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Heinrich Heine gets a pretty good roast on the Marquis de Lafayette

The rumors relative to Lafayette connecting him with the red flag are denied by his friends in the most emphatic manner. It seems that he neither wreathed the red flag nor the red cap—le bonnet rouge. The poor General sits retired in his house, and weeps over the mournful end of the fête in which he again played a part, as he has done at most popular risings ever since the beginning of the Revolution, always strangely drawn into the popular movement, and with the best intention to keep the people by his presence from too great excesses. He is like the tutor* who accompanied his pupil to the bawdy-houses to see that he at least did not get drunk there; to the taverns, to keep him from gambling; to the gambling houses, to guard him from dueling; but when a duel was unavoidable—why then the good old gentleman served as his second. *"Er gleicht dem Hofmeister." The French version adds— "de ma connaissance." —Translator.

("French Affairs," trans. Charles Godfrey Leland)

Heine is responding to reports of a mysterious figure who is alleged to have raised a red banner embroidered with "Liberty or Death" at Lamarque's funeral on June 5, 1832. Given Lafayette's international outlook, it seems only fitting that after dodging so many assassination attempts, he should utterly be pinned by a German.

Previous posts about Heine's coverage of the June 1832 uprising can be found here and here. More posts to follow

#the thing about Heine calling himself a moderate is. does he have any moderate friends in paris at this point #because it's mostly people much more radical than he is who find him slightly annoying e.g. ludwig börne #or people who are explictly his patrons who he finds annoying if not loathsome #ah well. another tally in the “marius pontmercy would have loved heinrich heine” column #heinrich heine #heine #gilbert du motier marquis de lafayette #lafayette #marquis de lafayette #les miserables #les mis #comings and goings of men #monrien

This is your sign to draw Les Amis with flower crowns NOW

(Heinrich Heine, "French Affairs" trans Charles Godfrey Leland)

Heine had moved to Paris a year before and while his political analysis of the June 5-6 uprising is not a completely reliable source, Leland gives him credit for predicting the fall of the Orléanist monarchy and its causes. You too can give him the benefit of the doubt by drawing your favorite insurgents having a Dionysian good time

#admittedly the depiction of the uprising as a bacchanal somewhat undermines the seriousness of the actual revolutionaries' convictions #but I think it is an interesting addition to the apollo/dionysus thing the fandom has going on #also take it from someone who had a wonderful time in an actual production of the bacchae...the dionysian ritual is a play too :)#there's an essay in here about public spectacle in the 1830s #the theatre/opera (Heine's “Robert le Diable” reference from the same column)#and neoclassical allusions in Les Miserables #maybe even something about apollo god of plague and dionysus god of mass movements #unfortunately that essay requires someone who reads more french than me to author it #heinrich heine #heine #les miserables #les mis #barricade day #monrien #comings and goings of men

Today for fun I read through Heinrich Heine's reports on the June 5-6 1832 uprising. He had moved to Paris the year prior and was working as a correspondent for the Augsburger Allgemeine, where reported on "French Affairs."

I was directed to the English translation at the recommendation of @tenlittlebullets and am very glad I found it because Charles Godfrey Leland is a hoot! At first blush and in no particular order, some of my favorite bits are:

The mysterious man on a black pony with a Spanish mustache holding a red-and-black banner with "Liberty or Death" written on it, who somehow didn't manage to make it into any adaptations

Leland refuting Heine's claim that the uprising was spontaneous by citing the aforementioned man and his banner; "such figures are not common at funerals."

Heine taking an opportunity to compare the crowds gathered at the morgue to the audience of the opera Robert le Diable, which he apparently hated

Frequent invocations of the French Revolution, from the (invented?) figure of the old man dressed "according to the latest fashion of 1793" going to the barricades accompanied by his fretful wife, to Heine's claiming once to have "admired Robespierre, Sanctum Justum and the great Mountain"

"I could never endure being guillotined every day—and nobody did endure it—"

The real thread of admiration for the insurgents, aka "the patriots, who to-day are called rebels"

The comparison to Cleontes and Pantaeus, who are not quite as famous as Orestes and Pylades but that's how they tend to stage the deaths of Enjolras and Grantaire in the musical

"...This was related to me in the Church of Saint-Méry, and I was obliged to lean against the image of Saint Sebastian to prevent my falling to the ground from deep inward emotion, and I wept like a child."

Heine, then 35 years old, helping home a young neighbor who had lost her lover at the barricade and fainted when called upon to identify him at the morgue. He doesn't usually behave so decently and this is a touching change

Heine reports, perhaps unreliably, that the insurgents wore "garlands of willow 'round their small hats," which strikes me as a brilliant excuse to draw Les Amis in flower crowns

A fantastic roast of Lafayette which I will report in full later

Some really chilling descriptions of the "return to order" in the aftermath of the uprising. The brokers at the Bourse cheering as the stocks rise again, shops reopening with broken windows, the quiet progress of arrests, the awkward military review by Louis Philippe, and the state of siege that persisted through June. Nothing, not even the descriptions of the insurgents' deaths, makes me feel worse

I will dedicate posts and transcriptions to most of these in the coming days. In the meantime, I really encourage you to read his reports for yourself; they are filled with a perfect mixture of genuine sorrow and blistering sarcasm that characterizes Heine's oeuvre.

#les miserables #les mis #heinrich heine #heine #charles godfrey leland #translation #monrien #comings and goings of men #sherb's sub sub library

Heinrich Heine's report on the identification of fallen insurgents from the June 5-6 uprising:

"On that day, the eighth of June, so many people thronged ot the morge that there was as long a queue formed as when "Robert le Diable" is to be given at the Opera. I had to wait an hour ere I could enter, and so had time enough to look at that melancholy building, which looks like agreat pile of stones. I do not know what is the meaning of the yellow tablet of wood with a blue centre like a Brazilian cockade, which hangs before the door*. The number of the house is twenty-one. It was sad enough when within to see how anxiously some people looked at the corspes, seeking what they feared to find. There were indeed two agonising scenes. A boy found his dead brother, and stood silent in grief, as if rooted to the spot. A young girl discovered her dead lover, screamed, and swooned. As I knew her, I had the sad task to carry the poor disconsolate creature home. She was employed in a magasin de modes in my neighborhood, where eight young ladies are employed, all of whom are républicaines. Their lovers are all young republicans. I am in this establishment the only Royalist." *I believe that this indicates a hospital, or that the place is under civic sanitary control —Translator.

(Trans. Charles Godfrey Leland)

Robert le Diable is an opera by Giacomo Meyerbeer and Eugène Scribe, which Heine apparently did not like very much, if his poem "Ja freilich du bist mein Ideal" is to be believed. It was a sensation at the time for its thrilling plot, featuring pacts with the devil and a ballet of sinful ghostly nuns.

As for the people Heine encounters — I wonder if anyone has tried to potray them as characters from Les Miserables before, in art or writing. Who could they be: Gavroche and Eponine's brothers? A sibling of one of the other Amis? Muschietta? Bahorel's mysterious laughing mistress, bereft of mirth? There are numerous possibilities.

As for the historical account, I'm really touched by this quiet show of cross-class solidarity between this working-class woman and the distinctly more bourgeois Heine, who despite his various infirmities was not beyond helping his neighbor get home.

#heine may or may not be exaggerating about being a royalist #he probably *is* a moderate as he claims to be at this point but he's never terribly gung-ho about the monarchy either #as a political commentator he's the kind of sniper who fires in all directions #and his work is definitely more left-wing in the 1840s than in the 1830s #so who's to say?#me after I do more reading that's who #heinrich heine #heine #les miserables #les mis #charles godfrey leland #french history #monrien #comings and goings of men #sherb's sub sub library

Heinrich Heine on the mysterious mustaschioed man and his baddass barricades banner:

[The insurgents] began at the wrong time, too, to prophesy, and the sight of the red flag must, like a magic spell, have turned their senses. There was indeed some mysterious influence in this red flag with the black-fringed border, in which were in black the words "La Liberté ou la Mort!"and which rose like a banner of consecration to death above all heads on the Pont d'Austerlitz. Many people who closely beheld this mysterious bearer of this standard declare that he was a very tall, lean, and haggard man, with a long corpse-like face, staring eyes, a firmly-closed mouth, above which a black Old-Spanish moustache* stuck forth its tips far out on either side — an uncanny figure, which sat like a moveless spectre on a great black pony while the battle raged furiously round him. *It may be worth noting here that wearing the moustache, the frock-coat, also the smoking-cigars, all date from the year 1830. That is to say, it was about that time they all became fashionable in Paris, and spread thence over Europe. The Havannah cigar, had, however, been for a long time well-known in the United States. The earliest use of them in the latter, according to advertisements, appears to have been in Philadelphia about a century ago, when they were announced as a novelty. When Heine wrote in 1832, the moustache was, however, remarkable among any save "swells." —Translator.

(Heinrich Heine, "French Affairs," trans. Charles Godfrey Leland)

The translator's note is especially useful for the characterization of Théodule Gillenormand: that man is a SWELL!

The idea of the man and the banner is certainly compelling, but should be taken with a grain of salt. Heine has a fanciful spirit and is apt to mistake things. Another reason I really like Leland's translation is that he goes out of his way to correct Heine in footnotes whenever he sees fit, and there's a great example of this when Heine claims the uprising was spontaneous:

*Heine is here, I think, quite mistaken. I have been far deeper in the practical preparation for and execution of a French revolution than he ever was, for I knew a month before the Prefect ever found it out, or before it came off the coming of that of February 1848; and when I re-entered Paris in 1869, it was also with full foreknowledge of the émuete of the Plébiscite, in which I was offered a position. The truth is that though, as Heine surmised, there were never more than a very few indeed practically engaged in the Republican attempts, there were always in his time — as now — a revolution organised and ready, only waiting for something to turn up, Had there been no preparation before the Lamarque funeral, where did the man on the black horse get his red flag with "Libery or death?" Such figures are not common at funerals. —Translator.

#the thing about translating heine is you kind of have to be as much of a scoundrel and a poseur as he is #I am much less of a scoundrel but more of a poseur so it evens out #likewise leland claims to be the real deal wrt revolutions but is more of a cad #unless he's lying about 1848 and 1871 in which case he is even more of a poseur than heine or I #charles godfrey leland #heinrich heine #heine #les miserables #les mis #sherb's sub sub library #comings and goings of men #monrien

Heinrich Heine would have been a hell of a guy to know in college

#like he probably would have been awful and I am very grateful for my friends hashtag myfriends #but still one wonders #monrien

Rip Marius Pontmercy you would have loved Die Grenadiere by Heinrich Heine. In fact you probably could have read it since it came out a few years before before your Napoleon phase and you can read German.

#marius pontmercy #heinrich heine #napoleon bonaparte #die grenadiere #les miserables #sherb's sub sub library #monrien

The fic I'm writing has reignited my interest in perfumery and the conclusion I have come to is that perfume/cologne is too french-coded a choice for heinrich heine in this phase of his life but he probably keeps packet of aromatics in his coat pocket to keep his clothes smelling pleasant and distinct. Workshopping exactly what those aromatics are, though; please do share any suggestions that might be available to a broke-ish twenthysomething who lives in Europe but did once have a dry goods apprenticeship and few qualms about stealing from his place of work

#so far we are thinking juniper and cloves #myrtle occurred to me because of the pertinent romance + purim symbolism but I worry it suggests a more feminine style #in a way that is disingenuous to heine at this point in his life #on the other hand: i don't know enough about historical parfumerie to read the 19thc gendered scent marketing #i know a lot of men liked orange blossom but heine is. not an orange blossom guy at this point #monrien