#tuilleries

[artthatgivesmefeelings]

Nicolas Pérignon (French, 1726-1782) Vue du Jardin des Tuilleries, 1772

[lafcadiosadventures]

rewatched les diaboliques yesterday. I still hate [redacted plot point] but if you think hitchcock’s psycho has the best death scene in a bathroom in terms of acting/staging/editing (ok maybe we can give the editing point to H) and if you think he’s some kind of visionary genius for projecting signs in screenings asking not to spoil the ending to friends,,, think again

[random-brushstrokes]

Léon-Auguste Mellé - L'incendie des Tuilleries (1871)

The construction of the Tuilleries palace was overseen by Catherine de Medici from 1564. The grand palace became the residence for many royal and imperial rulers, including Napoleon. This magnificent building with its large façade and considerable gardens was also the seat of the First Republic and the Consulate. During the Commune of Paris – the French uprising against the government following France’s defeat in the Franco-German war – the palace was destroyed by arson. On 23 May 1871 Jules-Henri-Marius Bergeret, Victor and Stephen Bénot Boudin set light to the palace, and it burned over three days. In 1883 the ruins were razed to the ground, and remains of the palace can be found incorporated in monuments and buildings all over Paris. (source)

[pegasusdrawnchariots]

Lettre V

@ninadove here's another one for ya :)

This one was hard to split up! M de Bergerac is not a fan of full stops lol

I had trouble in 3F specifically with the use of "ne". I believe it has something to do with the role of "ſoupçonnerois" but I wasn't confident enough to rule on if it was affirmative or negative either way 😅

4F also has a historical reference that may be lost on me, hopefully u can shed some light on it! My thanks again for yr invaluable help 💌

1F MADAME,

Suis je condamné de pleurer encore bien long-temps? Hé je vous prie, ma belle Maiſtreſſe, au nom de vôtre bon Ange, faites-moy cette amitié, de découvrir là-deſſus vôtre intention, afin que j'aille de bonne heure retenir place aux Quinze Vingts parce que je prévoy que de vôtre courtoiſie, je ſuis predeſtiné à mourir aveugle, Oüy aveugle (car vôtre ambition ne ſe contenteroit pas que je fuſſe ſimplement borgne.)

1A MADAM,

Am I condemned to cry much longer still? Oh, I beg you, my beautiful Mistress, in the name of your good Angel, be kind enough to reveal your intention up there, that I may go in time to reserve a place in the Quinze-Vingts Ophthalmology Hospital because I predict that from your courtesy, I am predestined to die blind — yes, blind (because your ambition would not be content for me to be simply one-eyed).

2F N'avez-vous pas fait deux alambics de mes deux yeux, par où vous avez trouvé l'invention de diſtiler ma vie, & de la convertir en eau toute claire?

2A Have you not made two stills out of my two eyes, by which you have found the invention of distilling my life and converting it into clearest water?

3F En verité, je ſoupçonnerois (ſi ma mort vous eſtoit utile, & ſi ce n'eſtoit la ſeule choſe que je ne puis obtenir de voſtre pitié) que vous n'épuiſiez ces ſources d'eau, qui ſont chez moy, que pour me bruſler plus facilement; & je commence d'en croire quelque choſe, depuis que j'ay pris garde, que plus mes yeux tirent d'humide de mon coeur, plus il bruſle:

3A In truth, I would suspect (if my death were useful to you, and if it [[[wasn't]]] the only thing that I [[[can]]] obtain from your mercy) that you drain these sources of water within me in order to burn me more easily. And I'm starting to believe something of it, since I'm wary, that the more my eyes draw moisture from my heart, the more it burns.

4F Il faut bien dire que mon Pere ne forma pas mon corps du meſme argile, dont celuy du premier homme fut compoſé, mais qu'il le tailla ſans doute d'une pierre de chaux, puis que l'humidité des larmes que je répands m'a tantoſt conſommé: Mais conſommé, croiriez-vous bien, Madame, de quelle façon? je n'oſerois plus marcher dans les ruës embraſé comme je ſuis, que les enfans ne m'environnent de fuſées, parce que je leur ſemble une figure échappée d'un feu d'artifice, ny à la Campagne, qu'on ne me prenne pour un de ces Ardens, qui traiſnent les Gens à la riviere.

4A It must be said that my Father did not form my body from the same clay that comprised the first man but that he doubtless sculpted it from limestone, since the humidity of the tears that I shed has [[[soon]]] consumed me. But, would you believe, Madam, consumed me how? I would no longer dare walk through the streets inflamed as I am, lest the children surround me with rockets, since to them I seem a figure escaped from a firework — nor to the country, lest they take me for one of these [[[Ardens]]] that drag people to the river.

5F Enfin vous pouvez connoiſtre tout ce que cela veut dire; c'eſt, ſi vous ne revenez bien-toſt, vous entendrez dire à voſtre retour, quand vous demanderez où je demeure, que je demeure aux Tuilleries, & que mon nom c'eſt la beſte à feu qu'on fait voir aux Badauts pour de l'argeut. Alors vous ſerez bien honteuſe, d'avoir un Amant Salemandre, & le regret de voir bruſler dés ce Monde,

MADAME,

Voftre Serviteur.

5A At last, you can know what all this means — if you return soon, you will hear it said, when you ask where I reside, that I reside in the Tuileries, and that my name is the fire beast that they show to onlookers for money. Then you will be quite ashamed to have a salamander lover, and the regret of seeing burning [[[from]]] this world,

MADAM,

your servant.

[castelnou]

jardin des tuilleries

paris (france)

[thepointoftheneedle]

Lockwood and Co

Well, I watched the show because I'd enjoyed the books ages ago. For some reason the show made me want to write fiction which I haven't done for an age. Will I continue it? No clue. Maybe...? It's canon after The Empty Grave but I've tried to avoid major spoilers for anyone who has only seen the tv show and hasn't read the books. Anyway, here's the prologue in case anyone else enjoyed the silly little ghost-hunting show.

Lockwood stalked into the kitchen and turned on the gas under the kettle. As he reached for the Earl Grey his elbow nudged the charred skull that sat on the kitchen worktop and he smiled wryly at the incongruous domestic arrangements in place in Portland Row.  “Alas, poor Skull,” he murmured. “People always misquote that line you know, Skull.  ‘Alas poor Yorick, I knew him Horatio,’ not ‘I knew him well.’  Idiots.”

He dropped a teabag into a mug and leaned back against the counter, waiting for the whistle of the kettle.  It wasn’t worth making a pot; he was alone in the house.  Holly was at home, packing.  George was at the embassy poring over maps of the Paris Catacombs with the representative of the French Ministère des Evénements Paranormaux.  Lucy was with Barnes at the passport office in Petit France. If Barnes couldn’t pull some strings, that would be as close as she’d get to France.  Lockwood and Co. would have to go without her.  It didn’t bear thinking about.

“We’ve got a lot in common you know Skull,” he said as the kettle began to sing.  He knew he wouldn’t get a response.  The Skull had made the ultimate sacrifice for them, given up his life… afterlife… whatever the hell it had had, to save them at the showdown at Fittes House.  Well, to save Lucy really. He’d just been an unintended beneficiary of the Skull’s heroism.  He poured the boiling water into the mug and set the kettle down. He picked up the blackened bone, stared into its ruined sockets. “We were both prepared to die for her.  I think I’m a little bit jealous that you got to do it.”

Still holding the skull, Lockwood sat down at the table, waiting for his tea to brew.  Lucy would have been mashing the bag against the side of the mug with a teaspoon, or a fork, or whatever came to hand like an absolute savage.  He preferred to wait, to let the scent of bergamot pervade the warm kitchen on the steam rising from the mug. “Ever been to Paris, Skull?” he asked.  “My parents went there on honeymoon.  They had a guidebook. It must be in the library somewhere.  Art galleries and parks and cafes on the Rive Gauche.  I think they stayed in a grand hotel near the Luxembourg Gardens.”  He chuckled but there was no mirth in it. “That’s what she should have of course.  She should be going to Paris with someone who can give her all that, order escargot in garlic at a fancy restaurant just to see her face when she realises what it is, walk hand in hand with her through the Tuilleries, kiss her breath away in front of one of those huge water lily paintings that make you feel like you’re floating. All that romantic stuff.  Instead, she gets me, a rapier and a guaranteed brush with death. Even you’d do better than that wouldn’t you, Skull? Give her candles and rose petals on the carpet and a little chocolate in gold paper on her pillow.   I mean you couldn’t do much else I suppose, couldn’t follow through on any of it but then, I don’t do that either, do I?  Never even kissed her. I’m more of a ghost than you ever were, trapped behind silver glass, no idea how to get out.”

The skull said nothing.  Lockwood shook his head, appalled by his own mawkish foolishness.  He stood, snatched up his mug, grasped a corner of the scalding teabag and flicked it across the kitchen into the bin while heading out of the room. Behind him, on the thinking cloth, the skull flickered softly with a greenish flame.

[empirearchives]

Army opinion of Napoleon in 1805

From the diary of Washington Irving, Paris, date: June 2, 1805:

“Walking in the Garden of the Tuilleries encountered young french officer with whom I had travelled in dilligence last summer from Bordeaux to Toulouse. He had passed all the winter at his mothers in Languedoc & had come to Paris in hopes of getting a commission to go over to England in the flotilla. Warm in praise of the emperor—said the army universally loved him & would carry him even in their hands.”

[Italics in original]

Source: Washington Irving’s First Stay in Paris, Stanley T. Williams, American Literature, Vol. 2

[anotherhumaninthisworld]

Letter from Lucile Desmoulins to her mother, telling her about the Insurrection of August 10th

How many tears I have shed, my dear maman, since yesterday at midnight when the toscin started ringing, without bothering to stop until today, at one o'clock in the afternoon. We are victorious, the castle is burning and the blood of the Swiss is flowing. Suivau (Suleau) had his head cut off; one paraded it throughout Paris yesterday. C(amille) had said to him: ”My dear, if you want to fight for the king you will be hanged tomorrow.” What C(amille) said was only too true, the monsters had rained cannon shots on the dome of the castle, and the unfortunate Marseilles suffered the first volley; the king is at the National Assembly, they are dying of stupidity, they are waiting for the assembly to pronounce on his forfeiture; Lafayette is in Paris, one is going to tear down his house, one is carrying the tatters of the clothes of the Swiss on the end of pikes, there are a lot of wounded, but thank God none of our Parisian patriots are among them. C(amille) does not leave the commune or the section.

I believe that now the patriots and the people are going to camp at the Tuilleries. Mme Danton (illegible word) we do not leave each other, when I would have liked to flee it would have been impossible, the women are kept from going out, it is impossible for C(amille) to leave, and events follow one another too quickly for me to be able to leave myself. It is from Danton’s house that I write, I barely breathe; I dare not believe that we have won. As we had every reason to believe that the danger has passed, at least the greatest, risk coming here, but inform yourself well before crossing the barriers if you will be able to do so again; one is still killing and the people do not say grace. Farewell, when I see you you will know more; O my dear maman, how I long to embrace you; it seems to me that it has been ten years since I last saw you.

Commit P(apa) to come; tell him I embrace him. Everything will no doubt be over within a week; they are breaking the windows in the castle, they have brought us sponges and brushes from the queen's bathroom, they tread on the silverware with their feet, and they don't touch it; farewell, farewell, the (illegible words) return triumphantly shouting "vive la nation!" they wear shreds covered in the blood of their villains. Oh what fermentation! C(amille) and all the patriots are going to embrace all the Marseille generals, I would need a volume to tell you everything.

Cited in La Libre Parole, August 15 1904

[dzinahk]

#TomHiddleston in Paris, Tuilleries Garden, March 2023

[chez-mimich]

Parigi, agosto 2023. Che sua quella del metro oppure quella delle brasseries, quella che si incrocia sui Grands Boulevards, quella delle stazioni o quella delle expositions, poco importa: la folla è l’anima di Parigi. Può essere anche una folla discreta come quella che si disperde nelle immense Tuilleries o al Luxembourg, ma sempre di folla si tratta. Ed eccola qui, fermata nel magnifico altorilievo bronzeo di Raymond Mason: “La foule” appunto…

[lafcadiosadventures]

I (bravely) challenged myself and translated Pétrus Borel's Obelisk of Luxor manifesto.

disclaimer: this text is above my grasp of the social context Borel is critiquing, so I'm sure there are things that went over my head and therefore not accurately translated. (the parts I didn't get are marked so, reader beware) Also, although the core of the first part of the manifesto is anti imperial and anti colonialist, that doesn't mean Borel doesn't indulge in some orientalist tropes. There is also some classism thrown in into the mix. Nevertheless, I think it's definitely worth reading, for that first part, and as an angry plea to value the then neglected Gothic architecture, so here it goes:

french original text here

THE LUXOR OBELISK, 1836, Pétrus Borel.

Was it not enough to destroy or allow the destruction in Paris as in all of France, of the monuments bequeathed by our ancestors? Was it not enough to permit the demolition of Saint-Côme and Saint-Damien church and the chapel of the collége de Cluny? Was it not enough to permit the establishment of a bad place(*1) at Saint-Benoît, to have promised to the hammer the collége de Moutaigu, to have sighed after the demolition of the Vincennes Sainte-Chapelle, to have made little gardens (jardinets) and canals of the majestic composition of Le Nôtre, and have the Tuilleries patched up? Was it not then enough, having shamefully let loose Bagatelle, and to make of the château de Saint-Germain, in the name of reigning Liberty, a dungeon? Was it not enough to tear down Saint-Leu-Taverny manor, and have its blood stained stones sold to anybody who wanted them?

Wasn’t it enough with all these assaults? Was it still necesary for the devastation to spread its ravages up to the shores of the Nile?

Humanity’s duty is to oppose with all the resources of its genius, to the anihilation of its works; to counterbalance, delay, suspend the operations of nature, who doesn’t know to create new beings but at the expense of those that preceeded them. The law of men is conservation; the law of time is destruction. Man and time must then be locked in a constant struggle. Unfortunately, the first one often sacrifices its mision to help the other with his, and like him, he is armed with a scyhthe and a sword. Once set in this road, Man becomes more dreadful than Time; because the latter’s deteriorations are slow, nothing presses him, he has eternity before him.

Let not the Vandals and ignorance be accused of destruction: Vandals did not make war on monuments, ignorance is respectful. It is in the name of Science and Progress that most of these crimes are commited. It’s science, and not ever ignorance who says: “- This is gothic, therefore it’s barbaric, crush it down!” --It’s science who travels the universe, pickaxe or axe in hand; who goes spoiling Thebes of its imposing ruins which after so many centuries were admired by voyagers, making their souls soar and enlarging spirits by meditation. It’s science who goes ravaging the Thebes necropolis, demolishing the hypogei, making sepulchres collapse, blowing out the dust on the tombs; it is science who would not stop its profanations until she has leveled the desert’s sands to the cradle of primordial civilizations.

It is science who has pillaged Athens as it pillages it each day of its magnificent débris; who tears away its bas-reliefs and its metopes; who strips its statues; who packs up and dispatches its columns and its portals en route to the land of business, for England, where they will be devoured by the extravagant groves of some newly wealthy refiner.

It is science who will not delay to strip India of its monuments of Mughal glory, who won’t hesistate to rip off the Taj-Mahal mausoleum, Akbar Palace, the Mouti-Mutjid, the pearl of mosques; it is science who lets the mausoleums in Akbar and Ulla-Madoula waste away, to hastily authorize their demolition and ship them to Europe.

My God! What an obsession with taking and shipping off! Couldn’t you instead let each latitude, each area have it’s glory and ornaments? Couldn’t you contemplate anything on a distant shore, without coveting and wanting to substract it?

I would not be surprised if someone told me one day that the English had taken down the Moon and stored it in the Tower of London Museum.

You think you have given much radiance to your nation, to have so intensely embellished it, when you have actually buried under the Thames sludge, or the muck of the Seine, the work of two or three thousand years, the masterpieces of fifteen or twenty civilizations; when you have piled up in your crossroads and your shops, Romans over Etruscans, Egyptians over Hindus, Italians on top of Arabs, Greeks over Mexicans?

Each thing has no value other than in its own land, on its natal soil, under its sky. There is a correlation, an intimate harmony between monuments and the countries that erected them, there is no way to intervene with impunity.

The Pyramid needs blue skyes, a smooth floor, the monotonous horizontality of the desert; it needs the caravan passing at its feet; the cries of a nomad ethiopian population, or loneliness and the howling of chackals.

The granite Sphynx needs the lenghty avenues of the Pharaos Temples; she demands them, or the strange hordes killing each other at their shadow. Or the silent ruins of the Karnac.

Obelisks need the temple pillars, the solar cult, the idolatry of the multitudes, or the desert.

These monuments that pour such great amounts of sublime poetry on the arid sands of the Sahara, that proclaim the grandeur, the might, the genius of races past, are dragged to the bosom of our cities and become as drab, mute, and stupid as them.

How great would a Sphynx look in a gap between a cobbler shop and a tavern! Such a wonderful effect the profile of an obelisk would give to an hôtel garni, between a guardhouse and a tea shop!

Alas! All these arguments non withstanding and many more, France leans in the monument trafficking business, and does it without quarter. Recently and in a notorious, scandalous fashion, she has imported a monolith, uprooted from the ruins of Luxor. Poor France!... how happy she is now that she posseses an obelisk! What glory! May you rejoice long time, my fatherland! A child who shakes its rattle forgets its troubles: may this granite rattle numb your pain and pour balm in your sores!

But if, like a child, you have a need for toys, often too like him, you don’t know what to do with what you desire, once you posses it.

In order to find a use for it, during three years, no wait, what am I saying? During four full years, rhetoricians and reasoners have striven: even men from our senate, who have raised this high question on their petite chambre.

And during these for years, by roads and paths, by mounts and valleys, we haven’t seen nothing but obelisk hunters, wandering, torch in hand, to find not a man but to find or perch themselves on this coquetish emblem of the solar rays. This one here wants it to be placed on the Louvre courtyard; that one over there, right in the middle of the Invalides esplanade; this one there, at Montmatre, between two moulins; him over there, on the Pont-Neuf terrace, in stead of that insipid Henri IV. In fact, what does a Herni IV even mean? Nothing is more spiritual than an obelisk! The majority inclines in favour of the place of the so called Concorde; without doubt, because there, the obelisk will provide the advantage of cutting up the four façades into eight(*2).

In order to satisfy everyone, to manage the goat and the cabbage(*3), The State, who wants to rob nobody of its hope, consequently orders to have them erected everywhere; and with that purpose, it is said the state has emitted lettres de marque to a company of sapeurs charged with capturing and embargoing all the obelisks they can get their hands on. We must conclude that this enterprise is founded on a wealth excedent in order to have reserves and prevent any lacking of this provision so necessary to the People, and that a market is opened for the sale of those in excedent, to stock up the provinces. --Every fortnight their taxes will be displayed along those of the bread.

I seek to joke; but my jest truns into a grimace, my laugh is hollow; my heart is too heavy with moral pain; and whose wouldn’t be, when imagining the stupid misemployment of money destined to the protection of the Arts; of the mess made at this very moment in the château de Versailles; imagining the considerable sums spent on the coupling and uncoupling of stones; imagining that the Louvre is still unfinished, that we deny him a mason while during more than three months, we make more than eight hundred arabs occupied with just digging up trenches in a soft slope, made from the pedestal of this Egyptian men-hir up to the pier; when imagining this false and disordered love some men have for antique rubble, and of the disdain professed solemnly about our own antique junk, which should be so glorious for us, which we should be so protective of!

Wretches! While you squander the treasury on your conquests of green or pink Sphynxes, while you reattach becquets or empeignes to mutilated bacchuses and hermeses, our cathedrals fall to ruin, our Castles are dismantled, Royaumont abbey, the most admirable edifice erected by the generosity of Louis IX, who erected so many admirable ones, lies there, semi destroyed and devastated by a laundry.

All your boisterous display of affection for Art and Antiquity is nothing but an impudent parade. If you really had a sensitivity for the good and the beautiful, wouldn’t you put away the Raphaellos, the Rembrandts or the Andrea del Sartes you offer in your galleries? Would you allow these collected masterpieces to be dispersed and preyed upon by foreigners? Your feelings are feigned and false. Your heart has never beaten under the vaults of a temple; you never quivered at the sight of a Murillo or a Corregio; you have never understood Puget; you ignore who Jean Bullant, Jean Joconde or Philibert Delorme are; you are nothing but pedants at the shore of the Seine, and you pretend to be poets on the coasts of the Nile. Shame on you!...

Those who do not understand Saint-Vandrille, Blois, Chambord, Gaillon, Royaumont, Brou; cannot understand Thebes. Just like the One who traded, when there were yet nothing more than clovers in his crown (???), Jean Goujon’s Diane of Poitiers in exchange for an Ajax by Dupaty, how can He ever understand an obelisk?

You do not profess the religion of the Ancients; you don’t even practice that of Art or Country, all you want is to simulate what you can’t feel; you want the appereance of a protector, play-act Maecenas, affecting solicitude, and to showcase your imposted solicitude you become extravagant; you seek to astound vulgarity with your eccentricities. Little it matters to you that your underlings demolish by hits of paper bundles the most magnificent vitraux, you do not concern yourselves with such petty matters, where you would remain obscure: you need sensational acts. You must attract the eyes of the masses, and squeeze out their admiration. You know full well it is not wisdom and beauty what stuns and amazes, and you need to stun, and to achieve that you need wonders.

No one will turn their heads to look at a superb arab stallion, the most beautiful creature of God, the most beautiful being; but when we present a giraffe, that ridiculous animal, the multitude will briskly rise and run en masse to see it pass, its entrance would be a triumph! What do we care about a work by Michelangelo? Who will stop and take a detour to look at it? But with an obelisk the multitude will stampede around it. An obelisk is a stone giraffe: your obelisk will be a success!

About a hundred fools will go “Oh!!!” when percieving it for the first time. A hundred or so grocers from the suburbs will come after selling their groceries, they’ll stop with their mouth gaping, and ask what is this machine ornamented with ducks and zig-zags: and we could answer in french: it’s a stone spike; emphatically we will say in greek: this is an obelisk monolith (what a wonderful thing Greek to pump up platitudes, to obscure what was clear!) "Zounds!" these brave people answered, "before that I thought it was a fire pump stack!"

But all jokes aside, what is it that you find beautiful in an obelisk? As art, as an accomplishment, as an invention, as a silhouette, as an effect, it’s an ugly and empty monument. Do you want to give a fabourable impression on the egyptians and their genius? Why then did you pick from among their works, a milestone? Because, you know as well as I do, or better than I since you are wise, that an obelisk was not a monument, but a milestone placed in front of temples or palaces to there inscribe the names and surnames of the founders, the enlargers, the restorators of these palaces or temples.

Do you want to prove to what point the Egyptians were skilled in their transportation and mounting of such enormous blocks? Good God! The skills of the Egyptian are not up to debate, we know perfectly well they were very adroit.

Or do you want to prove to us that you are stronger than them, and that you can, like they did, build without effort heavy masses. Good God! Who is discussing your skill! We already know perfectly well you are as skilled as the Egyptians. We know your steam machine would make the obelisk dance if it didn’t have teeth(*4).

The Romans, who didn’t know better than to pillage and imitate, transported to Italy about twenty obelisks: we are like we have seen, in our way to ship an innumerable amount. It’s al very well to imitate August and Constance; that gives us a less trivial appereance. Sixtus-Quintus(*5) had Caligula’s obelisk streightened; but how can you streighten an obelisk when you don’t have any? The task is simple: we search for them. Méhémed-Ali is very friendly, he gives to anyone who asks. Furthermore, you have only one so far, and Rome at this very moment, posseses almost half a quarter pound(*6) of them, you’re way behind.

Are you obstinately willing to complete the half quarterpound? Are you seriously that fond of obelisks (on my part, I cannot hide it from you, I am unlucky enough to prefer the infinitely long Strasbourg needle to the two hundred aunes of monolith)? Follow my advice, have your own oblesik made yourselves. Who is stopping you? One would have to have a very insulting opinion on our artisans to think them incapable of such a task. Go to Provence, in the Fréjus diocesis, where the poryphyre abounds; go at the Esterel and in Roquebrune. In the way from Roquebrune to Muy, you will find a mountain containing masses more than sixty feet tall, with a considerable width. You could there chisel, like the Romans used to do, columns similar to those brought from High-Egypt; you could make there a profusion of obelisks; and certainly, obelisks made of French porphyre, crafted by french artists, which would worth as much as those granite obelisks form Egypt.

“Whoa! Whoa there you ass!/hold your horses!” will the savants cry at this evil proposition; “Imbecile!” They will call me, “Obelisks have no intrinsec value!; their worth is the memories stored in their bosom, the memories they overflow with.” Dream then you idiot, that the Luxor obelisk remembers Ramses or Rhamases III (monsieur Marle has not yet fixed the orthography of this name; for now there is only an orthography for improper nouns) Rhamases III, fifteenth king of the eighteenth dynasty! What? You were not expecting a memory of Ramses or Rhamases, the same selon les uns, tout autre selon les autres, que Sésostris, que le grand Sésostris ! ---Cruel, unfeeling, how are you not disolving into tears to the memory of Ramses III, fifteenth king of the eighteenth dynasty! How does your heart not beat furiously at its mere name, here, written on the stomach of these eight kynocephalus monkeys(*7)!...

Alas! Messieurs, I beg pardon; but I cannot sympathize with you in this point. My heart is not that wide yet, or as elastic as to extend so far its loves and affections. Your Ramses or Rhamases III, fifteenth king of the eighteenth dynasty, was doubtles a really great man (we must never speak ill of those who are gone); but on my side, sincerely, he and his great milestone are no big deal.

Don’t think that France is anymore crazy over your Pharao than me messieurs, or that she has ever thought to erect him an altar; and you can be certain that it will not be the remembrance of your Rhamases III, fifteenth king of the eighteenth dynasty, who will come and attack them when they lay eyes on the milestone, located on a spot still fuming with the blood of Louis XVI.

*1 mauvais lieu: in the XIXth century, a maison de débauche, or a brothel -> (thanks @sainteverge !!) the allusion though, is still obscure to both of us

*2 no idea

*3 ménager la chèvre et le chou: idiomatic expression meaning to satisfy opposing parties at the same time.

*4 no idea either

*5 a Pope.

*6 demi-quarteron. Again, pretty sure this is bad translating

*7 a baboon.

[joachimnapoleon]

A letter from Gourgaud to his mother, written during the Russian campaign and intercepted by the Russians.

[Source: Lettres interceptées par les Russes durant la campagne de 1812, ed. L. Hennet & E. Martin, 1913. Pages 255-6]

***

Baron Gourgaud to his mother Mme Gourgaud

Rue neuve du Luxembourg, n. 8, near the Tuilleries, Paris

Smolensk, 10 November 1812

Do not murmur against me, good mother, if I have gone so long without writing to you, for I really have not had the time since my departure from Moscow. I have had the happiness of being continually employed by our great Emperor; I am also so flattered by the trust he seems to show me that despite the fatigues, the races, the deprivations, I am very content and am very far from complaining.

Before leaving Moscow I received a letter from good Madame Foucher, but since I haven’t had the time to write to my good mother, all the more so was I unable to write to this friend. So I haven’t responded yet. I beg you not to say that you’ve received news from me. I count on replying to her at the first moment of repose.

Tell my good Ninette that she has no need to tell me to try to obtain a receipt for the arrondissement in Paris, tell her that my happiness won’t be complete until I see this tender and beloved sister as happy as I desire her. But one needs patience and sometimes the tortoise arrives before the hare. As for me, I have nothing to desire, since the greatest man in the world has deigned to notice both my zeal and my attachment. So I have much hope; yes, yes we will all be happy.

General Foucher, while crossing over a little bridge, was knocked over by a carriage into the river; he was immediately taken out, but as it was cold, he has had a bit of a fever. I saw him the day before yesterday and he was doing well. I think, good mother, it might be a good idea for you to go and enroll yourself with Madame de Gueheneuc, whose son, my friend, has just had an arm taken off. General Kirgener told me yesterday that this good young man was doing as well as possible. Still, before taking the approach of honesty that I advise, you must consult Ninette and do only what she says.

Farewell, my good mother, rejoice for my happiness, because as long as the Emperor distinguishers me, I will be the happiest of men.

I repeat to you again and I will repeat to you always that you should not worry yourself when I go a long time without writing you, because circumstances often arise where I cannot do so. Always give thanks to God.

I am doing marvelously and am very content. I embrace you from the heart, your good son,

Baron Gourgaud

[P.S.] I don’t need to tell you to embrace my Ninette and her little ones. Tell me if you have bought them the dresses I gave them for my nomination of Baron. Tell Ninette to assure M. de Montalivet that I owe him my happiness.

[beakyspecialpics]

Kiss Under an Umbrella, Jardin des Tuilleries, Paris, 1997

Photo: Louis Stettner

[derniererondeavantlanuit-blog]

Jardin des Tuilleries - Guillaume Lavrut

[josemanuellopezsanmartin]

Jean-Marie Guyau Tuillerie (Vida y obra)

Tal día como el 28 de octubre de hace 170 años, nació Jean-Marie Guyau Tuillerie. Nació el  28-10-1854 en Laval, Mayenne, Países del Loira, (Francia) y murió el 31-3-1888 en Menton, Alpes-Marítimos, (Francia). Fue un filósofo y poeta francés. Sus obras están impregnadas por el vitalismo e insisten en la felicidad de una vida compartida con los demás

[kmp78]

"The petri dish session was the 1st time we met her, but she had already met JL at that Gucci thing where she got a 📸."

And we found out they got together in Paris because she was slightly visible in JL's selfie from the Tuilleries which was March '23 and her petri dish pics were posted April '23. And of course the Stuuuuck video later confirmed that timeline!

Yep. 💯

And her hysterical photographing in Casa Craphole and then at Petri Dish Palace also speak very loudly about when she started Hammering. 🔨