefactor”) uses his mesmerism to be taken seriously and listened. Camille leads people to storm the magical Bastille (and Robespierre is also there). The main point of conflict between the Girondins and Montagnards is that almost none of the Girondins are magicians so they are not really interested in fighting for magician rights. 

The most interesting parts of the French Revolution plot are the Terror and Thermidor (who is surprised?) I suppose I am in a minority when I say that I wished those parts were longer. The book takes a lot of time to establish its setting (it starts in the 1780s); the storming of the Bastille happens around 160 pages in. But when we get to Terror, it unravels quickly, and I wanted more. 

The Terror

Ok, so here’s the key thing (that will be relevant for the sequel, I assume - yes, there is a sequel, focused on Naps). In order to win the war against foreign armies, the French need soldiers. And the villain convinces Max that ordinary soldiers are not enough - they need to make an undead army. This is where necromancer + shadowmancer thing becomes important. Basically, Max turns all the guillotined people into undead soldiers, first with Camille, and then, when he refuses, with SJ. For a moment, I hoped this would tie brilliantly to the history of SJ as a representative on a mission (to command the army), but nah. Apparently, once created, the undead are simply given a command to fight, and off they go. 

This is an interesting idea (especially since it includes Danton and Camille being turned into undead soldiers) but it was kind of short. It also meant that Max had to be there for all the executions, and basically watch Camille die. 

Thermidor

The background for Thermidor was ok done - what Max was (mainly) accused of was that he used magic (mesmerism) on others to influence them, and they didn’t like it. (I suppose I failed to mention this, but until he revealed himself as a necromancer, nobody knew Max had magic). In reality, the main villain turned against Max and influenced the Convention to do the same. The villain’s goal was to get an undead army and he needed a necromancer for that. Once it was done, he had no use of Max anymore, and that was it.

The Hôtel de Ville scene was interesting, although I wanted more. It was also one of the most heartbreaking moments in the book, because of Le Bas. What happens is that the soldiers are coming and they have nothing to defend themselves, except SJ’s shadows (who can kill people but can also be killed). So Le Bas is all: well, if you had an undead soldier, that would make it better. So he offers to kill himself and that Max and SJ make him into an undead. 😭 But that goes nowhere, and the events happen as they did in history (more or less). 

I said SJ gets a good sendoff - before the soldiers arrive, he makes a shadow to fight them, and it is described as his act of free magic, because this is what they did - they made magic free for everyone. And that even those who are coming to arrest them are part of that same Revolution (which I felt was too poetic - real SJ did not think that those people were part of his Revolution). Max takes a pistol to get rid of the voice from his head, but one of the soldiers who arrive has magic to manipulate metal and he makes the bullet hit Max in the jaw. On their way to the scaffold, the villain in Max’s head tells him that he fulfilled his purpose of making the army but that the Republic will die, to be replaced by an Empire. I felt it was nice that it was acknowledged the importance of Max & co for the Republic. 

I typically have concluding thoughts to share, but I am not sure what to say here. I enjoyed the blending of history and magic, and I wished the book fully focused on the Revolution. But I am not sure how I feel about the core villain plot about Max and everyone else being manipulated. On the other hand, there was this very interesting Camille, and nobody was demonized, so that was good. 

In the United States, the major flashpoint is brutalism, a post-war style that marries imposing concrete-and-steel design with stripped-down functionalism. Left-wingers darkly warn of the alt-right “infiltrating” architecture twitter under the guise of criticizing brutalist buildings. Others defend brutalism as a symbol of our lapsed commitment to public housing and economic justice.

Though brutalism is defended on both aesthetic and political grounds, the two arguments are difficult to reconcile. To a certain type of critic, brutalism represents “heroic architecture,” the realization of an individual designer’s vision in concrete and steel. Mid-century pioneers of brutalism like Le Corbusier and Ernő Goldfinger were minor celebrities. Le Corbusier’s architectural vision was uncompromisingly individualistic, unmoored from tradition or conventional ideas about form and beauty. It is no accident that Howard Roark, the fictional protagonist of Ayn Rand’s The Fountainhead, was also an iconoclastic architect. (Roark’s aesthetic sensibilities were closer to Frank Lloyd Wright than Le Corbusier, and the Swiss architect probably would have bridled at Roark’s politics, but the parallels between the two are unmissable.)

To a few intellectuals, brutalist buildings are heroic achievements, but the public has never warmed to them. When Naples’ notorious Gomorrah housing project was recently torn down, the loudest naysayers were professional architects. Actual residents had long complained about the buildings’ conditions. But if you’re not willing to defend the aesthetics of brutalism, ideology will suffice. So says today’s leftist journal Jacobin, trumpeting “Save Our Brutalism,” and lauding the great mid-century brutalist buildings as potent symbols of our now-forgotten commitment to equality.

Defending brutalist buildings on ideological grounds only highlights the divide between design and the lived experience of a building’s residents. As James C. Scott points out in Seeing Like a State, there is a profound gulf between the God’s-eye view of architects and policy-makers and the ground-level view of actual inhabitants, who have to live with brutalism’s unforgiving sterility. From the air or from a distance, Oscar Niemeyer’s vision of Brasilia is a striking achievement. To the city’s inhabitants, however, the Le Corbusier-inspired design is artificial and alienating. Brutalism proposed to strip buildings down to their barest functions, yet it fails at the basic task of providing a welcoming, visually-appealing space for residents and passers-by.

Ascribing a single ideological message to a diffuse architectural movement is also mistaken. Perhaps Jacobin subscribers equate brutalism with public housing, but the meaning is more sinister in Eastern Europe. The tiered design of the Gomorrah housing projects bears a marked resemblance to the resorts built for Communist apparatchiks on the shores of the Baltic Sea. Your average Latvian is more likely to associate these buildings with Soviet-era repression and mismanagement than left-wing nostrums about equality. Enver Hoxha’s Albania produced some striking examples of brutalist architecture. Hoxha, not coincidentally, was a notorious tyrant.

Design fads come and go and political sensibilities change, but the technocratic, top-down worldview that undergirds brutalism persists. In 2011, the Dutch celebrity architect Rem Koolhass was quite open about his preference for “the generic city” over architecture rooted in local culture or history:

The traditional city is very much occupied by rules and codes of behavior. But the generic city is free of established patterns and expectations. These are cities that make no demands and, consequently, create freedom. Some 80 percent of the population of a city like Dubai consists of immigrants, while in Amsterdam it is 40 percent. I believe that it’s easier for these demographic groups to walk through Dubai, Singapore or HafenCity than through beautiful medieval city centers. For these people, (the latter) exude nothing but exclusion and rejection. In an age of mass immigration, a mass similarity of cities might just be inevitable. These cities function like airports in which the same shops are always in the same places. Everything is defined by function, and nothing by history. This can also be liberating.

Technocrats once spoke the language of socialism and central planning; Koolhass and his ilk are more likely invoke markets, openness, and globalization. But the underlying impulse is the same: Society can be cataloged, organized, and ultimately shaped from the top down through the design of its cities and buildings. Beauty, tradition, and culture are secondary considerations.

Even if we dismiss brutalism as a fad perpetrated by blinkered technocrats and egotistical architects, ugly buildings expose ugly truths. Pervasive ugliness seems to impose an unconscious psychic tax on the great mass of people, even if most have no interest in the finer points of architecture or design. So why have we lost the ability to construct beautiful buildings? There are no easy ideological answers. Socialism may have birthed brutalism, but capitalism has given us barren strip malls, cookie-cutter exurbs, and Koolhaas’s “generic city.”

By contrast, Notre Dame de Paris was a communal undertaking, built by generations of craftsmen and artisans. The names of several of its earliest architects are lost to history. Crude historical revivalism is also unsatisfying. Warsaw’s ersatz Old Town, rebuilt in the wake of World War II, is an impressive testament to Polish national will, but it lacks the authentic charm of Krakow’s beautifully-preserved historic district. Budapest’s Fisherman’s Bastion, a restored medieval structure, pales in comparison to the city’s old baroque neighborhoods. And Huawei’s “European” campus, plopped down in the middle of Southern China, is the architectural equivalent of the uncanny valley: The closer it hews to historic European buildings, the faker it looks and feels.

Do we have any source about what Robespierre felt over the dantonist purge and the deaths of his former friends Desmoulins and Danton? I think it is Desmoulins' death and his status as one of Robespierre's best friends among the revolutionaries after Saint-Just, that makes many superficial viewers of the revolution think that Robespierre must have been inhumane.

The trouble with superficial readings of the situation — aside from the obvious — is in this case how heavily fictionalized this particular episode of the Revolution has become over the past 200 years. There are dozens of plays, novels and films that play up the personal aspects of the fall of the Indulgents for drama (and frequently melodrama) that even if you’re consciously trying to see past them, it can be difficult to get at what the sources actually tell us. (For a very obvious, concrete example, see the myth that Robespierre was Horace Desmoulins’ godfather.)

Though Robespierre and Desmoulins were undoubtedly friends, there’s not much to indicate whether they were especially close — but it makes for better drama if they were, so authors of fictions tend to err on that side. (If you want an idea of the impact fiction has had on the way we view this relationship, think about how no one is aware of or affected by the dissolution of Robespierre and Pétion’s friendship by politics despite their being inseparable for the first three years of the Revolution). Arguably, depending on how much weight you want to give the letter Robespierre sent Danton after the latter’s first wife died, there’s better evidence for Robespierre’s closeness to Danton, at least as of the beginning of 1793, though interestingly this doesn’t tend to be played up quite as much.

Basically, once Robespierre was convinced that striking against the Indulgents was necessary, he never referred to them as anything other than conspirators in the sources that we have. Was he secretly a guilty sobbing mess in private, as so many fictions would have us believe? If so, he hid it well*. But honestly, while everyone is perfectly free to think what they like about it, there’s not really any actual evidence of Robespierre’s personal feelings, and if, as it appears most probable, he really did come to believe Danton and Desmoulins were a danger to the Republic, it would have been a complete betrayal of republican principles to sacrifice the public good to personal friendship, even if it did upset him.

*Though it should be noted that the oft-dramatized scene where Robespierre is just sitting at home listening to Danton and Desmoulins’ imprecations as they head to execution almost certainly didn’t happen, as Robespierre was at the Convention and the Jacobins that day.

More thoughts about Thomas Carlyle…

And his tripped-out take on the French Revolution.

I don’t think any of us here need feel embarrassed about drooling over the dashing young men of the Revolution, given how Carlyle drools over the women. Théroigne, Lamballe, Roland… He goes so far over the top, it’s ridiculous, and some of it patronising as hell. (And he wants to be Thor?!!!)

And as for the rest… This is the root of so much bad historiography and most of the bloody awful fiction about the French Revolution (Dickens, Orczy & c all based their vision of the Revolution on this truly barking book).

Behind the cut, Carlyle being overwrought and over-writing… Don’t say I didn’t warn you.

Maria Teresa Luisa of Savoy-Carignan, Princesse de Lamballe:

Princess de Lamballe has lain down on bed: "Madame, you are to be removed to the Abbaye." "I do not wish to remove; I am well enough here." There is a need-be for removing. She will arrange her dress a little, then; rude voices answer, "You have not far to go." She too is led to the hell-gate; a manifest Queen's-Friend. She shivers back, at the sight of bloody sabres; but there is no return: Onwards! That fair hindhead is cleft with the axe; the neck is severed. That fair body is cut in fragments; with indignities, and obscene horrors of moustachio grands-levres, which human nature would fain find incredible,—which shall be read in the original language only. She was beautiful, she was good, she had known no happiness. Young hearts, generation after generation, will think with themselves: O worthy of worship, thou king-descended, god-descended and poor sister-woman! why was not I there; and some Sword Balmung, or Thor's Hammer in my hand? Her head is fixed on  a pike; paraded under the windows of the Temple; that a still more hated, a Marie-Antoinette, may see. One Municipal, in the Temple with the Royal Prisoners at the moment, said, "Look out." Another eagerly whispered, "Do not look." The circuit of the Temple is guarded, in these hours, by a long stretched tricolor riband: terror enters, and the clangour of infinite tumult: hitherto not regicide, though that too may come.

[Except most of this didn’t happen…]

Manon Roland:

Among whom, courting no notice, and yet the notablest of all, what queenlike Figure is this; with her escort of house-friends and Champagneux the Patriot Editor; come abroad with the earliest? Radiant with enthusiasm are those dark eyes, is that strong Minerva-face, looking dignity and earnest joy; joyfullest she where all are joyful. It is Roland de la Platriere's Wife! (Madame Roland, Memoires, i. (Discours Preliminaire, p. 23).) Strict elderly Roland, King's Inspector of  Manufactures here; and now likewise, by popular choice, the strictest of our new Lyons Municipals: a man who has gained much, if worth and faculty be gain; but above all things, has gained to wife Phlipon the Paris      Engraver's daughter. Reader, mark that queenlike burgher-woman: beautiful, Amazonian-graceful to the eye; more so to the mind. Unconscious of her worth (as all worth is), of her greatness, of her crystal  clearness; genuine, the creature of Sincerity and Nature, in an age of Artificiality, Pollution and Cant; there, in her still completeness, in her still invincibility, she, if thou knew it, is the noblest of all living Frenchwomen,—and will be seen, one day. O blessed rather while unseen, even of herself! For the present she gazes, nothing doubting, into this grand theatricality; and thinks her young dreams are to be fulfilled.  […]

Noble white Vision, with its high queenly face, its soft proud eyes, long black hair flowing down to the girdle; and as brave a heart as ever beat in woman's bosom! Like a white Grecian Statue, serenely complete, she shines in that black wreck of things;—long memorable. Honour to great Nature who, in Paris City, in the Era of Noble-Sentiment and Pompadourism, can make a Jeanne Phlipon, and nourish her to clear perennial Womanhood, though but on Logics, Encyclopedies, and the Gospel according to Jean-Jacques! Biography will long remember that trait of asking for a pen "to write the strange thoughts that were rising in her." It is as a little light-beam, shedding softness, and a kind of sacredness, over all that preceded: so in her too there was an Unnameable; she too was a Daughter of the Infinite; there were mysteries which Philosophism had not dreamt of!

Anne Théroigne:

But where is the brown-locked, light-behaved, fire-hearted Demoiselle     Theroigne? Brown eloquent Beauty; who, with thy winged words and glances, shalt thrill rough bosoms, whole steel battalions, and persuade an Austrian Kaiser,—pike and helm lie provided for thee in due season; and, alas, also strait-waistcoat and long lodging in the Salpetriere! Better hadst thou staid in native Luxemburg, and been the mother of some brave man's children: but it was not thy task, it was not thy lot. […]

One thing we will specify to throw light on many: the aspect under which,     seen through the eyes of these Girondin Twelve, or even seen through one's own eyes, the Patriotism of the softer sex presents itself. There are Female Patriots, whom the Girondins call Megaeras, and count to the extent  of eight thousand; with serpent-hair, all out of curl; who have changed the distaff for the dagger. They are of 'the Society called Brotherly,' Fraternelle, say Sisterly, which meets under the roof of the Jacobins. 'Two thousand daggers,' or so, have been ordered,—doubtless, for  them. They rush to Versailles, to raise more women; but the Versailles women will not rise. (Buzot, Memoires, pp. 69, 84; Meillan, Memoires, pp. 192, 195, 196. See Commission des Douze in Choix des Rapports, xii. 69-131.)    

Nay, behold, in National Garden of Tuileries,—Demoiselle Theroigne herself is become as a brownlocked Diana (were that possible) attacked by her own dogs, or she-dogs! The Demoiselle, keeping her carriage, is for Liberty indeed, as she has full well shewn; but then for Liberty with Respectability: whereupon these serpent-haired Extreme She-Patriots now do fasten on her, tatter her, shamefully fustigate her, in their shameful way; almost fling her into the Garden-ponds, had not help intervened. Help, alas, to small purpose. The poor Demoiselle's head and nervous-system, none of the soundest, is so tattered and fluttered that it will never recover; but flutter worse and worse, till it crack;  and within year and day we hear of her in madhouse, and straitwaistcoat, which proves permanent!—Such brownlocked Figure did flutter, and inarticulately jabber and gesticulate, little able to speak the obscure meaning it had, through some segment of that Eighteenth Century of Time. She disappears here from the Revolution and Public History, for evermore. (Deux Amis, vii. 77-80; Forster, i. 514; Moore, i. 70. She did not die till 1817; in the Salpetriere, in the most abject state of insanity; see Esquirol, Des Maladies Mentales (Paris, 1838), i. 445-50.) 

Max vs Georges:

One conceives easily the deep mutual incompatibility that divided these two: with what terror of feminine hatred the poor seagreen Formula looked at the monstrous colossal Reality, and grew greener to behold him;—the Reality, again, struggling to think no ill of a chief-product of the Revolution; yet feeling at bottom that such chief-product was little other than a chief wind-bag, blown large by Popular air; not a man with the heart of a man, but a poor spasmodic incorruptible pedant, with a logic-formula instead of heart; of Jesuit or Methodist-Parson nature; full of sincere-cant, incorruptibility, of virulence, poltroonery; barren as the east-wind! Two such chief-products are too much for one Revolution.  

Supreme Being:

All the world is there, in holydays clothes: (Vilate, Causes Secretes de la Revolution de 9 Thermidor.) foul linen went out with theHebertists; nay Robespierre, for one, would never once countenance that; but went always elegant and frizzled, not without vanity even,—and had his room hung round with seagreen Portraits and Busts. In holyday  clothes, we say, are the innumerable Citoyens and Citoyennes: the weather is of the brightest; cheerful expectation lights all countenances. Juryman Vilate gives breakfast to many a Deputy, in his official Apartment, in the Pavillon ci-devant of Flora; rejoices in the bright-looking multitudes, in the brightness of leafy June, in the auspicious Decadi, or New-Sabbath.  This day, if it please Heaven, we are to have, on improved Anti-Chaumette principles: a New Religion.         

Catholicism being burned out, and Reason-worship guillotined, was there      not need of one? Incorruptible Robespierre, not unlike the Ancients, as      Legislator of a free people will now also be Priest and Prophet. He has      donned his sky-blue coat, made for the occasion; white silk waistcoat      broidered with silver, black silk breeches, white stockings, shoe-buckles      of gold. He is President of the Convention; he has made the Convention      decree, so they name it, decreter the 'Existence of the Supreme Being,'      and likewise 'ce principe consolateur of the Immortality of the Soul.'      These consolatory principles, the basis of rational Republican Religion,      are getting decreed; and here, on this blessed Decadi, by help of Heaven      and Painter David, is to be our first act of worship. 

See, accordingly, how after Decree passed, and what has been called 'the scraggiest Prophetic Discourse ever uttered by man,'—Mahomet Robespierre, in sky-blue coat and black breeches, frizzled and powdered to perfection, bearing in his hand a bouquet of flowers and wheat-ears,  issues proudly from the Convention Hall; Convention following him, yet, as is remarked, with an interval. Amphitheatre has been raised, or at least Monticule or Elevation; hideous Statues of Atheism, Anarchy and such like,  thanks to Heaven and Painter David, strike abhorrence into the heart. Unluckily however, our Monticule is too small. On the top of it not half  of us can stand; wherefore there arises indecent shoving, nay treasonous   irreverent growling. Peace, thou Bourdon de l'Oise; peace, or it may be worse for thee! 

The seagreen Pontiff takes a torch, Painter David handing it; mouths some  other froth-rant of vocables, which happily one cannot hear; strides resolutely forward, in sight of expectant France; sets his torch to Atheism and Company, which are but made of pasteboard steeped in turpentine. They burn up rapidly; and, from within, there rises 'by machinery' an incombustible Statue of Wisdom, which, by ill hap, getsbesmoked a little; but does stand there visible in as serene attitude as it can.

And then? Why, then, there is other Processioning, scraggy Discoursing, and—this is our Feast of the Etre Supreme; our new Religion, better or worse, is come!—Look at it one moment, O Reader, not two. The Shabbiest page of Human Annals: or is there, that thou wottest of, one shabbier? Mumbo-Jumbo of the African woods to me seems venerable beside this new Deity of Robespierre; for this is a conscious Mumbo-Jumbo, and knows that he is machinery. O seagreen Prophet, unhappiest of windbags blown nigh to bursting, what distracted Chimera among realities are thou growing to! This then, this common pitch-link for artificial fireworks of turpentine and pasteboard; this is the miraculous Aaron's Rod thou wilt stretch over a hag-ridden hell-ridden France, and bid her plagues cease?  Vanish, thou and it!—"Avec ton Etre Supreme," said Billaud, "tu   commences m'embeter: With thy Etre Supreme thou beginnest to be a bore to me." (See Vilate, Causes Secretes. Vilate's Narrative is very curious; but is not to be taken as true, without sifting; being, at bottom, in spite of its title, not a Narrative but a Pleading.)      

Where  Assassin’s Creed got some of its idiocy:

 One other thing, or rather two other things, we will still mention; and no      more: The Blond Perukes; the Tannery at Meudon. Great talk is of these      Perruques blondes: O Reader, they are made from the Heads of Guillotined   women! The locks of a Duchess, in this way, may come to cover the scalp of a Cordwainer: her blond German Frankism his black Gaelic poll, if it be bald. Or they may be worn affectionately, as relics; rendering one suspect? (Mercier, ii. 134.) Citizens use them, not without mockery; of a rather cannibal sort.    

Still deeper into one's heart goes that Tannery at Meudon; not mentioned      among the other miracles of tanning! 'At Meudon,' says Montgaillard with      considerable calmness, 'there was a Tannery of Human Skins; such of the     Guillotined as seemed worth flaying: of which perfectly good wash-leather   was made:' for breeches, and other uses. The skin of the men, he remarks, was superior in toughness (consistance) and quality to shamoy; that of women was good for almost nothing, being so soft in texture! (Montgaillard,   iv. 290.)—History looking back over Cannibalism, through Purchas's Pilgrims and all early and late Records, will perhaps find no terrestrial Cannibalism of a sort on the whole so detestable. It is a manufactured, soft-feeling, quietly elegant sort; a sort perfide! Alas then, is man's civilisation only a wrappage, through which the savage nature of him can still burst, infernal as ever? Nature still makes him; and has an Infernal in her as well as a Celestial.    

Jacques-Nicolas Billaud-Varenne (F. Brunel)

La Rochelle, 23 April 1756 - Saint-Domingue (near Port-au-Prince), 13 June 1819

Of the famous actors of the Revolution, Billaud-Varenne is one of the most poorly understood. We will therefore simply attempt to shatter the mythical coating which still surrounds the life of Billaud, about whom A. Carpentier writes that he had « a kind of majesty which makes one shiver » (Le Siècle des Lumières, 1962). Let us start with the myth. The notes of the Restoration make him the person responsible for the September Massacres of 1792, the symbolical (and physical) figure of the « buveur de sang ». Later, being the archetype of the outcast, he fascinated the liberals of the 1830s due to his revolutionary inflexibility and the long journey to Cayenne. Finally, demanding the condemnation of Danton, responsible for the death of Robespierre, persecuted by the Thermidorian Reaction, he disturbs the revolutionary historiography which, not knowing how to classify him, marginalised him or transformed him into an « ultra ». And the myth is so resistant that it has clouded his biography.

Yet, it was up to Billaud-Varenne to embody, through the generation to which he belonged, through his social origins, through his intellectual education and through his professional activity, the sociologically « average » portrait of a Conventionnel. Being the son (and grandson) of a lawyer in the Présidial of La Rochelle, he stemmed from this provincial bourgeoisie which produced so many revolutionary leaders. His family was affluent, and the possession of lands consecrated a notabilité which came from the legal sphere, not from the Atlantic. Being the oldest of three boys, he received an education which destined him for the paternal inheritance. His academic career, however, has been obscured by a tradition of historiography that has been created by A. Aulard. In fact, it does not seem to us that he has frequented the Collège d'Harcourt, but he located a partially autobiographic novel there – the establishment is near his Parisian home – which remained unfinished (in 1786) and within which he integrated memories of his visit to Juilly. On the other hand, it seems probable that he has « faits ses humanités » in the college of the Oratorians of Niort and studied philosophy in La Rochelle. Afterwards, he studied law in Poitiers and was sworn in as a lawyer in 1778. Billaud returned to La Rochelle: there, he appeared more preoccupied with his theatrical success than with legal problems, and a « deviance » occurred in his trajectory, which was, all in all, unremarkable until then. Leaving his native town in 1782, he vegetated in Paris for some months before being admitted to the Institution de l'Oratoire in March 1783. Due to his age, which was rather advanced for a novice (27 years), and to his « coldly regular and decent » character, he was sent to the prestigious College of Juilly in September 1783, not as a professor or as a préfet des études (this is still a legend), but simply in order to exercise the modest functions of préfet de pension, i.e. of supervisor. He only stayed there for a year and, having performed badly, left Juilly and the Oratory in 1784. Having returned to Paris, he enrolled in the board of lawyers in the Parlement and married (an union which also arouses romantic accounts), but this move – breaking with the familial conformism – does not fall into the « marginality » or the destitute life of the « bohême littéraire ». And yet, the man claimed to be a « philosophical writer ».

In the highly charged atmosphere of the years 1787-1788, lampoons and pamphlets flourished which were not averse to pornography ; Billaud himself still showed himself to be eccentric, without contradicting the preoccupations of his milieu, the one of the lawyers and magistrates of the Parlement of Paris. Professing some disdain for ephemeral papers, he prepared two works which, through their scope, were meant to be demonstrative and reflective: Le dernier coup porté aux préjugés et à la superstition and the three volumes (nearly 1,000 pages) of Le Despotisme des ministres de France... appearing anonymously in 1789 (with London and Amsterdam certainly being fictional places of publication). The first book is not simply an anticlerical manifesto, but betrays the influence of the critical exegesis of biblical texts (which, incidentally, was still strong in the Oratorian milieu) and the refusal of any dogmatic theology: as he was a follower of natural religion, one does not see what could, in Year II, classify Billaud among the adversaries of the Cult of the Supreme Being. The second work, an onerous historico-legal treatise, ignores the « facetiae » of the time while bearing the mark of the event, the crisis of 1787-1788. Above all, it makes it possible to measure the erudition of a notorious Montagnard and to easily nuance the « Rousseauism » attributed to the Jacobins. The most frequently cited authors are, in fact, Necker and the referential corpus of parliamentary (and jansénisant) « constitutionalism », both the theorists of natural law and Montesquieu, for whom Billaud's admiration would never diminish.

A first turning point occurred in the autumn of 1789. Billaud-Varenne condemned the betrayed revolution: Le Peintre politique... castigates martial law and underlines the already worsening gap between the Declaration of Rights (constituent principles) and the decrees that had been adopted by the Assembly. In the following year, it was the danger of « Caesarism » which he evoked by an indictment on the Nancy affair, Plus de ministres, ou point de grâce... in 1791 marks the breaking point, the open adherence to the republican idea and the penetration of Rousseauist « politics », particularly of the theme of sovereignty of the general will. L'Acéphocratie... is at once a plea in favour of universal suffrage and a denunciation of the exorbitant powers that had been granted to the executive branch ; the imagined « federative government » has to allow everyone to exercise their citizenship (to dire le Droit), without falling into the trap of an illusory direct democracy: by binding the legislative through a system of « rings », thereby making it subject to the declared natural law, to the ensemble of citizens (the Nation), Billaud heralded the principle of centralité législative and the referendum process. Being a known « patriotic author », he often intervened at the Jacobins and spoke out against the war, as well as against the adventurism of the « enthusiasts ». From the winter of 1791-1792 onwards, the traits of Billaud-Varenne's political theory were therefore more or less fixed. The two last opuscules, « the profession of faith » of a « législateur philosophe », would come to clarify this thought. Les Eléments du Républicanisme (1793) particularly offered a radical social programme: in the name of the droit à l'existence, a successional system was proposed which tended towards an egalitarian redistribution of all riches. As to the last publication, Les Principes régénérateurs du système social (Pluviôse Year III) was at once the ultimate manifesto of a revolutionary who knew he would be condemned in the future. Billaud here professes his conception of democracy one last time, as well as the moral (practical) obligation to realise the rights of man in a public space of fraternal reciprocity. Nothing in the published theoretical work of Billaud therefore allows to give the epithet « ultra » to him. Was his conduct in the Convention, then, the cause for this classification to the far left of the Montagne?

Elected a deputy of Paris after having been the substitut du procureur of the revolutionary Commune of 10 August, Billaud of course spoke out in favour of the king's death, without appeal to the people or suspended sentence. In April 1793, he was absent during the indictment of Marat: being on mission with Sevestre in the Breton departments, he did not stand out due to « ferocious » repression of the rebellious zones, but reminded the « misled people of the countryside » of the gains of the Revolution. Having returned to the Convention, he voted against the Commission of Twelve and demanded, on 9 June 1793, to exempt the citizens who were reduced « to the absolute necessities »  of the payment of any direct contribution: one can no longer clearly justify citizenship as a right of man independent of the property of material goods. On 23 June 1793, at last, he proposed and obtained (still in the name of the declared natural law) the abrogation of martial law. It is to the events of September 1793 that Billaud-Varenne owes, in fact, his reputation as an « extremist » and, in particular, his admission to the Committee of Public Safety in the aftermath of the journées of 4 and 5 September. Facing the demands of the Commune of Paris formulated by Chaumette, Billaud only repeated his own principles: a revolution fails if one only takes « half-measures », it was necessary to « act », and it was from the Convention that the « national movements » had to come from. Nothing therefore distinguished him from Robespierre or Saint-Just. Incidentally, the two only Reports made by him to the Convention are politically essential: Billaud was the one who translated the political principles which had been pronounced by Saint-Just in the name of the Committee of Public Safety into terms of action. Thus, it was up to him, on 28 Brumaire Year II (18 November 1793) to present the project of a « mode of provisional and revolutionary government » and, on 1 Floréal Year II (20 April 1794), to expound on the « civil institutions », to articulate the idea of a stabilisation of the Revolution, opening the future to a new social bond based on a « daily exchange of mutual aid ». Billaud never differentiated himself from the « Robespierrists » in anything.

Here, the second obstacle to interpreting the political position of Billaud arises. On 9 Thermidor, it was his intervention, more than the gesticulations of Tallien, which stopped Saint-Just's speech. Why? The difficulties of answering are so enormous that we will confine ourselves to some hypotheses. Undoubtedly he was irritated by the non-collegial writing of the Law of 22 Prairial (he did not attack it in substance) ; undoubtedly the « denaturation » (his expression) of the Police Bureau of the Committee of Public Safety seemed to him to form an executive power which he loathed ; undoubtedly, at last, it seemed to him that Robespierre, in denouncing « new factions » at the Jacobins on 13 Messidor Year II (1 July 1794), threw the Revolution back into a vicious circle and contravened the project that had been defined in Floréal. These suggestions are only based on barely reliable sources, the defences of Year III. Let us admit that the historical reconstruction is not easy, because the post-Thermidorian persecution succeeded in clouding the political figure of Billaud-Varenne. Having been accused of being an « accomplice of Robespierre » by Le Cointre, he left the Committee of Public Safety to re-election and, contrary to other Montagnards, remained silent until 13 Brumaire Year III (3 November 1794), when he spoke the famous sentence at the Jacobins: « the lion is not dead when he sleeps, and when he awakens, he exterminates all his enemies ». The phrase hit the nail on the head and justified, in advance, the closing of the Club. After the reintegration of the Girondins and the process of Carrier, the path was clear for the elimination of « Robespierre's tail ». On 7 Nivôse Year III (27 December 1794), a commission of 21 members was created in order to examine the conduct of Barère, Billaud, Collot d'Herbois and Vadier ; they were erected as « great culprits » even before the Report of Saladin (12 Ventôse Year III / 2 March 1795) was delivered. The Convention took advantage of the events of 12 Germinal Year III and condemned them to deportation. Billaud-Varenne was exiled to Cayenne, and political silence signified his unfreedom.

Billaud survived all of his fellow convicts, those of Year III and of Year V, his enemies ; among the latter, he only got in touch with Brotier. The events of 18 Brumaire set him free, but he refused to return to the France of Bonaparte and remained in Cayenne even when the Portuguese occupied Guyana in 1809. When the colony became French again in 1816, he did not want to become a subject of Louis XVIII and embarked for New York, then settling in Saint-Domingue where he died at last. One attributes these last words to him: « My bones, at least, will rest in this land which wants liberty... »

Through his writings and his political action, Billaud nonetheless belonged to this current which attempted to combine social justice (happiness) and human dignity (rights of man). The undertaking was undoubtedly not easy during the revolution, but the project left a lasting mark on progressive thought. Thus, Jaurès, the author, let us not forget, of a thesis on the origins of German socialism, wrote about Billaud-Varenne: « it is the most curious synthesis that I know of egalitarian and socialist leanings and of an individualist and divided order ». One can criticise the Jaurèsian formulation. but one cannot deny that Billaud (like many others) has attempted to devise the wedding of the droits de créance and the droits-libertés.

Source: Dictionnaire historique de la Révolution française (Albert Soboul)

Today we have the release blitz of Ribbons of Scarlet! Check out the gorgeous new release and grab your copy today! Title: Ribbons of Scarlet Authors: Laura Kamoie * Kate Quinn * Stephanie Dray * Sophie Perinot * Heather Webb * E. Knight Genre: Historical Fiction About Ribbons of Scarlet: Ribbons of Scarlet is a timely story of the power of women to start a revolution—and change the world.   In late eighteenth-century France, women do not have a place in politics. But as the tide of revolution rises, women from gilded salons to the streets of Paris decide otherwise—upending a world order that has long oppressed them.   Blue-blooded Sophie de Grouchy believes in democracy, education, and equal rights for women, and marries the only man in Paris who agrees. Emboldened to fight the injustices of King Louis XVI, Sophie aims to prove that an educated populace can govern itself--but one of her students, fruit-seller Louise Audu, is hungrier for bread and vengeance than learning. When the Bastille falls and Louise leads a women’s march to Versailles, the monarchy is forced to bend, but not without a fight. The king’s pious sister Princess Elisabeth takes a stand to defend her brother, spirit her family to safety, and restore the old order, even at the risk of her head.   But when fanatics use the newspapers to twist the revolution’s ideals into a new tyranny, even the women who toppled the monarchy are threatened by the guillotine. Putting her faith in the pen, brilliant political wife Manon Roland tries to write a way out of France’s blood-soaked Reign of Terror while pike-bearing Pauline Leon and steely Charlotte Corday embrace violence as the only way to save the nation. With justice corrupted by revenge, all the women must make impossible choices to survive--unless unlikely heroine and courtesan’s daughter Emilie de Sainte-Amaranthe can sway the man who controls France’s fate: the fearsome Robespierre. Get Your Copy Today: Amazon | Audible | B&N | Google | Apple | IndieBound | Kobo | Goodreads Get a Copy Signed by All Six Authors Follow the Book Tour! Exclusive Excerpt: National Convention Paris, France December 1792   “There she is, the harlot . . .”   “La femme Roland . . .”   “Traitorous slut . . .”   The whispers followed me as I made my way across the floor, looking neither right nor left. It was the first time a woman had been called to address the Convention, and I’d dressed for the occasion as though it were an honor: a blue gown that foamed about my feet as I stalked to the bar, a white fichu pinned with my tricolor cockade, red ribbons twined through my hair. A revolutionary patriot, top to toe. When I turned to face the questions, I let my eyes travel, bold and confident, to the high bleacher seats where the radical Jacobins held court.   Before the proceedings could even begin, some heckler from their ranks called, “How do you answer the charge of treason, citizeness?”   I replied with calm contempt. “The charge is ludicrous, and all here know it.”   It was a smear job of the crudest kind: an unsavory informer reporting he had discovered a London conspiracy to restore the king, and that my husband and I were complicit. My husband had already been summoned to account for himself and had perhaps not done as well as he might: he couldn’t hide his indignation, and he became flustered when the tone turned sneering. I would not give my questioners a chance to sneer.   “The informer states clearly, Citizeness Roland, that you—”   “I did not summon him.” I spoke briskly, taking the reins before my questioner could bring down the whip and speed this interrogation to the pace my enemies wanted. This was going to go at my pace, not theirs. “From my files of letters I can see the man wrote to me, asking for an interview with Minister Roland. I receive dozens of such requests every week.”   “You do not deny you received the man?”   “He paid a brief call, and from his probing I concluded he was sent to sound us out about some scheme or other.” I smiled. “Or perhaps I was wrong. I am a woman and not skilled in these matters.”   The questioner took turns with his colleagues, trying to turn my words on me, trying to talk me in circles. As long as I had listened to politicians drone over my dinner table, I could talk anyone in circles. I shredded their accusations and stamped the shreds underfoot, feeling the color rise in my cheeks—not embarrassment, but the fierce heat of pride. Was this what Roland felt when he addressed the Convention? This rush of power that tingled the fingertips, the confidence that my words were deploying like obedient soldiers and the crowd sat in the palm of my hand? Why would anyone who had command of this floor ever leave it?   Finally, I was excused to the sound of ringing applause among the deputies, the charge dismissed in full, the honors of the session formally accorded to me. I looked from Robespierre to Danton to Marat with a wide bland smile as I glided out, and the smile became a beam as my husband drew me into the nearest empty hall.   “Thank goodness it’s over.” His face was creased with relief. “Let me take you home, calm your nerves.”   “My nerves are calm, and I can take myself home. You stay, speak with those who need reassuring.”   He kissed my forehead. “I hated seeing you up there,” he muttered, before rushing back inside.   He’d hardly gone before a low voice spoke behind me, prickling my skin. “I loved seeing you up there. You were born to it.”   I turned, smile draining away. The man who loved me stood feet planted wide, arms folded, dark hair rumpled—he must have been waiting to catch me alone. “Citizen,” I managed to say, not daring to put his name through my lips.   “You were brilliant,” he said quietly. “Brave as a lioness.” A voice of calm power for a man not yet thirty-three. Six years younger than I, what did that say about me? “They should have known better than to try to trap you in so crude a snare.”   “That shabby excuse for a conspiracy might have been crude, but it was real, even if we had no involvement.” I kept my voice brisk, turning the conversation to safer waters. “As long as the king lives, there will be plots to restore him. The matter will have to be dealt with.”   “The king is just a man, and a small one.”   “With a long shadow.”   We both smiled involuntarily. It had always been like that with us, the eager cut-and-thrust of our minds. “If you wish to speak to my husband . . .”   But the man who loved me took my hand.   “Manon, I honor Roland and support him always. But I am here for you.”   About Laura Kamoie: New York Times and USA TODAY bestseller Laura Kaye is the author of over forty books in romantic suspense and contemporary and erotic romance and has sold more than one million books in the U.S. alone. Among her many awards, she won the RT Book Reviews Reviewers’ Choice Award for Best Romantic Suspense of 2014 for Hard As You Can. A former college history professor, Laura grew up amid family lore involving angels, ghosts, and evil-eye curses, cementing her life-long fascination with storytelling and the supernatural. Laura lives in Maryland with her husband and two daughters, and appreciates her view of the Chesapeake Bay every day. Laura also writes historical fiction under the name Laura Kamoie, also a Wall Street Journal, New York Times, and USA Today bestseller. Laura is a member of the Romance Writers of America, the Maryland Romance Writers, the Washington Romance Writers, and she is past president of the RWA-Contemporary Romance Writers. Connect with Laura Kamoie: Website | Facebook | Twitter | Instagram Enter the Giveaway: a Rafflecopter giveaway

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Sensor Sweep: Keys to Other Doors, Xenophile, Skylark of Space, Roger Zelazny

Pulps (The Pulp Net): When I was first involved in the pulp fandom world in the late ’90s, I saw ads for Keys to Other Doors. Subtitled “some lists for a pulp collector’s notebook,” it was put together by John DeWalt. There were at least two versions, a first version in 1995 with a revised version in 1998.  I believe the 1995 version has a blue cover and was done for Pulpcon.  I got the 1998 version which has a red cover.

I didn’t get it at the time and only recently got a copy. I wish I had gotten a copy back then, as I had to work to find some of the information, and thanks to the Internet and various websites, a lot of this information is now easy to find. But, there is information here I was not aware of despite that. So there still is value in getting it.

  Publishing (Chaosium): Chaosium, Inc., publisher of the celebrated roleplaying games Call of Cthulhu and RuneQuest, announces the relaunch of their fiction program.

The Chaosium fiction line originally launched in 1992 and was suspended in 2015 during a general company restructuring. Subsequently, Chaosium management brought on publishing and gaming industry veteran James Lowder as a consulting editor to help resolve any outstanding contract and payment issues with authors, editors, and artists.

Lowder then drafted new, creator-friendly contracts for the department, worked with SFWA to register the company as a qualifying professional market, and then commissioned a schedule of new, creator-owned fiction releases, in both print and e-book formats.

  RPG (Jeffro’s Space Gaming Blog): The RPGPundit is back with another video in his series on “Things They Taught You Wrong on Purpose”, this time on the topic of equal spotlight time for all players no matter what. He is absolutely correct that this is antithetical to the rpg medium. One thing I will add here is that the returning to “3d6 six times in order” for attributes produces a far better outcome at the table than going along with the conventional wisdom on this.

Here’s why: When D&D is played this way, most people tend go with the class that has a prime requisite that matches their highest attribute. When combined with a challenging, high death scenario, this results in each character niche being frequently redistributed almost at random. People that would normally play a bombastic high charisma fighter end up playing a scruffy, sneaking thief with hilariously low hit points. People that prefer to play the stout, law-abiding cleric can very easily find themselves in a situation where they have the privilege of making that choice between Magic Missile, Charm Person, and Sleep for the party’s one and only spell!

  Writers (Don Herron): In the course of researching his book on the boxing world of Robert E. Howard, Brian Leno keeps tumbling to interesting tidbits — such as the news item above.

Brian notes, “As far as I know, this is a first — printed at a time when Howard was still alive after shooting himself, and his body was fighting to keep him alive.”

  Pop Culture (Walker’s Retreat): A few days ago, I made a post where I point out that we have sufficient independent media outlets (each with sufficient audience sizes) that we no longer need to put up with the mainstream. We can–and we should–network among ourselves henceforth and cut the MSM out entirely.

So I decided that right now we’re in a position where the various clusters I see as being close enough together to benefit from this sort of move, and this morning I did take that first step: I made sure I was in the livestream for Morning With Pop Culture, the new morning show that World Class Bullshitters now puts on during the week. I lucked out today; Jeff (the host) decided to do an Ask Me Anything segment and I got the question answered.

  Comic Books (Of Wolves and Men): Haven’t posted anything for a while so I figure I’ll share some of the old covers I saved on an impulse.

  Fiction (RMWC Reviews): Star Wars casts a long shadow across science fiction and fantasy. For most people in living memory, it is THE example of the power of Space Opera on audiences. But George Lucas stands on the shoulders of another giant: Alex Raymond, the creator of Flash Gordon, and Raymond stands on the biggest shoulders in all of Space Opera, a humble food engineer specializing in donut mixes from Sheboygan, Michigan, named Edward Elmer “Doc” Smith (1890-1965).

  Fiction (John C. Wright): I have notice more than one fan of mine (I have at least two, counting myself, and my mom) lauding elements in my stories which I shamelessly steal from better authors. As a public service, I would like to mention those authors, and lead you to the original of which I am but a shadow:

I suggest that if you like the family infighting, larger-than-life superhumans, and intrigue, you read yourself some Roger Zelazny’s deservedly famed Amber series. It is a delight: a film noir detective tale (starring my personal favorite character, an amnesiac), which morphs into a fantasy and a Jacobin-style revenge drama.

1970 Nine Princes in Amber

1972 The Guns of Avalon

1975 Sign of the Unicorn

1976 The Hand of Oberon

1978 The Courts of Chaos

The Merlin books take place in the same background, but they are terrible. Avoid.

  Comic Books (Injustice Gamer): There’s a lot of talk of the markets shrinking in sff and comics from the tradpub sources, and here’s a bit of my theory on the comics side.

I think Marvel and DC, with some help from Diamond(active to a point, but I have trouble believing they’re that dumb) might be actively colluding to close the comic book stores. Diversity and Comics has made a good amount of noise over the fact that over 60 shops have closed this year alone.

Marvel is being overshipped, and the stores have to pay for the books. DC had a few exciting and high selling things early in the year, but their more recent moves are really bad from a sales standpoint, and the stores would be more inclined to take those chances after the big early sales.

  RPG (The Mixed GM): Some in the OSR complain about skill systems, particularly due to the introduction of the Thief character class. I understand that with the 3.X/Pathfinder and 5E, skill systems have gotten out of control. In response, I have even heard a call to remove Thieves from the game!

  Pulp (Pulp Flakes): Index to the fanzine Xenophile – part 1

Had the good luck recently to acquire a complete run of the fanzine Xenophile. Have been reading a few issues, shocked by the low prices and high dudgeon evinced by subscribers at price increases of pulps to as much as $3 for a late 1930s Black Mask issue. Didn’t find it indexed, so this is my take on the index, which i plan to submit to FictionMags once it’s done. Will post a few articles from it once I’m done indexing.

  Sensor Sweep: Keys to Other Doors, Xenophile, Skylark of Space, Roger Zelazny published first on https://medium.com/@ReloadedPCGames

JACOBIN FICTION CONVENTION MEETING 36: THE GAME OF HOPE (2018)

1. The Introduction

Well, hello there, Citizens and Neighbors! I’m alive and back with a review, as promised. (Very happy about it too because I missed you!)

Now, to cut to the chase, @josefavomjaaga was the first person who told me about the novel’s existence, which had me a bit intrigued already due to my constant search for new media to consume and review.

However, my dear friend @tairin helped seal the deal and officially put this particular piece onto my review bucket list, as a physical copy of the book (in Russian) was her present for my birthday last year. I read the book back then but, due to all the other reviews and personal life stuff, kept putting away this particular review.

Fortunately, I finally found free time to catch up on the piece and post it, so here we go.

Before we proceed, here’s a link for anyone who wants to download the book in English. As mentioned, it’s available in Russian too, but Russian-speaking members of my audience will need to purchase the epub or a physical copy to be able to read it. I’m not sure if it’s available in any other languages.

Also, this review is dedicated to @josefavomjaaga , @tairin and @frevandrest ! Okay, let’s. Fucking. Begin.

2. The Summary

“The Game of Hope” tells the story of Hortense de Beauharnais, Napoleon’s stepdaughter, and her coming of age journey, including crushes, rivalries, and her life at Madame Campan’s boarding school for girls.

Although I loathe Hortense with a passion, review material is review material and I was still intrigued by the premise, so let’s see how this premise plays out in the book!

3. The Story

Generally, I enjoy coming of age stories and YA novels and, luckily, this one is no exception. It is melodramatic, but it’s justified because Hortense is a teenager and a dramatic person, so her POV having melodrama is expected.

It’s a slice of life kind of story and most political events happen in the background but still realistically affect the characters, which is realistic and very neat!

Also, this is by far the only book where anti-Frev sentiments don’t give me an urge to flip the fuck out, since Hortense lost her father and almost lost her mother during Frev and is far too naive and young to understand politics! Of course she will think Frev is evil and of course she will believe that being noble would be enough to have her executed!

The pacing is great too. There are some time skips but the author clearly knew when to do them and when to slow down. Now complaints here.

If you are craving a story with typical teenage melodrama involving historical figures, then I guess it’s a book for you.

4. The Characters

I don’t like Hortense as a person here, but as a character she’s realistic and nuanced. She has the selfish and bratty nature that would stick way into adulthood, but she genuinely loves Eugene and her friends at the boarding school. Also her resentment towards her stepfather and the Bonaparte siblings is quite realistic, as from her point of view they’re just asses towards her mother for no reason.

Caroline Bonaparte starts off as a rude bitch (also thanks to Hortense incorporating her own bias), but luckily she becomes more and more nuanced along the way and becomes sort of a frenemy to Hortense. Caroline clearly doesn’t enjoy studying under Madame Campan and wants out of there. Perhaps due to my bias, or because we don’t see her POV, Caroline grew on me more than Hortense.

Eugene (I HAVE to mention him) appears later on in the story and, as expected, is an absolute cinnamon roll.

Josephine is idealized in the story by Hortense, but she isn’t flawless and keeps trying to find Hortense a husband in the beginning. However, she also helps Caroline and Joachim marry, which makes their treatment of her later on a fucking dick move.

Émilie, Hortense’s cousin and close friend, is slightly older and already married (not that unheard of back then), but is still a teenager going through the typical motions common for that age. She is more mature than Hortense and feels trapped in a loveless marriage with Captain Lavalette (no idea who that is).

Campan is very strict but genuinely cares about her students. I liked the part where she has The Declaration of the Rights of Man and Citizen attached to the back of a portrait of Marie-Antoinette and flips the portrait when inspection arrives. Simple, but quite clever!

5. The Setting

No complaints here! Gorgeous descriptions that are very much historically accurate, and Hortense’s POV is conveyed masterfully, which aids the story greatly.

6. The Writing

Simple yet beautiful, without diving too much into purple prose territory and doesn’t shy away from mentioning or implying normal things like periods or sex. I can sense some pearl clutching might happen, but personally I think these topics should be normalized so I don’t complain. Also, my copy graciously included translations of Italian phrases, which is doubly awesome!

7. The Conclusion

Overall, an excellent, overall accurate and believable story! I highly recommend it to anyone interested in learning more about Hortense or just looking for a Frev/Napoleonic coming of age story without too much action.

Alright, on this note, I’m concluding today’s meeting of Jacobin Fiction Convention. Stay tuned for updates, guys!

Love,

Citizen Green Pixel

Uhhh, question! Does anyone know this book? @maggiec70 ? @suburbanbeatnik ?

( @chickenmadam told me it was awful, but I am curious, as this is still review material.)

Speaking of reviews! I’m actually coming back very soon! With both “Chevalier” and “Napoleon’s Elysium”!

(Sorry, I kept being either sick or busy and almost had a depression relapse…)

JACOBIN FICTION CONVENTION MEETING 33: MADEMOISELLE REVOLUTION (2022)

1. The Introduction

Well, hello there, my dearest Citizens! Welcome back to Jacobin Fiction Convention! I missed you but, unfortunately, real life ™️ was a bit complicated yet again.

Either way, I’m back at it again, roasting analyzing historical fiction. Today’s “masterpiece” was graciously sent to me by @suburbanbeatnik in PDF form as a future review subject. And boy is it one hell of a ride.

Now, on paper, I was intrigued by a story of a Haitian biracial bisexual female protagonist, as there are many possibilities for that kind of story to unfold in a Frev setting.

Besides, it was written by an author who is promoting the #OwnVoices stories, which is a good intention in my opinion. Let’s see if the execution matches though.

(Spoiler alert: IT DOES NOT!)

Unfortunately, it looks like the book is only available in English at the moment and has to be purchased, mainly through Amazon. But maybe both of those things are for the best, since, upon finishing the book, I will be happy if it stays as contained and inaccessible to the wide audience as humanly possible.

Why? Well, more on that later.

This review will be longer than the ones I usually post, so please keep that in mind and grab some popcorn.

Also, it’s a very explicit book with scenes of sexual assault and gore. Goya’s “Disasters of War” and even “Innocent Rouge” levels of gore. So yeah, please be warned.

Anyway, this review is dedicated to @suburbanbeatnik , @jefflion , @lanterne , @on-holidays-by-mistake and @amypihcs . Love you, guys!

Now, let’s tear this sucker apart!!!

2. The Summary

The book follows the story of Sylvie de Rosiers, an aristocratic young woman born to a slave but raised by her plantation owner father as a free member of local nobility. Although not enslaved, Sylvie never felt truly accepted by the elites of Sainte Domingue.

However, following the outbreak of the Haitian Revolution, Sylvie and one of her half-brothers manage to escape to France, where another revolution is unfolding.

Intrigued by the ideas of Liberty, Equality and Fraternity, Sylvie must fight to find acceptance in this new context and carve out a place for herself.

Sounds interesting so far, right? Let’s see if the story lives up to expectations or not.

3. The Story

I have to admit that the first few chapters, the ones taking place on Haiti, were actually pretty good, or at least not bad. The pacing was good, the storyline building up to the uprising made sense and the introductions of the characters and the world building were fine.

Too bad that this lasted only for about four beginning chapters. The French chapters making up the bulk of the book were awful.

The characters suffer from assassination like they’re mafia snitches, the pacing turns into a speed run, the historical context isn’t explained well at all and the story rapidly stops making sense:

First Sylvie arrives and quickly meets Robespierre and the Duplay family, then becomes an ardent revolutionary, then flip flops between loving Eleonore Duplay and pining for Robespierre, then just so happens to meet Danton and Marat, then becomes a spy, then murders Marat… No, I’m not joking.

All of this is in the book with very little justification that makes sense. The worst part? The book isn’t stated as alternative history, so the author is very dishonest and presents everything in the book as actual history that is accurate to reality when it’s definitely not.

Oh, and flashbacks. The fucking flashbacks breaking immersion like a cat breaking a vase don’t help at all.

There’s also a ton of Thermidorian propaganda as well, so yeah… Fail.

4. The Original Characters

Let’s tackle the OCs first because the historical peeps deserve a separate category here.

First and foremost, I don’t like Sylvie as a character. She starts out as a vain spoiled brat growing up surrounded by privilege and luxury and openly looking down on slaves, especially on women.

Then she witnesses the execution of a rebel and very suddenly goes: “Fuck, slavery is awful!”, renounces her old ways, disowns her father and does a 180. It’s not written well though and is more like a teenage tantrum than character development.

Sylvie keeps flip flopping like this throughout the entire story too. Yay…

Oh, and she’s a Mary Sue. Everyone adores her except the villains, she’s able to charm her way through anything and obviously plays an important role in almost all of Frev! Robespierre even calls her The Mother of the Revolution at several points, even though she did nothing to earn that title.

She also pines for Robespierre for no reason at all, except for “he’s cool and charming I guess”, but in order to get closer to him, Sylvie Sue ™️ starts an intimate relationship with Eleonore Duplay.

So yeah, our protagonist manipulates another person (which is abuse) and plays Eleonore like a fiddle, but she also flip flops between only using Eleonore and actually loving her. Is Sylvie ever called out for that? Technically yes, but it gets resolved too quickly so it doesn’t count.

Also, Sylvie is INCREDIBLY selfish. She’s fine with manipulating Eleonore, fine with Charlotte Corday being executed for killing Marat (in the book Sylvie did it) and taking the blame… Again, everything revolves around Sylvie and she never gets called out on that either and never gets better.

She lacks consistent personality aside from those traits, however. She claims to want safety yet always takes the risky option and refuses to emigrate when it would help her obtain actual safety, for instance.

Gaspard, one of her half-brothers, is a much better character in my opinion, but still underdeveloped. But at least his journey from privileged fop to a revolutionary is less clunky. Too bad he dies with the Montagnards in the end.

Sylvie also has another half-brother, Edmond, who is cartoonishly evil and tries to murder Sylvie at one point.

Sylvie also has a standard issue evil stepmother who is eager to marry her off and thus get rid of her but at least has enough decency to not be actively malicious.

Her dad is loving, but painfully ignorant.

Sylvie’s aunt Euphemie de Rohmer is a good character, always looking out for Gaspard and Sylvie. She does emigrate to London during the reign of terror though.

Okay, now let’s discuss the historical figures.

5. The Historical Characters

I know that I usually don’t discuss accuracy, but an exception must be made here.

Maximilien Robespierre seems to undergo a typical “character arc” of “actual revolutionary turned ruthless dictator”. He is also one again coded as asexual and thus shown as not giving two shits about his lover, Eleonore Duplay. He tries to marry Sylvie for political reasons only later in the book and it’s all but stated that he condones all the violence going on and is called a hypocrite multiple times. Oh, and he also kisses Sylvie without her consent… Err… DID SIVAK CONFUSE HIM FOR DANTON?!!! Okay, one sec…

(Shows up with a bloody face) Okay, let’s continue…

Eleonore Duplay is a promising artist who is fiercely loyal to Robespierre but cheats on him with Sylvie and later turns out to be a member of a women’s secret society that is trying to curb the terror. She’s on board with murdering Marat and is also friends with Olympe de Gouges and Charlotte Corday. Wtf?!

(Checks that the antidepressants didn’t cause a hallucination)

Elisabeth Duplay falls in love with Gaspard and her marriage to Le Bas is portrayed as arranged by Robespierre to “reward” Le Bas for being a loyal Jacobin, but at least she is relatively happy in said marriage. Uhm, okay…

Olympe de Gouges and Charlotte Corday are portrayed as basically saints and also part of the secret society.

Corday in particular is willing to sacrifice herself for the sake of France and Sylvie is fine with that because, apparently, Corday has nothing to live for anyway but Sylvie does.

It’s not like in reality Corday actually had a family and Girondist friends or anything so yeah, TOTALLY OKAY to throw her under the bus amirite?!

Danton, luckily, is portrayed fairly accurately as a crass womanizing brute so at least that’s correct.

Marat is a stereotypical bloodthirsty monster who is supposed to be very smart yet acts like an idiot in the presence of our dear Sylvie Sue.

Charlotte Robespierre makes exactly one cameo and acts like a total ass to both Duplay sisters and to Sylvie (who she just met). Don’t get me wrong, Charlotte was at odds with the Duplay family but not all of them and certainly she wasn’t a bitch to every single fucking stranger.

Augustin Robespierre is merry, a gentleman, loyal to his ideas but also a part of that secret society and also supports the idea of offing Marat. Nice…

Surprisingly, Henriette Robespierre makes a cameo alongside Charlotte and also acts like an ass but at least less so than Charlotte. Except she shouldn’t even be in the book because the cameo happens in 1792, yet Henriette died in 1780. So it’s either a ghost or the author doesn’t care. I’m kind of inclined to believe the latter.

Where are Camille Desmoulins and Saint-Just, you may act? ABSENT, believe it or not! No, I’m not kidding! They’re nowhere to be seen for some reason!!! I have no idea why. They’re not even fucking mentioned!!!

Anyway, let’s move on before I lose my sanity.

6. The Setting

Again, the first chapters are much better than the rest. In the majority of the book the descriptions are not that great and the world building is laughably inaccurate, to the point that, if I were told that it’s a joke fanfic, I’d have believed it instantly!!!

7. The Writing

Thankfully, there’s no “First Person Present Tense” bullshit, but the writing is still full of problems. The aforementioned flashbacks are just one problem, but there are others.

For example, extremely clunky use of French. I’m the beginning of every chapter we get a date and the months are in French. This would’ve been fine but gets ridiculous in cases like “early avril 1793”. What’s wrong with writing “early APRIL”?!

Oh, and in another instance, the houses of families are called “Chez + Family name”, like Chez Rohmer and Chez Marat. It gets weird when the text has phrases like “went at Chez Marat”. Chez already means “at” in this context, so it’s extremely redundant and a damn eyesore. Wouldn’t it be better to say “Went to Marat’s apartment”? Apparently, not for Zoe Sivak!

Also, the author describes all the brutal and gory scenes of executions and torture at an alarming length and with a concerning amount of details, to the point that I got very uncomfortable despite not being squeamish most of the time.

8. The Conclusion

Phew, it’s finally over. As you may have guessed, I don’t recommend wasting your time and money on this pile of trash.

A 13-year old here on tumblr can write a better novel than whatever the fuck this author published.

It’s poorly researched with inaccuracies that even a quick Wikipedia search could fix, the protagonist is an awful Mary Sue, the historical characters get constantly fucked over… so yeah, please skip this shit.

Anyway, on that note, let’s conclude today’s meeting. I think I might need time to recover from reading this book…

Stay tuned for updates!

Love,

Citizen Green Pixel.

Hey, everyone!!! Birthday announcement (today is my birthday 🥳 )!

Wait for reviews on Sunday. I promise they’re definitely coming so stay tuned!!!

Guys, I’m going to try to post reviews when I can but it’s my final year of uni and my health is worsening a bit so please be patient. I can’t set any dates as of yet.

JACOBIN FICTION CONVENTION MEETING 32: DANTON (1983)

1. The Introduction

Hello, fellow Citizens!

(Insert the “fellow kids” meme)

I’m back with a freshly made review for today’s meeting of the Jacobin Fiction Convention! I apologize for all the delays but a series of unlucky events in my personal life made everything too much of a shitshow.

Anyway, luckily I’m doing better now so let’s proceed with the meeting. Grab drinks and snacks and enjoy yourselves while we begin.

Before we get to the actual review, I have to say that reviewing this movie had been on my list pretty much ever since I joined the community and saw those lizard cake memes. Luckily, the entire thing is on YouTube, in French but with English subtitles as an option in the settings.

However, I also kept avoiding it because I wanted to dip my feet into the world of obscure media and also because I was afraid that this movie would idolize Danton (who was a fucking creep historically, even by the standards of the time).

Unfortunately, upon watching the movie itself I realized that my fear was more than justified. Not only that, but I believe it’s supposed to be some kind of political commentary on 80s Poland… a commentary that completely flew over my head because I didn’t live in that time period and it’s not my forte at all.

But, since it’s a Polish movie and half the cast is Polish, I dedicate the review to @edgysaintjust and to all the other Polish folks in my audience. Perhaps you guys can enlighten me on the political context while I voice my opinion on the movie as a work of fiction.

Okay, let’s fucking go before I bore you to death.

2. The Story

The movie is about Danton’s fall from grace, trial of the Dantonists and their execution. I believe @frevandrest made posts about the trial but it was very much a sham and a mess hotter than dog shit in summer.

Personally, I found the storyline quite easily digestible but it takes a more black-and-white approach that, in my opinion, does the real event a disservice.

Danton and Co are portrayed mostly in the positive light (more on that later) as the real advocates of the people and are juxtaposed with the tyrannical and radical dictatorship of Robespierre and the Committee, even though here Robespierre is a more complex character than in some other works of fiction.

Thankfully the plot is very much to the point with very little filler that felt unnecessary so props to the crew for doing an overall good job and not even thermidorizing everything as much as I feared they would!

For instance, we don’t have Robespierre actively gloating as Danton is being led to the guillotine or watching everything (because he didn’t watch and gloat in real life either) and there are hints that he actually has less power than other media ascribes to him.

Unfortunately, there’s still the idolization of Danton and other instances of thermidorization with a serving of homophobic subtext on the side, which left a bad taste in my mouth.

3. The Characters

Okay, let’s get one thing out of the way. Danton was too perfect for me to find him likable, especially knowing what I know about his historical counterpart. And when I say “too perfect”, I’m talking almost Gary Stu levels. Luckily not quite there, but the movie lets you know that it was probably sponsored by Dantonists.

Danton is the advocate and friend of the people who defends them and doesn’t want to be at odds with Robespierre, no matter how much a few of his supporters may attempt to provoke him to overthrow Robespierre (which wouldn’t do much irl, but oh well).

There are instances of Danton being a womanizer, but his creepy side is REALLY glossed over and on the poster the light around his head reminds me of halos of Catholic saints. That’s all well and good, but I didn’t sign up for an attempt at hagiography.

Robespierre, as I mentioned, is surprisingly complex. Despite being pressured into having Danton executed, he does resist as long as possible and really doesn’t want to take such measures. He’s also very accurately portrayed as sickly and he tries to make peace with Camille Desmoulins.

Oh, and he really regrets that the executions took place and it seems like he believes that he betrayed his ideas and the people of France.

Honestly, not the worst take on Robespierre but my feelings are complicated.

Eleonore Duplay is… something else.

She is an ardent Republican with a dash of the “jealous girl” trope. Her first scene has her forcing a boy to recite The Declaration of the Rights of Man and Citizen and smacking him for getting it wrong (I think it’s supposed to be her younger brother?) but she also slaps a housekeeper for looking at Robespierre.

Eleonore does have a caring side though. She genuinely cares about Robespierre and supports him, so I kind of liked it but the character assassination is still unforgivable. *screams into the void*

SJ is portrayed as a stereotypically effeminate man and there’s a lot of gay subtext between him and Robespierre. Oh, and he’s also the one who pressures Max to be more radical which gives me LRF vibes. Fantastic… SJ can’t catch a break yet again. Excuse me while I’m going to bash in my damn skull.

To sum up, I didn’t find any character likable and a lot of portrayals were bungled to fit the political message.

4. The Acting

Some actors get really hammy, like the actress who played Lucille Desmoulins. Linda as SJ has his moments as well, but I liked the acting overall, especially in Pszoniak and Seweryn’s cases (Oh look, Seweryn is in Frev media yet again!).

Depardieu was fine as Danton. Just… fine. I don’t like him as an actor much but he was a good choice.

Unfortunately, the casting choices are hit and miss because at times the actors look NOTHING like the people they’re portraying. Other times the fits are great.

5. The Setting

Luckily there’s no mullets like in LRF and everything looks more or less accurate. I genuinely liked the settings. But the food at the restaurant scene… let’s just say I wouldn’t eat it… it looked weird.

6. The Soundtrack

Nothing outstanding, unfortunately. I don’t have much to say here though.

7. The Conclusion

My feelings are complicated. I did like some casting choices and the setting, but the movie idolizes a corrupt creep and dips its feet into homophobia and inaccuracies. Plus the political aspect is just too in the face and the character assassination makes me want to pull my hair out.

But hey, at least we have lizard cake memes! Still not enough to compensate for my wasted time though. I don’t recommend this movie. Read about the actual trial instead please.

Okay, with that out of my system, I declare today’s meeting officially finished. Thank you for your patience and support and stay tuned!

Love,

Citizen Green Pixel