#couldve gone with not having experienced the whole of today really

[anotherhumaninthisworld]

Hello!

I am a newbie to the FRev so I'd like to thank you for having the most amazingly detailed posts here that are, most importantly, as accurate as possible. Your blog is awesome!

Now to my questions: I read your answer to an ask about Camille and Annette's relationship and was left wondering, why did the family become so hostile towards him to the point of refusing him entry into their home?

Why did Lucille's father not want them to get married? Was it just about Camille's financial success? I saw a link to a letter in the post but my French is horrible so I have no idea what was written.

And, I'm not sure how this was seen at the time, of course times were different, but the way he talks about Annette though he claimed to be platonic, it seems that he found her attractive?? Or maybe he was "buttering" her up (he seemed to be a bit of a womanizer though maybe most men were like that at that time and frequently complimented many women at once)? When he met Lucille she was still quite young (especially compared to his age), so I got the impression (just an impression) that he liked the mother, but she was already taken so he went for the daughter instead? Though this couldve been normal at the time.

That post gave me a whole different perspective on Desmoulins and his love story, thank you so much and I apologise for the lenghty ask and if my questions sound ignorant.

Thank you so much for your compliments. So happy I can be of use to people who are new to this mess. 😊

I agree, the idea that Camille was really in love with Annette and just had to go for the second best is one that is really easy to make when reading his letters and poems to her. I don’t really have anything that goes against it being true other than the fact that Camille, as stated, once refers to his and Annette’s relationship as being just platonic (and how much truth there actually was to that I will leave unsaid…). It doesn’t particulary help that most 18th century people writing letters by today’s standards sound like they want to jump into bed with the receiver, no matter who that person might be… I don’t know if there’s anything in particular (besides words like ”my beloved”) you should look at to help determine if two people are/want to be more than just friends.

As for why Lucile’s parents didn’t want to let Camille have her in 1787, that is actually quite easy to discover through the letter Camille wrote to the father in March the following year, published by Jules Claretie on April 26 1879 within the paper Journal officiel de la République française. The letter Camille’s responding to here has unfortunately gone missing, but as can be seen, Camille still lays out and combats its arguments in a very clear way (apologies if there’s any translation errors in here):

Monsieur, I am not mistaken and I am forced to agree that your letter is worthy of a father and full of wisdom. The first moments of pain that I experienced were followed by the calm of reason, and I take advantage of this calm to allow myself a few observations regarding your letter and putting them before your eyes.

Don't let my probity scare you. The reflections that M. Duplessis made me make on your [sic] uncertain state. My uncertain state is not uncertain. I am a lawyer in the parliament of Paris and what makes your state certain in this profession is not to be on the board, but talent and work. I am certain morally of being in charge of all the appeals of the sentences of Guise, which alone will compose for me an honest cabinet and an income of 7 or 8,000 livres at least; I cannot believe that there exists anyone who, after having read the memoir that is printed about me at this moment, tells you that my condition is uncertain. The letters I have from MM. Lorget and Linguet would prove to you, if you read them, that my condition is not uncertain. Already I have a flow of business which can only grow and I will have won a hundred louis this year, supposing that I lose the lawsuit which is about to be judged and whose gain would be worth more than two thousand écus to me.

On future events which may call me back to the provinces. I took a vow to stability in the bar of the capital, this vow is expressed clearly in the epistle and the printed memorandum which I gave to you. There exists only one thing that could make me detach from Paris and make a stay in the provinces bearable, it would be if I met Mlle Duplessis there, to what oaths must I bind myself in order to take away this fear that I will leave Paris? I see very well that you do not know how much I love your daughter, since you suppose that I would be able to sadden her by taking her away from a father to whom she is so tenderly dear.

On the impossibility for me to have a house where your daughter, like at your place, could find the softnesses and charms of life. There is something touching about this paternal fear that would have made me reproach myself for my premature research. But did you believe that Mlle Duplessis is less dear to me than to you and that I wanted a happiness that would have cost her the sacrifice of the comforts of life? As for me, the sweetness and pleasures of life would have been to live with her and with you, and these pleasures would have made all the others insipid to me. There are two things here that I cannot believe, first off the fact that this fear so natural to a father that his daughter would be less happy did not alarm you from the first moment you found out about my goal; second off, that your answer here would have been the one I had the pleasure of seeing. If you had thought that Mademoiselle Duplessis' change of lodging would deprive her of the pleasures of life, it would not have been with me that she could find those pleasures. I had not concealed my lack of fortune, nor sought to surprise your avowal by magnifying my hopes, in order to have the satisfaction of showing you that I had brought into this affair all the frankness and delicacy which befits my profession; I almost decried my father's fortune and succeeded so well that you then said to me: ”With the help of your fortune, I could wait until some brilliant affair had rescued me from obscurity.” You said this to me in much stronger terms, for your expressions were that, no longer being forced to run after an écu, I could devote myself without distraction to studies which would later make me known later as a jurisconsult, if the embarrassment of my stammer was an insurmountable obstacle which prevented me from succeeding in my pleading. It is clear that you did not flatter yourself then that I could put together a home for Mlle Duplessis. However, this beloved child was still not less dear to you at the moment and you surely didn’t think that she would lose the comforts of life, but you understood that there was a way to arrange it so that she would not have to make any sacrifice until the time which is not far off, when my condition would bring me 10 to 12 thousand livres. Did Mlle. Duplessis need a house other than yours for a few years? I would even have liked her to continue to live together with you, and for the change in her adress, while at the same time making me the happiest of all men, only to have added to the sweetnesses of life without it costing her any deprivation. Although the dowry I propose to give her is of a certain consistency, you may remember that when you mentioned this section, I kept silent. Surely, to wait until my estate was enough I did not need to find a dowry. At the present moment, I am able to count only on 3 or 4 thousand livres that I would get this year from my work or from my father. But wouldn’t these 4 thousand livres, joined to the 3 or 4 that you would give to mademoiselle your daughter, be enough for a house worthy of her? Of you I wouldn’t ask for anything more. She would have brought a thousand amiable qualities into the household; as for me, I would have put my estate there and I dare say some talents. It would have been a marriage without a dowry like that of the laborers, but those of that time are well worth those of ours. I never made mine a business, the only dowry I would have asked for was that one loves me, not as much as I do (in return), that is impossible, but I am sure that mademoiselle your daughter would have been touched to see me solely occupied with the care of paying her the debt of happiness that I would have contracted.

You urged me to overcome my affection. If it were only an affection, it could be overcome, but the wound is deeper. Remember, monsieur, in what dejection I appeared before you, my state had become so violent that whatever you might have said to me, it was impossible for my pain to wring my heart more on leaving your house compared to what fear had caused it upon entering. That is why, even though it cost me, I begged you to tear off the blindfold and uproot my hope. But how much you have decreased it instead. I only asked for a distant hope and you gave me a near hope. Fortune, you told me, would not determine your choice and you did not make happiness consist of fortune. I exercised an honorable profession that it was not even necessary to fulfill with a certain brilliance in order to appear to you worthy of belonging to you; it was enough for you that your daughter was loved tenderly and constantly and that second to her your son-in-law loved only work. Who would have believed in my place that this son-in-law was really me. You did more: you invited me to spend holidays and Sundays at your countryhouse and you allowed me, you even warned me to let my father know about this interview. At this moment my father has probably written to you and part of my joy was to think about he who does not care about the dowry (that of my mother, who is still whole despite our misfortunes because it has always been sacred in his eyes, was more important) but who loves me with tenderness and is no doubt delighted that I have finally obtained this demoiselle Duplessis of whom I have been speaking to him incessantly for five years and whom he wanted me to show him when he spent a few days in Paris two years ago. In my letter from March 22, it was no longer vain conjectures and equivocal walks in the Luxembourg that I entertained, it was speeches that a father of a family had given me, hadn't I had to base myself entirely on his answer?

It would be deceiving my honesty to make any promises to me at this time, considering the young age of your daughter. If you only wish to postpone the term of my happiness, I have already waited five years, and I can still wait another two and even more, but since I above all make happiness consist in this thought that we love each other for life, I only beg you to tell me if after two years and when my heart has perhaps been consumed by these attachments, I will not have to renounce the sweet habit of loving her. My age was no more advanced four days ago when you gave me such imminent hopes. Also this reason that you bring is not the real one and you yourself do not disguise it from me. An even more essential point to observe to you, is that it for me would be putting up a barrier against the parties which within two years could present themselves and to make you give yourself up to opportunities which fulfill your views. As for what concerns me in this article, what occasion, what views can you tell me about? What purpose can I have but to be happy, and I can only be so, monsieur, with you. Where can I find another family that I love so much? I have gone too far with mademoiselle Duplessis to ever retrace my steps, and if you come to take away from me the hope that you have made me conceive, you will have unwittingly caused the misfortune of my life. I come to the great reason, that it would be to put up a barrier against the parties which could present themselves within two years. If, when you did me the honor of granting me an interview, you had said that to me, everything would have been very clear and I would have had nothing to respond to. But, since then, you declared to me that fortune would not decide your choice for mademoiselle your daughter, and that you would seek for her only a husband who would love her with tenderness; so you mean that in two years from now there may come people who like her better than me. If so, let it be. All of them will undoubtedly love her positively, but to love her more desperately than me will be difficult. And I will always have been five years ahead.

You told me enough that you had not changed your mind in regards to me, and that, if I succeeded in destroying the motives that you were good enough to explain to me in detail, you would return to your first feelings. It seems to me that I have replied in a satisfactory manner to the objections of M. Duplessis; I therefore conjure you to come back to your first favorable dispositions and return for me the heart of a father. I would very much like you and Madame Duplessis to grant me an interview. I would remove all of your doubts, and I would come down to details that cannot enter into a letter: do not push me away from your bosom but allow me to give you both names to which my heart would refuse if I had to give them to others. It is with these feelings that I have the honor to be, monsieur, your very humble and very obedient servant. DESMOULINS  Lawyer in parliament.

According to Hervé Leuwers’ Desmoulins biography, Claretie did for some reason leave out the following part when transcribing the letter: ”D’allieurs, ai-je donc demandé Mlle Duplessis pour le moment? J’ai demandé seulement si je pourrais obtenir un jour sa main, quand mon état serait pleinement fait.” which suggests Camille wasn’t actually asking if he could marry Lucile right away, just if he could call dibs on her for the future.

As for why the family fell out with Camille a year after the letter was penned down, to the extent that they asked him to stop visiting them, that is hard to know for sure considering we don’t have their letters on their issue (and those of Camille are both vague and bias in his favor). My best guess is that he simply wouldn’t shut up about the engagement and they kicked him out for that reason.

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[thetravelerwrites]

Daughters (A Stranger Things Drabble)

Rating: Teen And Up Audiences Fandom: Stranger Things Words: 1855

One of my few non-terato related stories, about a year and a half old. This is a stand alone fic about Hopper showing Eleven the birth certificate from Dr. Owens and explaining what it means. Hopper opens up about his lost daughter, Sara. Feedback is appreciated.

Eleven sat on the couch covered in a thick blanket, watching a particularly old western that made very little sense to her, when she heard the special knock on the door.

Without taking her eyes off of the T.V., she reached out mentally and snapped open the four slide locks and the deadbolt with little effort. She heard Hopper enter the cabin, tap his boots against the door frame, and shut the door, though she didn’t turn to look at him. He had gone on his off-day without telling her why, and that, in her experience, was never a good thing. She was a little apprehensive to learn what exactly he’d been up to while he was away.

He stepped around the couch to turn the T.V. off and then sat down beside her, laying two envelopes on the coffee table. One was slim and white, and the second was big, brown, and overflowing.

“What’s that?” Eleven asked, nodding her head at them.

He didn’t answer right away. He sat hunched forward with his elbows on his knees, rubbing his mustache with his right hand, looking down at the brown envelope.

“I went to see Dr. Owens today,” Hopper mumbled from behind his hand.

Eleven’s heart rate accelerated in alarm.

“Bad man,” Eleven said in a nervous whisper.

“Nah, he ain’t all bad,” Hopper said. “He had something for me. Well, it’s for both of us, actually.” He reached for the white envelope and handed it to her. She took it gingerly.

Opening it, she pulled out a blue paper with writing she didn’t understand. “‘Cert…certificate of birth?’ What does that mean?”

“It’s a paper the parents get when a baby is born. Then when that baby gets old enough, they keep it. It’s proof.”

“Proof of what?”

“Life. Existence.” Hopper turned to her. “It shows who your parents are, where you came from.“ He pointed. “It’s also got a social security number.”

“What’s that for?”

“In American, you have to have a social security number to do just about anything. Go to school, get a job, etc. That number is your whole life.”

She frowned at the digits on the page, then the ones on her arm. “Another number.”

“Yeah,” Hopper laughed. “We all got ‘em, kid. I guess most of us are lucky that it’s not our name, too.” He jerked his chin at the paper. “Keep reading.”

“‘This certifies that in the state of Indiana, Jane Hop…’” She looked up at him. “Hopper?”

He nodded solemnly.

“‘Was born in Hawkins, child of Teresa Ives, Mother, and James Hopper… Father.” She looked back at him and lowered the paper, though still clutched it in her fingers. “I don’t understand. What does this mean?”

“Means it’s official,” Hopper said. “We’re family. You’re kinda stuck with me now. Sorry ‘bout that.”

She shook her head, but didn’t say anything. She was feeling a lot of things she hadn’t experienced before and couldn’t properly name, and was having difficulty sorting through them. She stared hard at the paper for a few minutes. Hopper watched her quietly; he seemed to be giving her space to process all this and room to react. Perhaps preparing for a storm, if she wasn’t happy about the arrangement.

After a few minutes, she folded the paper again and gave it back, which he placed on the table next to the large brown envelope.

“What is that?” She asked.

Again, he didn’t answer immediately, and when he did, it was with a very heavy sigh.

“Well... since we’re family now, I figured I should introduce you two.”

He reached into the brown envelope and pulling out everything that was inside it. There were drawings, old elementary work sheets, coloring pages, but most of it was pictures. Sifting through, he extracted a photograph of a small, blonde-haired, blue-eyed child, wearing a frilly blue dress, smiling widely. Her curly hair was pulled up into two pigtails with aqua blue bands.

“Is that Sara?” Eleven asked tentatively.

Hopper nodded. “This was her first grade class photo. Just a month or two before everything went to shit.” He found another photo, in this one, Hopper was sitting with Sara and a blonde haired, blue-eyed woman who strongly resembled Sara. Hopper was clean-shaven in the picture, and they were all smiling.

Eleven pointed to the woman.

“That’s Diane,” Hopper said. “We were married. Then Sara died. Then we weren’t married anymore.”

“Why?”

“My fault mostly,” Hopper said, staring at the picture. “She wanted to move on, try and get her life back, but I couldn’t let go. I started drinkin’, lost my job because I stopped showing up, all kinds of things that she quite understandably didn’t want to deal with. I wouldn’t have wanted to deal with me, either.”

“Where is she?”

“Philadelphia. She got remarried a few years ago, had herself a new little baby boy. She’s doing good. She’s happy.”

He reached into the pile of papers and drew out another certificate, like the one Hopper got from Owens, but from a different state. The name on the top line was “Sara.”

“She’d be your sister,” He said, staring at the type font as though he couldn’t see anything else. “She’d have loved a sister.”

The emotions that had been swirling in Eleven’s body had settled, and of the remaining ones, the most prominent was sorrow. “What was she like?”

Hopper’s chin shook, and she thought he might not be able to talk about it, but he said, “She was so smart. Smarter than me. Got it from her mom, I guess. She’s so interested in science and space and all that stuff.” He plucked at the aqua blue bracelet around his wrist. A tear fell from his eye and disappeared into his beard.

“She was gonna grow up to be a paleontologist and also an astronaut doctor. Not an astronaut that was also a doctor, a doctor that only treated astronauts.“ He smiled. “She was gonna have thirty kids, but she wasn’t gonna get married cause boys were gross. She was going to do so many things.” More tears fell, and he wiped his nose on his sleeve. “She never got the chance to do anything.”

Emotions can be infectious, especially when the person exhibiting them was so stoic and self-contained ordinarily. Eleven could feel tears on her own cheeks as Hopper spoke.

“Her birthday was April 17th,” He said. “She would have been seven if she had made it that long. She nearly made it.” The tears were falling freely now. He didn’t even attempt to wipe them away. Eleven wondered if he had ever said these things to anyone. She knew vaguely that most people in town didn’t even know he had had a daughter.

“A few months after, I came home and Diane was packing up Sara’s room. Just pulling down everything and stuffing it into boxes. I asked what she was doing… and she said she was donating it. That she couldn’t stand looking at it all every day. And I got so… angry. It was like she was just throwing her away and I couldn’t believe she could do that. I over-did it a little; I yelled a lot, started throwing things. That’s when she kicked me out for the last time. That,” He pointed to the pile. “Was all I managed to save. That’s all that’s left of Sara.

“Well,” He said, “That and this.” He pulled the bracelet off of his wrist and toyed with it a little. ”She used to wear these stretchy blue hair bands, like, every day. She had all kinds of different bows and hair things she could’ve worn, but she always wanted these.

“One day, while she was on chemo, she pulled them out so she could take a bath, and all her hair came with them. After that, she couldn’t wear them anymore. I was going to throw them away, but she made them into a little bracelet and had me wear it. She said she wanted to save them for when her hair grew back.”

His face crumpled. Holding the little blue bracelet in both hands, he pressed it against his forehead and wept.

Eleven pulled herself up to her knees and hugged Hopper around the shoulders, crying into his neck. They stayed that way for some time.

When Eleven drew back, inexplicably, the blue bracelet was now circling her wrist. She looked at Hopper questioningly as she reached to pull it off.

He stopped her. “No, you should have it,” He said. “She’d want you to have it. I want you to have it, too. We’re family now.”

She smiled and her lip quivered. She nodded and looked at the bracelet. A tenuous connection to a sister she’d never meet. She looked at the two certificated on the table.

“Sara was your daughter,” Eleven said slowly, carefully. “Does this mean that I am, too?”

“Yeah,” He said, regaining composure. “That’s exactly what that paper means. You’re my daughter. I’m your dad. Officially.”

“Just officially?” Eleven said.

Hopper shook his head. “No, not just officially. If you want, it could be for real.”

“For real,” Eleven repeated. “Not like Papa.”

“No, not like Papa,” Hopper said seriously. “I know he wanted you to call him that, but was there ever a time when he called you his daughter? Treated you like a dad is supposed to?”

Eleven shook her head emphatically.

“No, because he doesn’t even know what it means. I doubt he’s ever really loved anything. Certainly not you.” Hopper looked down at the two certificates. “I loved Sara. And I love you, too, kid.”

Eleven had never once in her entire life heard those words. The swirl of emotions was back, but this time, the most out-standing one was joy. Incapable of speech, all she could do was smile and cry.

Hopper reached out an arm and Eleven hugged him around the middle, resting her head on his chest. He squeezed her tight with both arms and planted a peck on the top of her head. After some time had passed, they let go of each other, but she took his hand and held it. They both needed the comfort of touch right then.

Eleven dared to picked up a drawing and asked Hopper what it meant. He told her it was supposed to be a dog-velociraptor, laughing. It went on like this for several hours: Eleven would choose something from the pile, and Hopper would explain what it was; tell little, loving stories about Sara’s brief life, and then he would put it back into the envelope.

When they had gone through the entirety of the pictures and papers, all that was left were the two certificates sitting side by side on the table. The only thing they had in common was the line, “James Hopper: Father.” He folded them and put them both in the brown envelope and sealed it. This wasn’t just old memories anymore. It was proof, just like Hopper had said. The love of a man for his daughters.

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