#totally correct 1789 quotes

[lehetsz-kiraly]

Ronan: *pointing at the king* Uh...which Louis is this again?

Camille: The sixteenth.

Ronan: Oh. Damn.

[margridarnauds]

Incorrect 1789 Quotes 5/?

[centrifuge-politics]

Brick Club 4.1.1

I. The Bourbons and Rational Choice Theory What Hugo is arguing here is that France had been in a constant state of rapid and dramatic transition and change from 1789 up until Napoleon’s overthrow in 1815. The Bourbon Restoration supposedly represented a break, a return to the status quo while everyone regathered themselves and figured their shit out. Or so we would think, he says. Hugo sums up the core issue pretty neatly here: “[The Bourbons] had the fatal simplicity to believe that it was it that gave, and that what it had given it could take back.” They’ve been reading Machiavelli and not getting that they’re the joke!

They don’t understand that the rules of the game have changed—there is no more status quo in France. The people expect certain things now that weren’t in the public consciousness when the Bourbons last held power. “These guarantees are a necessity of the times. The princes ‘grant’ them, but in reality it is the force of circumstances which gives them.” The Bourbons, if they wanted to stay in power, now have to meet the expectations of the public which include not being treated like shit anymore. This is a pared down, monarchical version of something called ‘electoral incentive,’ based on a rational choice model. Basically, what this means is politicians’ top priority is always to stay in office and every action they take while in office is to achieve this single end. It is a bit cynical; you’re saying any good a politician does for their constituents will always be incidental to their main, selfish goal of maintaining power. This isn’t automatically bad—social contract theory mediates this a little bit—because it’s also the prerogative of the masses to continue to grant a politician power. If a politician takes actions that harm his constituents, they can simply revoke that power (note that the modern rise of lobbying and PACs complicates this relationship). It will generally be in the politician’s best interest to please (the majority of) their constituents so, theoretically, while the core motivation for political actions might vary, the end result is ultimately the same.

And damned if the ex-kings can’t manage even that. “Their misfortune was greater than they.” Yeah, it was generations of exploitation and oppression followed up by befuddled confusion when it turns out people want off the ride. Hugo really softballs them on this failure because, I think, he mistakenly disregards the influence of centuries of unbroken power the Bourbons held over France. They still see themselves as the default and correct option because they’re too blinded by a history of total power to recognize any change that happens outside their influence. Their final descent isn’t a dignified, regal withdrawal in response to changing times, it’s the pathetic, childish death throes of a group of people unable to conceptualize a public good that exists beyond their own “Divine Right” to power.

Parts II and III under the cut...yeah I did that. There’s also another illustration, so tempting!

II. Violence, Fact, and Revolution Hugo makes a poor appeal to civility: “Under the Restoration the nation became accustomed to discussion with calmness, which was wanting in the republic.” I’m not saying this is complacency but…the July Revolution still ended with a king on the throne again. It’s the same mistake he makes with the treatment of the final Bourbons. Royalty isn’t inherently noble and calmness isn’t inherently peaceful. There simply is no intrinsic value in these things. People who speak calmly can still be doing the same amount of harm as those yelling from pulpits. In calling the July Revolution “mild” and by painting the Bourbons as "worthy” despite their descent, Hugo cheapens the centuries of suffering of the common people and the validity of their anger. 

I wouldn’t pick on these particular comments of his so closely, except Hugo himself is about to abruptly complicate his stance in the very next chapter without displaying any real understanding of why it was shaky to begin with. “The Revolution of July is the triumph of the Right prostrating the fact...Thence the glory of the Revolution of 1830, thence its mildness also. The right, when it triumphs, has no need to be violent.” The right is the ideal, the fact is reality. Hugo’s observations on how violence affects the triumph of right...don’t really work, do they? The July Revolution, in all its mild splendor, didn’t restore right, it resulted in a return to the very same fact it sought to prostrate. Why? The problem is Hugo characterizes fact as neutral, passive, nonviolent even and it isn’t. He seems to want to refuse to acknowledge the explicit and active opposition to right and why it exists. But if there are those who fight on the side of right, it has to follow that there are those fighting for fact. This constitutes the very definition of class conflict: the many workers fight against the few owners. And the owners fight back.

I’ll go ahead and spoil my answer, if you haven’t already extrapolated from my dive into rational choice theory: It is a truth universally acknowledged that a bourgeoisie in possession of power, must be in want of more power. Just as the politician in office wants to stay in office. Rational choice dictates they will make every action with the single-minded intention of maintaining and even amassing power, whether that be political, economical, etc. The bourgeoisie aren’t mindlessly resurrecting a dynasty, they are active agents in undermining the work of the revolutionaries. Not necessarily because they hate the lower class but because they want power for themselves. As in our election incentive example, this motivation doesn’t really matter because, ultimately, the outcome is the same.

I’ll repeat part of a quote above: “The right, when it triumphs, has no need to be violent.” But what about before it triumphs? *Or when it fails, like in the acclaimed novel Les Miserables? What’s the protocol then? The ideal and pure state of nonviolence after the Revolution will always be built on the violence it took to break free, Enjolras specifically acknowledges his violent role in bringing about a new day. For all Hugo sanitizes it, the July Revolution was violent, it was just usurped by neo-royalists directly afterward. Peaceful solutions might be preferable, but when violence is already being done to you, there isn’t always a real choice. This is why I don’t care much for Hugo’s appreciation of calm discussion with the Bourbons. It would be like me calmly exchanging points of view with a neo-Nazi.

III. Machiavelli I just thought Hugo was wrong about Machiavelli, that’s it. The Prince is at the very least hyperaware of the system it describes and at the most hard hitting satire. The Bourbons are funny because they think they’re still the same princes and that ‘Machiavelli said we were doing everything right by oppressing the people! Why do they hate us?’ when, as I see it, that’s exactly the response The Prince is designed to garner. It exposes the cruel tactics of a strong-handed government and also explains why they are effective. When the lie of natural power is peeled away and the cogs of exploitation based in greed are revealed, it fuels outrage and pushback. Machiavelli may not be a font of revolutionary sentiment, but he’s hardly the slave to fact that Hugo describes. He basically leaked the playbook that the ‘princes’ were using to fuck everyone over, revealing their dirty tricks. When the Bourbons attempt to come back to power, they use these same tricks, except now the public is wise to it and neatly (yet violently) excise them.

[xpaladinorg]

Church & State: Founding Fathers

Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances.

- First Amendment - U.S. Constitution {see complete text here}

The Senators and Representatives before mentioned, and the Members of the several State Legislatures, and all executive and judicial Officers, both of the United States and of the several States, shall be bound by Oath or Affirmation, to support this Constitution; but no religious Test shall ever be required as a Qualification to any Office or public Trust under the United States.

- Clause 3, Article Six of the United States Constitution {see complete text here}

James Madison Madison originally penned the provision concerning religion to read: ''The civil rights of none shall be abridged on account of religious belief or worship, nor shall any national religion be established, nor shall the full and equal rights of conscience be in any manner, or on any pretense, infringed.'' The House of Representatives proposed an edit to read: ''Congress shall make no law establishing religion, or to prevent the free exercise thereof, or to infringe the rights of conscience.'' In a conference committee with the House, Senate, and Madison, we are given the final wording as seen above.

“It was the Universal opinion of the Century preceding the last, that Civil Government could not stand without the prop of a religious establishment; and that the Christian religion itself, would perish if not supported by the legal provision for its clergy. The experience of Virginia conspicuously corroborates the disproof of both opinions. The Civil Government, tho' bereft of everything like an associated hierarchy, possesses the requisite stability and performs its functions with complete success; whilst the number, the industry, and the morality of the priesthood, and the devotion of the people have been manifestly increased by the TOTAL SEPARATION OF THE CHURCH FROM THE STATE.” [James Madison, as quoted in Robert L. Maddox: Separation of Church and State; Guarantor of Religious Freedom]

Thomas Jefferson “Believing with you that religion is a matter which lies solely between Man & his God, that he owes account to none other for his faith or his worship, that the legitimate powers of government reach actions only, & not opinions, I contemplate with sovereign reverence that act of the whole American people which declared that their legislature should "make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof," thus building a wall of separation between Church & State. Adhering to this expression of the supreme will of the nation in behalf of the rights of conscience, I shall see with sincere satisfaction the progress of those sentiments which tend to restore to man all his natural rights, convinced he has no natural right in opposition to his social duties.” [Jefferson in a Letter to the Danbury Baptists, Jan. 1. 1802.]

"Millions of innocent men, women, and children, since the introduction of Christianity, have been burned, tortured, fined and imprisoned. What has been the effect of this coercion? To make one half the world fools and the other half hypocrites; to support roguery and error all over the earth. ... Our sister states of Pennsylvania and New York, however, have long subsisted without any establishment at all. The experiment was new and doubtful when they made it. It has answered beyond conception. They flourish infinitely. Religion is well supported; of various kinds, indeed, but all good enough; all sufficient to preserve peace and order: or if a sect arises, whose tenets would subvert morals, good sense has fair play, and reasons and laughs it out of doors, without suffering the state to be troubled with it. They do not hang more malefactors than we do. They are not more disturbed with religious dissensions. On the contrary, their harmony is unparalleled, and can be ascribed to nothing but their unbounded tolerance, because there is no other circumstance in which they differ from every nation on earth. They have made the happy discovery, that the way to silence religious disputes, is to take no notice of them. Let us too give this experiment fair play, and get rid, while we may, of those tyrannical laws.” [Jefferson, Notes on the State of Virginia, 1787]

John Adams “As the Government of the United States of America is not, in any sense, founded on the Christian religion; as it has in itself no character of enmity against the laws, religion, or tranquility, of Mussulmen (Muslims); and as the said States never entered into any war or act of hostility against any Mahometan (Mohammedan) nation, it is declared by the parties that no pretext arising from religious opinions shall ever produce an interruption of the harmony existing between the two countries.” [Act 11, Treaty of Tripoli, June 7, 1797] {See complete text here}

George Washington "...the path of true piety is so plain as to require but little political direction." [George Washington, 1789, responding to clergy complaints that the Constitution lacked mention of Jesus Christ, from The Godless Constitution: The Case Against Religious Correctness, Isaac Kramnick and R. Laurence Moore W.W. Norton and Company 101-102]

"Of all the animosities which have existed among mankind, those which are caused by difference of sentiments in religion appear to be the most inveterate and distressing, and ought most to be deprecated. I was in hopes that the enlightened and liberal policy, which has marked the present age, would at least have reconciled Christians of every denomination so far that we should never again see the religious disputes carried to such a pitch as to endanger the peace of society." [George Washington, Letter to Edward Newenham, October 20, 1792]

Side Note:

It is believed by most historians that the majority of the US Founding Fathers were Deists. They believed that God created the world and allowed it to operate according to natural laws. Deists believed God did not intervene in the lives of his human creation, did not perform miracles, answer prayer, or sustain the world by his providence. Thomas Jefferson and Benjamin Franklin frequently included Deist philosophies in their writings.

“Deism, an unorthodox religious attitude that found expression among a group of English writers beginning with Edward Herbert (later 1st Baron Herbert of Cherbury) in the first half of the 17th century and ending with Henry St. John, 1st Viscount Bolingbroke, in the middle of the 18th century. These writers subsequently inspired a similar religious attitude in Europe during the second half of the 18th century and in the colonial United States of America in the late 18th and early 19th centuries. In general, Deism refers to what can be called natural religion, the acceptance of a certain body of religious knowledge that is inborn in every person or that can be acquired by the use of reason and the rejection of religious knowledge when it is acquired through either revelation or the teaching of any church.” [Encyclopaedia Britannica, Deism, Frank Edward Manuel, David A. Pailin, Nov 01, 2017]

source: ThoughtCo, Top James Madison Quotes on Religion, by Austin Cline, Updated January 19, 2018 https://www.thoughtco.com/top-james-madison-quotes-on-religion-4072173

Library of Congress, Jefferson's Letter to the Danbury Baptists, Jan. 1, 1802 https://www.loc.gov/loc/lcib/9806/danpre.html

University of Virginia Library, Notes on the State of Virginia, Thomas Jefferson, 1787 http://search.lib.virginia.edu/catalog/u2046208#?c=0&m=0&s=0&cv=13&xywh=-375%2C-294%2C4756%2C5874

The Avalon Project  at Yale Law School, The Barbary Treaties : Treaty of Peace and Amity, Signed at Tripoli, June 4, 1805 https://web.archive.org/web/20080215092040/http://www.yale.edu/lawweb/avalon/diplomacy/barbary/bar1805t.htm

The Godless Constitution: The Case Against Religious Correctness, Isaac Kramnick and R. Laurence Moore W.W. Norton and Company, August 2005 https://books.wwnorton.com/books/detail.aspx?id=7998

National Archives, Letter From George Washington to Edward Newenham, 20 October 1792 https://founders.archives.gov/documents/Washington/05-11-02-0132

Encyclopaedia Britannica, Deism, Frank Edward Manuel, David A. Pailin, Nov 01, 2017 https://www.britannica.com/topic/The-Founding-Fathers-Deism-and-Christianity-1272214

[lehetsz-kiraly]

Camille: We're doing our best!

Solène, brandishing a rolling pin: I think the fuck not.

[lehetsz-kiraly]

Camille: Maxime, this is my fiancée, Lucile.

Maxime: Lucile. I'm meeting you now for the first time. How nice.

Lucile: He climbed through our kitchen window three nights ago, stole an orange, and climbed back out.

[lehetsz-kiraly]

Olympe: Ronan, we are at a FUNERAL! A child's funeral!

Ronan: So...is that a no then?

Olympe: I...didn't say that.

[lehetsz-kiraly]

Ronan: I’m gonna live forever!

Solène: How do you figure?

Ronan: I’m too dumb to die.

[lehetsz-kiraly]

Ronan: Aww, look at this cute dog video I found!

Lazare: That's literally just a video of Robespierre with a rubber ball.

Ronan: Nuance.

[lehetsz-kiraly]

Robespierre: My New Years resolution is to be nice to people.

Danton: Maxime, it's March.

Robespierre: No one asked you! So, how am I doing?

Danton: ...Great...

[lehetsz-kiraly]

Ronan: We're starving!

Lazare: Well shit, man! What do you want me to do about it?

[lehetsz-kiraly]

Ronan: Solène, are you mad at me?

Solène: I'm not mad. I'm just a little disappointed.

Ronan: Oh god...

[lehetsz-kiraly]

Robespierre: Ronan, what the fuck are you doing?

Ronan: *stuffing another piece of paper in his mouth* Camille said I should consume as much knowledge as possible while I’m on this earth. I thought it was a little weird, but...

Robespierre: *wordless screaming*

[lehetsz-kiraly]

Danton: Desmoulins, come get your rage-rat.

Desmoulins: I don’t...I don’t have a chihuahua.

Ronan & Robespierre: *together* He means me, damnit!

[lehetsz-kiraly]

Danton: I've toyed with the idea of becoming a professional mourner.

Desmoulins: What?

Danton: You know, pocket a couple hundred and throw myself over the casket, wailing like a banshee.

Robespierre: You don't even have to pay me. I'll do it at your funeral for free.

[lehetsz-kiraly]

Robespierre: When I give someone a recipe, I expect them to follow it!

Desmoulins: *confused* You told me, and I quote, "Peel the orange with a knife and hand it to me."

Robespierre: And did you? NO!