The Lycanthrope, Enid Starkie, 2.2 The Aftermath:Carnival
"In the year of the cholera the fever for enjoyment reached new heights."
...STARKIE. No more French reading for you.
Anyway, historical context ahoy!
Apparently the 1832 Carnival saw the first confetti deployments? And flour-based cascarones! I DID NOT EXPECT THAT.
Frivolity was "a cloak to hid a broken heart", "an opiate to make existence bearable". This is the sort of very objective scholarly language I am dealing with here and I love it.
The populace used to attack and try to board the carriages of the rich! But the rich hired carriage-bouncers! And professional insulters! And THERE WERE BOOKLETS BEING SOLD AND THROWN AROUND LIKE THE CONFETTI TO TEACH PEOPLE THE ART OF POLITE PROPER ABUSIVE LANGUAGE.
...I am beginning to feel like my ludicrous comic version of 1832 is NOT LUDICROUS ENOUGH.
Ash Wednesday saw the biggest parade! People RENTED THEIR WINDOWSILLS to people who wanted to watch it. 60,000 people in the square! 18,000 carriages! Rich people with beggars! "The whole peaceful suburb seemed to have changed, overnight, into a witches' Sabbath."!
...Apparently witches' Sabbaths involve more costumery and eggs that I'd expected. Also, more crowding. Yees
We have costumes, beggars, and-- the sure sign of a disordered and desperate society-- DANCING! I am not even joking: "Dancing was the passion of that age, as it of all ages of turmoil and stress." Specifically, the "galop infernal", which is at least a great name! And was apparently a sort of mosh? At any rate, "The attitudes and expressions of the dancers...as the route grows wilder and wilder, ..gives the impression of a Witches' Sabbath."
...I am beginning to wonder when all these people saw a Sabbath for comparison.
Also, we get the cancan! It's described as being brought to France by troops returning on leave, like some sort of rhythmic flu. And then some guy name Charles La Battut danced it in 1832 at the ball at Les Varieties, and there was Scandal, and if you think Starkie is explaining who the paint La Battut was well JOIN ME IN FRUSTRATION because that ain't happening. But we do get to hear that when the police tried to arrest him and his buds for causing a riot they were basically scolded away by the hotel management because the riot was SO GOOD FOR BUSINESS. And it was convenient for the government to have people venting in a party way, and not a barricades-in-the-street way! They assumed!
Other bits of scenery from this chapter-- because I swear, this section is all scenery, and a good summation would be "1830s Paris was WAY WEIRDER than most modern portrayals allow": A group of dorks smuggling a nude dancer into a club to cause a riot, and then out again! A conductor named Musard performed very improv orchestral arrangements and caused riots! And was represented as chocolates! Which probably caused riots! There were fancy dress balls! That almost inevitably dissolved into riots! Men had the tails of their coats torn off in dances! Which, again, became riots! Someone named Delphine Girard cheerfully described it all as "hell let loose" "Bedlam on the spree" "a nightmare, a Witches Sabbath!" and, of course "as fashionable this year as last year".
