#i remembered this quote by Robespierre and I really had to do this

[inky125]

" It flows, then, from virtue"

[anotherhumaninthisworld]

Hello @anotherhumaninthisworld! I recently got into a debate with one of my classmates during our history class. My classmate accepts that the Thermidorians committed atrocities and quote, "Killed a bunch of people but so did Robespierre so they're both horrible". My classmate also says that "Since Robespierre justified the use of terror, he was a horrible person." He also states that Robespierre and the Jacobins committed unnecessary violence, that Robespierre's actions were similar to Hitler's, Robespierre and the radicals had created a totalitarian empire, and that the beheading of Louis XVI was unnecessary violence. He also states that Robespierre's beheading was ironic considering the thousands of people he had executed. He also says that Napoleon was better than Robespierre, and that Robespierre got corrupted during the Revolution. While I know many of these are Thermidorian Propaganda and outright false information, he also has skepticism towards Tumblr or anything else that doesn't state Robespierre was a dictator for resources. He says, quote "How did you know that he didn't commit unnecessary violence and wasn't a dictator?" Are there any primary sources or any historical evidence that can justify my counterargument? I apologize for such a long ask, and thank you so much for what you do here on Tumblr. ❤️

If you’re trying to debunk your classmate’s claims, then it’s a bit hard for me to offer any good primary sources/historical evidence, because most of his statements are subjective. Whether or not Robespierre was a horrible person for justifying the use of terror, Napoleon was better than him and the Jacobins committed unneccessary violence are all are based on our own personal sentiment, because there exists no way to objectively measure horribleness, goodness and usefulness. ”Robespierre’s actions were similar to Hitler’s” is in its turn a claim so vague that it’s probably true to some extent (both men killed in the name of a bigger cause?), but you could replace Hitler with almost any other leader and say the very same thing. All of this is not to say any of these statements are especially nuanced, but I don’t think they can be fully debunked as much as they can be elaborated on (is for example your friend aware that France was under the burden of not just being at war with most of Europe, but also uprisings and civil wars within its own borders by the time the jacobins used violence and Robespierre justified using terror, which, while not excusing their actions, at least contextualizes them?) The best resources for providing nuance and context I don’t think would be primary sources, which function the best when we talk about less broad questions, but instead secondary sources, AKA, books on the revolution written by historians. Which books are the most useful can of course be debated and we did discuss which ones we thought best for beginners on here in this post. Though if your classmate is automatically going to dismiss anything that doesn’t agree with his claims (even if it’s a book written by a professional) I’m afraid I don’t really know what to do here… 

When it comes to the claim that Robespierre got corrupted during the Revolution, I have to ask what it is he’s referring to here. If what he means is that Robespierre got corrupted by money, then my answer would be that I, along with all historians I’ve so far looked at, have yet to find any proof of this having happened. And if that sounds like a weak counter argument, remember that the burden of proof always lies with the accuser. One does not assume that something exists until proven false, it’s the opposite way around. Do we know for sure Robespierre never took any bribes? No. Is it reasonable to assume he didn’t until proven otherwise? Yes. So maybe instead of trying to find evidence that Robespierre wasn’t corrupt (or rather absence of evidence), you should instead challange your classmate to hand you evidence that he was indeed corrupt. If what he means is that Robespierre got corrupted by power, then we’re back to the first section — this is not something that can be factually proven or disproven, because we don’t know what was going on in someone’s head 200 years ago.

As for the final question — ”How did you know that he didn't commit unnecessary violence and wasn't a dictator?"  — you could bring up the fact that Robespierre never had an official dictator title, he was a member of a non-hierarchal twelve man committee that in its turn was part of a government body made up of approximately 750 people. To prove this, you could show your classmate the following decree founding said committee, dated April 6 1793, three months before Robespierre joined it:

1. There will be formed, by roll call, a Committee of Public Safety, composed of nine members of the National Convention.

2. This committee will deliberate in secret; it will be responsible for monitoring and accelerating the action of the administration entrusted to the provisional executive council, whose decrees it may even suspend when it believes them to be contrary to the national interest, on the condition of informing without delay the Convention. 

3. It is authorized to take, in urgent circumstances, general external and internal defense measures; and its decrees, signed by the majority of its deliberative members, which cannot be less than two thirds, will be executed without delay by the provisional executive council. It may in no case issue arrest warrants, except against his executing agents, with the responsibility of reporting without delay to the Convention.

4. Every week it will write a general report on its operations and the situation of the Republic.

5. A register of all its deliberations will be kept.

6. The national treasury will remain independent from the committee, and subject to the immediate supervision of the Convention, following the method established by the decree.

This decree clearly shows the powers of the committee were not limitless, even if it should also be admitted said powers would be expanded upon over the following months, with the committee gaining the right to everything from issuing arrest warrants to conducting foreign policy. That said, all of its members still had to be monthly reelected by the Convention, which had the power to dismiss one if it saw fit. The committee’s work and Robespierre’s own share in it can be studied rather well through the twelve volume work Recueil des Actes du Comité de Salut Public, so that’s another primary source you could recommend for your classmate.

To your classmate’s defence, it should also be admitted that Robespierre at the time of ”the terror” was a highly (the most?) influencial politician, way more famous than the rest of his collegues, to the extent that the average Frenchman seems to have viewed Robespierre’s power as greater than it theoretically was supposed to be already before his death. It can also be proven Robespierre had people he had listed as ”good patriots” at the head of several important revolutionary institutions, something which we’re unable to do for his collegues. But power is still a tricky thing to measure so to say all these attributes add up to the powers of an unofficial dictator is still dubious. If your classmate won’t take some random tumblr user’s word for it (which I can understand), here are some historians and biographers (none of which I would call bias in Robespierre’s favor) saying the exact same thing:

Robespierre: first modern dictator (1931) by Ralph Korngold

Fatal Purity: Robespierre and the French Revolution (200) by Ruth Scurr

Robespierre Dictateur ? (2014) by Guillaume Mazeau

Robespierre (2014) by Hervé Leuwers 

If your classmate insists this must only be a very small minority of historians, I would once again suggest he gives you the names of those arguing that Robespierre was indeed a dictator. And if he can’t do that, perhaps ask him why then he can still be so sure over this?

For the part about committing violence, I will admit, like I already wrote here, that, through primary sources, it can be proven that Robespierre did oversee and sanction state sponsored violence, even if, strictly and linguistically speaking, he never committed it himself (he could for example not personally order for a person to be executed). Whether or not said violence was unneccesary or not does again boil down to our personal opinions. This is a subjective question and therefore, in my view, not one that is worth arguing over.

And thank you 💚

[theravenclawrevolutionary]

i'm not a frev expert. and you seem to be approchable enough and to have read enough. i had a question, or kind of a question. i just. i think that if robespierre wasn't against all the deaths by guillotine, he wouldn't have written that quote about virtue and terror. maybe i'm getting you wrong, or i'm not understanding the sense of that quote. could you explain?

Oh dang. I'm kinda surprised that people think I have any real authority on the subject of the Frev since I'm not an actual historian or anything and I'm surprised people find me approachable but of course I'll try my best for you Anon! And if anyone else has a better interpretation or anything else to add please, go ahead. I'll also try my best to keep it in as simple language as I can. But I digress.

⚠ This post is quite long so be prepared for that ⚠

First of all, Robespierre has more than one quote talking about terror and virtue. I'm assuming that you're thinking of the one that goes, "Terror is only justice: prompt, severe and inflexible; it is then an emanation of virtue; it is less a distinct principle than a natural consequence of the general principle of democracy, applied to the most pressing wants of the country." since that is the most common one. However, if you're talking about the one that goes "Terror is only justice: prompt, severe and inflexible; it is then an emanation of virtue; it is less a distinct principle than a natural consequence of the general principle of democracy, applied to the most pressing wants of the country." Let me know and I'll write about that one. The former is definitely a quote that, in my experience studying the Frev, gets misinterpreted from what it was originally meant to say fairly often.

To start with, it's very important to know what connotation and definition the words 'virtue' and 'terror' had in revolution-era France. Modern-day definitions may not be the same ones that were used in the past. According to my research, which of course isn't infallible, virtue was used to refer to someone's disposition and the way it would lead them to choose good over evil whereas where terror was seen simply as great fear. At the time there was no connotation of our modern-day terrorism to associate with the word. Nowadays we associate terror with terrorism which brings to mind murder, mindless destruction, oppression, and unchecked authority in which someone's ideals are forced upon large groups of people. Because of this many people assume that this is what Robespierre had in mind when he referenced terror when really he meant to describe the use of intimidation tactics to seize power from those who oppressed the lower class people and the general fear that was felt by the commoners.

Essentially the Reign of Terror meant 'a time period where everyone felt a sh*t load of Fear over all the bad stuff happening at once while the regular people try to overthrow the oppressive ruling class with intimidation tactics.' It does not mean 'a time period where loads of people were purposely committing widespread acts of terrorism to push their agendas'. And really, it was the only way to give everyone the chance to get rid of the old government, the monarchy, and allow a fair democracy that would be beneficial to the future of France to be built.

Next, it's important to know the context in which this quote was originally said. The speech where Robespierre said it took place on Feb 5th (?) of 1794. By this point, the revolution has been well underway for several long years and, as I said, a lot of sucky things are happening at the same time. The republic was in a war with a massive part of Europe and they're kinda getting curb-stomped. The country is in a state of civil war between the people that still supported the monarchy and all the different groups that had different views of how the country should be run. France's economy was complete sh*t too, so all this really radicalized the people and made the whole revolution situation so much worse than it already was.

At the time there were two factions, so to say, in the National Convention that were hella pissed at each other and really at odds. the Hébertists (who, to make things easy, wanted to escalate the Terror, go on the offensive with the military, and the overthrow and replace some of the existing government structures at the time) and the Dantonists (who wanted to sorta get rid of the revolutionary government, negotiate for peace in the war, and chill out on the whole Terror thing). And remember that these groups of people were very loose and like people in today's politic didn't agree with every stance their 'faction' took.

By the time Max made this speech, which was addressing these two groups, the situation between them was escalated big time. The Hébertists, with their views of 'more terror all over! That'll help us win everything,' or 'terror without virtue,' were pushing for a system that would quickly prove fatal. By contrast, the Dantonists with their, 'we just need to kinda chill and things will work out,' way of thinking or 'virtue without terror', would only lead to them (and the rest of the country) getting walked over by everyone else.

Throughout the entire speech, a speech I haven't recently read all the way through, Max comes back to the idea of terror and virtue, stressing that both are necessary. What I think he meant to do was talk about how the revolution couldn't survive without both terror (fear and the aggression that causes it) and virtue (the choice of good over evil) being applied. He's trying to explain to both groups that a little bit of both ideals is the most beneficial way to go about things. In reality, it has nothing to do with whether he personally believed in or advocated the death penalty/ the use of the guillotine. Instead, Robespierre is emphasizing that at that particular moment in time doing what is right and good (virtue) will most likely end up causing some bad things that will make people afraid for a while (terror).

What Robespierre is not saying is that terror, and by extension the violence that is causing the terror is virtuous. There are several easy-to-find sources that prove his personal disapproval of the death penalty from a moral standpoint. As a young lawyer in his hometown in Arras, he became physically ill at the idea of having one of his clients sentenced to death, even though he was found guilty of the crime he was on trial for. He made a speech agreeing with the abolition of the death penalty on May 30th of 1791 (?) arguing that there is no place for the death penalty in a civilized society because the law needs to be a model of what is good. He attempted to save the lives of Georges Danton and Camille Desmoulins, two friends/coworkers that he is commonly charged with sending to their deaths when the opposite is actually true. Additionally, he did the same with other more controversial people including the king's sister of all people, Madame Elisabeth. Even when voting for the death of the king he reiterates his own opinion on the death penalty saying, "For myself, I abhor the penalty of death that your law so liberally imposes, and I have neither love nor hatred for the King; it is only the crimes that I hate…. It is with regret that I utter this baneful truth…Louis must die in order that our country may live." Though it conflicts with his personal views, Robespierre makes the decision based on the needs of France as a country, something that many politicians need to relearn how to do today.

Long story short, he was not supporting the use of the guillotine with that quote, but rather trying to get two opposing factions to realize that both intimidation/fear and making sound, beneficial decisions would keep France on the right track to building a successful democracy for the people. Hopefully this helped and I explained it in a way that was easy for you to understand. If you ever have any more Frev related questions feel free to ask and I'll do my best to answer or I'll send you in the direction of someone else more knowledgeable if I don't know.

Also, can someone tell me if I did a good job of explaining this? I can never tell if things I write about the Frev make sense to me because I actually know exactly what I mean to say so everyone else kinda goes along with it or if I actually say helpful things of substance. Thanks guys! And if anyone else knows more about the subject or if I've made a mistake please help me out.

~Dara

[quatregats]

Thots on The Brick (Les miserables aka my favourite book).....

Oooof okay....there are many......

Caveat that I read this over the summer and my memory for books is either I read them 20 times and have them memorized line for line or I just Don't Remember Shit, and unfortunately I'm not at the first stage with this book yet ://

The themes of the book were just <33333 aaaaaaa i love them perfect <33333 No that's not a real sentence but !!!!!! it was all about human dignity and second chances and generosity and idk what I was expecting but I vibed with it SO much. I was definitely very confused reading the first section about the bishop because I was like 50 pages in and none of the characters I'd heard of had appeared yet, but once I got further and started to understand what my pal Victor was going for with the narrative arc I have to admit that was one of my favorite parts of the book??? or like not because not much happens but it definitely was like there are good people in the world and doing good deeds sets off webs of interaction of goodness that perpetuate and I am a firm believer in this philosophy — that people really WANT to do good actions and be good to each other and it makes us feel good and happy, and this never ever gets emphasized as much as "humans are ultimately evil and bad and we only do good because some deity is watching our behavior >:0" so thank you Mr. Hugo for acknowledging that that's not true <33 Also redemption and second chances and acknowledging that a lot of what makes people bad is actually just Other People Treating Them Badly, oh no don't expose capitalism like that :0

Actually I liked the infodumping??? This is my Extremely Weird Take™ on the book but in case people haven't noticed (in which case you are very lucky to have escaped) I have been Extremely into worldbuilding over the past year, so I've been reading a lot of books to see how their authors do that and looking at things through that lens. How does this relate to Les Mis? Simple. I think that Victor Hugo was hands-down the best model for worldbuilding that I have seen this year, including Tolkien. The reason is because I feel like worldbuilding at its finest throws a bunch of stuff at you about the world, which the author completely understand and writes as though it's directed at people who are also In On It. And then as you go you start seeing how all of these things work and putting the pieces together and connecting the dots. I read this book knowing the bare minimum about French society and history: there was a revolution and also guillotines and a king that got deposed and someone named Robespierre and then there was Napoleon who got defeated at Waterloo. That was IT, I LITERALLY did not know anything else. Needless to say, pretty much none of this happens during the book, so I went in completely blind. And Mr. Hugo was just name-dropping people and events left and right like I was supposed to know them, and if I had tried to read it like a French person in the late 19th century, I would have probably just been taken out within the first 100 pages. But when I pretended like I was reading about a fantasy world which I wasn't SUPPOSED to know anything about, it suddenly felt like the juiciest worldbuilding ever, and it was SO GOOD. I learned SO MUCH about French history and France in general, and I literally would not have exchanged the infodumping for anything in the world. Now, is this a terrible bar to set for worldbuilding? Yes. Am I going to set it anyways because I'm dumb? Also yes. Anyways this is a very weird and cursed Fantasy Nerd™ take that nobody who actually cares about literature should pay any mind to, but it was an important part of me reading the book so yeah.

Also this kind of ties in with point one but when he waxes poetic about philosophy and humanity (like in those sections where he comes at you with his Thoughts™)....Unparalleled. I wanted to hang quotes on my wall so I could look at them every morning and Understand. Literally some of the most beautiful writing ever <33

I can't think of other things but there definitely were other things, it was absolutely a page turner in the parts with plot, I loved the characters, I loved how everything tied together across such a long book and how every little vignette of something that you were like what's the point of this Victor actually turned out to set off chains of events that perpetuated forward, basically it was a Very Enjoyable Read and I loved all of its heady philosophical ideals and its minutiae about French history and its VERY long plot and basically everything about it, 11/10 would read again

[kiatheinsomniac]

Sooooo I know that we don't know each other that much but I had this thought and the first blog to come to my mind was yours, I was in Pinterest reading aus and found one that said you stop aging at 18 if u don't find ur soulmate and I thought about what if ur not from the same decade and that person lived all those years til now, imagine having a romantic dinner with the person and somehow when they were born comes up and damn I knew I was into older people but not that old and afagajhabwjahan

(Y/n) sat down hurriedly as she took her seat, already having missed the very opening of the play. She looked at her date who had new hope in his eyes at her sudden presence.

"I'm so sorry," She whispered to avoid disturbing anyone else in the café théâtre, "There was a delay at the Cité stop."

"It's alright, you're here now." He smiled, "I was worried that you weren't going to show up."

"I could never." She replied with a soft smile as he waved a waiter over.

"The usual and a (favourite coffee), s'il vous plaît, Victor." He spoke in a polite tone, proceeding to describe any other details of (Y/n)'s drink to the man, the employee nodded his head and went off to make them both.

(Y/n) had met Arno here at his café théâtre, she went in most mornings seeing as she worked at the florists just down the street. She was enchanted by the place when she first found it, often leaving the house earlier to enjoy a coffee and a chapter of her book there before her first shift of the day. There were often performers on the stage too and it was her favourite thing when a violinist or pianist was playing on the stage as she immersed herself in the pages of whichever novel she had been reading that month. Quite often, when she went in, Arno was the one working behind the counter. It wasn't uncommon for the two to flirt with each other at all either.

In fact, he didn't realise how much he liked seeing her in the mornings until she was put on an earlier shift at work and no longer had the time to visit his café in the mornings. When her shifts returned to normal, he asked her on a date the very first chance he got, and she readily accepted.

So, that's what brought them here.

"It's sweet to know that you remember my favourite drink." She smiled softly, feeling a slight heat on her cheeks.

"How could I not? You come in almost every morning." He teased, "But, I must admit, I usually take care to make sure I get it right for you." He watched her look down at her lap shyly, her smile tugging at her lips despite her trying to hide it. It was a small gesture but in a world full of so many thoughtless people, it meant a lot to her.

"So, (Y/n), what sorts of things do you like? Other than reading, I know plenty of Mary Shelley and Jane Austen by now." He replied. (Y/n) recalled to where he would often ask her how her book was going and she'd share her thoughts and favourite quotes with him.

"Well. . . I really like history and the arts. I think that there's always so much to learn from the people who came before us." At her choice of words, his face became painted with an amused smile, "And we have so many sources to look to now, to see the error in our past and current ways, to change things for the better. I'm particularly fond of the Renaissance and the French and American revolutions."

"The French revolution?" He raised a brow.

"Absolutely!" She replied with a grin and sparkling eyes, "I can understand why people aren't fond of it - it was bloody, ruthless, some instances were horrifyingly shocking and so many lives were lost. But how many lives would have continued to fall to poverty if that had not happened? I love the politics behind it, how easily Robespierre, the seemingly untouchable man, fell to corruption and, eventually, the guillotine. Also, movements like that are important became it gave many women the chance to show their worth - the women's march on Versailles, Charlotte Corday, Theroigne de Mericourt. . ."

"Ah, yes, I knew her."

"Oh, you've studied her?" (Y/n) replied, thanking the waiter as he placed their coffees down on the table before them. Arno laughed heartily, watching her confusion with amusement, the way she furrowed her brow and tilted her head, looking much more adorable in his eyes than she should.

"No, I met her. I helped her to get some food to the poor and get rid of some Jacobins too." He watched her face fall into shock, hardly able to drink his coffee with the smile on his face.

"How long have you been looking for your soulmate? When were you born?" She raised her brows. In this world, looks could be very deceiving: an eighteen-year-old could be a five-hundred-year-old. (Y/n) had even heard stories of people who kill their soulmates so that they never die.

"I looked for around two centuries, stopped after the first world war, then starting looking again," He hesitated, "recently." In truth, he had given up altogether until he met the (h/c)-haired woman sitting opposite him, "And I was born in 1768."

"Wow. . ." She breathed out, "You've lived through a good portion of history then, huh?"

"You could say that." He shrugged, "I take it that you're actually eighteen?"

"Twenty-six, actually." She replied, taking a sip of her favourite coffee, "So, I'm on a date with a two-hundred and fifty-two year old?" She tutted at him and shook her head teasingly, all in light-heartedness.

"All jokes I've heard before, chérie." He replied.

"Must be a lot of birthday candles." She continued to tease with a childish grin as he rolled his eyes playfully.

"Cut the old jokes and I’ll let you see some of my memorabilia from the revolution, how does that sound?" He cut her a deal. She lifted her hand to mimic zipping her lips and throwing the zip away.

"If it's not a sensitive subject, would you mind telling me if it's been difficult? Trying to find a soulmate, I mean." She spoke in a more serious tone.

"I always thought that my first love was my soulmate. Her name was Élise. My parents. . . weren't really in the picture when I was a boy so I was raised by Élise's father. We grew up together and we fell in love as teenagers. We both thought that we were perfect for each other but. . . neither of us aged after eighteen. It didn't make me love her any less, though. But, one day. . . She died in a fight." She could see that he was still upset by her death, though, the time passed since had clearly made him accept it and learn how to talk of it openly. "I've had a few lovers since then and many went the same way: three serious ones in the 19th century who left when they met their soulmates. One in the 1910s who died in prison-" He saw the look of shock on (Y/n)'s face "- she wasn't a criminal, she was a suffragette; as was I." He paused a moment more, "I gave up after that until recently."

"What made you change your mind?" She propped her chin on her hand, hanging onto each little detail of his stories. Was that the hint of a blush she could see on his cheeks?

"Not to be an old-fashioned romantic. . ." He joked, making (Y/n) smile at him joining in with her old jokes, "But it was you." Her back straightened a bit with surprise.

"Me?" He reached for her hand across the table, watching him nod his head as he idly twisted her fingers around his.

"You give me hope." He smiled simply.

♡♡♡

Quite a few months had passed since then - as had many more dates and Arno asking to ‘court’ her (that earned him both a ‘yes’ and many old jokes) - and (Y/n) was currently laid with Arno in his room, it was early in the morning and they were half-dressed, tangled in the bedsheets with half-drank coffee on the bedside table and a tray of various snacks laid by them: different cheeses, sweetmeats, cut fruits. Arno had his head laid on her stomach and she was propped against the wall, a pillow cushioning her back. One of her hands was running through his hair, his eyes closed as he listened to her voice and lavished in her gentle caresses. Her other hand was holding a copy of Frankenstein: they'd both read it before but shared a love for it.

" 'How can I describe my emotions at this catastrophe, or how delineate the wretch whom with such infinite pains and care I had endeavoured to form? His limbs were in proportion, and I had selected his features as beautiful. Beautiful! - Great God! ' " She glanced down to her lover, lips pursing as she laid the book down.

"Have you been stressed lately, amour?" She furrowed her brows, making him open his eyes.

"Having to change suppliers for the café has been a bit difficult, yes." He sighed, "What makes you ask?"

"You have a silver hair." She commented. His hand went to his head rapidly as he sat up, finding the culprit hair with shock. His mouth fell agape and (Y/n) was confused for a moment before she realised what this meant for both of them. He turned to face her, watching the smile creep onto her lips as he lunged forward to cup her face, pulling her into a deep kiss and holding her body as close to his as possible, skimming his hands down her spine as hers went up to rest on his shoulders, the two of them having to pull apart from smiling too much. He held her tenderly and rested his forehead against hers, lips brushing featherly over hers when he said:

"You took your time, didn't you?"

[danboorucomments]

Mincemaker Yep. Jeanne was an illiterate peasant girl.

AdventZero That, and Marie Antoinette didn't even say those words. It came from Jean-Jacques Rousseau's autobiography which he supposedly quoted from a "great princess."

Marie Antoinette was 9 years old at the time Rousseau's books were written.

Farran TFW the Throne of Heroes gives all the basic knowledge of the world to a Heroic Spirit and still can't make her literate. Though on a more serious note, I thought that Jeanne as a Servant could read, she just still couldn't do math?

Mincemaker And you would think that if she did indeed say those words, she should be excused because she was 9 years old, for God's sake!

AdventZero Agreed. She wasn't even a princess back then, much less a "great princess" of her time. If my research is correct, Rousseau didn't even know she existed when his book was written. Marie Antoinette arrived in France until about 5 years after his first six books were written - at the age of 14.

That, and the saying was already a hundred years old by the time he quoted it in his book.

BarefeetChaser It is indeed a tragic case of somebody just make shit up, and some other people gets the shit for no good reason.

Kippenberger When did that myth first appear? It sounds like something Robespierre or someone petty would make up.

NWSiaCB In general, the wives/daughters of despised monarchs were roundly vilified in their day. To say something bad about the king was against the law, and being open about such things gave anyone within earshot who didn't like you all the excuse they needed to have you brought to trial and possibly even executed. Talk shit about the king's relatives, however...

The same can be said of Lucretia Borgia, as well, who gets a rap as the wickedest woman who ever lived because she's the daughter of one of the most corrupt popes to ever use the church as a bargaining chip for getting his son onto as many thrones as possible. Since he needed political marriages, and only had one daughter, well, why not just re-use his daughter by murdering or annulling any marriages that live past their usefulness and marry her off again? Who cares what she thinks about this, she's just a bargaining chip woman.

Then again, Marie Antoinette doesn't really have room to complain too much. If she's played as the genuinely innocent naive girl who was brought into a decadent court just before it collapsed, then it raises questions as to why she even qualifies to be a servant in the first place.

Kippenberger Marie in her earlier years was basicly an innocent naïve girl who's "restraing bolts" was loosend too early and as a result overspent her personal fund (money gained from taxing already suffering cevilians) more often then not.

While Marie in her later years started acting more mature, by then Robespierre and people with similar ambitions had gotten into a position to take avantage of those with even less commen sense then most versarien nobles - Yes that's possible - (such as Jeanne de Valois-Saint-Rémy) to stage a Coup.

Claverhouse Something continued with those poor wretches of pseudo-monarchs, presidents and such people: I have yet to come across an American First Lady not roundly abused by some screamers. And they are nearly all innocuous, rather dull women who have not interfered with their husband's work at all.

NWSiaCB Well, there's a gap between "some people" and "how history primarily remembers them". There are some partisans so fervent they loathe Laura Bush simply for being married to George W., but that isn't how the history books are written.

If you go back to First Ladies of more than a generation ago, the way history is handed down to anyone who didn't live through the moment leaves them only as historical curiosities if people know anything about them at all; a general whitewashing of history to heroify the likes of Jackie Kennedy, and a dismissal of Nancy Reagan's interest in the occult as a silly note of interest. As I stated before, the problem she has is "Let them eat cake!" is pretty much the ONLY thing most people know about Marie Antoinette. She wouldn't be noteworthy at all without it. (Hell, more people know who Marie Antoinette was than her husband who was the actual reining monarch of what was at the time the world's most powerful empire overthrown in the whole affair.)

Even worse, most portrayals of Lucrezia Borgia in anything that isn't trying to actively dispel the rumors of her life show her as a raging psychopath and incestuous slut who was willing to sleep with and/or murder (not necessarily in that order) anyone to make her otou-san or onii-san happy. (Of course, she has the misfortune of being related to the Pope so flagrantly corrupt that he's considered one of the primary reasons for the backlash against church corruption that led to the Protestant Reformation. Plus, he was also followed up by a Pope who loathed him with the blazing passions of a million hateful suns and overtly forced "confessions" under torture of Borgia servants to fabricate accusations of murder, adultery, and incest against a family already rife with rumors of those same activities.)

PraiseVectron To add onto that, Marie was an Austrian. Worse, she was an Austrian with the blood of the Hapsburgs in her veins. Nowadays, we don't really consider France and Austria to be arch-enemies, but the hate was intense back then. There were revolutionary politicians whose entire platform can be summarized as "we need to preemptively kill the Austrians before they kill us". Oh, and the Affair of the Diamond Necklace didn't help either.

In the Affair of the Diamond Necklace, Louis XV commissioned an intolerably expensive diamond necklace for his mistress, but died before it was finished. Louis XVI and Marie Antoinette refused to buy the necklace. During this time, a group of scammers had convinced Cardinal de Rohan that Marie secretly loved him and wanted him to buy the necklace for her using forged love letters. Cardinal de Rohan told the diamond makers it was for Marie when he bought the necklace. The diamond makers told Marie about the purchase, and Marie had them all arrested. While modern historians believe it was all the fault of independent scammers, the French public at the time believed it was all Marie's Keikaku. They believed Marie was an evil Austrian who wanted to destroy the romantic Cardinal de Rohan while receiving a decadent diamond necklace on someone else's budget.

Also, she was heavily involved the firing of Finance Minister Jacques Necker. While Necker would later be revealed to have completely failed to bring France out of debt, the French public believed Necker was the savior of the French budget. Necker used accounting tricks to hide problems in the budget, but when the truth was revealed during the revolution, the public initially blamed Marie's excesses instead of the "genius" Necker and his "perfect" math. When the truth finally came out, it was too late. Marie's reputation as a profligate was too large to be removed by something as silly as the truth.

As for actual faults during the revolution, Marie's only problem was being convinced that God would let them turn back the clock with no real consequences. Instead putting all their chips on the constitutional monarchists of the Feuillants Club, their stubbornness helped lead to the domination of the Jacobin Club and their own execution. This is no great fault of Marie's, since more worldly French nobles made the same mistake and gave the same advice to Louis XVI.

Kippenberger The idiot I mentioned (Jeanne) WAS the one who broke the camels back with the whole "Diamond Necklace Affair" Stunt. Didn't know about Jacques though. I know he was fired but not because of imcompetence. I THINK A documentary I watched - Can't remember which one - said it was because of something else but I don't remember what.

[its-just-like-the-movies]

Rewatches and Reconsiderations

I can already tell that my viewing list for August is going to be a bit smaller than the ones for the past few months. The business of moving in and getting myself situated has made it difficult for me to sit down and watch anything, especially since a lot of it has been rentals on iTunes that I’ve been afraid to play without a confirmed block of free time on the horizon. Many of these have been rewatches to boot, so even the listed stuff isn’t exactly new. As is, that’s given me more time to think about the projects, not just this month’s but previous ones I haven’t given much thought to, as well as doing a “Fifites” progress report. Something I’ve decided to copy from blogs I’m a fan of, it’s basically my ballot fifty films into the year. I’m currently trapped at 48, trying not to have Good Time and Ingrid Goes West and other quote-unquote “releases” when I’ve missed so much from the summer I know I shouldn’t’ve. Anyways, in lieu of a lot of fully-formed reviews, here’s a handful of films I’ve pretty much turned the worm on.

If there’s been a more profound switch in my recent opinion of something, it has to be the complete collapse of favor towards Landline. I walked out of that film positively buzzing, with my sister equally into what we had just seen. Maybe the first sign that we weren’t into it was that we spent most of the drive home talking not about the film but about people whose lives were in similar situations, people we knew who feared their fathers were cheating on their mothers. Melina talked about how great it would be when Jenny Slate wins an Oscar (not for this film, just in the future), and I couldn’t help but think about how I repeatedly felt her performance here to be so much emptier than what she gave us in Obvious Child. Then again, a lot of things here feel emptier than Obvious Child, unconvincing in almost every conceivable way. I don’t know what made Gillian Robespierre want to set this in 1995 New York, and barely anything specifies itself to this period the way that 20th Century Women is so clearly set in 1979 California. The break-up scenes are so very much going to be break-up scenes from the moment they start, and a character’s anxious agreement to buy heroin is all we need to know that she will very clearly not buy heroin when the time comes. It’s just empty, with almost nothing to surprise us, and I take my A- as being premised on chords it struck and the interest in Robespierre’s messy characters, mistakenly assuming that messiness conveyed meaning. My sister and I were impressed that the film ended on such an oddly happy note, confident as we were that even one extra scene couldn’t have been so precariously perched with characters acting so warmly to each other. But does the film know that? Does it think Slate’s reconciliation with her bafflingly soon-to-be-husband will last? I feel bad that my 180 on Landline happened outside of the theater, but I have no interest in seeing it again either way, and am perfectly content to let my fraught ideas just exist without giving it a second chance, at least for now.

Colossal, which I enjoyed so much so many months ago, has faced a similar swing down too. This one feels more likely to get a rewatch, but no film that so casually has the destruction of South Korea as a plot conceit/pastiche homage without really doing anything with it except destroying South Korea should have any kind of B grade. The script’s inability to deepen Hathaway’s character once it gets fixated on probing Sudeikis’ scuzzy bastard is also something I should’ve given more thought too, as is the seemingly unprompted attack on the never-to-be-seen-again Tim Blake Nelson character over something that isn’t actually hinted at until that point. Is Sudeikis underplaying, or is the script simply allowing him to just act in the same kind of way and make it seems deeper given new contexts? Are we supposed to care about Dan Stevens at all, especially after the scripted moment of comparing his want of control over her to Sudeikis’s? Everyone seems underdeveloped and in service to a thesis on misogyny and male abusiveness that coheres less with the alcoholism-as-kaiju thesis the more you look at it, nevermind how poorly both ideas stand on their own. Kudos to Nacho Vigalondo for such an inspired premise, but I wish I found more there to really commend, or more there period.

For our one-year anniversary, one of the films my boyfriend and I watched was Logan. I remember walking out of that film high on everything it did with the Wolverine character, where it took his arc and what happened with Professor X and Laura. Another spin dampened most of the film for me, leaving me appreciative of all the risks it took but basically stopping at just appreciating them. It’s impressive to have such a dour tone without succumbing to the kind of boring, depressing “seriousness” that Batman v Superman has, not to mention how Logan’s trying to be a Western more than it is a straight-up X-Men film. It takes guts to envision a superhero film like that, nevermind one that’s the send-off for two of your franchise’s most beloved characters. The inclusion of X-23 feels equally risky and yet, existing within the same cultural space as Arya Stark and Eleven, seems like a fairly logical extension of where the film would go. This time around I ended up finding Dafnee Keen’s impressively steely and ferocious performance to be the crown jewel of the film, freed as she is from the cliches and inevitable goodbyes bagging down Hugh Jackman and Patrick Stewart while refusing to maker character conventionally likeable or cuddly or remotely childlike. Stewart especially feels bogged by this, though I admired his own abrasiveness and restraint in a part that could beg for easy sympathy and overbaked “madness”, and if Logan as scripted is amazingly reluctant to even be in the film, I still think Jackman does strong work throughout, convincing us of a palpably worn-out hero without selling him short. His desire to buy a boat with Charles isn’t a pipe dream but a goal he’s actively working towards, and his bonds with Charles, Caliban, and Laura all feel believable, not to mention how well he puts over Logan’s depression. If it’s not the full-on coup that I remembered, it’s still a commendable piece of acting, one of three pretty good performances the film offers. Frankly, I found little to admire beyond its central performances (though I did like bits of Marco Beltrami’s score), but this is still a commendably ambitious take on a superhero’s curtain call, and one I’m sure we’re not going to see anything like very soon.

On the plus side of things is another stroll through Personal Shopper, which I found so much more captivating the second time around on practically all fronts, especially in relationship to its star turn. I’d like to think most of my irritation with it was rooted in being too focused on the film’s plot, but that doesn’t explain how dismissive I was of Kristen Stewart’s performance, especially in the midst of so much internet hype around her performance from sources I trust. Was it bad mood? That feels unlikely, since I immediately popped into a screening of The Devils and loved it. Not that The Devils is in any way similar to Personal Shopper, but maybe I cottoned to such a nasty, deliciously horrific project because of how much it loved showing off its enormous vulgarity. Then again, how could one watch the film and not see all the great work Stewart was doing, as I did, and so rudely called for literally anyone else to have taken her place? Personal Shopper is asking a lot of questions about responding to grief in the face of unthinkable personal tragedy, and nothing it’s doing would work without Stewart’s work. I can’t believe I criticized her performance for being so unemotive when Maureen is barely put together at practically every moment in the film. If her personal fashion and hairstyle gives her the air of the coolest Beat poet you’ve never met - and lord how did I say nothing of the amazing costumes - Stewart plays Maureen as a frayed, barely corked bottle of anxiety and irritation from the first time we see her, who only seems assured wearing her boss’s outfits. Stewart convincingly plays an open book who’s the opposite of a people person, who doesn’t seem to like most personal interactions without making her boyfriend seem like an idiot for trusting her or cruel for doubting the existence of spirits. Even when trying on the most risque of Kyra’s outfits in the film’s most ostentatiously soundtracked and voyeuristically filmed sequence Stewart never seems to notice she’s being filmed, so vanity-free is her performance without quite being self-effacing or drawing attention to her own acting. It’s a miracle of a performance in a film that encompasses more tones and variations on the weird and the haunting than I initially realized, or perhaps respected. It may also have some of the year’s best costume work, by Jurgen Doering, who finds such gorgeous outfits for Maureen to gift for her nearly invisible boss while giving her her own remarkable, equally eye-catching ensemble of outfits to wear. It’s such a stupendous jump up in my personal opinions of it, and though it’s not the best film of the year - though it surely contains one of its best performances - it may be my favorite purely on the grounds of how much more I’ve grasped from another tour, and a deeply felt lesson in rewatching projects you just couldn’t “get”.

From there, the projects I’ve revisited - I Don’t Feel At Home In This World Anymore and The Lost City of Z - were ones I greatly enjoyed and found myself in basically the same place with a second trip through, albeit with a finer reading of their assets, and their goals. Both boast so much value, are utterly compelling experiences on any number of levels. I urge anyone interested in these projects to find them and watch them as soon as possible, but given that all the films I’ve talked about here are more in line with changed opinions than ones that stayed the same, I’ll leave those two be. Hope everyone’s doing well back at school, and a lovely evening to all you beautiful people. See you next time, hopefully with a real review!