Jan 11
a civil discussion? in this economy?????
seen from Croatia
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a civil discussion? in this economy?????
Why, it was like reading about France and the French, before the ever memorable and blessed Revolution, which swept a thousand years of such villany away in one swift tidal-wave of blood--one: a settlement of that hoary debt in the proportion of half a drop of blood for each hogshead of it that had been pressed by slow tortures out of that people in the weary stretch of ten centuries of wrong and shame and misery the like of which was not to be mated but in hell. There were two 'Reigns of Terror,' if we would but remember it and consider it; the one wrought murder in hot passion, the other in heartless cold blood; the one lasted mere months, the other had lasted a thousand years; the one inflicted death upon ten thousand persons, the other upon a hundred millions; but our shudders are all for the 'horrors' of the minor Terror, the momentary Terror, so to speak; whereas, what is the horror of swift death by the axe, compared with lifelong death from hunger, cold, insult, cruelty, and heart-break? What is swift death by lightning compared with death by slow fire at the stake? A city cemetery could contain the coffins filled by that brief Terror which we have all been so diligently taught to shiver at and mourn over; but all France could hardly contain the coffins filled by that older and real Terror - that unspeakably bitter and awful Terror which none of us has been taught to see in its vastness or pity as it deserves.
-Mark Twain, A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur's Court
(every time we come to LM 1.1.10, I think about this quote )
“I will weep with you over the children of kings, provided that you will weep with me over the children of the people.”
“I weep for all,” said the Bishop.
“Equally!” exclaimed conventionary G——; “and if the balance must incline, let it be on the side of the people. They have been suffering longer.”
Les Misérables 1.1.10 Hapgood Translation
Something about how as long as there is ignorance and poverty this book cannot fail to be of use
Les Mis Favorite Quotes 1.1.10 The Bishop in the Presence of an Unknown Light
"This man was almost a monster. He had not voted for the death of the king, but almost. He was a quasi-regicide."
"But what a sheep!"
"Near the door, in an old wheel-chair, the armchair of the peasants, there was a white-haired man, smiling at the sun. Near the seated man stood a young boy, the shepherd lad. He was offering the old man a jar of milk. While the Bishop was watching him, the old man spoke: 'Thank you,' he said, 'I need nothing.' And his smile quitted the sun to rest upon the child."
"I should have liked to last until the dawn, but I know that I shall hardly live three hours. It will be night then. What does it matter, after all? Dying is a simple affair. One has no need of the light for that. So be it. I shall die by starlight."
"To destroy abuses is not sufficient; customs must be modified. The mill is there no longer; the wind is still there."
"I will weep with you over the children of kings, provided that you will weep with me over the children of the people."
My favorite bit of dialogue from Les Mis 1.1.10 is from the exchange where the Bishop and the revolutionary are discussing the death of one of the Royal children during the revolution:
“I will weep with you over the children of kings, provided that you will weep with me over the children of the people.”
“I weep for all,” said the Bishop.
“Equally!” exclaimed conventionary G——; “and if the balance must incline, let it be on the side of the people. They have been suffering longer.”
I don't know, I think it's a perfect encapsulation of why the bishop's "All lives matter, we should feel sorry for Everyone equally" philosophy was incomplete. The bishop's privileged aristocratic background means he doesn't necessarily understand how to take this systemic inequality into account when choosing who to grieve and who to forget. The death of a king's child is a horrible tragedy beyond words and proof that the rebels are heartless monsters.....but the deaths of thousands of non-royal children under the reign of tyrannical kings, as a direct result of those kings' policies, are quietly forgotten by him. Until the Conventionary pointed it out, the Bishop couldn't see that "weeping for all" isn't enough when some lives are treated as if they're inherently far more expendable. It also makes me think of the fact that there are, for example, so many pieces of media about the suffering of Poor Girlboss Marie Antoinette to the point where its almost its own subgenre. And there's that entire subgenre like A Tale of Two Cities/The Scarlet Pimpernel that's about how Hard it was to be an aristocrat around dirty deranged French Revolution peasants. And period/fantasy media as a whole loves to focus on the struggles of royalty and the upper class. Like yeah, everyone can experience pain/trauma regardless of their social class- and yeah theoretically we should weep for everyone's pain equally. But as the Conventionary points out.... it's interesting how the pain of one small group of privileged people is treated with far much more importance, and is focused on so much more often, while the pain of a much larger group of people is utterly forgotten. "Weeping for all" often only means, weeping for the powerful and important people who were considered worthy of being remembered. And in that vein I think it's relevant that multiple main characters in Les Mis end up being buried in nameless or unmarked graves.
Round 3, Matchup 2: I.i.10 vs III.iii.5
Which chapter title do you prefer?
The Bishop in the Presence of an Unknown Light
The Usefulness of Going to Mass to Become a Revolutionary
didn't have the time to properly take photos or edit what i have but i adapted lm 1.1.10 for a zine project!!!
LES MIS LETTERS IN ADAPTATION - The Bishop in the Presence of an Unknown Light, LM 1.1.10 (Les Miserables 1982)
“Bishop,” said he, with a slowness which probably arose more from his dignity of soul than from the failing of his strength, “I have passed my life in meditation, study, and contemplation. I was sixty years of age when my country called me and commanded me to concern myself with its affairs. I obeyed. Abuses existed, I combated them; tyrannies existed, I destroyed them; rights and principles existed, I proclaimed and confessed them. Our territory was invaded, I defended it; France was menaced, I offered my breast. I was not rich; I am poor. I have been one of the masters of the state; the vaults of the treasury were encumbered with specie to such a degree that we were forced to shore up the walls, which were on the point of bursting beneath the weight of gold and silver; I dined in Dead Tree Street, at twenty-two sous. I have succored the oppressed, I have comforted the suffering. I tore the cloth from the altar, it is true; but it was to bind up the wounds of my country. I have always upheld the march forward of the human race, forward towards the light, and I have sometimes resisted progress without pity. I have, when the occasion offered, protected my own adversaries, men of your profession. And there is at Peteghem, in Flanders, at the very spot where the Merovingian kings had their summer palace, a convent of Urbanists, the Abbey of Sainte Claire en Beaulieu, which I saved in 1793. I have done my duty according to my powers, and all the good that I was able. After which, I was hunted down, pursued, persecuted, blackened, jeered at, scorned, cursed, proscribed. For many years past, I with my white hair have been conscious that many people think they have the right to despise me; to the poor ignorant masses I present the visage of one damned. And I accept this isolation of hatred, without hating any one myself. Now I am eighty-six years old; I am on the point of death. What is it that you have come to ask of me?” “Your blessing,” said the Bishop.