#I don't know how/if I'll ever finish my Brick ReNouveauTion of the first book

[shitpostingfromthebarricade]

Ah! Which Grantaire ramble, can you please remind me?

With every respect and in the spirit of amicable debate, I feel Hugo basically addresses your Nat Turner point in 1.1.10 in the Bishop's debate with Conventionist G——, quoted below the cut.

The Bishop felt, without, perhaps, confessing it, that something within him had suffered extinction. Nevertheless, he put a good face on the matter. He replied:— “The judge speaks in the name of justice; the priest speaks in the name of pity, which is nothing but a more lofty justice. A thunderbolt should commit no error.” And he added, regarding the member of the Convention steadily the while, “Louis XVII.?” The conventionary stretched forth his hand and grasped the Bishop’s arm. “Louis XVII.! let us see. For whom do you mourn? is it for the innocent child? very good; in that case I mourn with you. Is it for the royal child? I demand time for reflection. To me, the brother of Cartouche, an innocent child who was hung up by the armpits in the Place de Grève, until death ensued, for the sole crime of having been the brother of Cartouche, is no less painful than the grandson of Louis XV., an innocent child, martyred in the tower of the Temple, for the sole crime of having been grandson of Louis XV.” “Monsieur,” said the Bishop, “I like not this conjunction of names.” “Cartouche? Louis XV.? To which of the two do you object?” A momentary silence ensued. The Bishop almost regretted having come, and yet he felt vaguely and strangely shaken. The conventionary resumed:— “Ah, Monsieur Priest, you love not the crudities of the true. Christ loved them. He seized a rod and cleared out the Temple. His scourge, full of lightnings, was a harsh speaker of truths. When he cried, ‘Sinite parvulos,’ he made no distinction between the little children. It would not have embarrassed him to bring together the Dauphin of Barabbas and the Dauphin of Herod. Innocence, Monsieur, is its own crown. Innocence has no need to be a highness. It is as august in rags as in fleurs de lys.” “That is true,” said the Bishop in a low voice. “I persist,” continued the conventionary G—— “You have mentioned Louis XVII. to me. Let us come to an understanding. Shall we weep for all the innocent, all martyrs, all children, the lowly as well as the exalted? I agree to that. But in that case, as I have told you, we must go back further than ’93, and our tears must begin before Louis XVII. I will weep with you over the children of kings, provided that you will weep with me over the children of the people.” “I weep for all,” said the Bishop. “Equally!” exclaimed conventionary G——; “and if the balance must incline, let it be on the side of the people. They have been suffering longer.”

We already know about Hugo's feelings on John Brown, an American abolitionist executed for role in the 1859 raid/rebellion at Harpers Ferry, but given that Nat Turner's rebellion occurred in 1831, I'm really curious

1) What Hugo's thoughts and feelings were (or would have been if he'd known about it) at that time, and

2) If the Amis would have taken notice, if they might have taken action (a la Hugo writing to the US government in an attempt to gain sympathy/a pardon for Brown), or if they would have continued focusing on exactly what's in front of them in France.

Besides Feuilly's Poland comment (in canin he is explicitly described as having adopted the world, so this is somewhat unsurprising coming from him), which does indicate some knowledge of politics outside of France's realm of direct influence, I'm not sure I recall any of the Amis ever discussing the current events of other countries. Even France's colonial holdings at that time e.g. Haiti I don't recall ever being explicitly referred to by the Amis. Does their mission extend to Paris, to France, to France and "her holdings," or the world?