#also this jailer might be an allusion to some kind of dialoguist/centrist politician? it evokes that to me. no idea

[lafcadiosadventures]

Madame Putiphar Groupread. Book Four, Chapter III

𝔊𝔬𝔬𝔡 𝔍𝔞𝔦𝔩𝔢𝔯, 𝔅𝔞𝔡 𝔍𝔞𝔦𝔩𝔢𝔯

“Of truth we know nothing, for truth is in a well.”

-Democritus

Goya, prints number 79 and 80 from Los desastres de la guerra. Murió la Verdad and Sí resucitará? Truth is dead, but her light shines still from the well. More allegories of Truth here .

{ @counterwiddershins + @sainteverge }

Join me while I try to decide what is the Prison Gobernor’s agenda. I think it's pretty clear what Borel seems to be doing with him though, whether he is sincere or not. This chapter adds yet another guise of the Jailer, of which we have already seen so many: the madame, Lady Cockermouth and Chris, Villepastour, etc. This version of the oppressor is kind, soft spoken and gentle, empathetic. But it’s honestly irrelevant, since the result is the same: deprivation of rights ( in fact kind jailers might be even worse) Like a lobster boiled alive, the more naif people might be lulled into a false sense of safety, get used and even come to love their chains. Not Deborah.

We find her now, as she says, crying out of innertia. The gobernor presents himself to her: he doesn't want to be thought of as a jailer, since he loves and cares for all his prisoners, he isn’t even an admirer of Louis XV, a relative of his. (the metaphor is clear, if we believe him, this man is a kind person, he does NOT like the king-but is a noble. Or a bastard, he must have done something to deserve such a job. He is -or seems to be- legitimately trying to make the best of a terrible situation, either out of practicity-after all, a Prince should aim to be loved rather than feared- or genuinelly. It is not unheard of, some jailers are not sadists. But all of this doesn’t change the fact that Deborah has been raped, prostituted, and is currently being incarcerated illegally out of royal caprice)

This quote provides a strong argument for discarding this his genuinelly being a good man with a terrible job, there is a kind of pride or even perverse pleasure here:

"J’éprouve une joie profonde à me voir aimé de gents qui devoient me haïr. Ceci montre qu’il n’est pas de position dans la vie qu’on ne puisse ennoblir et sanctifier."

He is clearly not a Kantian. He does Good because it brings him pleasure (vs. for Good's sake). He makes people who should hate him, love him (and through love, he makes them submit to him) And everyone is happy because rebellion is quite inconvenient, too much effort, too much violence... His second statement almost reeks of Panglossianism. There is NO job that cannot be made noble, even being a jailer, a mercenary, or a torturer… if the people love their executioner, their exploiter, their role is sanctified, because the role (of the oppressor) is performed with love.

[Next is the obligatory Romanticism Bingo moment: claiming the role of providence mentioned]

it’s also interesting how Borel make us feel Deborah’s trauma through her interlocutor’s words, he says he’s interested in her for she is young and beautiful, and immediately has to add he’s just a poor old man with one foot in the grave to reassure her. The old gobernor claims however that the true root of his affection is her nationality. Because his protector was an Irishman: the now Count of Thomond, who is what Patrick could have become if he had played his cards right, aka, an ennobled irishman defending French interests in the Battle of Fontenoy, disputing territory from the Austrian Netherlands. (I have no idea whose position was fairer in this territorial dispute but it seems to be just about geopolitics and strategic control, kicking England out, fortifying France's position, etc. The man seems to have been just defending France's imperial geostrategic interests)

The jailer asks, as a favour (and this could be dangerous, but Deborah chooses to trust him) to be told the causes of her incarceration, since her lettre-de-cachet doesn’t specify them. Deborah outdoes his request, tells him the story of her life. True sympathy develops between the two, as the enigmatic jailer and Deborah are both driven to tears by her story. Deborah is very much in need to unburden herself, and this man is kind and mild mannered.

The man consoles her, as if he were administring a sedative in minute doses. Softly, he asks her to forget. They will play pretend she is not a prisoner. Because, aren’t humans captives anywhere in this world? (this is as you have already heard me say, one of the main themes of the book. Never before expressed so explicitly as now. However the Gobernor isn't at all a mouthpiece for Borel, since he is perverting the premise, using it to instill pasivity in his current victim, and in a way, to minimize the damage of the lettres-de-chachet:

Ce ne sont pas les lettres-de-cachet qui font le plus de prisonniers, ce sont les liens de famille, la pauvreté, les travaux mercenaires, le ménage, la nonchalance, les préjugés. Vous ne sauriez habiter, mylady, un plus vaste et plus romantique manoir, une île plus délicieuse, une mer plus belle sous un ciel plus pur.

I thought the inclusion of the word Romantic was interesting, this is not the literal meaning of the phrase, but it's evocative enough. can fiction, can a romanticism malpractice so to speak, also become a jail of sorts? the fortress is beautiful, the Island too, so why not imagine it as one of the locations of Deborah's favorite novels?

The man even rhetorically transforms prisons into something natural, in his speech, animal made refuges become cells, in a sophistic turn of phrase made to infuriate any rousseaunian:

“L’aigle même n’a-t-il pas son aire? l’ours n’a-t-il pas sa caverne?”

Deborah isn’t fooled by any of this, she asseses his remaks exactly as what they are: rhetorical resources. She gently mocks his sophisms affirming he isn’t far from claiming there are only free men inside the cells. As Walpole, (Deborah and Borel pay tribute to the father of Gothic literature) who jokingly affirmed the need to lock the few remaining sane people in Bedlam to preserve them from the madness of the world, trap the few remaining"sane", release the "mad" since the world is already insane. She cuts to the chase: how long is she condemned to be free in "this Bastille"?

-Perpetualy.

A philosophical reflexion follows, how can men have the hubris to claim to own the remaining time of someone’s life, (and isn’t life potentially shortened by such sentences?) Deborah proposes, once again, suicide as an act of rebellion and pursuit of freedom. No matter what happens, she is still free to end her life, and cut her sentence short. Actual escape, once again, as a pregnant woman who on top of everything is in a remote wilderness surrounded by water, seems impossible for her.

As a palliative, the Governor offers Hope, another weapon in his arsenal: when Putiphar dies, Deborah would eventually be released.

Deborah doesn’t buy it. If Putiphar died anytime soon, she’d return to being a slave (at the Parc-aux-Cerfs) The Governor smiles, like a defeated Sphinx, warmly shakes her hands, and walks away.