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adarkrainbow · 4 months

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A long time ago (well, more like two months ago) I made a post about this recent live-action movie called "Les Nouvelles Aventures de Cendrillon" (The New Adventures of Cinderella), a spin-off of recent humoristic Aladin movies. You can look at my post here. At the time I hadn't seen the movie, so I just talked about the context and the general opinion about it (though I did find a full set of behind the scenes pictures for the sets, right here). However I finally saw it! And so I can give my opinion about this... this very divisive piece, to say the least.

Let's begin by a brief reminder of what the audience as a whole thought: complete shit. When you look at the reviews, you see that everybody absolutely hated this movie, and described it as some sort of puss-filled boil symptomic of the morbid decay of French cinema in recent decades. Some people got angry at this movie simply being utterly stupid and a waste of way (and of people's money). Others were offended at what they deemed an insulting and discriminating piece. However I was a tiny bit wary of this mass-wave of hatred for a few reasons.

A) Today everybody believes every new French movie is garbage. Literaly when you show French people any type of movie that is about to be released today, every say "It's shit I won't bother watching". It's the trend, you know, to say that today cinema is dead.

B) This movie is part of a line which covered the "Aladin" and "Alad'2" movies - movies which were also reviled by the critics and considered garbage by the masses... and yet were enormous successes and made a lot of money, showing that clearly while those who talked hated it, there was an enormous silent community that loved it.

C) While some reviews were very well-formulated, others were just "Oh, X actress dare play in this? She's a whore." Like literaly they were Youtube and Facebook comments like that, and when someone else answered "Why are you insulting a woman like that, just because she took a role in a movie?" the answer was "You're a bitch too." So we see how low was the level of the people behind those comments.

As such I want to give my own opinion on the movie. Since I will have a lot to say, it will be under a cut but if you ask me...

Is the movie as bad as people make it out to be? No. Honestly, all those reviews presented this movie as an irreedemable monster, as some sort of repulsive garbage that would make one regret the hour of life they wasted on it. I don't think the movie is that bad. There are tons of much worse movies out there, especially when it comes to fairytales - and there's for example American movies that are WAY much worse and yet are more beloved just because they're *explosions* AMERICANS *explosions*.

That said, is it a bad movie? Oh yes, it is a bad movie. Or rather... I can't fully say it is a bad movie, because here is the thing. The thing that doesn't make this movie infuriating but... sad. The thing is: it could have been a good movie. It is a "bad" movie in the sense that you can feel it is a wasted potential of a movie.

Because there are very good elements in this movie. I was surprised myself, because the trailer and the beginning promised me something between the bad and the mild, but... the closer we get to the end, the more we have here some acting, here some scenes, here some ideas, that are actually great - from the point of view of a fairytale parody, or of a Cinderella adaptation. You see the outline of a cool movie, you see the fragments of a funny movie, you see the shadow of a project that once could have fully worked in a solid way... But it was diluted, buried and scribbled all over by a lot of bad and useless stuff, which indeed are very symptomatic of... something. Something I can't quite get a name for, but maybe you'll see better as describe my grievances and enjoyments.

I will try my best to alternate the good points and the bad points to give a complete and fair view of this movie.

Good point number 1: There was a real visual effort, and it was great. The sets are gorgeous. There's a very good use of both natural landscapes and actual real-life castles. There was a costume effort to evoke a sort of anachronistic, simplified Middle-Ages as a child would imagine it, mixed with a parody of Disney's Cinderella not too obvous so that they wouldn't sue. Now do all the costumes work... It depends. It is these kind of costumes that weirdly can look good under some angle and shots, and yet will look very cheap under another lighting or camera? Pretty weird. And they did something I absolutely hate with modern French cinema, but that everybody is doing in recent movies to avoid spending too much money: a friggin' AMERICAN NIGHT! You know, a "blue night" - you shoot in broad daylight, then put a blue filter over it. It is a ugly, the trick is so obvious, it is cliche and... arrg I hate it. But outside of that, the rest of the movie does look good - I notably loved sharing the behind pictures of the sets, and there's some fascinating ideas in there: such as having the real-life narrator's studio being an under-roof appartment, very typical of big cities like Paris, that yet mirrors perfectly the attic Cinderella is forced to live in.

Bad point number 1: What's the audience?

This is not a question the movie asks, but one that I ask. What is the audience for this movie? I know it is the same as the "Aladin" movies but... How can I explain this? When I watched this movie, due to a huge discrepancy in tone and content, I couldn't know if this movie was a failed attempt at conciliating adult and child audiences in an "for all ages" movie, or if it was written by very, very immature men. (And I insist on men because there's a gender problem I'll get to in a minute). This movie could have honestly worked as a childre comedy. As a funny, extravagant, over-the-top kid movie. The whole film feels like it was aimed at being that primarily, and some of the most efficient moments are literaly the most childish of them. There was notably a true effort to bring a "slapstick cartoon" feel to the piece, and it manage to bring back some Looney Tunes feel. For example how the wicked stepmother appears at first as this regal Lady Tremaine-like character - but is played for humoristic discrepancy as this sort of silly, vulgar character that literaly head-butts Cinderella for speaking up to her. The sequence of the chase between the lustful prince and Cinderella, throughout the empty halls of the castle, to the sound of "Chick Habit" also works very well! You see throughout the scenes the glimpse, the outline of an hilarious children movie...

Except... EXCEPT! The movie is filled to the brim with adult jokes. Sex jokes to be exact. And that's a huge problem. In fact, since the movie begins with a lot of jokes clearly aimed at a mature audience, you get the feeling this is meant to be an adult comedy - but then, as you go act after act you realize... Wait, shit, it's a children movie! It's not for adults at all! And that's the discrepancy I talks about, and that is without a doubt the biggest and most uncomfortable flaw of this movie. I honestly couldn't say if this was originally conceived as a children movie but somehow producers or directors decided to add adult elements because they were too afraid or unwilling to do a full children production... Or if whoever made this movie sincerely believes children nowadays are into sex jokes. Which would be extremely frightening. A third possible option is that this movie was aimed at teenagers, and they failed very hard because it rather comes of as "It's for little children and bawdy adults" instead of "It's for teens". Because in their mind a teen is a sex-obsessed child?

Bad point number 2: An awful character, and gender problems.

Kind of a continuation of the discrepancy above... Another problem of this movie is the character of the Prince. Now, if you recall what I said in my previous post, the movie is presented as a story-in-story. Cinderella's tale has a narrative frame taking place in the real-world, and the Prince of the fairytale is meant to parallel the character of Marco, that the storyteller pins for. She is in love with him, wants to become his girlfriend, while being blind to the fact he is a jerk to everybody. As such, the Prince is meant to be the deconstruction of the Prince Charming character. The entire movie is about him being depicted as a complete idiot, as a self-centered jerk, as a lustful sexist ; and in turn Cinderella's chance at finally meeting him and talking to him at the ball turns out into her just being disappointed and bored by his vileness. It is an interesting idea... Too bad it was badly executed.

Badly executed as in: there is a difference between a character well-written to be a jerk, and a character who is badly written to be a jerk. And I am not speaking of a character meant to come off as a villain or asshole but turns out to be the most likeable character, oh no. I am rather speaking of the difference between a character written to be an asshole but who is still funny to the audience, and a character who is written to be a jerk but in such a way there is nothing funny at all about him. That's the Prince. His jokes are some of the worst of the entire movie, his character is painfully unfunny, and they really went way too much into the whole idea of making him look like a slimy buffoon, to the point it removes anything interesting about him in the first place. He is just cringy and painful to look at.

And around the prince there is an entire configuration of elements that did made various women jump out in disgust upon watching this movie. I remember one particular review that was infuriated with how "degrading" this movie was to women. Now I am going to nuance this later but it is true that the Prince's sexist nature, which is meant to be depicted as bad, seeps into his context and the humor of his scenes so much the writers and movie-makers come off as themselves misogynistic to the audience. Mostly because of how there is a lot of cheap jokes and nasty shots at women's physiques. A good example is the "speed-dating" sequence - the "ball" turns out to be a medieval speed-dating, not a ball at all, and the prince finds something wrong or repelling within each candidate. And each joke is more insulting than the next - he gags because a woman has armpit hair, he claims a princess is a "man" because she is a muscular barbarian, he disdains a girl who is interested in Shakespeare because she's a nerd, he just straight up rejects those that do not look conventionally attractive... It makes him look like an asshole, right, because his character is a superficial prick. The problem however lies in the fact these jokes are presented as if they are supposed to make the AUDIENCE laugh too. The way the scene is shot seems to encourage the audience to burst out laughing just because a girl has a lot of body hair or has weird eyes. Aka, when you look at this scene, it seems the audience is meant to be a bunch of misogynistic men. And that's very off-putting.

This clearly extends into the sex jokes of the movie which are all about objectifying women. This movie is a huge male-gaze movie with a specific focus on boobs. Cinderella seduces the prince because she has big boobs ; the fairy godmother offers big boobs to those she blesses ; the Prince mistakes another peasant girl for Cinderella because she has boobs ; the Prince only talks to the girl's boobs instead of looking at her in the face ; and at one point in an alternate timeline (I'll come back to that), Cinderella doesn't lose her shoes but her bra... It is a puerile, vulgar and exhausting. And Cinderella's "dance" to seduce the Prince? On one side I will admit it is impressive in terms of choreography and body movement, and yes it pays homage to the famous choreographies of Madonna and Beyoncé... But it is still Cinderella stripping down for the prince, and making a sexually-charged dance with even twerking at one point. And that's for a kid audience? There's something truly slimy that seeps at several points in this movie...

... and yet...

Good point number 2: The good acting and characters

... and yet there are passages that clearly are excellent feminist commentaries, and that are definitively conscious of a problem of female representation within fairytales and its derivative media, and don't hesitate to denounce in interesting way some historical realities. Not only that, but despite a whole bunch of characters condensing in them a slimy, sleazy, pervert feeling, the rest of the cast actually offers strong, interesting, truly renewed views of the dynamics between the characters.

It is quite a mystery how this movie can be so bad and so interesting at the same time - and it kind of parallels the way the story is "created" in-universe. This Cinderella tale is told by a modern, disappointed, frustrated girl to a little boy. The girl tries to bring new twists, modern elements and complete reinventions to the tale - only for the little boy to complain about the story "not going that way" or something not being "realistic", and having demands that the young woman rightly describes as "conservative censorship" and "reactionary opinions". As such, the story-teller has to work with the boy's exceptations while still trying to tell her "new tale". And it is quite fun to see this kind dynamic reversed, where it is the young generation that wants traditional, sexist, cliche fairytales opposed to an adult generation who wants things completely out-of-the-box and reinvented. But after watching the movie I almost feel like this is something that happened in real-life in the staff room as they were making the movie. This film shares to me a bit of the "dual vibe" of Terry Gilliam's "The Brothers Grimm". You know, Gilliam wanted to make a dark, poetic fairytale tragedy, the Weinstein brothers wanted to make a sexy supernatural action-packed blockbuster, and the result of their feud was a half-and-half that satisfied nobody? This movie feels the same way, as if it had been torn apart by a sincere care and devotion for the Cinderella tale, and another force who wanted to make a vulgar sex comedy.

Because the character of Cinderella is actually great in this movie! Marilou Berry does an excellent job at playing the character, and the way she is written really works. Because the idea is to bring a strong-headed, more independant, more assertive female character into the traditional story - but while also keeping the sweet, gentle, kind Disney-like character we can love and sympathize with. And they did an excellent job doing that. I have to similarly praise Josiane Balasko as the wicked stepmother. Now, Balasko is a good actress we all know that - and the poor woman has to deal with some unfunny and bad material... But when she interacts with Cinderella, suddenly the character of the wicked stepmother goes from uninspired caricature to something really, REALLY interesting. In fact, the wicked stepmother character only truly shines when interacting with Cinderella. (It greatly helps that they are mother and daughter in real-life).

An excellent sequence, is the way the wicked stepmother tries to prevent Cinderella from going to the ball. In this version, after the ball is announced, Cinderella shows up in the living room of the house wearing the only thing left of her mother's, a simple blue dress she hopes to wear for the party. The stepmother does look displeased, but she says nothing and let's it be. Because she does trust that it is one of her own daughters that will win the Prince's heart - cause they are cleaner, more well-dressed, etc, etc... It is only after she checks out her magic mirror (a la Snow-White) and discovers Cinderella has more chances to win the marriage than her own daughter that she decides to prevent her from going... By secretly burning the dress during the night. And in the following morning she makes her believe she is truly sorry about the accident, while adding "But if the dress burned, it means you forgot to smother the fire, you must admit it...". And that's what works with this version - they make the abuse of the stepmother more realistic and logical because Cinderella knows she is a bad person, but the stepmother performs her schemes and manipulations in secret, and puts on a kind facade afterward, so that Cinderella can prove nothing. And while she does cry over her burned dress, Cinderella doesn't give up - she immediately starts sawing and creating a second dress identical to the first one (showing she is still a determined and strong-willed character who WILL get ready for the ball). Only for the stepmother to come in, and while praising her craft, pointing out "Oh but look, you must be more careful, if you pull a tad bit here... *rips the dress apart* You should really put more work into it, because it won't hold for the ball". And finally, there is this very cool element added: since Cinderella immediately goes back to work, and the stepmother understands destroying the dresses will do nothing to convince her to abandon her projects, she plays fully the card of the "good mother" by sending her to a former seamstress of the castle who sells beautiful dresses for cheap, even giving her some money to buy the dress in time... but of course the "fabulous" seamstress lives in the middle of the dangerous and deadly dark-forest. However, Cinderella, precisely because she is a kind and trusting girl (but not naive), buys into it due to truly believing her stepmother took pity on her.

And it works at showing her character. It even lands a quite conventional but efficient joke when she is later told the seamstress doesn't exist: "What? You mean... my wicked stepmother who enslaves and abuses me, this cold and heartless woman who insults and beats me day and night... would have LIED to me?", all with a sincerely crushed and betrayed look. [I will even dare say that... I truly believe it was not the movie's original intention, but it accidentally works as a great commentary on the fairytale logic of the Grimm version of Cinderella - pointing out violence and physical abuse is something conventional and accepted, but the real crime in this bizarre world is lying and deceiving.]

Speaking of the Grimm fairytale - the other most excellent sequence between the wicked stepmother and Cinderella takes place at the end, as the prince is about to arrive at the house, and it is such a good sequence I almost don't want to spoil it. But I still need to explain its genius: because while so far we have played on the Disney Cinderella and various French traditions, as the prince is about to arrive, the stepmother goes full Grimm and takes old-fashioned clippers to cut off her daughters' toes. I was not expecting them to do a Grimm throwback and it made me smile. Not just that, but they used this element to highlight the good nature of Cinderella: she betrays her secret and reveals that she is the mysterious woman of the ball to protect her stepsisters from the mutilation. That's a very good way to show her character under an heroic light, while playing with the conventional fairytale tropes. And then we are led to believe we are going to have a softer ending since the stepmother goes "I knew there was something supernatural about her..." (to which Cinderella notes: "It was just me without the dirt.") and adds "Okay, it was a fair game, nice move. I can respect that." And then, they go completely Grimm cartoon-hilarious Looney Tunes as the stepmother decides: "So I'm not going to cut off my daughter's toes... But I'm rather going to cut off your leg and saw it to one of my daughters!" (with a lot of other hilarious lines as the stepdaughters refuse to play along, "She spends her times scrubbing the floors - if she looses one foot it won't prevent her from working!"). These are really excellent segments with witty dialogues, and it feels a bit of a shame that they were wasted on this movie...

Bad point number 3: So heavy...

The problem with this movie is that it has good jokes and funny lines, but... it is all delivered in such heavy and unsubtle ways. "Heavy humor" is the best way to describe it, as it truly weighs down the movie and ruins what are overwise clever little pieces of wit. It is like the Prince's character - he is supposed to be a jerk, okay, but they play him so much like a jerk it destroys the joke entirely. A good example of the heaviness of it all is the character of the fairy godmother. The fairy godmother is an homage/joke centered around Jacques Demy's Peau d'Âne, and Jacques Demy's cinematography in general and how it is one of the big symbols of gay cinema in France. Because this fairy godmother is actually an homosexual man (or male fairy) who wears a masculine dress clearly based on the Lilac Fairy's outfit from Demy's Peau d'Âne. And one of the jokes is that the godmother lives in a swamp. She is the "godmother of the swamp". Which I admit is a funny idea because "Le Marais", "The Swamp" is the famous gay neighborhood of Paris. But... they could have just thrown the line "She lives in the swamp", and called her "the godmother of the swamp" and shown her living in a swamp, and that would have been enough. The audience is intelligent enough to get it ; and if the audience doesn't get it, its okay they do't lose anything. But they have to insist so much upon their own joke it becomes truly heavy. There's even a short musical number that truly makes it painfully obvious the swamp is supposed to be a parallel to the gay neigborhood. Like... throw your subtle wordplay in a few lines, we don't need a whole musical number, damn it!

[Also, as an aside, the treatment of homosexuality in this movie is... a bit weird. The bizarre, dual, empowering-sexist depiction of women is the more obvious, but there's also something unclear about gay jokes in this movie. For example the fairy godmother's true nature is foreshadowed when Cinderella is rescued from the dark forest by the seven dwarves, who turn out to not be regular dwarves but tall, muscular, handsome young men. Beyond a visual joke - and probably a jab at how people like to replace the dwarves with sexy love interest actors - Cinderella is truly confused about the dwarves not being dwarves, and they explain they were turned into these shapes by a godmother living nearby, and she refuses to turn them back because she "prefers them that way". Given the godmother's cast was not announced and she doesn't appear on the promo pictures, it led the audience into believing she was just a lusty old woman, only to later reveal she was just a gay man or drag-queen all along. When Cinderella reaches the godmother, they decide to play on with the idea first foreshadowed of this godmother not being the idealized Disney-like godmother, returning to the more selfish and manipulative character from Demy movie. This godmother keeps making nasty comments about Cinderella's looks, clearly doesn't perform well magic (her first attempt at turning a pumpkin makes it explode, but Cinderella naively believes it was on purpose just to show her powers, and the fairy plays along), and there's a line about a tribunal decision preventing her from approaching the dwarves precisely because of what she did to them. This all plays into a flawed, not so kind character... But at the same time we are given lines about how nice she is, about how sad how someone so happy and joyful than her ("so gay", ahha, get it... sighs, so unstuble) lives in an isolated swamp. And its confusing because... do you want to play the character as a sympathetic lonely gay man, or as a "depraved" bitchy gay? Take a pick, don't try to do both at once.

(There's other stuff to say but given this post is getting WAAAYY too big I'll move on)

Good point number 3: Fascinating structures

There is one thing I can give to this movie, it is its structure. The way the plot is structured is really nice and well done. As I said there is something that shows in how Cinderella evolves and interacts with the other character. I talked before about how the Stepmother's character is... between "okay" and "meh" on her own, but truly shines and becomes great when she interacts with Cinderella ; and there's something similar with the prince's brother. Oh yeah, I haven't talked about him before: the whole thing is that the jerk prince has a nice brother who Cnderella ends up falling in love with (paralleling the narrator's own unconscious love for the sweet brother of her selfish crush). The brother's whole gig is that he wants to be a comedian, an humorist, but he is very bad at jokes and unfunny. And his budding romance with Cinderella precisely relies on that: bad humor. And it works, god-damn! There's this scene where Cinderella, fleeing the jerk prince, goes down a hall with the former kings' portraits, and she insults each of them with very childish names (again there is this "movie for children" side with those insults, like "Fart face" or "Butt head") - only for the prince's brother to come out, point out she is insulting his ancestors... and then playing along. I hate childish humor like that, I truly hate it - but the actors make the sweetness and chemistry of the two characters work. The same thing occurs when Cinderella tries to escape before midnight, and she encounters the brother, who manages to calm her panic with bad jokes - the actors really manage to make us believe in a charming relationship between the two.

But the structure I really, really liked, was the evolution of the little boy's character. The story is told by the narrator (Cinderella's real-life equivalent) to a little boy - and when the story begins, we have a really interesting play on the oral nature of the tale, as the narrator tries several "beginnings" to fit the little boy's concerns and demands. When the narrator (I keep using this term because I forgot her name, sorry Xp) begins, she has this sweet, idyllic romance scene - only for the little boy to point out, if Cinderella is a dirty servant, the prince wouldn't just randomly fall head over heel for her. And then, when there are people searching for a fight, the narrator has Cinderella use her martial arts skill to defeat them... only for the little boy to say "Girls can't fight, she can't beat up men!", and the narrator quite annoyed at the little boy's misogyny being forced to have the prince confront the men instead of Cinderella... And the third "hiccup" happens when the narrator wants to twist things up and have Cinderella actually be very dominating towards her submissive stepmother, only for the boy to insist Cinderella must be the quiet abused one in the family. The "failed beginning, let's try again" structure is quite classic, but it always work - however the "good structure" part really comes in when, during the midnight chase, there is a beautiful "fourth wall-breaking" scene in which the narrator and the little boy freeze time and enter into the scene, walking among a frozen Cinderella and Prince, and commenting the situation. This scene is especially touching because the little boy's growth is highlighted - unlike his early misogynistic comments, here he wonders "Why doesn't she want the prince to see her without the spell? Why would it change anything?". So the little boy, through Cinderella's story, comes a bit closer to being more open and understanding about women - and that's why I say that here they truly explored the structure of their movie... Too bad the rest of the movie actually doesn't support this nice structure. And this leads us to the last bad point (because unfortunately the bad points overwhelm the good ones)

Bad point number 4: Useless stuff

This movie... could have been cut into two. Because half of what happens in it is useless. I am not even saying it is just not plot relevant, no: it is literaly useless. For example, in the beginning, during the "alternate beginnings", we are introduced to the fact it is outlawed to sing in the kingdom, due to the king's personal feud with a singer who stole his wife away from him. It is a very interesting idea, it does work within the context of a Disney parody, it introduces some conflict especially since there are several songs in this movie... And yet past the "alternate beginnings", this fact is just dropped. Everybody forgets about it, as we see people sing or learning to sing as if it was a regular thing, with no consequences whatsoever. They literaly forgot about this detail.

But the most jarring and baffling example of useless stuff comes with the prince's brother. In the final part of the movie, as his romance with Cinderella starts, he is a good character that works, and the preparation of his character does pay off... But before he interacted with her, by all the gods was he an insufferable character! Just like with the prince, they forget that making a character unfunny in-universe doesn't mean making him unfunny for the audience - but here's where it truly wounds the movie... The king prefers the Prince to his brother, to the point of offering the Prince the throne. The brother, who doesn't want the throne but is fed up with his father's neglect, decides to scare the latter a bit by pretending he might claim the crown as his... Only for the king to organize a set of failed assassination attempts on the brother, to make sure the crown will befall the prince. A very interesting subplot that probably has a lot of plot possibilities, right? WRONG! Because mid-way through the movie, before Cinderella's story is even really started, the brother tells his father it was all a joke, and the king stops trying to kill him and... and that's it. This whole assassination subplot, which took like a dozen of scenes, leads nowhere, bears no impact on the rest of the movie's plot, and could have been cut out without influencing the movie in any way...

Then why was it here? Who knows. But it also kind of reflects the very bizarre underlying... misogyny maybe? hiding within this movie - because, for the sake of a useless plot, the first half of the movie spends more time with male characters (King, prince, brother) than with Cinderella, the actual title-character. As in the movie-makers feared that a movie all centered around female characters wouldn't attract people, and so they packed the beginning with masculinity just to make sure people would... stay for the rest? Mind you, it seems that some material was cut - because the trailers and promos have lines and visuals not present in the final movie... But still, when you have a subplot that is useless to such an obvious point, and you still leave it in...

Conclusion: I wrote way too much. And this movie is baffling. Puzzling. It is a bad movie, for sure, and yet it has the remnants of a good movie and really funny thing... but just hidden under all the bad stuff like a beautiful tree covered in a diseased choking ivy.

#les nouvelles aventures de cinderella #french movie #fairytale movie #cinderella #review

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nordleuchten · 2 years

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hi there! can you tell us more about the drama between La Fayette and Lord Carlisle? 👀

Dear @ouiouixmonami,

of course! :-)

In the second half of 1778, a British peace commission, headed by Frederick Howard, 5th Earl of Carlisle, was send to America to try to broker a peace. Their mission was almost surely doomed to fail, given the instructions they received from their government in England.

Shortly after the arrival of the Commission in America, La Fayette wrote in a letter to Henry Laurens what his opinion upon the matter was:

La Fayette to Henry Laurens, June 12, 1778:

I can not write to York Town without asking my good friend Mr. Henry Laurens how he does, and which are his present ideas upon the arrival of the commissioners appointed for to corrupt a part of the continent, deceive the other, and if possible enslave the whole as far as it is consistent with the present state of affairs. If you were to ask my private opinion I would refer you to the Earl of Abington’s speech, as the candid sentiments of a man who being at the fountain head may give us some knowledge of the true idea they have in Parliament of theyr Ridiculous and deceitfull commission for to grant pardons to the faithfull subjects of George the Third. I understand they have sent five commissioners, ambassadors, or whatever you’ll be pleas’d to call them. (…) I do’nt understand how they did send those commissioners with such instructions as will immediately discover theyr scheme of treachery, deception, tyranny, vengeance, corruption and indeed of every Rascality under the fairest names. That word of pardon is not only abzurd but very insolent. Ah my dear sir, never suffer such a people to approach you. Look down upon them and when ever they’ll want to come near in order to corrupt and deceive, keep them alwai's at a distance, and never suffer a word to be spoken, or a letter to be writen to them till independency will be aknowledged by Parliament, the troops with drawn, even from Canada, for Canada is necessary to the liberties of America.

He then went on to state his opinion about the different members of the commission:

I have reserv’d the Earl of Carlisle for the last. He is a fine gentleman, very well powdered, and a man of bon goust. He began by Ruining his own fortune, and wanted to get the Reputation of a man belov’d by the ladies. While I was in England he was much in love with a young fair dutchess and pretty ill treated by her. However he is a good poet.

Idzerda Stanley J. et al., editors, Lafayette in the Age of the American Revolution: Selected Letters and Papers, 1776–1790, Volume 2, April 10, 1778–March 20, 1780, Cornell University Press, 1979, p. 74-76.

While his judgment of Carlisle may sound a bit harsh, it was indeed the most forgiving. It is also quite interesting to see that La Fayette apparently has met Carlisle during his trip to London in 1777.

The Commission wrote several letters to Congress and published statements. In one of these statements, a manifesto written on August 26, 1778 and printed by the Pennsylvania Packet or the General Advertiser on September 12 of that year, they warned America to lean not too heavily on France. France was, by the commission’s arguments, no reliable ally because their were no religious or civil liberties in France. They also wrote that France’s only wish was to prolong the war to weaken England and not to settle it. The most offending passage in La Fayette’s eyes was the accusation that “the designs of France, the ungenerous motives of her policy, and the degree of faith due to her professions, will become too obvious to need any further illustration.” That was the absolute final straw for La Fayette and he began to toy with the idea of challenging Carlisle as the head of the commission to a duel. Before doing so, he sought advice both from George Washington and from Comte d’Estaing, the French Admiral who had just arrived with the French troops.

La Fayette to the Comte d’Estaing, September 13, 1778:

It is a matter of the nation’s honor not to let it pass in silence. Lord Carlisle is the president of those gentlemen (…) I am going to write him a billet-doux and propose to him an exemplary correction in the sight of the British and American armies. I have nothing very interesting to do here, and even while killing Lord Carlisle, I can make some more important arrangements at White Plains. I flatter myself that General Washington will not disapprove of this proposal, and I am sure that it will have a good effect in America.

La Fayette to George Washington, September 24, 1778:

I am going to Consult your excellency upon a point in which I not only want your leave and opinion as the Commander in chief, but also your Candid advice as the man whose I have the happiness to be the friend—in an adress from the British Commissaries to Congress, the first one after jonhstone was excluded, they speack in the most di[s]respectfull terms of my Nation, and Country—the whole is undersign’d by them and more particularly by the president lord Carlisle—I am the first french officer in Rank of the american army, I am Not unknown to the British, and if Somebody must take Notice of Such expressions, that advantage does, I believe, belong to me—do’nt you think, my dear general, that I schould do well, to write a letter on the Subject to lord Carlisle, where I Should Notice his expressions in an unfriendly manner—I have mentionn’d some thing of that design to the Count d’estaing but want intirely to fix my opinion by yours which I instantly beg as soon as you will find it Convenient.

“To George Washington from Major General Lafayette, 24 September 1778,” Founders Online, National Archives, [Original source: The Papers of George Washington, Revolutionary War Series, vol. 17, 15 September–31 October 1778, ed. Philander D. Chase. Charlottesville: University of Virginia Press, 2008, pp. 118–119.] (02/35/2023)

We see that La Fayette’s passion had considerable cooled down by the time he wrote Washington. Washington replied in early October.

Washington to La Fayette, October 4, 1778:

The generous Spirit of Chivalry, exploded by the rest of the World, finds a refuge—My dear friend—in the sensibility of your Nation only—But it is in vain to cherish it, unless you can find Antagonists to support it; and however well adapted it might have been to the times in which it existed, in our days it is to be feared that your opponent, sheltering himself behind modern opinion, and under his present public Character of Commissioner, would turn a virtue of such ancient date, into ridicule—Besides, supposing his Lordship accepted your terms—experience has proved, that chance is as often, as much concerned in deciding these matters as bravery—and always more than the justice of the Cause; I would not therefore have your life, by the remotest possibility, exposed, when it may be reserved for so many greater occasions. His Excellency the Admiral I flatter myself, will be in Sentimt with me; and, as soon as he can spare you, send you to head Quarters, where I anticipate the pleasure of seeing you.

It is interesting that Washington mentions d’Estaing here because the two men had a four letter long discussion about the subject. The Admiral wrote to Washington on September 25, 1778, to inquire after his opinion of the proposed duel. Washington replied on October 2, 1778 that until now he had not been aware of La Fayette’s sentiments. To that, d’Estaing replied with a detailed explanation why he is against the duel.

Comte d’Estaing to George Washington, October 20, 1778:

I had the honor of asking you whether you permitted him to send his Cartel to Lord Carlisle to satisfy myself whether you were informed of it—you were so kind as to acquaint me that you had not seen the Cartel1—I thought from that circumstance that you would forbid the execution of it—I am still persuaded that this is the case—Such marks of zeal, bravery and sensibility are never authorised in Europe by its Generals—they might fruitlessly rob the respective nations of their best subjects—Besides, Embassadors, Commissioners and men in office—Are supposed to speak only in consequence of orders which they have received—as public organs they owe an account only to their own government of the things which they hazard—Nations revenge their own injuries—those who have most reason and Strength on their side are the most sparing in opprobrious terms, and despise them—they respect their enemies while they endeavour to subdue them; they surpass them in wisdom when they refrain from such offensive terms; which one would think should be only the useless resource of those who would dissemble their injustice: I could not then but presume that Lord Carlisle would not accept a Cartel, which he would have done extremely well to refuse—Older than Mr de la fayette, the experience which age gives, tranquilised me upon the two subjects which I have just submitted to Your Excellency, and which made me regard the Cartel ’till now as almost null—it appeared to me a consequence of the interesting Character which led this brave and amiable frenchman into the service of the United States—to have entreated your interposition in this affair would have appeared like a doubt of your doing it. the delicacy of my countryman might likewise have been wounded, if it should have been known that your Refusal had been solicited by me—I do not hesitate however Sir to make the request; I am this moment informed that Genl Hancock told Mr de choin yesterday that the English Commissioner had provided himself with a Substitute; can he have been guilty of choosing a bully! it is impossible that you should have suffered a doubtful expression in this cartel, to have had such an effect—This Challenge can only regard Mylord Carlisle and could not have been construed otherwise—Your Excellency certainly will not have suffered it (…)

“To George Washington from Vice Admiral d’Estaing, 20 October 1778,” Founders Online, National Archives, [Original source: The Papers of George Washington, Revolutionary War Series, vol. 17, 15 September–31 October 1778, ed. Philander D. Chase. Charlottesville: University of Virginia Press, 2008, pp. 479–480.] (02/25/2023)

Washington replied on October 24, 1778, that he was of the exact same opinion as the Admiral and that he had just communicated this opinion to La Fayette:

The coincidence between Your Excellencys sentiments respecting the Marquis de la fayettes cartel, communicated in the letter with which you honored me the 20th and those which I expressed to him on the same subject; is peculiarly flattering to me—I am happy to find that my disapprobation of this measure, was founded on the same arguments which in Your Excellencys hands acquire new force and persuasion. (…) I however continued to lay my friendly commands upon him, to renounce his project, but I was well assured that if he determined to persevere in it, neither authority nor vigilance would be of any avail to prevent his message to Lord Carlisle. And tho his ardour was an overmatch for my advice and influence, I console myself with the reflexion that his Lordship will not accept the challenge and that while our friend gains all the applause which is due to him for wishing to become the champion of his country; he will be secure from the possibility of such danger as my fears might otherwise have raised for him—by those powerful barriers which shelter his lordship, and which I am persuaded he will not in the present instance violate.

“From George Washington to Vice Admiral d’Estaing, 24 October 1778,” Founders Online, National Archives, [Original source: The Papers of George Washington, Revolutionary War Series, vol. 17, 15 September–31 October 1778, ed. Philander D. Chase. Charlottesville: University of Virginia Press, 2008, pp. 551–552.] (02/25/2023)

While we see therefore, that d’Estaing was not in favour of the duel, La Fayette would later write in his Memoirs that he had the Admirals full support.

Despite Washington’s refusal to grant La Fayette leave to fight a duel, La Fayette did challenge Carlisle anyway. He wrote to the Earl on October 5, 1775:

Until now, milord, I believed that I would have to deal only with your generals, and I hoped for the honor of seeing them only at the head of the troops which are respectively entrusted to us. Your letter of August 26 to the Congress of the United States and the insulting sentence regarding my country to which you subscribed your name could alone have given me something to clear up with you. I do not deign to deny it, milord, but I wish to chastize it. It is you, as head of the commission, whom I summon to make amends to me as public as was the offense and the denial that follows it will be. That refutation would not have been so delayed had the letter reached me sooner. Since I am obliged to be away for a few days, I hope to find your answer upon my return. M. de Gimat, a French officer, will make any arrangements in my behalf that are agreeable to you. I do not doubt that, for the honor of his compatriot, General Clinton will willingly countenance it. As for me, milord, all terms are good, provided that to the glorious advantage of being born a Frenchman, I shall add that of proving to a man of your nation that no one will ever attack mine with impunity.

Lord Carlisle replied to the Challenge on October 11, 1778 and, as predicted by Washington and d’Estaing, refused to accept the challenge:

I have received Your Letter transmitted to me from Mons. de Gimat, and I confess I find it difficult to return a serious Answer to its Contents. The only one that can be expected from me as the King’s Commissioner, and which You ought to have known, is that I do and ever shall consider myself solely answerable to my Country and my King and not to any Individual for my public Conduct and Language. As for any Opinions or Expressions contained in any publication issued under the Commission in which I have the Honour to be named, unless they are retracted in Public, You may be assured I shall never in any Change of Situation be disposed to give an Account of them much less recall in Private. The Injury alluded to in the Correspondence of the King’s Commissioners to the Congress I must remind You is not of a private Nature, and I conceive all national Disputes will be best decided by the Meeting of Admiral Byron and the Count d’Estaign.

I have to admit that I really, really love Carlisle’s answer! But alas, La Fayette did not. He wrote, rather furious, to d’Estaing on October 20, 1778, that:

Lord Carlisle made me a very tardy reply, in which he escapes by means of diplomatic prerogatives. His prudence even goes so far as to provide for the time when the commission has ceased and I might take up my desire to correct the commissioner. He claims not to be bound to any reckoning of this kind.

While La Fayette was rather displeased with the turn of events at first, he later, in his Memoirs, acknowledged, that Carlisle had been in the right and that it was good of him to refuse the challenge.

That is the context surrounding the proposed Carlisle-La Fayette-duel and the only time that La Fayette actually challenged somebody to a duel instead of just contemplating the thought.

I hope you have/had a lovely day!

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religion-is-a-mental-illness · 2 years

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By: Douglas Murray

Published: Apr 30, 2022

There are many ways to fracture a people. But one of the best is to destroy all the remaining ties that bind them. To persuade them that to the extent they have anything of their own, it is not very special, and in the final analysis, hardly worth preserving. This is a process that has gone on across the western world for over a generation: a remorseless, daily assault on everything that most of us were brought up to believe was good about ourselves.

Take our national heroes – the people who used to form the epicentre of our feelings of national pride. Twenty years ago, Winston Churchill easily won the BBC’s competition to find out who the nation thought to be the Greatest Briton. Today whenever the BBC runs a piece about Churchill it includes the ‘case for the prosecution’: a set of tendentious and fallacious arguments now frequently made against him. This has consequences. When the outburst of iconoclasm began in the summer of 2020 after the murder of George Floyd, Churchill’s statue was one of the first to be assaulted. Indeed it was attacked so often that the statue in Parliament Square was boxed up, and only got unboxed when the French President arrived in London for the day.

It isn’t just Churchill who gets this treatment. Almost everyone in our history does. Again and again, largely due to importing some of the worst ideas in modern American life, we are told that we need to scour our past and purge whatever fails to satisfy our current urges.

Two years ago the Mayor of London, Sadiq Khan, set up a Robespierrean ‘Commission for Diversity in the Public Realm’: a commission made up of people who all seem to share a wholly negative view of these islands, and one of whom was known for having once shouted at Her Majesty the Queen. And yet that commission is meant to decide what we are allowed to keep of our history. And not only what should come down, but what should go up in its place. Among the suggestions for more appropriate modern statuary are a memorial to the murdered teenager Stephen Lawrence, a tribute to the Windrush generation and a new National Museum of Slavery. Only last week it transpired that a London council is planning to rebrand William Gladstone Park, because the great prime minister’s family stands accused of benefiting from the slave trade. The front-runners for alternative names for the place include Diane Abbott Park.

Where once our national story was one of pride and heroism it has come to be looked at solely through the reductive, simplistic lens of racism, slavery and colonialism. Our civil servants and public appointees must demonstrate a commitment to ‘Diversity, Inclusion and Equity’ in order even to be allowed to work. Every political institution, including the House of Lords, is suffused with the same new dogma. Likewise every cultural institution, from the National Trust and Kew Gardens to the British Library, Tate and Globe theatre has decided to ‘decolonise’ – which means stripping us of our history or reframing it in an implacably negative light.

All of this has come across our culture like a flood – in the main, precisely because it is imported from America, where a cultural revolution is under way which consists of an assault on all of the foundations of the country. This includes a project of the New York Times which seeks to move the founding date of the American Republic from 1776 to 1619: the year in question being when slaves were first brought into the country. The non-historian who led this sloppy effort has been awarded a Pulitzer prize and chairs at American universities for her efforts. The attempt, like the one that’s going on in Britain, is to pretend that our nations were born in sin, everyone else into Edenic innocence.

Anybody found guilty of living in American history is torn down in a similarly remorseless way, from Christopher Columbus to Theodore Roosevelt. Absolutely no one is safe. The Founding Fathers have been rewritten. A couple of generations back, few Americans may have known that Thomas Jefferson owned slaves. Today it is almost the only thing anyone knows about him. Again, this has consequences. Last autumn the statue of Jefferson that had stood in New York City Hall since 1833 was ignominiously removed, boxed up and wheeled out the back door. According to one council member Jefferson no longer represents US ‘values’.

It is hard to think of anyone from two centuries ago who would. But in the relentless war on everything to do with western history at least the tactics are now clear. Aristotle and Plato have been denounced for not having 2022’s views on race. Similarly all the Enlightenment philosophers, so that David Hume’s name has come off buildings in Scotland. The charges are always the same: having views not exactly in line with those of the 21st century, being complicit in the slave trade, being complicit in colonialism. Or just being alive while these things were going on. When the evidence isn’t there, the anti-western ‘scholars’ of our day have shown themselves perfectly willing simply to invent it.

What are the effects of this? Among much else, it is not remotely clear why societies which have such terrible pasts should ever rouse themselves to do anything in the present. Last year the US Ambassador to the United Nations used the occasion of the UN’s International Day for the Elimination of Racial Discrimination to denounce America for its ‘original sin’. She talked about the killing of George Floyd and presented a recent shooting at a spa (which had nothing to do with race) as an example of the ongoing racism in America. Towards the end of her speech, in passing, she remembered to mention the internment of around one million Uighur Muslims by the Chinese Communist party. Funnily enough, China’s representative was up next. ‘In an exceptional case’ the Chinese Communist representative said furiously, the American had actually ‘admitted to her country’s ignoble human rights record’, and so she had no right ‘to get on a high horse and tell other countries what to do’.

Until Russia invaded Ukraine in February this was the default presumption of the competitors and opponents of the western powers: that our countries had so deracinated themselves, so scourged themselves for historic sins and so denuded themselves of any decent approach towards their own history that they were unlikely to summon up the courage to stand up for themselves, let alone for their allies.

In fact Vladimir Putin’s war has done something to revive a sense of purpose and solidarity in the West. In one swoop the 30-year-old question about the point of Nato has been answered. When Sweden and other countries join the alliance later this year it will be cemented further. Even countries such as Germany have shown themselves willing to do highly unusual things, like actually spend money on defence now a real threat has re-emerged in their neighbourhood.

But the idea that Russian tanks rolling into Ukraine will solve the West’s problems or clarify our minds already looks like a forlorn hope. In a poll taken last month almost half of Americans said that if their country was invaded as Ukraine’s has been they would flee the country and not stay around and fight. Worst was that among 18- to 34-year-olds only 45 per cent said they would remain and fight, while 48 per cent said they would flee.

But why would they not? Who would stay and fight for a country that you have been told is rotten from the start, has no legitimate heroes and is riddled through even in the present day by ‘white supremacy’ and ‘institutional racism’? It is the same in other countries. The Europeans may have remembered that you have to spend money if you want to be able to defend yourselves. But more important still is to have a sense that you have something that is worth defending.

Putin, the Chinese Communist party and others have looked at the West in recent years and seen these increasingly fractious, riven and self-lacerating societies. Each has done what they can both online and off to exacerbate this tendency. They think we are awful and irredeemable, and they are delighted if large swathes of our populations and political and cultural figures agree with them. Just last week one of the CCP’s propaganda papers pumped an image around Twitter of Uncle Sam behind the Oval Office desk, surrounded by corpses. The caption accused America of racism and family separations at the border. Perhaps the people of Xinjiang province have something to say about the sincerity of that attack.

Of course, unity is not the only thing you need in a nation, as Putin has demonstrated. But it’s not nothing either, as President Volodymyr Zelensky and the Ukrainian people have shown. The key question any country and any culture has to answer is whether it wants to keep going. Most of the western powers have been told in recent years that we should keep going in order to find our way to greater equity, equality, diversity and a whole pile of other meaningless guff, including ‘diversity’: an entirely anti-western concept from its foundations.

The war in Ukraine may be just the first test of the western alliance. It is clear that in the 21st century the CCP is going to present a much more substantial challenge than Putin ever could. Will the West be willing to rise to that challenge? Only if we regain the sense that we have something worth preserving. And the knowledge we had in the Cold War that free western societies deserve to win out, not because it is in our interests to do so, but because we are better than the alternatives.

How some people will shudder at the idea of even expressing that. But it is true. It is why the countries that most beat themselves up about their pasts are the countries that the world most wants to come to. We must be doing something right today, which means we have must have done something right in our past. The rest of the world recognises that fact by its footfall. It is time we started to recognise that truth ourselves.

[ Via: https://archive.is/dP2sQ ]

People actually risk their lives for the opportunity to participate in the western tradition. While smoothbrains who, by accident of birth, are fortunate to be able to take living there for granted, never have to contemplate the stories of the former group, and so say stupid things like "well, we're no better than [theocratic regime]/[communist dictatorship]/[poverty-stricken hellhole]."

The irony of course is that this sort of self-critique and self-flagellation is only possible among western countries. In any other social arrangement it would be, at best, ignored, at worst, grounds for eliminating you from it.

#Douglas Murray #The War on the West #human rights #self flagellation #inverted exceptionalism #self hatred #navel gazing #first world problems #religion is a mental illness

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lingua-latina-01 · 6 days

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PREFACE.

This book was composed when the writer was a Professor of Latin, as part of a larger scheme. He has long been convinced that the mode of teaching Latin has become less and less effective in proportion as it has been made more and more scientific. The effort has been general to confine the pupil to the most elaborate styles and the most approved classics, and the exercise of memory has been superseded by minute accuracy in the study of very limited pieces. In the natural mode we have enormous endless repetition and much learning of the names of things. We begin with short sentences and a very limited number of verbs; and we learn with the least possible number of rules. If we could talk in Latin, that would be of all best; but as we cannot get exercise in talking it for practical needs, no teacher can hope to gain adequate readiness and facility: or if a few might, yet this could not be counted on in any general system. It has long been my conviction that we ought to seek to learn a language first, and study its characteristic literature afterward. Greek and Latin literature plunge us into numerous difficulties all at once, inasmuch as their politics, their history, their geography and their religion are all strange to the young student. To take difficulties one by one is obvious wisdom; and with a view to this I elaborately maintained in an article of the Museum (No. iv., Jan., 1862, Edinburgh) that we ought to teach by modern Latin. As parts of such a system I have executed and published a Latin “Hiawatha,” and Latin Verse Translations of many small pieces of English poetry. If I could write Latin conversations that would interest learners, I should gladly have undertaken[iv] this: but when I tried, I could not invent matter that seemed interesting enough. This indeed is my objection to Erasmus’s “Colloquies,” which also are not easy enough in idiom to satisfy me. This “Robinson Crusoe” I thought I could make very interesting, and it includes a far greater variety of vocabulary than can be obtained from any of our received classics of the same length. I hope also the style is easy.

I surely need not apologize for taking only the general idea from Defoe. His tale is far too diffuse, too full of moralizing and with too little variety. He was very ignorant of the Botany and Zoology of the tropics, and when his tale is faithfully abridged, its impossibilities become too glaring. The Arabic “Robinson Crusoe” published by the Church Missionary Society cuts down Defoe’s story unmercifully.

I am indebted to my former colleague, the late Professor T. Hewitt Key, for the translation of Robinson into the name Rebilius. He also approved of Ignipulta for a gun, not as strictly grammatical, but as good enough to pass with Latins who were familiar with the word Catapulta. From him also I adopted Cannones, for cannons, and Pistola a pistol. The word Canna, a cane (or hollow tube) seems to be the root of Cann̄on, a tube or cannon, in Spanish, whence the American can̄on for a tunnel, or larger tube.

After I had executed my own Rebilius (finally completed in 1861), I learned that a Frenchman, Goffaux, had published a “Robinson Crusoe” in Latin and French. On discovering this, I stopped the printing which I had begun, and after some delay succeeded in getting the book. But on perusing it I found his principles of remodelling the tale to be fundamentally the opposite of mine, concerning which I need not enlarge. I like his Latin, yet do not think his book supersedes mine. But if teachers can practically use his with advantage, I shall be well satisfied.

[v]

I wish here to renew my protest, that no accuracy of reading small portions of Latin will ever be so effective as extensive reading; and to make extensive reading possible to the many, the style ought to be very easy and the matter attractive. To enable us to talk, we ought to have a vocabulary that includes all familiar objects,—which the Classics of our schools cannot give us. Terence, though somewhat too difficult, would have great excellencies for the learner; but the substance of his plays is low, and eminently unedifying.

In the near future, some universal tongue will be sought for by the educated. If Latin be still learned in England, France, Italy, Germany, Hungary, Spain, this is still, as three centuries ago, the best for all Christendom. But perhaps even Latin will be beaten out of the schools.

It may be well to remark, that inasmuch as the grave accent has been very widely used in school books as indicative of an adverb, I adopt the mark in this sense; and think it no objection to say that the Latins never so used it. Neither had they our stops. We do not pretend to follow their writing in detail. We usefully distinguish the vowels u i from the consonants v j; they did not. What should we gain, by writing the Iliad as its author wrote it? So too, I think it well occasionally to add long or short marks, as ēgēre ĕgēre ēgĕre, vēnēre vĕnĕre, lătēre lătĕre lātere, to obviate ambiguity. Nay I write fluctûs for gen. sing., fluctūs for plural, but fluctus for nomin. sing. When et means both or even, I set an acute accent over it, not doubting that it then received some emphasis.

I also borrow from the marks used in Hebrew an under-parenthesis for coupling words that are in grammatical union. This mark is often very effective in explaining the structure of complicated Greek sentences.

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unwilting · 3 months

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Problems of Political Reeducation in West Germany, 1945-1960

by Michael H. Kater

In the first place, there were no set criteria as to who qualified as a bona fide Nazi and who did not, and, if a person came under suspicion, which of the four "guilty" categories he or she should be assigned to.8 There were numerous anomalies. At one extreme stood convinced Nazis who had never joined any of the indictable organizations, and at the other there were card- carrying nominal Nazis who were truly opponents of Hitler. It was not uncommon for the former type to go scot free, while the latter lost whatever job he or she had held and subsequently was interned...

Nazis might be released by the British in their zone and rearrested by the Americans in their jurisdiction. Some Germans found it easy to assume employment in the French Zone after eviction from their jobs in the American Sector, in open contravention of a January 1946 Allied Control Council ruling.

The blanket failure of political reeducation through the medium of denazification thus produced, at the end of the 1940s, a peculiar set of psycho-political circumstances in which old-style Nazism was given the chance to flourish once again and new fruits of rightist extremism might be harvested. As Gustav Stolper then put it, "what was initiated as a denazification policy has become the surest, most effective vehicle for re-nazification." Indeed, the renewed rise of radical movements on the right after 1945 turned out to be partly the result of Allied policy, which in the very throes of the German catastrophe had specified that Germans be allowed to enter into democratic pursuits. Even though a strong central government had been postulated to counteract the rise of radical rightwing parties, participatory democracy entailed that a full spectrum of political interest groups be tolerated, not excluding the extremists from the right.

In the American Zone in 1946, about 57 percent of men and women surveyed were satisfied with denazification, but only 32 percent were in 1948, and 17 percent in 1949. By 1953 there were 40 percent who actually thought denazification harmful. Against this background, the increased expressions of pro-Nazi sentiment is hardly surprising. In the Western zone as a whole, 40 percent of persons polled conceded in 1946 that National Socialism had been "a good idea, just not well executed"; while 55 percent said this in 1948. Further, between May 1951 and December 1952 the proportion of those who recognized "more good than bad" in Nazism rose from 34 to 44 percent, and in July 1952 a full third of the Federal Republic's citizens still acknowledged some form of admiration for the Fuhrer. Distrust of parliamentary democracy was tempered with fears of Communism in the Eastern zone, often needlessly so, because both resulted from the same popular lack of interest in the democratic process. A cross- section of Germans surveyed in a poll in March 1949 indicated that four out of ten eligible voters cared nothing for the foundation of West German democracy, the newly charted Basic Law. There was more than a kernel of truth in what Delbert Clark, an astute observer of West Germany, reported back to his fellow Americans that year, namely, that "democracy" to Germans meant simply "carbonated soft drinks, chewing gum, baseball and anti-Communism."

To all intents and purposes, within the first three years after the "German Catastrophe," as the liberal-conservative historian Friedrich Meinecke would call it, outright Nazi professors had been removed, the old universities had been reactivated, and new institutions of higher learning in Mainz, Speyer, and West Berlin, based on Western democratic patterns, had been founded. But die-hard Nazi professors were soon endangering the higher education system in two significant ways. First, the more militant of the excluded academics organized themselves under the leadership of Dr. Herbert Grabert, a former Wurzburg University instructor, and started to condemn the universities as centers of intolerance and oppression because they had dared, in collusion with the Military Governments, to ostracize "patriotic" colleagues. Their offensive lobby, whatever threat it may have posed to teaching and learning in the reconstituted universities, certainly was harmful to the timid democratic beginnings in German society as a whole. Indeed, the group surrounding Grabert, with printing presses and considerable funds at its disposal, in time became the intellectual vanguard of sundry neo-Nazisms of the fiffies and sixties. Second, and potentially more lethal, was the fact that professors, who were old Nazis or fellow-travelers, successfully reasserted their biased influence in the classrooms. These were men who had stayed on after May 1945 because they had been overlooked, were actually needed for their expertise by the Allies, or had managed their comebacks as a consequence of relaxed denazification strictures.

Renegade Nazi professors in all the classic disciplines posed a real problem. "Foreigners find it hard to believe what German scholars are once again lecturing from their chairs," wrote Gottingen jurist Hans Thieme in April 1953, adding that Germans were generally ignored in international scientific ventures. Law was a most important field because its teachers had the power either to sharpen or snuff out democratic consciousness. Therefore Nazi or proto-Nazi professors of law were perhaps the most insidious of all. One may refer to Ernst Rudolf Huber, virtually a crown jurist for the Third Reich, who had impressively justified the Fuhrer's will as an encompassing legal precedent. The prewar persecution of the Jews to him was legitimate. Born in 1903, this Nazi party member (May 1933) had been a full professor of law at Kiel, Leipzig, and "Reichsuniversitat" Strassburg between 1933 and 1945. Dismissed by the Allies, he then became a judicial adviser to the Federal Economics Ministry in 1949 before resuming a professorship in Freiburg in 1956 and later changing to Gottingen…

#italics my own #on: nazis #filed under: post wwii history

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visiooptical · 1 year

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ruminativerabbi · 2 years

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Learning from Caracalla

Dear Friends,

I don’t think any of us will ever forgot the bone-chilling sight of hundreds of white supremacists, neo-Nazis, Klansmen, alt-right types, and neo-Confederates marching through the streets of Charlottesville, Virginia, in 2017, chanting “Jews will not “replace us.” I was so naïve back then that I actually didn’t understand the actual meaning of those words, which I took to mean that the marchers believed that some sort of plot was underway to replace white-skinned Christians with Jewish people. Indeed, it was only later on that I learned that the chant referenced not the notion that Jews were plotting to replace Christian Americans personally, but that they—we—are working to bring non-white, non-Christian immigrants to these shores in such gigantic numbers that they would eventually constitute a majority of the population and thus be in a position to vote into office candidates who looked and felt about things as they themselves did. (To revisit my thoughts about Charlottesville at the time, click here; for my own revisit of the story a year later, click here.)

I haven’t written about Charlottesville in a while, but my thoughts returned to that series of dark days in August when I came across an essay published in the Washington Post this last week (click here) in which the author, Jennifer Rubin, reflects on the results of a poll conducted by the Public Religion Research Institute, a non-partisan organization that self-defines as a think tank devoted to “conducting independent research at the intersection of religion, culture, and public policy.” In that poll, in which about 40,000 different people were questioned and the results of which were published just last week, the percentage of Americans who self-identified as non-Hispanic white people of Christian faith stood at 42% of the population. Just a decade and a half ago, when Barack Obama came to office, the number was 54%, a majority of Americans. Six years later, the number was 47%--less than half the citizenry. And now the percentage has dropped to 42%, somewhere between a third of all Americans and half of them.

If you narrow the scope of inquiry to features solely white evangelical Protestants, the news

is even worse. In 2006, they constituted 23% of the population. By 2016, the number was down to under 17%. Today, the number stands at 13.6% of Americans.

The idea that Jews are working tirelessly to replace white people with immigrants of color who will eventually take over once their numbers are high enough to vote in the candidates of their masters’ choice is lunacy. But, it suddenly strikes me, the fear that these next decades will see a true sea change in the profile of our American population is not that exaggerated. It’s already begun. Dark-skinned immigrants are not being smuggled in to tip the balance. (That truly is craziness.) But the balance is indeed being tipped.

Rubin’s very worthy essay got me thinking, for some obscure reason, about Caracalla, an emperor of Rome even whose name, let alone whose work, has been largely forgotten by most. Let me explain why he suddenly came to mind.

Born in Lugdunum, which town would eventually morph into the French city of Lyons, in 188 CE, the man did not even live to see his own thirtieth birthday. (He reigned from 198 until his untimely death in 217.) He lived a short life. And yet he did several remarkable things, almost all of them terrible. (The key word here is “almost.” See below.) He was violent and vicious, the instigator of many murders and massacres. He was almost definitely guilty of the murder of his own brother (with whom he shared the throne until he decided he had had enough), his father-in-law, and his wife (whom he loathed, apparently, even before being forced to marry her). On the other hand, he appears to have invented—or at least popularized—the hoodie. (The Latin word caracalla references the kind of hooded jacket the emperor favored and which he wore so constantly that his real name, Lucius Septimus Bassianus, was dropped in favor of his nickname based on his favorite article of clothing.) And he did manage to construct a public bathhouse of such gargantuan proportions, called (what else?) The Baths of Caracalla, that it remained in operation for more than three hundred years. (I suppose they must have replaced the towels every so often.) For a reasonably balanced, very accessible, and interesting biography of the man, I recommend Finnish scholar Ilkka Syvänne’s Caracalla: A Military Biography, published by Pen & Sword Military Press in 2017 and available on amazon and other on-line sites.

But the reason that Jennifer Rubin’s essay brought Caracalla to mind has nothing to do with fratricide, hoodies or bathhouses, because Caracalla was also able to rise up over his own horribleness to do one exceptional thing. And that thing is what I want to write about today.

In Caracalla’s day, the Romans had a huge problem: they were vastly outnumbered in their own nation by non-Romans. How that had happened is easy enough to understand: before Caracalla acted, the sole citizens of Rome were ethnic Romans who lived in Italy plus the descendants of citizens who had settled in the provinces. Some local nobles were granted citizenship too, as were the inhabitants of some few great cities not in Italy. But the bottom line was that only a small minority of the population were citizens. Why Caracalla saw that as a problem is open to debate. Some scholars think it had to do solely with money: only citizens paid taxes so having very few citizens meant bringing in much less money than would otherwise have been the case. (This was the opinion, among others, of the great Roman historian Dio Cassius.) Another possible reason to regret having so few citizens would have had to do with the number of men eligible to serve in the Roman Legion, the national army, because only citizens were permitted to serve. A third motive had to do with the practicalities of the justice system: there were effectively two different court systems in place, one for citizens and one for non-citizens, but this was proving increasingly awkward as the world of commerce increasingly involved citizens and non-citizens in the same undertakings. And so in 212 CE Caracalla issued the decree known now as the Edict of Caracalla in which he formally granted citizenship to all residents of the Empire with only a few excepted categories.

All the theories mentioned above for this move have some cogency. But I’d like to imagine that Caracalla acted because he somehow understood that the Empire could only thrive if a large majority of its residents were personally invested in its future, in the propagation of its culture, and in its expansion north into Europe, east into Asia, and even possibly south into Africa. In other words, Rome could not function—or, to say the very least, could not function well—as a state in which only the smallest percentage of residents were personally invested in the nation’s future. (Before Caracalla, there were something like 75 million people living in the Roman Empire, of whom only about 14 million lived in Italy itself.) And it is precisely in that way that the situation in Caracalla’s Rome mirrors the situation in our nation as we enter the third decade of his strange century.

The Charlottesville chant was pure anti-Semitic craziness: the nation’s Jews are not involved in some nefarious plot to replace white Americans with immigrants, legal and otherwise, of color. But the fear underlying that lunacy is not without foundation. Things are shifting almost before our eyes. Demographically speaking, the nation of the 2060s will be totally unlike the America of the 1960s.

There are two ways to respond to this new reality. One would be to rage at the failing light. This was on full display in Charlottesville. But the other would be to take a cue from Caracalla and to face the new reality not by being enraged or feeling persecuted, but by accepting the challenge demography has placed at our feet. Yes, the Founders were flawed, complicated individuals—the kind who wrote movingly about equality under the law but who also owned slaves. But when they were through being children of their time, they also invented something remarkable on these shores, a nation that was completely different in its day from every other one on earth. That kind of patriotism rooted in that sense of American exceptionalism was once something that grew naturally from the education children received throughout the nation. Nowadays, not so much.

We can, however, learn from the past. Caracalla looked around and saw a huge demographic nightmare about to envelop his nation. By decreeing that, henceforth, almost all residents were to be granted citizenship, he was opening a door and inviting the up-to-that-point-totally-disenfranchised to step over the threshold, to become part of the polity, to exert themselves to become worthy of the citizenship now bestowed upon them. The situations aren’t entirely parallel. But the challenge of a shifting reality is much the same. If I were a young person today trying to decide whether to respond to the new demographical reality by exploding with rage or by extending a hand to those whom I fear the most, I hope I would make the right decision. Whatever his “real” motives, Caracalla made the move that brought in the disenfranchised and challenged them to create their own nation’s destiny. The response to shifting demographics should be thoughtfully to consider how to address a new reality in a way that keeps faith with the past and looks forward to a shared, potentially glorious, future.

#Charlottesville #Caracalla #American Demography

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blackswaneuroparedux · 3 years

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I am in fact a Hobbit (in all but size). I like gardens, trees and unmechanised farmlands; I smoke a pipe, and like good plain food (unrefrigerated), but detest French cooking; I like and even dare to wear in these dull days, ornamental waistcoats. I am fond of mushrooms (out of a field); have a very simple sense of humour (which even my appreciative critics find tiresome); I go to bed late and get up late (when possible). I do not travel much.

- J.R.R. Tolkien, The Tolkien Letters

Tolkien wrote the following in a letter to a fan, Deborah Webster, in 1958. Many have taken this to cement the view that Tolkien was especially averse to the French Language, and indeed things French in general (especially food). Indeed various biographers and interpreters have tried to suggest some specific reason why this should be the case: why Tolkien should have developed such an extraordinary characteristic. But truth be told I don’t think there is a specific reason necessary, beyond that Tolkien was a normal, patriotic Englishman; among whom such an aversion is normal and unremarkable even if he was an Oxford don.

Some hold the view that the ordinary Englishman has 'always' had a thing against the French; and this was only amplified by having them as 'allies' in both 20th century world wars. Aversion to the French was as common among World War I and II veterans as was an admiration-of, and friendliness-towards, the Germans. I’m not really sure this is quite true if one reads the correspondence of first world war soldiers fighting in France. Historians have been re-appraising this tired trope for some time now. Still, others point out that a pervasive (but mostly unspoken) dislike of Frenchness is just normal among the English lower classes; including the non-professional middle class, from which Tolkien emerged. There are many reasons for it - for example the Norman Conquest imported a French-speaking ruling class, leading on to centuries of cultural division, destruction and oppression. And France was an old (often primary) military enemy and political threat (or rival) for many centuries up to Napoleon Bonaparte. The backbone of the British Army who fought against the French has always been, so the argument goes, the working class.

I think a more convincing reason for Tolkien’s aversion to French ideas and the culture they sprung forth from than the French as an individuals or a nation. As a professor of literature versed in several languages, he understood the importance of French upon the English language but a part of him didn’t like that. Tolkien always hated that William the Bastard bested King Harold at the Battle of Hastings in 1066, because it prevented a full flourishing of Anglo-Saxon culture and allowed French to "pollute" the language.

I suspect at the real heart of Tolkien’s visceral dislike was the association between France and political and social radicalism generally starting from the very idea of the French Revolution and one that gutted religion from the heart of French society in the name of liberty, equality, and fraternity.

These ideas could be traced down from the 18th Century English radicals like John Wilkes and Charles James Fox down to the modern day socialism of the early 20th Century and the rise of Marxism across Europe from the ashes of the first world war, particularly in Russia of course. Those who find it strange or sinister that Tolkien was French averse are mostly upper middle class and/or progressive bourgeois English - for whom to be Francophile ("the food, the fashion, the sheer style") is a natural as their complementary (and more visceral) despising of Englishness. This description covers nearly all of those people who would be inclined to publish books about Tolkien. ...Or else they are Americans; who just don't get Europeans and our tribal tiffs. ...Or they may instead be Scottish or Irish; for whom the French have always gleefully served as just another stick with which to beat the English. And I say this as someone who has an Anglo-Scots father. What is perhaps surprising is that Tolkien qua Oxford Professor did not adopt the Francophilia of his new tribe in academia. But Tolkien's retaining of natural, patriotic, 'common folk' Englishness, was a sign of that same integrity that made him the genius he was.

#tolkien #jrr tolkien #quote #english #french #francophile #culture #society #literature #language #englishness #hobbit #icon

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teawaffles · 3 years

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Albert’s Drinking Contest: Chapter 2

“——This is, the twentieth!”

Announcing the number of glasses he’d drained, Moran set his empty wine glass on the table with a thud.

He was still clear-headed, and able to hold a conversation. But those wild features of his were now flushed, as red as the copious amounts of wine that had entered his stomach.

“Ready to give up now, Albert?”

In his tipsy, trembly vision, Moran beheld his opponent before him.

But far from giving up, Albert was completely sober. There was no discernible change in his complexion; as if he’d started drinking right there and then, he tipped back his glass, and downed his wine with ease.

With that, they were now tied at 20 glasses each. Ignoring the man staring at him with twitching eyes, Albert called out to Louis, who was still serving as their waiter.

“No matter how many glasses I drink, this profound flavour never ceases to delight. To have procured such an excellent vintage — your selections are exquisite as always, Louis.”

“Thank you very much. As I recall, this is an import from America.”

“Ah: I’ve heard that the French vineyards are still afflicted with blight. [1] It’s a pity we won’t be able to enjoy their splendid red wines for some time to come; but it’s also our good fortune to have learned about the quality of wines from the New World.” [2]

“…………”

Albert was being much too relaxed, and had even started to digress into areas completely unrelated to the match; hearing that, Moran shot him a look of displeasure.

Incidentally, the challenge had been much too great for Fred: he’d been the first to pass out, flopping onto the table with his glass in hand. Immediately after, they’d covered him with a blanket so he wouldn’t catch a cold, and the man was presently fast asleep.

“Well then, both sides have managed to consume twenty glasses. It seems both of you still have room for more, but…… if I were to speak from an impartial standpoint, you appear to be at a slight disadvantage, Moran.”

Having observed their match, William leisurely shared his views.

Moran knew his analysis was unbiased, and that was precisely why he let out a groan of frustration. His face flushed, he grabbed the bottle of wine, intending to pour his next drink; but when he realised that not a single drop had trickled out, he waved the bottle in the air.

“Sorry, Louis. It’s empty, so could you bring a new one?”

“Understood.”

Louis promptly retrieved a fresh bottle, and with brisk efficiency, filled both their glasses.

“This’ll be, the twenty-first.”

As soon as his glass was full, without any intention of savouring the wine, Moran chugged it all in one breath.

But the next moment, he was swamped by an intense wave of vertigo: somehow, it seemed he was much nearer his limit than he’d thought.

In contrast, Albert merely tilted his glass, observing the colours and clarity of the freshly-poured wine. Then he swirled it once, bringing it near his nose to savour its aroma, and took a sip to taste.

“Is this a Madeira?” [3]

Standing beside them, Louis revealed the bottle label with a smile.

“Indeed — your wine tasting is accurate as always, nii-sama. Would you like some salted cheese to complement it?”

“I’d prefer to pair such cheeses with a sweet port. [4] Or perhaps we could have a chicken with that, like Sir John Falstaff.” [5]

“In exchange for one’s soul, indeed.” [6]

Watching the two brothers quote Shakespeare as they chatted, Moran was incredulous.

“……Y’know, this is a drinking match on which I’ve staked my dignity as a man — not some wine-guessing quiz at a party,” he protested.

However, in a long-suffering gesture, Albert merely shrugged.

“Although this is an earnest match, Colonel, it’ll become a dreary affair if you leave no room for entertainment. Moreover, this wine was used to toast the American Declaration of Independence, making it perfect for tonight’s celebration.” [7]

At that bit of trivia from Albert, Moran looked positively fed up.

“Oooh, if you have so much time to share your vast knowledge, then why don’t you hurry up and drink already?”

But far from being put out, an elegant smile rose to Albert’s lips.

“Oh dear; you’re in an awful rush, Colonel. Could it be a sign that you’re nearing your limit?”

“Wha……! N-No way. I can still continue.”

Albert had hit right where it hurt, and Moran uttered a groan that was rather different from before. It seemed his opponent had observed his giddy spell from earlier.

Although the match was far from over, Moran was now consumed by a crushing sense of defeat. Seeing that, Albert made a show of draining his glass at a leisurely pace.

Even after downing a substantial amount of wine, the eldest son of the Moriarty family was unruffled, and Moran shot him a complaint.

“You’re not actually drinking some deep red tea instead of wine, are ya?”

Perhaps it was because the liquor had addled his brain, for Moran put forth a suspicion that he wouldn’t normally have entertained.

To that, both William and Louis burst into laughter.

“That’s a very unique deduction, Moran,” said William, as he struggled to rein in his mirth. “But even I can’t devise a magic trick like that.”

Louis was also trying very hard to suppress his amusement. “I filled both your glasses from the same bottle: how could it be that alcohol came out one time, and tea the next? It’s so unlike you to even consider such a ridiculous idea, Mr Moran. Wouldn’t you agree that it’s time to cut back on the liquor?”

“S-Shut it. I was just saying. And I’m not giving up now.”

Their teasing had completely soured his mood. Glancing to the side, he saw Fred, who was sound asleep.

“Somehow, I think he might’ve just laughed at that too……”

Moran gazed at the man he thought of as a younger brother, dead to the world with a peaceful look on his face. Then he fixed his blanket, which had slipped a little out of place.

When his two brothers had finally managed to regain their composure, Albert spoke up.

“In fact, Colonel: it would better protect your good name if we were to pretend that outlandish trick was true. Or perhaps we could give you a handicap, and allow you to alternate between wine and tea.”

“You don’t say. Then I’ll have two drinks the next round.”

“Oh, that’s a good idea, coming from you. If you’re the one to set up the cause of your own defeat, then it’ll make a convincing excuse to others, I see.”

“Urgh……”

No matter what he said, Albert had a ready riposte. As such, Moran swallowed his frustration, and returned his focus to the match.

“Anyway: Louis, keep it comin’, please.”

Seeing Moran try his utmost to put on a brave front, Louis was even beginning to find that a little cute; muttering his acknowledgement, he proceeded to fill Moran’s glass once more. Then, with great force, the man poured its entire contents down his throat.

“…………”

The alcohol burned like fire as it flowed into his stomach — all of a sudden, Moran came to his senses. Placing his glass on the table, he pondered.

His vexation at the Moriarty brothers’ teasing. His alcohol-induced befuddlement. And above all, Albert’s ability to hold his liquor, which had far outstripped his expectations.

His irritation at those three things had wound up completely flustering him. But once Moran calmed down and took stock of his situation, he realised William was right: he was clearly on the back foot.

Until now, he’d been unconsciously averting his eyes from his predicament by being oddly stubborn. But this pickle wouldn’t resolve itself if he just kept running away. If he continued to drink without a scheme in mind, then in his mind’s eye, he could see the outcome plain as day: he’d be out like a light in no time.

However, if he lost, then he’d have to listen to anything the victor said. Moran had originally set that rule as a way to spur himself on, thinking that there’d be no way he would lose. But now, it had lost virtually all effect in rousing his will to fight — all that remained, was the dread of what Albert would make him do upon his defeat.

He absolutely had to win. But the way things were going, it was all but certain that he’d lose.

In that case, the only option left would be——.

Within him, that conflict crystallised into a single decision.

“William,” he said. “Won’t you join in the match? Or rather: please, join.”

“Me? But why?”

Up to this point, William had been serving as an impartial judge, and he asked that with curiosity. But Moran did not answer; instead, his expression twisted into a bitter one as he continued.

“That’s not all. On top of you joining in…… If you’re agreeable, Albert, let’s ignore the count thus far and start afresh……. This is, truly a personal…… request from me.”

That faltering reply was very much unlike him, and William broke into a meaningful smile.

Moran’s decision — was to request that they increase the number of participants, and restart the game.

Despite his frustrations, Moran was well aware that he wouldn’t be able to beat Albert alone. Hence, he thought he’d bring in more opponents to counter him: even if it was just one more person.

The other part of his plan was to reset the match. If Albert agreed to that, then compared to the two existing players, someone joining in halfway would naturally have the advantage. But from Moran’s point of view, even if he was defeated, it would still be better than having Albert directly exercise his “winner’s privilege” on him — such were his complicated emotions. It was an absurd request, to be sure; but at least he hadn’t proposed having Albert compete against the combined total of both his and the other participant’s tally: perhaps that was a reflection of whatever faint scraps of self-respect Moran still had within him.

Perceiving Moran’s complex tangle of emotions, William placed a hand under his chin and pondered.

It’d also be fun to take on his suggestion. Although he did have his role as the judge, it wasn’t as if the match had any strict rules to begin with — they could easily do without one.

However, if he were to join in, and the match were to be restarted, then both Moran and Albert would be at a disadvantage. When it came to wine, he knew his elder brother’s stomach for it was bottomless; but still, it was clearly unfair to have a new and virtually-sober participant waltz into an honest drinking match. And yet, then again, he didn’t want to dismiss Moran’s “request” out of hand.

In this situation, the best option would be——.

But the instant William made his decision, and tried to voice his answer, Louis quietly raised a hand.

“Hold on a minute. Could it be that you were thinking of taking up his suggestion, nii-san?”

“……Yes, I was just about to say that. Seeing as Albert nii-san doesn’t appear to have any issue with that.”

William looked at his older brother, seated across from Moran. Then, Albert flashed them both a slight smile. Although it would mean that he would gain a new opponent, and the contest would start again from the top, it seemed he didn’t mind one bit.

Registering Albert’s generosity, Louis pointed at himself.

“In that case, may I participate?”

“……You, Louis?” Moran asked.

Louis proceeded to explain himself briefly. “I cannot countenance the possibility — however slight — that after joining the match, my brother will end up drinking too much and impacting his health. Hence, I believe that issue will be negated if I were to join the match in his stead.”

“But in that case, I would end up worrying for your health, Louis,” said William, furrowing his brows slightly.

At his brother’s kindness, Louis unwittingly cracked a smile.

“It makes me very happy to hear that. But it’s rare to hear Mr Moran make such a serious request, and so I can understand how you’d want to help him out. Of course, as Mr Moran said: this is only if you’re agreeable, Albert nii-sama.”

“Alright. Having heard that much, I shan’t object,” replied William. “What about you, nii-san?”

His elegant smile unfaltering as ever, the eldest son of the Moriarty family nodded.

“I don’t mind. If you’re certain, Louis, then I shall respect your decision.” Then, Albert’s expression turned solemn. “However, as you mentioned yourself, you absolutely must not reach the point of destroying your own health. Even though the colonel can’t help it, Louis, my condition is that you cannot drink recklessly. Is that alright?”

“Understood, nii-sama. ——Well then, it’s settled.”

Nodding in assent, Louis quietly took a seat beside Moran. Absorbing how his ridiculous request had been granted, more than gratitude, Moran’s expression was one of astonishment.

“Is this really alright, Louis? I know I was the one who asked, but Albert’s no pushover. If we lose, then you’ll have to suffer the forfeit too……”

However, Louis smiled wryly as he replied.

“I already knew that when I asked to join, didn’t I? To be honest, I don’t want to stand opposed to either you or Albert nii-sama. But now that I’ve made my decision, I have no intention of going down without a fight.”

“……Louis.”

That resolve had shaken Moran, so much so that he began to tremble. Watching him out the corner of his eye, Louis filled both their glasses; then Albert too filled his glass by himself, and raised it toward the two of them.

“Well then, once again, let’s give it our all.”

“I won’t be holding back either, you two.”

“Oh, both of you will be sorry real soon.”

Having gained a dependable ally, Moran’s enthusiasm was now back in full force.

Looking at the three of them, William spoke.

“So with Louis’s entry, the contest shall start again from scratch. But for both Moran and Albert nii-san, the next glass will be your twenty-third: please take care not to injure your health.”

With that word of caution from William, the drinking contest had resumed.

Footnotes:

[1] French vineyards had been devastated by aphids in the mid-19th century, and then fungal diseases after that. (Wikipedia)

[2] The “New World” refers to the Americas, in contrast to the Old World, or Eastern Hemisphere of the Earth. (Wikipedia)

[3] Madeira is a fortified wine made on the Madeira Islands, off the African coast. (Wikipedia)

[4] Port is a fortified wine produced in the Douro Valley in Portugal. (Wikipedia)

[5] Sir John Falstaff is a character featured in several of Shakespeare’s plays. (Wikipedia) He is renowned as a drunkard and glutton, whose favourite food is capons — roosters reared specially for their meat. (BBC article)

[6] A reference to Faust, who traded his soul with the Devil in exchange for worldly pleasures. (Wikipedia)

Aside: As far as I can tell, this line doesn’t actually appear in Shakespeare’s works. But in the legend of Faust, Faust makes his pact with the Devil via the demon Mephistopheles — who is mentioned in Shakespeare’s play The Merry Wives of Windsor (Wikipedia), which stars Sir John Falstaff as its main character.

[7] This is apparently true: Wikipedia

#moriarty the patriot #yuukoku no moriarty #yuumori #english translation #a study in scarlet

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ms-starflower · 3 years

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Spook-tober Day 1 — Decorating

@maribat-october-rarepairs

So, technically, it’s October 2nd for almost two hour here, but it’s probably still the 1rst somewhere, right? Well, I don’t care anyway.

It’s my first time writing for an event (Maribat or otherwise) and I wanted to write both prompts for Spook-tober - Maribat Month and the Maribat Rare Pairs Month, but didn’t have time to start writing before 11pm.

This one's for Spook-tober, though it could also qualify as rarepair since it's a Stephinette (is that the correct shop name???), because Steph is my Queen (Cass too, but I wanted Steph today). Though they don't interact (yet) but I think I’ll write a follow up for other days' prompt, maybe (day 9 and 21, I’m looking at you,).

Anyway, let’s start.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

“You sure you got the right address, miss?” The cab driver asked her with a skeptic expression. It would have been alright if the man hadn’t asked the same thing in at least twenty different ways during the ride.

“Yes, thank you Monsieur. I’m exactly where I wanted to be,” Marinette answered with a tight smile, like the twenty previous times. Giving him the money she owed him, she got out of the car to stand in front of the gigantic gate of Wayne’s Manor. The place was kind of intimidating.

Still hearing the car behind her when she reached the intercom, she turned toward it. The driver was shamelessly looking at her, probably waiting for her to get refused access.

“Are you waiting for something, sir?” She asked, tilting her head slightly.

“You’re gonna need a ride back, don’t ya? I’m already here, might as well,” he smiled at her with condescending amusement. Marinette was tempted to tell him that she would prefer to go back to the city on foot than to get into his car again. But her parents raised her better than that, so she only smiled politely.

“There is no need, sir, I really don’t know how long I’m going to stay here.”

“Yeah, right,” the man huffed, still staring at her.

Deciding to just ignore him, Marinette turned to push on the intercom’s only button. It took a minute before an elegant and accented voice responded.

“Hello, how may I help you?”

“Ah, hello sir. I’m Marinette, Jason asked me to come?”

“Indeed, Master Jason warned me to expect you.”

When the gate opened, Marinette made a point to turn around to smile and wave goodbye at the cab driver. She would cherish his dumbstruck expression for a long time.

Her victory was short lived, though, when she saw how long the march from the gate to the house was going to be. Jason better be on the brink of death. Or the world, she wasn’t picky.

When she finally got there, an old gentleman she thought might be Alfred was waiting for her.

“Miss Dupain-Cheng, I’m Alfred, the family’s butler, it’s a pleasure to meet you,” Alfred said with a kind smile and a nod.

“The pleasure is all mine, sir. And just Marinette is fine,” she told him kindly, walking into the house. “Jason is okay, right? He didn’t say why he wanted me here, and I have to admit that he got me worried.”

Jason had been determined to keep her as far away from his family as he could manage before, and the sudden change was really odd.

“I see,” Alfred said slowly, closing his eyes for a second. “Master Jason is alright, Miss Marinette, do not worry. He just… Well, why not let Master Jason explain the situation to you himself. If you would follow me.”

Marinette followed him for a couple minutes through a couple of corridors, before he opened the doors to… a battlefield.

She thought that, maybe, it was supposed to be a living room, but it was hard to say, under all those decorations. They were literally everywhere. Throwing on the couches, a couple of boxes were overturned in a corner, a couple of garlands of little cartoon ghosts hanging hazradly from the chandelier. It was a mess, but she could see that someone probably tried to… decorate? Maybe? It was a really bad job, though.

Jason and a man she assumed to be his brother were battling with a plastic pumpkin and a skeleton respectively, while two more men and a woman—probably also Jason’s siblings, she heard Bruce Wayne was kind of a serial adopter— were cheering on the sidelines and a brooding teenager was glaring at them. Everyone froze as soon as they realized that they weren’t alone anymore. Alfred only sighed, nodded at her before going back to where they came from.

“Hey! Pixie! Great, you’re here,” Jason exclaimed excitedly, letting go of the pumpkin he was shoving into his brother’s face and stauttered toward her.

“Jason, in the name of everything that’s holy, what the hell?” Marinette asked with a voice deceptively calm. She could see the woman and one of the men behind Jason wince at her tone. Good.

“Well, see, we wanna decorate the house for Halloween, now that it’s time—”

“Jason,” she interrupted incredulously. “We are in September!”

“Well, technically, it’s already October in Russia,” the man that had been fighting with Jason piped up.

“Yeah, what Timbers said,” Jason said with a serious nod while Marinette could only look at him in astonishment. “Anyway, Bruce said we can decorate all the room in the Manor like we wish if we can make this one presentable, without the help of Alfred. And I really want to make a cat theme for his bedroom, so I thought; hey, you know a designer…”

“I’m a fashion designer, Jason, not an interior designer!”

“Same difference, Pixie. You’re my only hope, all of them are hopeless in terms of good taste.”

Marinette pinched the bridge of her nose, ignoring the various protests from Jason’s sibling, before taking out her phone.

“So you proceeded to send me ‘Hey Pix,” she said, reading the message he sent her earlier with a bad imitation of his voice. “‘Need you at the manor asap, urgence lvl 3’ before ignoring me, making me think that the world was probably ending—”

“World ending is at least a lvl 5, Pix, come on,” Jason interrupted with an offended expression. She ignored him.

“—Forcing me to take a cab with a absolute jerk driver—”

“Why did you take a cab? You have a car!”

“Adrien took the car, he is visiting Chloé in New York. But that’s not the point. The point, Jason, is that all of that was because you needed me to help you decorate for a day that is literally in a month?”

“Hey, Halloween is a very important celebration,” Jason’s brother, the one that had been cheering the loudest, told her with a solemn expression.

“I’m French, I don’t care about Halloween,” she deadpanned.

“I’m sorry, what?” The one Jason had called Timbers, probably Tim Drake, looked pained at the very idea that someone could not be obsessed by Halloween.

“I mean, we used to make speciales and sales at the bakery, and I’ve been to a couple of costume parties, but we don’t really pay attention to Halloween until around the 25 of October.”

“That’s sacrilegious,” Jason said, and almost all the others agreed in a way or another.

“Maybe for you, Americans,” she told him with amusement. “But it doesn't change the fact that I’m not going to help you.”

What? Why?!” He exclaimed, his eyes widening.

“Because, one, I don’t have anything to gain from it,” she said, showing him one of her fingers before adding a second. “And two, do you know how long the walk between the cab and the door had been? And all of it just for decorations?”

“Aw, come on, Pix! Bruce is going to make Alfred judge, and I have projects for the cat theme!”

“There is nothing you can say that is going to make me change my—”

“Hey guys!” A cheerful voice suddenly interrupted her, the owner barging into the room like a whirlwind. The woman was slightly taller than her, with long blonde hair and blue eyes. She had a beautiful smile that brightened the room and Marinette could feel the hearts that were making their way in her eyes. The girl was cute. Uh oh. “You are decorating already?! Cool! Be right back, let me just grab my stuff!”

Then she was gone, and Marinette could only blink slowly, before turning back toward Jason.

“Alright, I’m in.”

“What? Why— Oh, no, no, no! You’re not going to crush on Steph—”

“Oh, her name is Steph? What a lovely name,” she mumbled, looking back in the direction she disappeared. “But if you don’t want my help, I can just ask for her number and let you fend for yourself with the decorations, you know.”

“Pixie!” Jason complained, making his sibling laugh or snicker at him.

~~~~~~~~~~

Fun fact: when Marinette says that France doesn't care about Halloween until around October 25th, I’m talking from personal experience. I don’t know if it’s the same in all of France, but I grew up in Paris’ region (It’s not Paris Paris, but it’s like, the places all around and we call it régions parisienne) and they don’t care about it. Where I live, the shops don’t start selling Halloween themed candy before, like a week (maybe two?? when they start early) before Halloween and the children rarely go trick or treating. (I lived in this house for ~five/six years, and I’ve never got a child knocking for candy on Halloween.)

Again, I’m not saying it was like that for everyone in France, maybe it was only my city, but I thought it funny to have this opposition between Marinette and the Batkids.

#MaribatHalloween21 #maribat #mlb x dc #platonic jasonette #stephinette

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