Happy Valentine's Day with Napoleon and Josephine 💖

Victor Hugo’s speech in support of Napoleon, and his support to lift the ban on the Bonaparte family

(Left: Victor Hugo, Right: Elderly Jérôme Bonaparte)

Excerpt from Jonathan Beecher, Writers and Revolution: Intellectuals and the French Revolution of 1848

—————-

Hugo was fascinated by the Praslin affair and wrote about it at length in his journals. But he was more deeply engaged by another issue brought to the Chamber of Peers in June, 1847 – the petition of Napoleon’s only surviving brother, Jérôme Bonaparte, who sought the repeal of the law exiling members of the Bonaparte family. “I declare without hesitation,” Hugo told the peers. “I am on the side of exiles and proscrits.”

Не obviously could not know that he himself was to spend almost two decades in exile. But one exile who mattered to Hugo in 1847 was the first Napoleon. In his speech to the Chamber of Peers Hugo contrasted the pettiness and corruption of the July Monarchy with the grandeur of Napoleon’s Empire:

As for me, in witnessing the collapse of conscience, the reign of money, the spread of corruption, the taking of the highest places by people with the lowest passions, (Prolonged reaction) in witnessing the woes of the present time, I dream of the great deeds of the past, and I am now and then tempted to say to the Chamber, to the press, to all of France: “Wait, let us talk a little of the Emperor. That will do us good!” (Intense and profound agreement).

After this speech, the elderly Jérôme Bonaparte personally thanked Hugo; and his daughter, the Princess Mathilde, invited him to dinner. Hugo was now regarded in some quarters as a Bonapartist.

—————-

[Italics in original]

“La Famille Bonaparte,” OC Politique, Laffont, 138-139.

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Dua Sahabat #3

Baca sebelumnya 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, Semua

Dua Sahabat #3

Di depan mereka, Ile Marante nan sepi, menyembunyikan mereka dari pengawasan tentara Prussia. Restoran kecil itu tutup, seolah telah ditinggalkan penghuninya selama bertahun-tahun.

Sauvage strike dan menarik kailnya, disusul Morissot kemudian. Hampir setiap saat keduanya strike. Ikan-ikan yang diperolehnya menggeliat menggiurkan. Sungguh memancing merupakan olahraga yang sangat menyenangkan.

strike demi strike dan korang merekapun hampir penuh dengan hasil tangkapan. Mereka berdua senang bisa menikmati hiburan yang sempat terhenti akibat perang.

Mentari bersinar menerangi semesta. Kedua lelaki itu acuh terhadap dunia dan hanya fokus pada sensasi strike.

Tiba-tiba suara bergemuruh. Benar, itu adalah suara meriam yang dilancarkan antar pasukan yang tengah berseteru.

Morissot memeriksa apa yang tengah terjadi. Nun jauh di seberang sungai di balik benteng Mont-Valerien muncul kepulan asap putih.

Detik berikutnya tembakan lain menyusul, mencipta ledakan baru yang membuat bumi bergetar.

Terus demikian hingga tercipta sebuah pemandangan seakan gunung mendidih, mengeluarkan kepulan asap putih membumbung tinggi ke langit.

Sauvage mengangkat bahu.

“Mereka mulai lagi!” sergahnya.

Morissot gusar akan mengapa di dunia ini ada saja orang yang mengganggu kedamaian. Hematnya, dia berpikir bahwa perang hanya mencipta kerugian materi dan jiwa. Emosinya meluap dan lalu berkata:

“Alangkah gilanya mereka saling membunuh dengan cara demikian!”

“Sungguh tak berprikemanusiaan,” sahut Sauvage.

Morissot yang tengah dilanda kegusaran menanggapi:

"Prasangka demikian sebenarnya juga tidak lazim, mengingat mereka itu pemerintah yang sayang terhadap warga negaranya!"

“Jika negara kita ini berbentuk republik tentu tidak akan ada perang,” Sauvage menimpali.

Lanjut membaca 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, Semua

Courfeyrac should've been Marius' Best Man!

Clips from <Il cuore di Cosette>

I think there's a sense where you either need to be a chauvinist, at least for your own willfully adopted set of values if not the ones you were born or raised with, or risk becoming such an empty-headed pluralist that you endorse all manner of atrocities so long as the people committing them and their victims can both conceivably be defined as your outgroup.

Sometimes it scares me a bit how I can relate to Marius Pontmercy

til: Charles Nodier shared a prison cell with the marquis de Sade

Progressive Liberalism is a very nice idea but is simply missing the huevos to call for the constitutionally uncontested single-party rule that would be necessary to actually implement it's advertised goals

Happy Father’s Day to Georges Pontmercy!

It’s nice that we’re introduced to him on the holiday, but unfortunately for him, he’s not happy and he’s not allowed to act as a father. His decision to let Gillenormand raise the child, likely knowing he’d never get to see him, just so that Marius could have a comfortable life is really moving. He definitely really loves him, even if his self-sacrificing form of love is deeply sad and possibly not that beneficial in the end. Marius may have wealth, but the child he’s most like right now is Cosette with the Thénardiers, the saddest child in the novel (and that’s a novel with gamins! Who have no homes by definition!). His decision to provide Marius with material comfort even if that meant depriving him of love makes sense, but frankly, this story seems to lean more on the side of “children need love” than “children need wealth.” There���s a level of material comfort that’s good for them (food, clothing, shelter, a toy), but outside of extreme poverty, most of the children in this book are happy in proportion to the affection they receive. Marius is unhappy without this love, and his father is unhappy because he’s forced to be distant from him.

Hugo even explicitly questions his choice, saying, “Perhaps the colonel was wrong to accept these conditions, but he submitted to them, thinking that he was doing right and sacrificing no one but himself.” Georges Pontmercy, then, only thought he was sacrificing “no one but himself,” but it’s implied that he may have sacrificed some of Marius’ happiness as well.

Outside of his relationship with Marius, Georges Pontmercy is set up to be amazing. Not just because of his military exploits, but because he’s now a gardener, which is the highest calling for good middle-aged or elderly men in this novel (Myriel, Fauchelevent, Jean Valjean, and so on! Loving plants is a reliable indicator that they’re trustworthy and care for others). He’s very sad, but he’s also funny, as illustrated by his exchanges over his uniform and his appearance:

“The Attorney for the Crown had him warned that the authorities would prosecute him for “illegal” wearing of this decoration. When this notice was conveyed to him through an officious intermediary, Pontmercy retorted with a bitter smile: “I do not know whether I no longer understand French, or whether you no longer speak it; but the fact is that I do not understand.” Then he went out for eight successive days with his rosette. They dared not interfere with him.”

“One day he encountered the district-attorney in one of the streets of Vernon, stepped up to him, and said: “Mr. Crown Attorney, am I permitted to wear my scar?””

His jabs and his refusal to comply demonstrate his courage, but they add some light-heartedness to his character as well. Additionally, they suggest that he’s principled, not even avoiding his title when threatened. Gillenormand is firm in his royalist positions as well, but Pontmercy’s devotion comes off as more noble because we see it when it’s tested and because it’s at no one’s expense but his own (whereas Gillenormand mocks and abuses everyone around him). 

Hugo’s also back to his love of Napoleonic history! I enjoyed the detail about his uncle:

“At Eylau he was in the cemetery where, for the space of two hours, the heroic Captain Louis Hugo, the uncle of the author of this book, sustained alone with his company of eighty-three men every effort of the hostile army. Pontmercy was one of the three who emerged alive from that cemetery.”

Although the direct purpose of this sentence is to praise the military feats of Captain Hugo and Pontmercy, it grants Hugo the writer some legitimacy as well. After all, if Pontmercy served under his uncle, shouldn’t Hugo be familiar with some facets of his character and of his past? The familial claim functions similarly to his use of documents, but here, it allows family to remain at the fore of this narrative. We could find documents about Pontmercy (Hugo tells us where to look; it’s fictional, but it lends a sense of history), but what really matters is that his son has been denied access to his great traits, unlike Hugo with his uncle. Knowing this family history serves as inspiration for writing and is helpful in contextualizing other stories, but Marius has none of this. He’s deprived not only of love but of his own history in a way, only learning Gillenormand’s outdated version. The fact that he’s kept away from documents (his father’s letters) makes this so much worse. He has no chance of hearing about his care for him or about another version of French history. Hugo doesn’t want us to sympathize with Bonapartist ideals overall (”God wanted Napoleon to lose” is a pretty good indication of that), but he also prefers Bonapartists like Pontmercy (who are principled in some way) to royalists like Gillenormand that are very self-centered.

Spoilers below:

To return to fathers and self-sacrifice: Jean Valjean has this same issue at the end of the novel. After her marriage to Marius, Cosette should have any material comforts she desires, but he distances himself from her. He thinks it’s a way of protecting her and guaranteeing that she lives a comfortable, prosperous life, but she’s still hurt and confused by his actions. Even his decision to open up a little bit about his past (even if it’s just about beads) is grounded in material concerns; he wants to make sure Marius uses his money to provide for Cosette by proving he earned it legitimately. Cosette does get that comfortable life he wanted for her, but with how devastated she was as he was dying, it wouldn’t be surprising if she would have preferred to have her father with her than to experience all the luxuries of the Gillenormand household.

Young Boney contemplating his life and future in a restaurant in Paris (1972)

Artist: Eric Pape

Napoleon getting the honorary two spot treatment

i see, money makes all of us dishonest

me: "yeah I wasn't particularly into Napoleon's Marshals when I started playing [my dnd character who is a cleric of somewhat napoleonic/frev patriotism] but I started getting interested in the Napoleonic Army and the Marshals very partly because of playing [that character]"

my DM: "So other people were worried about DnD turning their kids into satanists, but DnD made you a Bonapartist."

me: "I Guess"

Enlargement of Horizon, Volume 3, Book 4, Chapter 5. Aka, Marius and Combeferre's 'To Be Free' scene in <Il cuore di Cosette>.

Somehow you've managed to get me to care about Napoleon??? I didn't hate him before (though I tend to dislike military figures in general), I just didn't care about him. But you've??? Somehow??? Changed that slightly??? How dare you

I’m so sorry. I really don’t choose my hyperfixations. They choose me.